Annika sat in one of the living rooms of Oberoi mansion along with the rest of the family where they were discussing their next move in the 'Expose the fake Shivaay- aka Maahi mission' when Tej Singh Oberoi made a statement that got angry reactions from each and every member of the family.
"All I'm saying is that Annika should act normally. Maahi will obviously wonder why Annika is refusing to sleep in the same bed as him and he will surely know that Annika is on his game."
The protests of the family members were quietened by the sound of glass shattering. It didn't take genius to guess which Oberoi did the honours.
"No way. Do you even know what you are saying bade Papa?" Said Shivaay positively outraged.
"Jethji, you keep all those ideas to yourself." Said Pinky in a huff "I will not have my daughter in law anywhere near that creep. "
Tej shook his head in exasperation
"For the love of god, Shivaay- calm down. Your bed is big enough and now that your bedroom has cctv cameras installed, if he even tries to touch Annika we will intervene. All she has to do is pretend to sleep and wait till he falls asleep. Then she can just move out and join you- wherever you are. Its imperative that we do this. We need to get to the bottom of this" Explained an annoyed Tej.
"That makes sense." Added Shakti "Annika will be safe and Maahi will not notice anything amiss either. And besides, its just a matter of a few minutes."
"No freaking way." Said Shivaay angrily "Give him some excuse but I will not have Annika anywhere near him"
Annika knew if she didn't come up to a decision soon, her husband would break everything in that room and also, Maahi was in the bedroom and before he decided to check on them, they needed to conclude this meeting.
As much as she had learnt about Maahi, Annika knew that he hadn't tried to even touch her. She remembered how he didn't even sleep in the same bed as her when he could have easily taken advantage. Even during the times when she didn't know that he was fake, she remembered him shying away from her touch.
"Shivaay" Anika said to her angry husband "I've got this. I will handle this okay." She stood up and looked at the anxious expressions of the rest of the family
"I will have to go now before Maahi comes looking for me." Anika then looked up at Shivaay "See you in a few."
As she proceeded to leave, she felt Shivaay's hand circle her wrist and she watched his stormy eyes battle with so many emotions- anger, despair, helplessness and more importantly, a tinge of jealousy.
"Trust me" was all she said.
***
Trust me
The words echoed in Shivaay's head as he watched Annika's retreating back. He trusted her and he knew she would never betray that trust. He also trusted himself that he would never let Maahi lay a finger on her even if that meant scrapping their entire plan and handing him over to the police but what he didn't trust was the possibility of Annika's heart softening towards the imposter.
Ever since he had done a bit of background check on Maahi, he had found out a lot of things about him but every single thing pointed out that Maahi was a mere pawn in this game while the master mind was someone else. He remembered telling Annika about this and he had seen Annika softening towards him when he told her that Maahi wasn't directly responsible for the kidnapping. When he told her about Maahi's drunken blabbering and his illegitimacy and the troubles that man might have faced, Annika actually felt sorry for Maahi.
So had Shivaay and that made him more and more determined to find out who was the person responsible for involving him in this dirty game because he knew Maahi wasn't a bad person. That had been his opinion a few hours ago when another alien feeling screwed it all.
--- FLASHBACK"
FEW HOURS AGO
Shivaay sat on the bed of one of the numerous guest bedrooms while he watched his wife enter his own bedroom and walk over with a cup of steaming hot coffee to where the imposter Maahi had been sitting for the past three hours with Saahil.
Saahil wasn't aware that the person he was sitting with was an imposter and the boy was enjoying himself. At first when Shivaay had seen them through the cctv cameras, he thought they were playing a board game. But the camera that was installed in Anika's wrist watch told him that they weren't playing any board game- they were playing board game cricket- A genius idea for a boy who loved the game but couldn't play it because of his handicap.
And it should have been him (Shivaay) not Maahi who gave Saahil the game.
He watched the happiness shining out of Anika's eyes and then she did something that made both Maahi and Shivaay jump from their respective seats each for different reasons.
She put her curled her fingers around Maahi's arm and gave it a gentle squeeze of gratitude. Maahi jumped up as if electrified. He stepped away from her as if she was some human bomb that would go off any minute whereas Shivaay stood up in rage, flung his cell phone out of the window and shattered a precious flower pot.
As he watched Anika leave them to their game, he walked along the length of the corridor and caught up with her. Grabbing her hand, he pulled her in his bedroom and closed the door. Pinning her to the wall, he asked her angrily
"What the hell was that?"
Annika looked at him, clearly puzzled
"What the hell was what?" she asked
"This sudden burst of affection towards Maahi? Did his sob story get to you? Do you feel that he needs your warmth and gentleness for what he has been through? Do you feel touched that he helped Saahil and made him so happy- something that your husband should have done?"
Anika looked at him as if he had suddenly lost it and when Shivaay realized what he had just said, he wondered that as well.
"What brought this on Shivaay? You know that no matter how good Maahi is or what he does or how much he looks like you, it is you that I love and nothing can ever change that."
She cupped his cheek and looked at him with that adorable tilt of head, her eyes begging him to understand. Instead he pulled her to him and wrapped his hands tightly around her thin frame.
"You are mine. Only mine" he whispered.
***
Shivaay watched Anika enter the bedroom to where Maahi sat alone. He resisted smashing the display screen when he saw Anika latch the bedroom door. If any of them were to enter that bedroom they would have to do so from the pool side door. As he watched Anika turn around and walk towards Maahi looking so very beautiful, Shivaay knew that had it not been for OmRu's restraining arms around him, he would have barged into that room and killed Mahi for looking at her.
He would have killed the imposter and enjoyed it.
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Bigg Boss 19
