FF: ADDICTION- DISCONTINUED. Note in First Post. - Page 6

"Will you let me go home so I can get my things and explain to my father and sister that I've been kidnapped by Omkara Singh Oberoi?"

"No."

"Well that's unfortunate," she took a deep breath and exhaled. "How long do you plan to keep me here?"

"As long as it takes."

"Nice and precise. As long as what takes?"

When he did speak, it wasn't to respond to her question. "I'll send someone to your house to explain that you will temporarily be staying here and to pack some of your things."

"Make sure it's a woman."

"What?"

"Make sure you send a woman. A man won't pick anything that matches and will either completely forget I need underwear or spend the majority of his time rooting around in that one drawer. So yeah, send a woman." Ishana yawned and stretched herself out on the sofa, her head resting on one arm of the sofa, her feet propped up on the other.

Omkara couldn't decide whether she was truly this unaffected by her situation or if she was pretending. All he really knew about her was that she lied, so he would have to assume it was the latter.

Ishana watched as Omkara pulled out his phone and arranged for someone to go to her home and explain to her family that she would be staying at the Oberoi mansion for the foreseeable future and to get everything she would need for a prolonged stay. He also requested that the female member of staff who would be going come up to his room and take something to give to Ishana's father.

She wondered if her father would even care that she had been imprisoned by Omkara when he got his hands on the bundles of money he was currently pulling from a drawer in his wardrobe and throwing onto the bed.

"So careless." She mumbled as a bundle fell off the edge of the bed and rolled underneath it.

"What?"

"How does it feel," she pondered, "to have so much money that you don't even lock it away? That you can so carelessly throw it around and not even care that an amount probably worth the average Indian's annual income just got lost under the bed?"

His hand froze above the bundle he had just been about to pick up and he looked over at her, his eyes unreadable. Ishana didn't know if he was going to scold her or insult her but she braced herself for the inevitable verbal assault.

"I used to feel guilty."

The response caught her by surprise.

"I used to, but I no longer do. Guilt didn't change anything, didn't make it any less unfair. In its own way it seemed a little insulting to those I was feeling guilt towards. Like I was pitying them or considering them beneath me, which wasn't the case. So instead I decided to be grateful for the blessings I know have been heaped upon me and to honour those blessings by making the most of them, and I try to deal with the unfairness by giving back as much as I can and doing what I can to actually change things. I'm not stingy or a miser, none of us are."

Ishana was so thrown by his frank honesty that she actually sat up, blinking at him in mild incredulity.

"You're surprised I answered you?"

"Shouldn't I be?"

"I don't really understand what I'm doing here, Ishana." He sat down on the bed, facing her. More rolled bundles of money fell onto the floor as he did so. He was no longer about to erupt with the explosive anger of earlier, but Ishana could tell he still wasn't the calm and detached Omkara he had been with her previously. "But if I let your lies turn me into a liar too, then whatever it is, I will have lost."

There was a soft knock on the door and Omkara called for the person to come in. He picked up the rolls of money and tossed them into a bag before handing it to the woman. "Please give these to Mr Patel."

"Yes, Sir." She nodded, bowed slightly and then left the room.

The ticking of the clock echoed in the otherwise silent room. "If you don't mind me asking, Mr Omkara Singh Oberoi, what exactly am I doing here?"

He wrapped his hand around her wrist and Ishana felt the jolt of electricity shoot up her arm as it sprung up with goosebumps. Noticing the reaction- with the eyes of an artist, how could he not?- Omkara looked at her, his expression once again refusing to betray so much as a hint of the emotion beneath. He pulled her towards the door and walked with her down the corridor.

She realised where he was taking her, remembered being here what seemed almost a lifetime ago.

Inside, he walked her past unfinished sculptures, past easels with blank canvases and arrays of tools and materials she knew neither the name of nor use for. He took her to a small table at the back, scattered with pieces of paper covered in colours and sketches. "Sit." He pointed to one, paint splattered seat as he himself sat in the one opposite.

Ishana sat and watched as he pushed aside several pieces of paper until he found a blank piece, rummaging more until his fingers found a pencil among the disarray.

"Are you going to draw me?"

"No."

"So why have you brought me here."

Silence as his eyes seared hers, so dark they were almost black and looking at her with an intensity that left her feeling exposed. She bristled and wrapped her arms around herself. His eyes flickered to the motion.

He had noticed.

Ishana realised then just how little importance Bela had had in Omkara's life. He had never really looked at Bela the way he was looking at Ishana now, noticing every detail. Absorbing every detail. Seeing beneath the surface and past layers she wasn't even sure she knew existed.

She stiffened her back. If this man was going to try to scrape away her layers, she would simply have to build them back up faster.

"What do you want from me, Omkara?"

"Lie to me, Ishana."

This is totally fair and of course I don't mind you giving your honest feedback, it'd be ridiculous of me to be so arrogant that I can't handle criticism of my writing. There are so many different interpretations of characters and it's interesting to me writing the character in one way with a certain set of motivations, and seeing how from that he can be interpreted so differently by someone reading that same thing.

I guess I have the advantage of knowing what he's willing to do and what he definitely won't- so loool I was genuinely baffled for a moment as to what you meant by "manhandling" then just re-read the chapter and figured you meant where he leads her to the studio? That scene in my head was a gentle sort of "Come with me, let me help you up, we're going somewhere else now." and then he basically just holds on loosely to guide her as they walk together which I tried to imply by Ishana knowing exactly where she was going and not saying that Omkara was dragging her or forcing her, but which must have translated in your mind as him yanking her up and dragging her metaphorically kicking and screaming down the corridor.

Omkara's troubled and intense, but I have his character pretty solidly formed in my head and he is not the type who will torture Ishana, physically or mentally. He really is one of the good guys and I hope to make that abundantly clear in the rest of the story. Even though he's furious at her at the moment and has no love to spare for her, I didn't want to even insinuate that he got physical with her so it's unfortunate he can be read as getting that way... hmm, maybe I'll reword it? Or maybe I'll just leave it open to interpretation for now and let his character prove himself later on.

As to him being creepy- loool I guess intense observation and the prolonged staring that no-doubt involves could be construed as creepy 😆