Chapter 7

ShikhaKhushi

@ShikhaKhushi

She flinched when the two girls left in tears. They had been in the company for barely a week. He called her in immediately.

"I need a new designer, and a new PA. Arrange the interviews and please ask the board to choose more sensible people instead of sleaze-balls like that, understand? We need competent people at AR!"

She nodded hurriedly and started to leave but he stopped her with a gentler tone.

"And, Antara, tell Aman and Sandeep to come in for the briefing right after lunch. I have to leave at two. You booked my flight?"

"Yes, sir."

"And informed Shashi Gupta?"

"Yes, sir."

He turned back to his file and she walked out, sighing heavily once she had reached her desk. She fell her head between her hands.

Arnav Singh Raizada was growing even more maddening. It had been six months since Khushi had left, for some reason she didn't know, but her boss had been crankier than ever since then. No one was good enough to work alongside with him now. In that time, he had already recruited seventy seven personal assistants and fired all of them, along with some other twenty members of the staff.

She wondered how long she herself would be able to keep up with him.

***

He sat stiffly in his first class seat while he crossed the country from Mumbai to Jaipur. Payal Gupta, Shashi Gupta's elder daughter, was getting married there and he had been invited. He didn't really want to go but he was obligated. For one thing, he didn't believe in marriage, and anyway, he didn't want to see Shashi's other 'daughter'.

Khushi's mystery had still not been unravelled to him, and despite the itchiness to know her truth, he had stepped down from the matter. Hadn't he driven her away? But she had never really left, had she? She kept haunting him dreams. Sometimes tempting him and his desires, sometimes scaring the wits out of him by trying every possible way to find her death. At times, he even saw her where she wasn't. Like in the office, in the elevator, on the roads, even in his apartment, dammit.

Frustration made his rake his hand roughly through his hair and he clenched his eyes shut. Damn her. He just wished he wouldn't see that much of her. Because her taste of her still hadn't gone, and the want for was still cuttingly raw...

***

"Arnav!" the familiar voice drifted to him before he could get down from the car, and as soon as he did, he was engulfed in a stifling embrace. Yet, he couldn't keep the smile of his face.

Shashi Gupta pulled back to beam at him. "Happy to see you, beta."

Something jumped in his chest. Happy? What could that possibly mean? He had such a short time ago brutally sacked the man's daughter and tagged her as a mental or psycho or something like that. He shouldn't really be welcomed with open arms right?

But then, Shashi Gupta tended to be rather discreet ever since Arnav had known him. There were a lot of people around and he wouldn't want to create a scene. Maybe he was keeping it for later. Arnav would have to brace himself for the blows but he knew he was not completely wrong. Gupta's younger daughter, if she really was it, had something not right about her. Unwillingly, his eyes scanned his vicinity for her.

Khushi.

He inhaled shakily, without knowing why. He couldn't see her at all. Mentally, he thought it would be better, for both of them, if she stayed at bay, which was the rational thing to do. But it seemed that his body and heart, complotting together, were symmetrically opposed to that idea. They wanted to see her. They wanted her.

Shashi himself led him to the room he would be staying in. "Join me in my study after dinner," he said evenly, without giving Arnav the least hint about what he could be thinking. "We need to talk."

Arnav watched the man go and sighed. There you go. He had thought about it too soon. As he closed the door behind him and sat on the bed to rub his face in an attempt to energise himself, he couldn't help but wonder. What could she have told Shashi?

***

"Sir?" he hesitated at the doorstep of the intimidating study.

Shashi had been standing morosely before his wife's larger than life portrait on the wall. He turned slightly and nodded once to motion Arnav to enter.

"She had started all the planning," he whispered. "I wish she could be here today. And I wish I could wait for a year of mourning but she made me promise..."

The older man's eyes had glazed with moisture. Arnav placed his hand on Shashi's shoulder to comfort him. What could he say? He knew nothing of relationships. Love was something he had neither ever received, nor ever given.

"I sorry, Arnav," Shashi added, shaking his head and making the younger man frown in confusion. "K-khushi told me... I'm sorry."

His frown deepened at the mention of her name. What had she told him exactly? What had she said to make Shashi Gupta apologise.

"What did she-?"

"That she couldn't cope with this new life."

Oh? So she had not talked about her problems to her father? Had she tried something dangerous again during these two months?

He cleared his throat while Shashi strode to his table to refill his glass of scotch. "And she's fine?" he asked uncertainly.

The man shrugged. "I hope so."

Arnav's lips parted. Why did it suddenly feel like something was wrong here?

"Oh, didn't I tell you?" Shashi swirled his glass before gulping it down. "She returned here only briefly, for a couple of days, and told me about it. She said she isn't used to this life and maybe she was suffering mentally. Then, she left for Shimla."

"Shimla?" Arnav breathed, his eyes wide.

Shashi nodded dismissively. "She is working in a summer camp. She loves children," he smiled gently. "Just like her mother."

Her mother being brought up, caused Arnav's curiosity to be again aroused. It pricked him like a sharp needle.

"Who is she?" he dared himself to ask, though his voice came out no louder than a whisper.

"Who?"

"Khushi? Is she your daughter?"

A slow, chilling smile spread itself on Gupta's face and he walked slowly back to his deceased wife's portrait, fixing Arnav with his cold gray eyes. It was not the first time that Shashi was so intimidating, but Arnav could repress the shudder that shook him. He felt like that cornered teenager he had once been again.

"I was wondering when you would ask that, Arnav," Shashi spoke suavely in his cool, emotionless voice. "Don't you think she has her mother's eyes?" he asked, his gaze drifting away.

Arnav followed his eyes as they settled on Garima Gupta's face on the wall and confusion gripped him even better. So Khushi was their daughter? How come he had never heard or seen of her all these years? And clearly she hadn't lived with them because she was supposedly not used to this lifestyle. And the parents' names on her birth certificate? This was so damn messed up.

Shashi appeared to have grasped his puzzlement for he shook his head.

"I know what you are thinking about. You have never known her all these years, and that's because she was not raised in this family. Why? And about her birth certificate? And all of that?" he chuckled coldly, humourlessly. "Khushi is certainly Garima's daughter, Arnav, but she is not mine."