Interlude 8: The Breaking of Illusions
A/N: Surprise! <3 Hey there everyone! :D :D I know that I was supposed to update it on the 22nd, but I decided to prepone the update. So here it is! :D :D
Happy Reading! :D :D
Ishaani shut her eyes, feeling the tiredness wriggle into her veins uncomfortably. It had been a year and two months since she was now married to Chirag Mehta. He was supposed to be her best friend, her confidante, her knight in a shining armour. Her prince, her soulmate, her love. But he was none of it. No, he was nothing like she thought him to be when she first believed that she loved him. Believed. That was until the truth was shoved into her face yesterday. He was a cheater.
That was the truth.
She played with her mangalsutra uncomfortably as she contemplated. She had trusted him above everything else in the world, above everyone else. Even Ranveer... Ranveer, who she had so mercilessly cut off from her life because things had gotten spoilt between them. Chirag was rich, confident, ambitious and daring. But he wasn't Ranveer. No, her Ranveer was special, one of a kind. But she had chosen Chirag over Ranveer. She had trusted Chirag more than him. Blind-faith.
She had given him the power of attorney of her father's entire empire once her mother passed away seven months ago. Her mother... she had barely survived for seven months after her father's demise when she followed suit due to her ill-health. Ever since Ranveer had left for his Masters, things hadn't been the same - neither for the Parekh Empire, nor in their personal lives.
Atleast her mother wasn't alive to her see her marriage go topsy turvy. No, her parents had died seeing her at her happiest, and she was grateful for it. But where had all her happiness gone? Where was the haven that she thought she had achieved with Chirag as her life-partner? Was this all some kind of deception? Some kind of illusion? What was going on?
She opened her eyes as she felt them burn with tears of anger. The scene that she witnessed before her eyes last night was something that tore her heart apart, made her blood boil yet go cold at the same time. Try as she might, she couldn't eliminate the image of Chirag in bed with another woman, his hands running all over her voluptuous curves while the woman groaned in ecstasy.
She hadn't seen her husband for over ten days now. Ever since he told her that the Parekh Empire had gone bankrupt and that the Parekh mansion was now mortgaged to be sold soon. Her in-laws were in New York with her sister-in-law. But she didn't want to spare them any thought. Her mind travelled back to the Parekh Mansion and she felt her heart sink.
She remembered what a shock it had been to the grown-ups of the house when they discovered that her father had left 80% of his estate to her mother and herself. None of them were happy even in the slightest and decided to separate once and for all.
Baa had the option to stay with her mother since she was getting married anyway, but her ego wouldn't take it. She wouldn't have anything to do with the 'illegitimate'. And so they left. Her mother couldn't handle such a big empire and transferred the ownership to me, until she did the same to Chirag. Once her mother passed away, the house was automatically her own, and she even put that in Chirag's name as a gift for his birthday.
How had so much happened in so little time? It had only been seven months since he had control over everything. How could everything go to ashes? All her belongings, memories, everything... either in ashes or a part of a mortgaged house now.
He had left her abruptly amidst her protests and tears, leaving her to fight her pain alone. Didn't he know that she wasn't capable of doing it alone? He knew her so well, then how could he leave her at a time like this? And it was the first night when she put herself to sleep with unwiped tears and a bleeding heart. It was ten days now and the pain was just the same, but now a numbness was spreading through her. And she knew that nothing was ever going to be the same again.
Their marriage for the first ten months had been nothing short of the best time of her life, except her parents' demise. Her marriage was everything that she hoped for it to be, Chirag being the perfect lover and husband to her. He only loved and cared for her. And yet if she was truthful to herself, there was always something hollow. Something missing. She could never put her finger about it, but it was there. Something empty.
Until two months ago, Chirag began to show his true colours. What she thought was stress from work eventually began turning into an estrangement, until he would no longer be civil with her under the influence of alcohol. Most of the nights in these past two months had them either arguing on in stony silence. Until yesterday, when Chirag called her to the hotel room where he was supposed to be having a meeting to make up with her.
What she hadn't anticipated was him making out with another woman. He wasn't even aware about when she'd come and gone.
The door slammed behind her, snapping Ishaani out from her thoughts. Chirag entered the room looking tip-top, his eyes now cold. She had never seen him like this before, yet there was something familiar about his eyes. She had seen them somewhere before, but she couldn't place it. He quickly loosened the tie around his neck and threw it upon the bed disgracefully just as she came near him.
"Where have you been?" she asked him icily, not bothering with common courtesies anymore. The time was gone for them.
"Working," he replied simply, not bothering to give any further explanation. Ishaani let out a bit of mirthless laughter.
"By sleeping with another woman?" she asked further. Chirag cocked an eyebrow, least perturbed.
"It's none of your business."
"Yes it is. I'm your wife!" she yelled at him, even though he now looked thoroughly disinterested. And that sent her upon the edge, the numbness in her heart now fading away to accommodate the suffused anger she was beginning to feel pounding her veins.
"So?"
"What do you mean 'so'? I want an answer!" she shrieked, catching hold of the collar of his blazer and shaking his form roughly. He pushed her hands away like the flick of a whip.
"You want an answer? Take this. It should work."
Chirag removed an envelope from the inner lining of his blazer and threw it at Ishaani. It hit her across her face before she caught it poorly, looking thoroughly startled. She tore open the envelope and pulled out the sheets of papers, her eyes frenziedly scanning through the papers. And even though she should have been surprised, she wasn't. Somewhere deep down in her heart, she knew what was coming.
She stared at the divorce papers blankly for a few minutes before she looked up, teary-eyed. Anger was beginning to give birth to pain once again as her eyes begged and pleaded against the cold, calculative ones.
"Why?" she asked in a hoarse whisper, now crying softly.
Chirag gave her a deadpan look, her distress evoking no reaction out of him. Wasn't he the same guy who'd made promises of always loving her no matter what? Of always being there to catch her when she fell? Of always making her happy even if it meant sacrificing his happiness for her? Then why was he doing this to her?
"I've fulfilled my purpose. I don't need you anymore," he replied coldly, pushing her away from him. She felt too resigned to yell after what she'd witnessed, but she knew that she needed answers at any cost.
"What do you mean?" she asked him, feeling bewildered and angry both as she pulled him back to her. Their eyes met in the deadliest of locks before Chirag smirked.
"It's a long story and beyond your understanding. Let it go," he told her snarkily, and she stared at him in disbelief. What had happened to him so suddenly? Was this even the guy she'd fallen in love with? Who was he, really?
"No. I want to know what the heck is happening!" she cried aloud, feeling her heart ache like never before.
She could feel all her fears and emotions implode together with the strength of three years' worth of emotional exhaustion and upheaval. And suddenly, she was taken back to a night when she'd destroyed her world with her own two hands for what she thought was the greater good. But had she only destroyed her world, or did she destroy her life in the process as well?
"You want to know? Alright, but don't tell me that I didn't warn you," sneered Chirag, snapping Ishaani out from her horror-stricken stupor.
Ishaani stared at him wide-eyed, the frothing anxiety beginning to suffocate her as her nails dug into her skin as flashes from that night now kept crossing her mind time and again until Chirag spoke at long last.
"This is the saga of my thirteen-year old revenge, Ishaani. A part of it being that I married you for your money so that I could milk you of all your father's riches and kill the competition in the market."
"What do you mean?" asked Ishaani stupidly, suddenly stripped away of all her emotions as she felt the same dead weight fall upon her heart the same way it had that night. Chirag continued.
"Your father was my father's biggest competition. Our company wouldn't have lasted if the Parekh family remained in the markets even for another year."
Ishaani stared at him, her lips slightly parted as she recollected all of the times her father seemed hesitant (and slightly disappointed?) about her choice of getting married to Chirag. She now knew why.
"Did you kill my father?" she asked suddenly, even though she knew that he had died of a cardiac arrest.
But she couldn't trust anything. Seeing the revelations that were being made, she wouldn't even be surprised anymore. And the unhappiness upon her dying father's face made itself alive in her mind as though on cue, making a lump rise in her throat. She continued to eye the man before her as though clearly seeing him for the first time, now bereft. And there was anger bubbling in her heart suddenly, along with another emotion she couldn't quite express.
"Good Lord, no! His timing was sublime though, I'll admit. Great man, your father," laughed Chirag immoderately and Ishaani felt her blood go cold.
"Why me? You could have done all this without using me as well!" she shrieked in manic derangement, bringing his laughter to an abrupt halt. He now looked at her furiously.
"True, but I'm afraid that it goes rather personal between the two of us. Long, long before we became friends. Ofcourse you don't remember, or else you wouldn't have never let me become friends with you," he said enigmatically, leaving her confused.
"I don't understand," was all she could whisper weakly, the anger yet again blending into untouched depths of pain. Chirag smirked at her before clearing his throat theatrically.
"Okay, let me remind you. We met first not at your birthday party and definitely not at the airport, but long before that. In the first school your father enrolled you into. We met first when you slapped me for making fun of you and that servant of yours in front of all my friends and almost a hundred other students."
Ishaani stared at him, her mouth now agog. No, it couldn't be... The guy she hated because he'd been the reason why Ranveer had been ragged and put through so much... The guy who she cursed with all her heart and soul because her friend had nearly given up on his life had she not intervened... No, it couldn't be. It couldn't be. Life couldn't be so cruel to her. She couldn't have fallen for the guy who was the cause of Ranveer nearly dying when he was ten. No, the irony was too much. And yet she now knew what his eyes reminded her about.
"You- you are the one... who- who..." stuttered Ishaani, words failing her to voice out the unbearable thought. Chirag leered.
"Oh yes, I am the one," spoke Chirag, his tone now sinister. "The insult that day isn't something I've forgotten till date. I never forget. You had dug your grave that day when you decided to cross my path and you had to pay for what you did. I had the perfect plan, but that stupid imbecile of your servant came in between."
"DON'T CALL HIM THAT!" shrieked Ishaani, feeling an eccentric urge to rip off her hair. Chirag laughed at her despair cruelly.
"I didn't see you having a problem when you rejected him because he was a servant," retorted Chirag, clearly enjoying himself.
"I didn't... no... no... no..." cried Ishaani as she now ran her fingers through her hair in a crazed hysteria that was threatening to claim her now. Chirag spoke once again, now reveling in her evident misery.
"I see that you are catching up. Let us continue. Your servant took the blast of what was in your destiny and things got ugly. The two of you got away scot-free and all my friends paid the price of it."
"How come your name never came up?" asked Ishaani sharply, her eyes now red. Chirag barked in what was supposed to be an amused laughter, but neither of them remotely were.
"Because I never touched him personally. You see, they were all my friends at my bidding. I was never once on scene. And my father was as powerful as yours. I needn't say more."
"I thought our fathers were the best of friends," whispered Ishaani, pleadingly upon deaf ears.
"You are naive and a fool like your dead father then. He, too, was overly trusting. My father saw him as his greatest enemy," confessed Chirag, Ishaani's heart growing cold at the latest revelation. Oh God, they were all in it right from the start!
"I can't believe-" began Ishaani but was cut through rudely by Chirag.
"Yes, rather surprising, isn't it? Let's move on. You changed schools, I moved on with my life, but I had never forgotten about you. Nobody got on the wrong side of me and walked away without paying the price. And as time by, my hatred for you and the fire of my incomplete revenge only burned stronger with every passing day. Until one day, I saw you at your birthday party. With the servant. And instantly I saw something that you both were oblivious too - how madly you both were in love with each other. Well, I now know that he knew that he loved you, but both of you remained oblivious to your feelings. I did nothing, but I knew that the chapter wasn't complete yet."
"You son of a-" began Ishaani once again, now outraged, but Chirag interrupted her once again.
"Not yet, the best part comes now. Three years later, we meet again at the airport. You were seeing Ranveer off and I... well I had just earned my degree and was all set to begin a career. But then I saw you. And I knew what had to be done next. My father and I had come to an agreement just days before that if I could deploy all my cunning and skill to destroy the Parekh Empire, he would make me the CEO of the company. And in that one moment, I had the entire idea about how to destroy the Parekh Empire, or rather, Harshad Parekh."
"By pretending to be in love with me?"
"No, by marrying you and using you as my bail card, cash cow or immunity, whichever way you see it. You were Harshad Parekh's soul and he'd do anything for you. Not only would my personal vendetta be complete, but I would be made the CEO of my father's company too. So, putting my plan into immediate action, I trailed behind and overheard the conversation between you and Ranveer, and it was clear to me how I was to have my revenge upon you. He was the one who saved you back then, so he would have to bear the brunt too."
"How could you?" voiced Ishaani hoarsely, now feeling sick. Chirag shrugged his shoulders.
"You must commend me, for I pulled off the impossible. In those thirteen years of exile, it took me a lot of ways to conceive how to destroy you, but you handed me the tool yourself. Your love for Ranveer." Ishaani looked scandalized, choking out her words slowly.
"So that day at the airport... you collided into me on purpose?"
"Very good..." remarked Chirag, miming Ishaani's tone."You're keeping up. I needn't remind you how things turned out from there."
He didn't. Ishaani shut her eyes as she remembered how something so casual had faded out from her mind until they happened to go to his place for a family dinner one fine night. And suddenly, a disinterested approach had changed so swiftly into a friendly conversation. Before she knew it, they had become easy friends, walks turning into coffee dates and study sessions turning into dinner with each other's families. Until love knocked upon her doorstep. Chirag was the guy that she always dreamt about - smart, funny, caring, loving, humble, grounded, sensitive, and protective of her. A hundred adjectives would fall short to describe him. Something she would always say for Ranveer till Chirag entered her life.
Nobody could speak a word against her for Chirag was always by her side, never even once letting anyone so much as even bat an eyelid at her in a bad way. He had become her best friend and her confidante, someone who understood her needs so well. She would be the only one who spoke from between the two of them and he would let her with a goofy smile on her face. He was perfect in all ways.
If only she had realized that he was too perfect to be true.
She remembered how in the first three months of Ranveer's departure, she would only talk about Ranveer, his likes and dislikes, his hobbies and skills, his nature and ability to love. By the end of those three months, even Chirag knew him as well as she did.
No...
Ishaani looked at him aghast as she felt her world spin in the shock of a revelation that bowled her off completely. No... It wasn't possible... it couldn't be...
"You- you... You've been a shadow of Ranveer all along now, haven't you?" asked Ishaani, her voice barely audible to herself now.
"Ah, finally! Good girl, you've finally come to the crux of it," said Chirag in a bored tone. Ishaani caught her head as she whispered to herself.
"All this time... I've... I've been in love with Ranveer..."
"You were never in love with me. You fell for the illusion of Ranveer that I put up. You gave me all the material, and the rest I could pull off. I cannot even begin to tell you how disgusting it's been to play goody-two shoes with you for three years now. Sickening to the core," added Chirag, a disgusted expression on his face.
"Oh God..."
"Oh well, even God favoured me," boasted Chirag. "I cannot even begin to tell you how hard it's been to manipulate that thick skull of yours. It took me an extraordinary amount of care, caution and effort to use sufficient skill to turn you against Ranveer and yet remain in love with his shadow. But then again, if there was anything more powerful than his love, or even yours for that matter, it was the fire of my revenge."
Ishaani shut her eyes and remembered how Ranveer had only become a name in the passing after the first year of his departure, his only memory being the band upon her ring finger. She barely gave any thought about him except for the fact that the first thing she needed to confess to Ranveer was that she had found the perfect guy. She was in love with Chirag.
She remembered how their families had agreed to get them married without even the slightest of protest, or atleast his did. Her parents had been both surprised and taken aback with her choice, hesitant too, but they had respected it nonetheless. Her father had wanted to wait for Ranveer to return, but he still had three months to go till he got his Masters. So grudgingly, he decided to get the two of us engaged on the insistence of Chirag's family.
But it was only after a month that Ranveer had actually returned home. And before he could even get a look around, she'd thrown herself upon him in the tightest of hugs, whispering to him that she was engaged. And he had pulled her apart, devoid of any expression as she shoved the stone upon her finger in front of his face excitedly. She felt nauseated at the thought to what she had to him, for even though she had assumed it to be a look of a pleasant shock, she now understood what it was. The look of a heart-broken man whose heart had been wrung and returned back to him.
She opened her eyes and stared at Chirag, her heart suddenly filled with a venom that she couldn't contain. And the unknown emotion now returned, stronger than ever as she now knew what it truly was.
Hate.
"You are a mentally unstable maniac! You need a psychiatrist! Do you even have any idea what you've done to me?! To us?!" shrieked Ishaani, staring at him with utmost loathing.
"Oh, I do, sweetheart," mocked Chirag. "I have a graphic idea about what I've done to the two of you. Trust me, it's given me a pleasure such like I've never know."
Ishaani raised her hand to slap him but he caught it mid-air.
"Don't even think about it. The last time you did that, you know what happened. So you can only imagine what will happen if you do it this time," said Chirag dangerously as he covered the distance between them, Ishaani retracting behind slowly.
"Are you threatening me?" asked Ishaani boldly, even though her voice shook.
"Oh, no. I'm going to punish you for even trying."
Before Ishaani could respond, Chirag slammed her against the wall with his hand around her neck in a death grip, his eyes now reflecting a lunacy she'd noticed the first time she slapped him all those years ago. She was about to speak when he forced his lips upon her, pinning both her hands together as he kissed her roughly, assaulting her lips with an inhumane brutality. She tried pushing him off, but all her protest were cut off as he increased the grip upon her neck, until she began to choke. He shoved his tongue into her mouth to prevent her from shrieking, biting her lip heatedly until it began to bleed. She struggled against him futilely, his grip too strong for her.
Letting go of her as her face turned puce, he wiped the blood from upon his lips disgracefully. Ishaani coughed and fell against the side table, her neck now having the raw-red print of his hand that had so nearly killed her just moments ago, heaving in large gulps of air.
Without another word, Chirag walked over to the wardrobe and pulled out a suitcase from it, throwing into it all of Ishaani's clothes mercilessly. Putting in the envelope that had been forgotten amidst their confrontation, he shut the bag and stared at Ishaani. Pulling her by her wrist harshly, he dragged her out from the room, making her trail painfully through the grand staircase that led into the living room, the suitcase in his other hand.
She missed several steps, her ankle now sprained by the time they reached the living room. Her wrist felt like it would explode any minute with the vice-like grip Chirag had upon it. Opening the front door, he pushed her out from the threshold, staring at her with a deranged flame in his eyes. Ishaani had barely managed to gather sense about her surroundings when she felt something hit her leg, making her lose her balance. She fell upon the ground rudely and stared at Chirag, tears now openly escaping her eyes as she felt like a lost child.
A child who had realized how cold and cruel the world could be. A child who had realized that it had been tricked into believing something that was entirely false, something that never existed in the first place. She had been made to let go of the one person who meant the world to her, only to fall for a person who she was only a muse to. The target of a revenge that she didn't even know existed. She screamed at the top of her lungs as Chirag shut the large doors of the mansion. He left her to the fate of the dead, her screams nowhere enough to release the pain she felt in her heart.
She let her head fall upon the suitcase as she sobbed harder, the guilt and the crude reality of what she had done to herself and Ranveer that night crashing around her. She had killed him that night, killed him with her own two hands. She had sworn to be the one to protect him, to be his shield, but she had been the one who had ultimately stabbed him. She had not only broken his heart, but had ripped apart his soul and had thrown him back its pieces so brutally.
She yearned for Ranveer to take her into his arms just like every time she was aggrieved or in pain. He would whisper words of love and courage to her and take away all her pain without even trying. He was her best friend, but more importantly, he was her shadow. There was no day of his that had not begun with her and ended without her. But there would be no Ranveer now. Chirag had not only cost her life, but Ranveer as well.
For the one man who could save her was the same man she had pushed away. Again. And this time, there was no forgiveness. Wiping away her tears, she staggered upon her feet as dragged the suitcase behind her out from the gate and on to the main road even though she had no destination. She had no home to go to. She had nothing whatsoever. Neither love nor a family. Not even her shadow, her best friend.
All she had was a broken heart and a ripped soul.
Ishaani snapped out from the memory and sighed. She remembered the first thing that her eyes had found in the suitcase. The same envelope having not only the divorce papers, but the power of attorney of the Parekh Empire back to her. The bas***d. Chirag Mehta was the exact opposite of everything she believed he was.
Her relatives had certainly not taken her in. All her cousins were abroad and not in touch, and Prateik and Disha were in boarding. Extremely sour at being cut off from 80% of the Parekh inheritance, none of them even so much as let Ishaani enter the house. She had no place to go, except the house of an old college friend, who was co-incidentally the wife of Piyush Sanghvi.
It was from there that the association had begun, from where Piyush had become her lawyer. He'd helped her get a decent alimony in exchange of the divorce and had allowed her to stay at his place till she found a small apartment. The same night when she'd been officially divorced and found another cruel surprise in wait for her. But that was the memory of another time, even though that night had introduced her to the scalpel after years. And it ever since then that she'd made up her mind of taking down Chirag Mehta down once and for all, Piyush being her advisor through it all.
She swore to herself that if Chirag had taken thirteen years to fulfill his revenge, she would take less than half of his time and leave him in his own ashes. It had been a nearly impossible feet to get any control over a wildly spinning Parekh Empire going out of hand. But she had persevered and persevered, just like her father and Ranveer had taught her to. One year into the business, she had barely survived, being refused money from many financial institutions for being a disgraced firm.
The only source of income had been the money from the alimony that she resourcefully used at the stock markets, managing to reduced several of the debts the company had. As months went by, she realized just how many clients Chirag had swindled, it only being a miracle that the company wasn't sued for fraud and malpractice. She had nearly lost all of her clients in London when she somehow managed to send through a diamond consignment successfully, and that had been the turning point of her life. And since then, there had been no stopping her.
Using her father's experience and Ranveer's vision, she managed to convert a lost cause into a golden egg with painstaking effort, learning from experiences and improving with every passing day. The next three years of her life had been the most crucial ones, and she had done the impossible. She did not only make the Parekh Empire rise like a phoenix from its ashes, but rose like one herself as well.
She had managed to win back the Parekh Mansion that was lost between the dusty files of the judiciary system a year ago. She had won back what was rightfully hers, even though there were still a few things upon her list. But she knew that its time would come as well, the wait being fruitful. She smiled as she hugged herself, a venomous spark in her eyes. Chirag Mehta had started a war and brought it upon her doorstep, taking away the one person who she loved the most in the world. He was no longer just her world anymore, but an evolving Universe in itself. And she would win him back too.
Like Ranveer always told her, the most powerful weapon on earth was the human soul on fire.
Constructive criticism will be more than welcome and sorry for any typos. :D :D
Next chapter:
Interlude 9
Edited by LadyMeringue - 8 years ago
Pati Patni Aur Panga
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
