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Chapter 1. The Return
Khushi takes a deep breath before she opens the door and walks in. She wasn't prepared. She wished she could turn around and run away, however, unfortunately the whole placed was surrounded by cameras and security guards. If maybe, she didn't walk into this building three years ago, her fantasy life would still be happening. Maybe she wouldn't be living in a small apartment like she was now. Maybe life would have been better if she didn't walk in. However, life felt better now. It felt peaceful yet sad, happiness yet sadness, friendships yet no love.
As Khushi steps into the office, she feels the stares coming at her as she closes the door and looks down. She knows she shouldn't be the one looking down, but they should. She was betrayed and they betrayed her. She slowly looks up and sees their faces staring at her gloomily. However, before she or they could say something, the chair opposite of her, turns around stares into her eyes with lightening.
She clutches her pant as she stares at his face, that was still the same. At his effortlessly bladed cheekbones, the perfect straight nose, straight tight jaw, short spiked brown hair, and the mostly into his cold dark chocolate eyes that looked right at her. Khushi takes a deep breath as tides of emotions wave throughout her body. Emotions of wretchedness, covetousness, antagonism, and bleakness run throughout her.
"Well glad to see you could finally make it." He says to her as he stands up. She stares at him with confusion. How could somebody like him act as if nothing had happened three years ago or mostly there past? She stares at him as he sneers at her with his snake looking eyes. He grabs something from his folder and throws at her side of the desk. "I want you sign that."
Khushi stares at the papers and up at him. She tries to speak but somehow her voice was flat since three years ago. She clears her throat and grabs the stapled papers with her quivering hands. "What is this?" She speaks softly making the all the man in the room lean in to hear what she says beside the devil.
"It's a consent form." Devil says as he sneers at her. Khushi picks up the paper and stares at it without actually scanning what it says.
"Consent form?" She says softly as she keeps staring at the unknown paper.
"Bha-Khushi-ji it's a form, basically like a contract." Khushi looks up and stares at Akash, the devil's younger brother.
"Contract?" Khushi stares at him with confusion. What contract? She asked herself. Contract?
"A contract that you won't speak about our condition. You'll act like we're in a relationship outside the cozy perimeter." Devil fills it in coolly as if something was okay. When it wasn't for Khushi.
"We're not in a relationship Arnav. We're over." Khushi furiously stares at the Devil, who widens his eyes for a millisecond at hearing his name.
"But to the public we are Khushi Singh Raizada." He says icily back at her with his now flaring eyes.
Khushi looks at him then back at her the people staring at the table. Her papa, her brother, her cousins, her uncle, her brother-in-law, and her father-in-law who stared back at her with business dealing eyes. To them all, it was business. Nothing else. Khushi turns and stares the Devil with blank eyes and walks away.
Khushi walks weakly away from the dark room; however, just as she takes her next step, a strong grip tightens around her wrist, pulling her back. She groans as she turns around and stares at the Devil. He glares at her with his blaring eyes and tightens his grip around her wrist more. "Let go of me." Khushi whispers to him as tears start forming around her eyes from the grip.
"Why do you always run away? Is that a habit of yours, running away?" Arnav whispers in her ear.
Khushi looks at him with hurt. "I run away because the people make the circumstances to make me run away."
Arnav grips her wrist tighter. "Those circumstances were three years ago, life changed Khushi. However, sadly you didn't."
Khushi looks at him with anger. "I changed? It's you who hasn't changed. You're still that arrogant, ruthless tyrant who cares about nothing else besides about business. Everything for you is business. Your job is done with business, your relationships are built with business, our marriage was done with business, and even sex was business for you."
"How dare you." Arnav growls at her. They stare at each other was the thick invisible barrier separating them, thickens ever more. "I'm helping you here and you're talking shit to me like this. How cheap of you."
"Helping me?" Khushi stares at him, "You're not helping me, Arnav. You're helping yourself. And before you throw something back at me, admit it that I'm right."
Arnav glares at her and grips her wrist tighter, "Look you-"
"Sir, Mr. Jacoby from Standley Inc. is here." Says a terrified secretary as he quivers along with his agenda planner, trying not to display himself from being scared. Arnav looks at his secretary and gives him one of his murderous looks, making the secretary gulp profoundly.
"Fine, I'll be there." Arnav icily says while turning back to Khushi, "I'll see you in the afternoon." He says as he releases her and walks away.
Khushi moans from her wrist being finally released. She closes her eyes and walks away before he stops her. He didn't ask where she lived or where she was going. She just needed to walk fast before he got her. She also needed to change her phone so he wouldn't be able to contact her like he did yesterday. She quickly paces to the main entrance but the security guard stops her.
"Mam, we have a call for you." The security guard says as he looks her up and down, zeroing in on her curves. He hands her the phone while she gives him a quizzical look, however, knowing who was on the other end of the line.
"Don't think of running away, Khushi Singh Raizada. I know everything about your whereabouts. Don't think I wasn't keeping an update of you for the previous three years." Says the Devil from the other line. Khushi turns around and stares right into his sneering eyes as he hands the phone back to his secretary and walks into the conference room, leaving Khushi white as a ghost.
However, Khushi does the opposite of what he says. She takes the train from New York to Boston. She needed to run before he chased her down. As she sits in the train, she tries to figure about how he could possibly know about her whereabouts. She knew he could chase her, but she thought she did everything right to be able to separate him. Khushi wanted to smack herself for not changing her phone numbers. If she had watched those movies where somebody who runs away, they always change their numbers as their primary think is. However, Khushi was stupid and kept her same number for the pass previous years.
As she gets off the train in Boston, she goes to the T-Mobile shop and purchases a new small inexpensive phone and throws away her iPhone. She didn't care if it was expensive; she wanted all the memories to fade away. She wanted to run away before he could catch her. Little did she know, that the Devil was already tracking her down.
As Khushi checks both of her sides to see nobody following her, she goes outside of the station. She walks on the sidewalk as horns honk repeatedly due to the heavy traffic. She looks up and sees a public library and decides to walk into there. After a few seconds she places sits on the sofa and stares at the window, and starts thinking of three years ago as she always did every day. The day she walked into Arnav's empty office, waiting for him to come. However, sadly the file with her name was on the top. As she picked up that file three years ago, she realized she was a marriage deal. Her parents and Arnav had made a deal that Arnav would take over the Gupta Industries. Khushi all those times when she thought her and Arnav were perfect and how they loved each other was all pretense. Because that's what her husband, Arnav Singh Raizada, knew to do. He always hurt her when she was in high school, college, and even after marriage. Hurting her was one his favorite things to while being an investor.
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Click here to go to Chapter 2
Edited by whisperer - 13 years ago
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