That was another thing she was puzzling over. Nikhil wasn’t pressuring her at all, and he’d been the perfect boyfriend so far. Yet still she held back from saying yes to him. Mainly it was because she was convinced he wasn’t really in love with her. The physical attraction between the two of them was too strong to be denied, and at times it blinded both of them to anything else. Outside of it, Nikhil’s eagerness to marry her could be explained by his feeling comfortable with her, just because she’d known him for so long and understood the complicated situation with his family. She suspected that he never talked about his parents with anyone else he knew in Mumbai. In spite of the wide circle of friends and acquaintances he partied with, he was essentially reserved and very lonely.
‘Bad day?’
Siddhant had stopped by her desk and was smiling at her. Shweta nodded ruefully. ‘The company I audited is disputing every comment on the report,’ she said. ‘Deepa’s going to kill me when she finds out.’
Siddhant shook his head. ‘Deepa’s a tough boss, but she’s a very fair person,’ he said. ‘She’ll take your side.’
‘I hope so.’ Shweta still felt rather guilty about the way she’d treated Siddhant, especially since he’d been so nice about it. Perhaps the fact that she and Nikhil had been childhood friends helped—Siddhant hadn’t reproached her even once, though he’d been shattered by the news. In the last couple of weeks they’d progressed to a polite friendship, and Shweta found herself liking him a lot more than she had when she’d been gearing herself up to marry him.
‘How’s Nikhil doing?’
Shweta sighed. ‘Busy. Most of his big events are on Fridays or over weekends, and he needs to be around to make sure everything’s running smoothly.’
‘So you’re not meeting up with him after work today?’
Shweta shook her head.
‘Then let me take you out for dinner,’ Siddhant said. ‘We haven’t caught up for a while, and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t stay friends even though...well...’
‘Yes, sure,’ Shweta said hastily before he could elaborate further. She had nothing else to do, and having dinner with Siddhant would help lessen the guilt she felt every time she saw him.
‘Ask Priya if she’d like to join us,’ Siddhant said.
He’d probably said that just to make it clear that he wasn’t trying to woo her back—in any case, Priya was horrified at the thought of dinner with her and Siddhant.
‘No way,’ she said. ‘It’ll be the most awkward meal of the century, what with you having just jilted Siddy-boy. Have you told Nikhil you’re going out with him?’
‘No, I haven’t,’ Shweta said, justifiably annoyed. ‘I didn’t jilt Siddhant, by the way. He never even told me he was interested. And Nikhil’s not the possessive kind—he won’t care.’
* * *
As it turned out, though, he did care—he cared a lot more than Shweta had ever imagined. She’d put her phone on silent during dinner, because she didn’t want Siddhant to think she was being rude answering calls while she was with him, and the dinner had been pleasant, with both of them carefully sticking to neutral topics of discussion. Shweta couldn’t help comparing him with Nikhil—Nikhil was terribly opinionated, often unpredictable, and she’d never been out for dinner with him without losing her temper at least once. But he made her feel alive and desired and cherished all at the same time. In stark contrast, her conversation with Siddhant was a mass of clichés and views picked up from the latest business magazines. Nice as he was, Shweta couldn’t help thinking that she’d had a lucky escape.
It was only after Siddhant had dropped her home that Shweta checked her phone and found three missed calls from Nikhil.
‘Where have you been?’ he demanded when she called him back. ‘I tried a dozen times. I was beginning to get worried!’
‘You called me exactly three times,’ Shweta said calmly. ‘My phone was on silent—I’d gone out for dinner with Siddhant.’
There was a long pause. For a second Shweta thought that the call had got disconnected.
‘With Siddhant?’ Nikhil repeated slowly, a dangerous note coming into his voice. ‘You went out for dinner with him? Alone?’
‘Quite alone.’ Shweta was annoyed now, and she let it show. ‘Now, if you’ve finished cross-examining me, I’d like to go to bed. It’s quite late.’
‘I was planning to ditch one of my biggest launches of the year because I wanted to come and spend some time with you,’ he said. ‘Obviously I shouldn’t have bothered. You were too busy to even take my calls, going out for dinner with your very eligible little toy-boy...’
He was almost spitting the words out—Shweta could feel the anger coming off him in waves. She could feel a reciprocal fury stirring in herself.
‘I suppose I should have been sitting at home next to the phone on the off-chance you’d call?’ she said. ‘Grow up, Nikhil. This isn’t the nineteenth century.’ Irrelevantly, she wondered if they’d had phones in the nineteenth century. Perhaps not, but Nikhil was too worked up to pick holes in her logic.
‘I don’t expect you to hang around waiting for my calls,’ he said through his teeth. ‘I do, however, expect you to refrain from two-timing me with the man you were all set to marry two months ago.’
‘Right—that’s enough,’ Shweta said, her voice absolutely cold with rage. ‘I’m ringing off now, and don’t you dare try to call me back. I don’t think I want to talk to you ever again.’
She cut the call. Immediately the phone began to ring again, and she switched it off, her hands trembling with anger as she punched the buttons. The landline began to ring next, and she took it off the hook as soon as it stopped. Then she locked her bedroom door, so that Priya couldn’t come in for a midnight chat, and plonked herself on her bed, staring into space. She was usually the kind of person who lost her temper and calmed down within a few minutes—now she was so furious she could hardly think straight.
Around fifteen minutes later she heard Priya come into the flat. The doorbell rang almost immediately afterwards and she assumed it was Priya’s boyfriend, probably coming up to give her something she’d left behind in the car. She could hear Priya having a muffled conversation with someone on the landing—then footsteps came up to her door and someone tried the handle.
‘Shweta?’ Priya called out, knocking on the door.
‘I’ve gone to bed!’ Shweta yelled back. She knew she looked a fright—something like an avenging goddess on a bad hair day—and she didn’t want Priya coming in and figuring out something was wrong.
‘Nikhil’s here,’ Priya said.
Oh, great. That was all she needed—a scene in her flat in the middle of the night. She’d be lucky if the building’s residents’ society didn’t turf them out—the society secretary had already started rumbling about male visitors not being allowed after eight p.m.
‘I don’t want to see him,’ she said. ‘Tell him to go away.’
Priya turned around and gave Nikhil a helpless look. She’d always had a soft spot for her flatmate’s gorgeous boyfriend, and she thought Shweta was being completely unreasonable.
‘Tell her I’m sorry,’ he mouthed, and Priya relayed the message faithfully.
‘He can go boil his head!’ was the short and rather inelegant response.
Priya almost groaned aloud in despair. Of all the things to say! No wonder Shweta ended up with all the boring Siddhant types if this was the way she treated her men.
Nikhil’s mouth was twitching with amusement, though—telling him to go boil his head sounded more like the fiery Shweta he knew than the ice maiden who’d put the phone down on him.
He’d realised he’d overstepped the mark the instant he’d made that remark about two-timing, and he was heartily sorry. He’d felt insanely jealous, though. He didn’t believe for a moment that she
had any feelings left for Siddhant, but the thought that she’d seriously considered marrying him when she wasn’t even attracted to the man was a perpetual thorn in his side. It all boiled down to the same thing—Siddhant was eligible and he wasn’t. Even if he did convince Shweta to marry him she’d always feel she’d settled for second-best. If he had any pride he’d give up on her, but the thought of spending the rest of his life without her was unbearable.
‘Ask her if I can speak to her,’ he said to Priya.
‘No, he bloody well can’t!’ Shweta yelled from inside the room. ‘Tell him to go away or I’ll call the cops.’
There was silence outside the room for a few minutes, and then Shweta heard the front door shut. There was a tentative knock on her door, and Priya said, ‘He’s gone.’
‘Good,’ Shweta said grumpily. Shouting at Nikhil had lessened her anger somewhat—and in hindsight she could understand his being upset. Though she still couldn’t see her way towards forgiving him for the accusation he’d made.
‘Can I come in?’
‘Are you sure he’s gone? Because if he isn’t I’ll call your mom right now and tell her all about your boyfriend.’
‘He’s gone,’ Priya said. ‘Stop threatening me.’
Shweta got up and opened the door. Priya studied her carefully. ‘You look like a homicidal maniac,’ she said. ‘Go and comb your hair, for heaven’s sake. What was the hullabaloo about?’
‘I had a fight with Nikhil,’ Shweta said as she hunted for a comb.
Priya rolled her eyes in disgust. ‘Really?’ she said. ‘Fancy that—I’d never have guessed.’
‘He said I was two-timing him with Siddhant.’
‘I did tell you that dinner was a bad idea,’ Priya said. ‘Though keeping loverboy on his toes isn’t a bad strategy either. By the way, I don’t think he’s gone—I didn’t hear his car start. He’s got one of those expensive jobs, hasn’t he? The engine sounds quite different. I noticed that when he pulled up in front of the building.’
Shweta went to the window. Sure enough, Nikhil’s car was still there. She pulled the curtains together decisively.
‘He can wait there all night if he wants,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to let him off so easily.’
Priya looked impressed. ‘Remind me to take lessons from you on putting boyfriends in their place,’ she said. ‘That is if you still have a boyfriend at the end of this.’
Shweta was also privately beginning to wonder if Nikhil would still be around after the way she’d behaved. Perhaps she should let him in after all. Then his words came back to her and she stiffened her resolve. She hadn’t asked him to wait outside—he should have listened to her and gone away for a while.
She drifted into an uneasy slumber after Priya left the room. Weird dreams plagued her, in which she ended up marrying Siddhant. Only at the last moment Siddhant slipped away, to be replaced by a giant alarm clock. After the fifth such dream she woke with a start. The luminous hands of her watch told her that it was three in the morning. Unable to stop herself, she got up and went to the window. Nikhil’s car was still there.
‘I give up!’ she said in annoyance, and switched her phone on. Dialling Nikhil’s number, she watched him as he sat up and took the call.
‘Hey, Shweta,’ he said.
His familiar voice sent little tendrils of longing through her. ‘Why are you still here?’
‘I’m not going until I get to see you and apologise,’ he said. ‘I was way out of line—I got jealous and lost my head.’
Shweta felt her resolve melt further at his admission. ‘There was no reason for you to be jealous,’ she said. ‘If anything, I should be the one throwing jealous tantrums about you spending all your time with models and actresses.’
‘I know. But what can I say? I’m not always rational.’
‘Will you go home now?’
She couldn’t see him clearly, but she could sense he was shaking his head. ‘Not till I see you.’
‘You’d better come up, then,’ she said in resigned tones. ‘You can’t spend the whole night in your car.’
She went out and opened the front door. He was there in a few seconds. ‘Your watchman was fast asleep,’ he said as he came in. ‘I don’t think this place is very safe.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t have opened the door if you were a burglar,’ Shweta said. ‘Go into my room. I’ll lock up and join you in a minute.’
He was sitting on her bed looking suitably contrite when she came in. ‘I’m really sorry,’ he said.
Shweta plumped down next to him. It was several days since they’d last been alone together, and her hands ached to touch him. It didn’t help that he was looking particularly appealing—his hair had grown out a little and was flopping over his forehead in just the way she liked, and he was wearing a shirt in her favourite shade of midnight-blue. There was a slight stubble covering his face, and that added to his rather dangerous attractiveness.
‘I can’t handle anyone being controlling or possessive with me,’ she said. ‘My dad isn’t possessive, but he’s always been controlling—it took me years to break away from his influence, even after I’d grown up and left home. I’m not about to let myself be bossed around again, with you telling me whom I should meet and whom I shouldn’t.’
‘I understand,’ he said, and it was clear he did. ‘It won’t happen again.’
It was getting more and more difficult to stay angry with him, and Shweta clenched her hands together in frustration.
‘I don’t even understand why you behaved the way you did!’ she burst out. He raised his head, an arrested look on his face. ‘I mean, I could have married Siddhant if I wanted to. Why would I dump him and start going around with you if it was him I wanted all along?’
Put that way, it was a difficult thing for him to explain—and in any case Nikhil wasn’t sure he wanted to tell her everything.
‘You were always thinking of him in terms of marriage,’ he said, struggling to put at least part of his thoughts across without offending her. ‘But marriage is the last thing on your mind as far as I’m concerned. I know you have your reasons. It’s just a little...difficult to deal with at times.’
‘You’re a prize idiot,’ Shweta said despairingly. ‘Of course I was thinking marriage when I thought of Siddhant! I’m pushing thirty. I want to get married and have a family. I haven’t ever had a serious relationship—all the men I know are good friends and not much else, and the few I’ve dated because I’m attracted to them turned out to be complete losers.’
‘Didn’t you consider an arranged marriage?’ Nikhil was genuinely curious now—he’d never thought about the whole Siddhant thing from this angle before.
‘There needs to be someone to do the arranging,’ she said dryly. ‘My father doesn’t believe in arranged marriages, so a marriage of convenience seemed the best bet till you came along. That’s why I was thinking of marrying Siddhant—he was pleasant enough, and he obviously wanted to marry me. And that’s a rare combination, let me tell you.’
‘Aren’t I pleasant, then?’ he asked, half-laughing, half-serious. Shweta looked into his eyes for a few seconds before getting onto her knees and leaning across to kiss him, slowly and lingeringly. It was the first time she’d had the opportunity to control a kiss in exactly the way she wanted—usually his reactions were so fast that she didn’t get to explore fully, at her own pace. Now, however, he let her do as she liked, leaning back to give her better access as she unbuttoned his shirt and slid her hands across his chest, but not initiating anything himself. She gave a long sigh when she finally dragged her lips away from his.
‘No, you’re not pleasant,’ she said. ‘You’re maddeningly attractive, and you make me want to throttle you and make love to you at the same time. Sometimes I think I won’t be able to survive another minute if I don�
�t have you. And you’re there when I need you, and you’re so thoughtful most of the time that I can’t deal with it when you stop thinking and acting like an irrational idiot. So, no, you’re not pleasant. But I love you all the same.’
‘That’s good enough for me,’ he said, and there was a slight catch in his voice. ‘Only I warn you—I’m not going to give up on convincing you to marry me.’
She put her arms around him, and this time he did respond, with a speed and suddenness that left her gasping for breath. Much later she thought that if he’d asked her to marry him at that instant she’d have agreed like a shot.
EIGHT
‘Why aren’t you agreeing to get engaged?’ Veena peered worriedly across the table at Shweta.
Nikhil was out of town for the day, and Shweta had offered to come over and spend time with Veena after work. Now, after ten minutes of being cross-examined by Veena on every possible aspect of her relationship with Nikhil, she was wishing she’d stayed back in the office.
‘I’m not sure if he’s really in love with me,’ she said.
When they’d woken up the morning after they’d made up he’d turned to her and said, ‘You know, you’re the only person I know who’s been really, really angry with me multiple times and hasn’t ended up calling me an illegitimate bastard.’
Evidently he thought that was the ultimate proof of her goodness as a human being, and that had further confirmed her opinion on why he wanted to marry her. He might not be conscious of it himself, but he felt that he was safe with her—she knew everything about him, and she accepted him the way he was. In Delhi he’d told her that the only girl he’d been in a long-term relationship with had broken off with him when she found out he was illegitimate. He’d made a joke of the incident, but Shweta couldn’t help feeling that it had affected him badly. And the facts spoke for themselves—since then he’d had one meaningless fling after another.
The One She Was Warned About Page 11