FF: Seducing the Throne::NEW Thread PG 1 - Page 83

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 ::Authors Note::

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 ::Authors Note::

- To give a Damn, or not to give a Damn -

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Present day,

The Hacienda, New York.

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" Was I such a blind little fool over you six years ago that you would think that after seeing you with my naked best-friend my first thought would be about you?!" she asked a trace of actual pain threading the shocked realization.

Suddenly Damien, backed off, his till than blocking arm, falling away.

So he had believed that.

Egotistic Prick.

Aasha stiffened further against the wall, grateful for its solid presence as she hissed in her most condescending voice, "If you're capable of seeing past your evidently obese ego you'll realize your own theory behind my 'absence' while flattering no doubt to your personal sense of self, is flawed, given the fact that I didn't leave...You simply didn't know that."

*

"I didn't leave." The words burned an effortless hole into Damien's suave countenance.

Immediately he was transported back to the weeks after the night of the debutante ball, when he'd alternately veered from raging concern to nerve wracking guilt.

She didn't leave?

*

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Seven Years Ago ,

Pre-Christmas Bash

Raizada Mansion, Delhi.

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"Not etiquette etiquette, Damien!"

Damien who had evidently finally decided to give in, finally asked ' "I'm sorry sweetheart, whatetiquette are we talking about then?"

His question, spurning a brilliant smile from the gorgeous fifteen-year old in front of him, he was so enthralled in fact that for a moment the actual meaning of her words failed to pierce through his appreciated haze.

*

"Why kissing etiquette of course!" 

Kissing etiquette?

Help?

Damien Bass, having been born into the hot spot of modern-day roman proclivities should not by any stretch of logic be perturbed by a mere reference to kissing.

What should happen and what did however were rarely on the same wave-length when it came to Aasha Raizada. And as much as he seemed to detest that particular fact, Damien, who was no longer slouching but ram-rod straight in his seat, had begun to come to terms with that particularly unnerving dose of reality.

It wasn't until a brilliantly smiling Aasha repeated with a somewhat over-the top enthusiasm that she needed help, that Damien forced himself to snap out of his reverie.

"Of course and how exactly would you like me to help?"

The words were scarcely out of his mouth, before Damien realized he had stepped squarely into the verbal steel-trap, this particular fifteen year old had just engineered.

But even mere seconds was much too late. For Aasha Singh Raizada had already answered his not-particularly bright rejoinder with a sweet ' "Well I was hoping you could kiss me."

A single brow arched in barely suppressed shock, Damien decided not for the first time that Aasha's father favorite unfinished epithet  ... "What the..." was probably concocted specifically because of her.

"Why?" he managed, his voice half-strangled with the lack of air.

"Well so I would know how to." She explained with a pretty smile, Damien oddly felt like shaking his head and was wondering if perhaps he had maybe a little too much to drink. When Aasha decided to continue however, he wished he had, "There's this boy you see...and he wants to kiss me...and I don't want to, I mean I want to but ...oh you know Damien...I don't want to not do it right..."

A boy.

Of course.

It made sense, she was almost sixteen...most of her contemporaries had done much more than kissing...hell he'd done much more than kissing at her age.

None of that however eased the need to find and pummel the little piece of shit, he soon realized as his index finger continued to trace the rim of his drink.

"Who is it?" he asked, before quickly realizing that the answer to that question was not something he wanted or needed to know. "Never mind." He amended quickly, wondering how it was he had managed to land himself in this atrocious situation. Noticing out of the corner of his eye that the young lady who had him in such a position was enjoying every minute of it.

"Are you sure?" she piped up brightly. Too Brightly.

"Very...now you want me to kiss you?" he repeated with no little amount of dry humor, carefully watching her over the rim of his glass as he took one last sip to fortify himself.

Well if she wanted a kiss.

She would get a kiss.

Never let it be said Damien Bass had turned down a lady.

*

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Present day,

The Hacienda, New York.

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Aasha waited for the weight of those words to sink into Damien's subconscious.

I didn't leave.

Cold eyes the color of tempered steel look back at her. Asking her what his pride would not.

No matter.

She didn't need him to ask.

She didn't need him to do anything.

"I didn't leave. Not for two weeks anyway." She repeated, "And you didn't know because I didn't want you to. You must have a million questions, hain na Daimien? My parents, yours?  After the Ball fiasco it was hardly difficult convincing them. But you've already figured that out, haven't you." She drawled, lapsing briefly into Hindi, and stepping away from the hard wall he had had her pinned to mere moments ago

Damien however had seemed to have taken on an oath of silence as he observed her, his eyes following yet his frame no longer restricting her.

Almost as if she'd dealt him a fatal blow.

Not that she cared. She wanted this cleared out once and for all, no more confusion, no more doubts...no more possibilities. None he needed to know of anyway.

"With the parents explained," she continued, her voice softer now, yet more impactful because of it, "That left the friends. Did Renee know? Yes. Is she stupid enough to embroil herself in one of your idiotic stunts her today? Yes. But remember this Damien, Renee Archibald will always choose me over you, she is my best friend not yours'she will choose me because she trusts me'just like I chose Bevin, because I trusted her to be able to come to me and tell me what was wrong. She didn't come."

In all the years she had known Damien Bass never had he displayed anything but absolute suave charm.

Except for that moment.

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Seven Years Ago ,

Pre-Christmas Bash

Raizada Mansion, Delhi.

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Aasha Singh Raizada felt like her heart was about to implode.  Or explode..or whatever else it was hearts did...the point was that it was going a million miles a minute and with every single step Damien took towards her it tripled!

Kissing Lessons?

Oh dear Devi Maiyan what had she been thinking?

But dammit she was sick of pretending she didn't give a damn about the hoard of women trailing in his wake ever step he took, and she was sick of his presumption that just because he was four damn years older than her , that she would forever be the equivalent of a toddler.

She wasn't damn it.

She was about to be sixteen.

Sweet sixteen and never been kissed.

And she really wanted to be kissed!

All on a sudden they were standing barely inches from one another, Damien's brisk saunter having failed to be hampered by the 17^th century antique coffee table or any of the other litany of objects between them.

Very, very slowly, as if he were talking to a child Damien asked -"Where would you like me to begin?"

But by then Aasha was much too far gone to be even mildly coherent. Not in English anyway, she managed a breathless ' "Koi fadak nahi parta'."

She was about to be kissed.

And then as if it was his exact intention all along, Damien Bass reached for Aasha's already trembling hand and brought it a mere inch away from his lips, never taking his eyes off her even for the briefest of seconds.

Aasha's heart would have plummeted if it had been capable of any form of logical behavior. She didn't want a kiss on the hand she wanted a damn kiss.

Until Damien,   slowly, let his thumb trace the palm of her hand before twisting it palm up, and pressing the briefest, most searing kiss to the aching center of her palm, before folding her fingers over it as if to hold it in.

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Present day,

The Hacienda, New York.

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In a deathly even voice, that Aasha had never heard from Damien before, he asked, his eyes impassively looking into hers -

"You were here. .. . . . . . .You were here giving your friend a chance to explain herself, correct?"

Her hands still trembling from when he'd had her pinned against the wall, Aasha merely looked away pointedly.

But no amount of looking away would detract from of even distance her from the thread of betrayal Damien voiced-

"Why not me? Why didn't you wait for me?"

Aasha almost stopped, her heart seizing for one brief second, as she replayed every second of immature teenage longing, and she replied, her voice sharp with loathing -

"Because mujhe koi farak nahi padta...it doesn't matter...you  - don't matter...fadak nahi parta dammit!"

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Hey Upper East Sider's, Gossip Girl here.

Your one and only source into the scandalous lives of Manhattan's Elite.

So, down East they tell us that Fadak is a big issue...

 Well ...we UES may not understand the exact impact of 'Not Fadak-ing'

But we're sure we'll figure it out...we wonder if  little boy Bass will though?

You know you love me.

XOXO

Gossip Girl

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