He had begged Jeevika, even fallen at her feet to reconsider her decision. But as somebody who knew the repercussions of going against the family too well, she had absolutely forbid him to try and elope with her. It just made matters worse that the bride Viren's family had arranged for him was her cousin sister, and the apple of her eye, Maanvi. It had fascinated him, and now terrified him how the cousins were ready to lay their lives down for each other. But Jeevika, being the elder one, tended to make more sacrifices. She had insisted that Viren forget her and do what his Dadaji asked him to do.
He thought of Maanvi, who would have been decked up by now, and felt sorry for her. Maanvi was aware that Viren was not at all interested in her, and yet she kept trying to win his affections. She had been raised to be the perfect Hindu wife who thought the world of her husband, and she made her intentions clear. From serving him the food when they went out for dates to keeping a fast for him to trying to take his blessings on the day she had to write her MBA exams-she was modern and bubbly, but devoted to the point of giving him a gag reflex.
He looked at the bottle of whisky sitting on his dressing table. It was custom for the Vadhera men to down two pegs before they got married, and for the rest of their lives, this was the status quo they were supposed to maintain in front of their wives-intoxicated. Viren had personally never touched a drop of alcohol in his life, as Jeevika detested it. But now what was the use? His childhood sweetheart was now doomed to be the woman he could only spend the rest of his life thinking about.
You weak, spineless man, he cursed his reflection. You are a Vadhera! You can't persuade a woman? Why, you forget the four tenets of the Vadhera family: charm, then bribe, then blackmail and finally punish. But when they said love is a war, they didn't say you could use the same techniques for both of them, did they? They didn't tell you that love is too pure to be charmed, too honest to be bribed, too brave to be blackmailed, and too tolerant to be punished. It is all-encompassing, and yet your love was so weak, it couldn't hold its own in front of anyone.
He decided that he was feeling so bitter and resentful that he didn't need alcohol to bring his inner demons to the fore. They were clawing themselves out of his heart without asking. Adjusting his turban and picking up the sword that was supposed to be carried by the groom to the mandap, he stepped out of his room with a bright smile on his face, wondering whether he would repent his decision in the days to come.
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Virat surveyed the crowd of guests with a keen eye, making sure to flash a brilliant smile to each lady and a tip of his glass to each man. It looked like he was scouting out a beautiful woman to take to bed, but in reality he was simply looking for a new client. Ever since childhood, Virat had chased trouble, and now he served as the watch hound for his ancestral law firm, sniffing out people who were in a soup. The glint that came into his eye whenever he detected the presence of somebody who had defaulted on his tax payments, or yet another heiress who had murdered a lover in a fit of anger, was the same keenness that he displayed in front of attractive members of the opposite sex. Hence he was able to carry out both activities without revealing his true intentions.
Right now, his eyes, an odd mix of brown and green that resembled the forests of Himachal his mother had hailed from, were concentrating on Maanvi Chaudhary, his future sister-in-law. She was sitting in the mandap, excitedly gossiping away with a few of her friends. She was dressed in a white lehenga that showcased her toned, caramel-coloured stomach, courtesy a holiday in the Maldives and bridal weight loss classes. Her lips were painted a delicious cherry red, and her eyes sparkled more than the diamonds she was wearing. But the problem was, even though she looked delectable, she wasn't really attractive at all. Oh yes, she was beautiful, but there was nothing in the least which made him feel that she would be a shocker behind the curtains.
Boring, he thought with a frown. Which was a shame really. He was going to marry the woman, that too against his will. Virat knew that once he was married, his days of debauchery would be over. A Vadhera was allowed to make any kind of indiscretion, save for infidelity. This was courtesy of his grand-uncle Bobby, whose affair with a film-actress had nearly ruined them, after being splashed in tabloids across the courtesy.
Now for my whole life, I will have to tolerate this woman worshipping me-or rather my image, since there's no way I plan to spend my nights with her. Celibacy seems like a better option. Or maybe you could just drown her, like Bobby Chachu did with his first wife. Give her food poisoning. The kind of legs she has, its better she suffers from that.
Oh yes. There was nothing to be done now. He was going to steal his brother's bride, and once he had married her, he would kill her.
How difficult could it be?
