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CHAPTER 3
The unfamiliar heaviness of an arm around her jolted Khushi from her
sleep. She looked down to see a masculine hand curled gently around her bare
waist, the fingers lax, as the owner of the hand slept on. He breathed against
the nape of her neck, each small puff of air causing her to be excruciatingly
aware of his nearness, his warmth, his scent..
"Hai Devi Maiiya" exclaimed Khushi, sitting bolt upright on the large bed, looking frantically around, as the events of the past night crashed through her mind. Swiftly she extracted herself from the grip of the man in the bed behind her. Her husband. She was married. To him. The man she had considered her own personal savior, who she wanted above all else, who had now turned, in the space of one week, into the enemy. Khushi gathered a fresh sari and ran to the bathroom, locking the door as she sank to the cold floor, her mind teeming with images and thoughts. She was breathing heavily, her chest felt constricted, her ears strained to hear whether Arnav was waking up in the other room. She had to force herself to take slow breaths, to will herself to calm down. Her mind was racing, studying the situation, forming and discarding plans, running forward and backward, examining every fact, trying to find a solution, an escape. Anything, any way to get out of this trap, a trap where she was both the bait and the victim.
There was no way out. She was bound to a man who saw her as not just a pawn in the deadly game between Shyam and himself, but as an active enemy. He truly believed that she was a wh**e, that she was Shyam's mistress, and would not see her as she really was, an innocent caught in this silent battle between two immensely cruel men. He would use her, she knew that now. Last night, his eyes, his mouth...She trembled. No. Not now, no thoughts about last night right now. Right now she needed to think, to plan, to see what could be done.
She had very little time, she knew that now. Arnav would fight her, overwhelm her. He would use her, and of course he would win, because she was not his enemy, she was, and this was funny, she was actually on his side, she wanted what he wanted, Shyam's defeat, Anjali-ji's safety, Arnav's happiness. But why should she be sacrificed as he tried to get all that she wondered, with a sick sense of hopelessness. He would hate her, no matter what happened, whether she resisted him, or didn't. If she allowed him to do whatever the hell he wanted, he would still hate her, not because he won, but because he would still think she was fighting and had merely lost to him very easily. To him, right now she was not a person, not a woman with feelings or rights, not Khushi, not his wife. She was an opponent, someone to control, to harm.
He truly believed that he had momentarily managed to defeat Shyam. He truly thought that in marrying her he had struck a blow to Shyam, had removed from Shyam's control his much beloved mistress, Khushi. The fact that she was truly Arnav's, that she had come to this marriage physically untouched would not matter to Arnav, he would think that Shyam had simply not managed to have her physically, and count his own possession of her as a victory.
She laughed
to herself, bitter tears streaking down her face. The gift of her virginity
would be a prize in this war, a blood conquest, and not the sacred gift of a
woman to her mate. She still had that gift intact, for whatever reason, she had
been spared last night. But, he had made it clear, that was a temporary relief.
Tonight would be different.
All those years of Amma and Babuji guarding her and
Payal jiji like the Kohinoor diamond was going to end in her husband seeing the
blood on her thighs tonight as a sign of his dominance over another man. He
would still see her as a vile creature in love with Shyam, and her blood would
be spilt to cheat her supposed lover of that little victory. The irony of all
ironies was that even after being taken by her husband, the proof of her innocence
would still not prove her purity to Arnav.
The one man she had, in fact, saved herself for.
Shyam now...her thoughts slowed as she dwelt lovingly on various ways she wished
she could hurt him, maim him. Regret flooded her. When he had grabbed her on
the terrace, she had literally frozen. Her body had turned to ice, her movements
had stilled, she had been a small animal caught by the mesmerizing eyes of a
large evil snake. If only she had kneed him between the legs! If only she had
clawed at his eyes, had slapped his sneering face, had scratched his cheeks and
hands! Would Arnav have believed her then? Would proof of her hatred of him,
delivered in this physical form have been enough? Would that have made him see that she was as much a pawn in
Shyam's master plan as Anjali-ji had been three years ago?
Because.
Because. Khushi had been a fool and a dreamer for a while, she admitted this
right now. A fool since she had not seen
Shyam's real face sooner. Despair and
uncontrollable panic however, turned out to be a fast motivator in making her
see things clearly, sensibly. Khushi was thinking clearly, more clearly, than
she had in months. Her mind slowed, focused. A look settled on her face that Buaji
would have immediately recognized as her Sanka Devi persona at its most determined.
Her back was to the wall, she was fighting for herself, for her future which
she now knew would not be handed to her by Arnav, for the happy ending she
deserved which she could no longer trust anyone else to provide.
So Khushi ignored her pain, the stone weight of hopeless love for her husband pressing
on her heart, her despair, her tiredness, her sore eyes, and her even her
burning anger. And Khushi thought.
She didn't believe that she had been targeted as a coincidence, as an object of Shyam Jha's lust, just for the hell of it. Oh sure, he wanted her. Khushi knew that, and even understood that physical need. She had a new found awareness of exactly what her body was capable of, courtesy of her slow, soft seduction at the hands of her husband. Last night was the horrific exception to his gentle kisses and lessons of the past few months. She even knew what kind of fire must have ravaged Shyam to make him so uncontrollable towards her. It must have been like the fire that had raged between herself and Arnav before Shyam had poisoned that desire, made her cheap and unworthy in Arnav's eyes.
Shyam had to get control of her, was still trying to do so, had told Arnav that she belonged to Shyam, that he would take her back, come what may, she would be Shyam's and no one elses. Arnav had chosen to see nothing more than Shyam's lust in these statements. Khushi thought now, about just how stupid Shyam would have to be to actually tell someone like ASR these things about ASR's own wife. And Shyam was anything but stupid.
Also, why the obsession with her, specifically? Why come to her rescue in Luknow, send her to ASR's office in Delhi? Why move into her house, why choose her, and not Payal jiji to pursue? Payal jiji was the eldest, more submissive, more beautiful, easily controlled. Even in her innocence, Khushi, knew that Shyam Jha wanted women to be helpless, liked to have a weak woman by his side and probably needed a woman's terror to fuel his lust.
So why her? A girl Shyam knew would never submit, would always fight? The more she thought it through, the more she convinced she became that the whole thing had been pre-planned, the whole arc of her Lukhnow to Delhi experience guided by coincidence after coincidence, all leading her to this role, as a sacrifice between these particular two men. Was she over-thinking things, or was there a method to Shyam's madness, maybe a sane reason, a concrete reason behind Shyam's actions? A reason more cunning than simple lust, a plan more twisted than keeping Khushi as an unknowing mistress on one hand and a sham marriage going with Anjali-ji on the other?
She stared at her hands, looking at the intricate swirling lines of mehndi making a pattern on her palms. Designs swirled into and out of her mind, a path coming into focus, and fading out of existence. With one fingertip, Khushi traced the swirling lines of color, her mind at the same time miles away, tracing the events of the past seven months, seeing them in a new light. Her fingertip jolted to a stop at the A traced in deep brown on the center of her palm at the same moment that her mind jolted to the exact same thought-Arnav Singh Raizada, who was at the center of it all.
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