FF : Start Of Something Good ~ Ch.10 Pg.117 08/06

Chapter 1

"Please tell me you don't believe him." Khushi's words brought him out of the deepest pits of rage that he was boiling in. He took a step towards her, intending either to pin her to the nearest wall and administer on her, the cruellest punishment he could proffer, or to shake her to submission. But the quick steps she took away from him and the fear in her eyes for himself stopped him in his tracks. Even after knowing the deception she seemed to have made, he still could not see anything but happiness in her eyes. Oh, he wanted to! But he suddenly realized that he could not bring himself to do anything like that and he hated that helpless feeling. "Woh jhooth bol rahe hai, Arnavji. Don't believe him!" Khushi whispered, her eyes begging him to believe her. She took a tiny step in his direction and he raised his eyes to look into hers impassively.

Khushi had heard Shyam's every single word, and had a mind to come over and give a piece of her mind to him. But the shock she had faced at the audacity of that man! How dare he assert that he loved her, and also that she returned his interests! How preposterous!! The worst part was that Arnavji seemed to believe all those lies! Though a rare rebellious streak in her did complain that there was no need to explain herself and clear her name. If Arnavji was so willing to believe the worst of her, he could go ahead and do just that. Hmph! But she immediately snubbed the feeling. This was Arnavji! What he thought of her, mattered the most! In fact, now that she came to think of it, it was all that mattered!! She could not - would not - allow the bridge that she had built between them, so painstakingly, to tumble down like this.

She told him that Shyam had uttered nothing but lies and he turned his impassive eyes to her. The indifference in his eyes a stark contrast to the warm, indulgent, adoration that showed in his eyes since the last few days. Khushi flinched mentally, not at all liking this change in his eyes. She had to make amends, and she had to do it soon, she knew. She started to explain everything to him. Everything that Shyam had done. And when all these words did not manage to extricate any change in Arnavji's perfect poker face, she felt herself begin to hyperventilate. It was her cue to panic!

Her hand went to her heart, as if trying to ease the mountainous pain that was starting there. A voice rose in her head. The same voice which, in such situations, always urged her to give one last tough fight before the thought of giving up started to take form in her mind. 'Come on, Khushi. You cannot let Arnavji hate you - again! Especially after things had started to get so beautiful between you and him.' Yes. Desperate times called for desperate measures, she decided. She took firm steps towards him, stopped right in front of him, looked him dead in the eye and said in a low, but determined voice, "Marry me. Make me yours." A flicker of what seemed as relief passed through his eyes, and she continued, "Make me yours and you'll know that I can be only yours." Her voice cracked at the end, and yet she continued in a whisper, "That I could only ever be yours."

There! She had said it out loud. She had decorated her all on a golden platter and offered it to him. Making her innermost thoughts privy to him, she knew she had made herself fully vulnerable to him. To make or break her was up to him and given his reputation. . . Khushi gulped her apprehension and reminded herself, desperate times indeed asked for desperate measures. As she stood there, her gaze lowered, waiting for him to do something, she could not bring herself to look at his face for the fear of seeing rejection there. Her shoulders suddenly seemed as if they were carrying the weight of the world on them and she was about to crumble at his feet when his hands shot out to hold her elbows and her hopeful eyes met his visibly relieved ones. "I thought you were playing with me." Arnav's voice came out in a gruff manner, as he pulled Khushi into his arms. "Never!" Khushi whimpered against his chest, actually feeling dizzy with relief.

"Were you serious?" Arnav asked after a few moments of salvaging silence - where they healed the wounds of the aftermath of Shyam's revelation. Khushi pulled back from his embrace, and tried to think of what he was questioning her about. "About you wanting to be my wife?" Arnav helped, and Khushi's mind wandered to all those girlish dreams she had seen of her marriage, but with a faceless groom. Always faceless! Those dreams suited perfectly with Arnavji's face, she realized, and she felt her face heat up to one of those scarlet blushes which seemed to amuse Arnavji to no end. Praying that he should not notice it, she knew it was a futile attempt, as his long finger grazed her nose and he murmured in a husky voice, "Red nose." He kissed her nose too, telling Khushi that he had got his answer, even though she had not really voiced it. Owing to this close physical contact, Khushi was about to lose all sense of propriety when a question rose in her mind.

"Arnavji?" Khushi asked, wanting to get the answer to that question. "Hmmm?" Arnav murmured, his nose now skimming her jaw, as he tried to bury his face in the heady smell of Khushi's hair. She pulled his head back and cupped his face, wanting to look in his eyes for her answer, rather than his vocal one. "Did you, for even a second, believe that I wanted to be with Shyam, and not you?" Khushi questioned. "No!" Arnav exclaimed almost immediately, and she saw the sincerity in his eyes. She had just decided nothing else that he said mattered, when he continued, "If I know one thing about you, it's that you're ridiculously high on morals! So you, intentionally going out with a married man was out of question. I knew he was being foolishly delusional when he said you loved him!" Here, Arnav averted his gaze, and even before Khushi had started to take a sigh of relief, she braced herself to hear the proverbial 'but'.

Arnav looked back up, and she saw in his eyes what she had seen there only when Anjaliji cried in front of him. He looked heart-wrenchingly vulnerable! "It was I whom I doubted, Khushi. I knew he just thought that you loved him. What if I too had been... misreading..." Arnav stopped here, not knowing how to phrase his doubts. Not exactly understanding why he was being so verbose about his feelings, in the first place.

"Misreading... us, Arnavji?" Khushi questioned, and met Arnav's skeptic gaze with her own uncertain ones. Blushing, she tried to answer the question they were both seeking an answer for. "I have been enjoying... your... attention..." By now, she was sure, that her face had heated up and matched the same red shade of her outfit, and she tried to hide her face in the lapels of his coat.

Arnav looked at the adorable thing in his arms, as he was rendered speechless for a second, by her simple answer. When he woke up that morning, did he have any idea that things would change so monumentally between him and Khushi? Hell, no! But no part of him seemed to object to this change. Even though his arms tightened around her, the thoughts about Shyam Jha was not forgotten, and the businessman in him was thinking of the different tactics he could use to torture that creature. His mind wandered to what Shyam had revealed just minutes ago, and his mind unwittingly produced an image of his sister devoting the ground where her husband set foot on. Oh, how she would be heartbroken! He had to protect her! And Khushi too!

"Marry me. Make me yours. Make me yours and you'll know that I can be only yours. That I could only ever be yours." Khushi's words replayed themselves in his mind, and he felt a sense of peace even amidst the tornado of emotions that he was standing in the middle of. "Khushi, were you serious about marrying me?" Arnav's voice betrayed the calm that he was showing on his face, and was laced with urgency. Khushi knew that even a moment's doubt could renew his doubts - if there were any - regarding her, or might successfully plant new ones. And hence, she lifted her face from his chest and looked him in the eye without even blinking and said in a determined voice, "Yes."