by M. V. Kasi
Ignoring him, she stared at Krish. “We are just nineteen, Krish. No one decides anything permanent at our age. And besides, what kind of an idiot thinks he is in love after a month of being together?” she mocked.
She was in the second year of college and there were plenty of guys available to get her fix. Krish was her last conquest. When he had confessed to her that he was attracted to her, she had taken him to his dorm room for a quick round of sex. But he was quite good. Good enough for her to meet him each night from the past month.
It was one of her longest hook-ups. But the last time they had been together, Krish had confessed to her that he had fallen in love with her and wanted to spend his life with her.
Which was why it was time for him to go.
“Come on Krish, stop boring me with this emotional outburst. Why don’t you join us? It’ll be fun,” she told him, patting the empty space on the bed below with a smile.
“You are sick! And trash! I don’t know why I thought I saw something beautiful in you. If only the outside matched your rotten core. You have no conscience or soul!” Krish raged and stormed out.
Sia sighed. Sex was sex as far as she was concerned. There was nothing more to it than a physical connection between two bodies. Or sometimes more bodies.
Of course movies, books and some poets would fiercely argue otherwise. And some foolish idiots like her previous conquest were influenced by them.
“He really looked upset. I feel even guiltier now,” her new conquest spoke, looking worried.
She had forgotten about him during the drama. She didn’t even remember the guy’s name or know much about him. She only knew that he was charmingly clumsy. Probably because he was a virgin until she had initiated him. But what he lacked in skills in bed like his roommate, he more than made up with his enthusiasm to be led.
She slid out of the bed, and stood up naked, smiling into the glazed eyes of her victim as he watched her.
“Tell Krish the truth. That I seduced you. That you had no choice but to follow my lead,” she said. She pulled up her jeans. “So tomorrow again, here at nine?” she asked.
Her victim nodded helplessly.
She had always chosen men who were willing to be led.
When it came to a chase, she was always the predator…
But over the past three years, after a life changing incident, she had ensured that her lifestyle had changed drastically. And even more since she had moved away from Boston.
And during the past eight months, she hadn’t dated anyone, and neither did she show any interest in doing so. She had kept a low enough profile that people didn’t pry. And the few men, who had dared to be interested in her, gave up when she froze them with her coldness.
All she was interested in was her mission. And she wasn’t going to rest until her real prey was captured. No matter how many other people she had to use or hurt.
Including Ajay.
CHAPTER FOUR
“YOU ARE RIGHT, Little Princess. Playing hide and seek is so much fun. Let me join you in there.”
Sia woke up with a gasp.
It wasn’t a dream. It was a flashback.
She hated having flashbacks. And they came at the worst times.
According to Dr. Patel, daytime flashbacks were one of the symptoms of stress caused by a trauma.
“Sorry for startling you, Sia. We’ve reached your place,” said the woman who drove her.
It was dark outside, and she could see the brightly lit lights of her house. She had purchased the house not for its beauty, but rather for the privacy.
“Thanks Anjali. Come inside for a while,” she invited, getting down the car.
Anjali smiled and took up her offer.
Anjali was an old friend and also one of the marketing directors who worked for her at the company. Over the past few days, Anjali had been giving her a ride to work.
When they stood in front of the main door, Sia scanned her fingerprints and then her irises. After which, she entered a code to finally unlock the door to get inside her house.
She also called for the maid who lived a couple of minutes away from the house.
A few minutes later, she and Anjali sat down with steaming cups of coffee and snacks.
A couple of days ago, she had told Anjali about the pregnancy. She did it because Anjali had been very concerned about the frequency of nausea and dizziness at their work.
Taking a long whiff of the strong coffee, she sat back without sipping any. “God, I miss coffee,” she remarked, staring at the coffee placed artistically in a small steel glass and bowl with regretful eyes.
“Some pregnant women drink caffeine. One cup a day, I believe. I’m sure it might be okay,” said Anjali.
“Maybe. But I don’t want to risk it.”
She had given up caffeine since she began the hormone therapy a few months ago. She didn’t want to take any chances.
At her reply, Anjali stared at her in bemusement. She had often caught Anjali doing that, and she couldn’t blame her. The old Sia that Anjali knew from much before had zero self-control over most things.
They had met in Boston during their undergraduate studies, where both of them were business majors.
During their college, Anjali had been passionate about organic and eco-friendly cosmetic items, because of which she had a chance to intern at Blush Enterprises, a small company Sia’s aunt had built into a huge corporation over the years.
And during that time, Sia hadn’t given a shit or been serious about anything in her life, let alone intern at Blush Enterprises. But things changed for her during the final year.
It was Anjali who had found her after the drug overdose.
She felt she owed Anjali her life. And it was also one of the other reasons why she had decided to work closely with Anjali in-spite of her trust issues.
“I’ll set up an early morning meeting tomorrow, to go over the new season’s product line,” said Anjali.
Sia nodded. “Sure. I’ll go through the budget with the team tomorrow, and we can pick the ones we can release over the coming season.”
When Sia moved away from Boston to open a new branch of Blush Enterprises, she looked up for Anjali and was able to find her. At that time, Anjali was working for another major cosmetic business. But after Sia offered her a better position as a creative and marketing head in Blush Enterprises, she accepted, and they began to work together.
The executive board of Blush Enterprises wasn’t too happy having a young and relatively inexperienced employee at such a critical role in the new region. But Sia knew her instincts would be right. And they had been.
Anjali and she made a good team. And with the right kind marketing and sales techniques along with Anjali’s local business contacts, the new Blush stores that had opened, met with a good amount of success within less than a year.
“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow then,” said Anjali.
Seeing Anjali off, Sia returned back to the house.
“Do you need anything else?” the maid asked her.
“No. I’m fine. You can leave now. I’ll call you if I need anything.”
The maid nodded and left. But not before giving a long speculative glance at Sia’s stomach.
The loss of appetite and weight weren’t probably the only giveaway. Sia was nauseous by simply looking at certain foods. She often ran towards the bathroom to puke her guts out.
Well, soon people would find out anyway. In fact I have to advertize my pregnancy.
As soon as the maid left, Sia locked up immediately. Her hands were trembling slightly, noticing the dark outside.
As always, she felt like a phony.
She put on a brave, confident and cool act when she was with other people. But when she was alone, especially during the nights…that’s when all the chips fell off.
She was still a coward.
She wasn’t magically cured.
The neighborhood was safe, but as always she double-checked the deadbolt
on the doors. She went to every window to make sure each one was locked. And instead of turning off all the lamps, she left most of them on, especially the ones that looked out onto the street. Just so people would think she was still awake.
Then going into her bedroom, and then into the attached bathroom, she checked behind the shower door. And then, coming outside, she placed a chair underneath the locked doorknob of the bathroom.
She did the same with the heavy bedroom door.
The house was huge. There was a watchman outside, and the maid’s quarter was close enough. But still… she felt it was always better to be prepared than be sorry.
When she finished securing her room, she made her nightly call. It was answered after a couple of rings.
“You are late,” a gruff male voice said.
“Sorry about that. You know I had an important thing to do today,” she said quietly.
There was a pause.
“You broke the news to that pretty boy?” the man asked.
“Yes.”
More silence.
“I don’t like him or trust him,” the man said.
“You have never met Ajay to form an opinion about him. He is a good person. Maybe a little too nice, especially to be used by me in this way. But it’s too late to do anything about it now.”
There was another pause.
She heard a sigh on the phone. “Are you coming to meet me tonight?” he asked.
“No, I’ll meet you tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
“Good night, Varun,” she said and hung up.
She lay on the bed, feeling slightly jumpier than usual. Rubbing her still flat belly, she let herself think of the father of her child.
Ajay.
A sweet, funny, passionate, and fearless man. She hated what she was doing with him—lying and manipulating him.
Sometimes she wanted to be honest about what she wanted from him. But there was no way she could do that. Because she couldn’t afford to trust him. And besides, it was too late, since she had already put several things in motion.
The only saving grace about the whole thing was that, during all their interactions, she didn’t have to put on an act in front of Ajay. She had always been her cold, unemotional self. But Ajay had still pursued her, as though he found the real her, quite interesting.
CHAPTER FIVE
EIGHT MONTHS AGO
Sia pushed the ear buds of her headphones into her ear and strapped her phone to her arm. She turned the volume of the thumping bass up, until it was almost at the hearing damage levels. She wanted to block out everything as she focused on her workout.
She could have gone on her usual run a little early, but she didn’t want to. She needed to hit something. Hard.
So she was at the gym, trying to pound away her frustration at a bag with jabs and kicks. Wrapping her hands with the gloves, she moved towards one of the hanging bags. Immediately, she started pummeling her fists in, as though it was someone’s face and body.
But unfortunately, the longer she threw in the punches and kicks, the worse she felt. She felt suffocated due to the lack of control she was feeling with regards to her plan.
Even though the music was blaring in her ear, and she tried to stay focused purely on the target, her mind still wandered.
It had been a two weeks since she had moved from Boston. Since then, she had been religiously working on her goal, trying to find some contacts.
And during her digging, she tried finding out that one person who had been kind to her and helped her feel safe momentarily.
But she was met with devastating news.
She had called up her old school where she was enrolled for two years from the age of seven. When the call got answered, she could hear the background noises of the school. The same old bell marking the lunch hour.
“Hi, I am calling to speak to Mrs. Sita Chandra. I know she might have retired or no longer works at the school. But can you please give me her forwarding contact number or address?” she asked.
A man answered. “I’m sorry. Mrs. Sita Chandra passed away almost fifteen years ago.”
The news stunned her.
She didn’t recall much, but she knew that her teacher had been young and healthy.
“How?” she asked, her voice breaking slightly.
“Who are you to her again?” the man asked, suspicion creeping into his voice.
She paused momentarily. “I used to be her old student. I used to live in this village with my parents. We moved away fifteen years ago. But I never forgot how kind Mrs. Chandra was to me.”
The man made some sympathetic noises.”I don’t know the exact details of her death, but I was told that she took her own life,” he said.
She was shocked again.
She couldn’t believe that part. Her teacher had been a brave and kind hearted woman. How could someone like her commit suicide?
Her heart still squeezed in mourning. Her teacher had been the only one who made her feel safe even if it was for a short while.
And now, even she was gone. Yet another loss.
It was quite frustrating that even though she had plenty of money, she didn’t have the right kind of contacts locally. All she had was the very exclusive teen hacker she had hired in the USA.
Luckily he was greedy enough and had loose morals to be tempted by her money. He worked diligently for her and found the people she wanted to find. He found the teacher’s last address and also gave her other addresses and phone numbers that she couldn’t otherwise dig up on her own.
She continued punching the bag at the gym in frustration.
Not having anyone to hold the bag still, it kept moving. She moved along with it, and kept hammering at it, until she could get most of her aggression out.
She didn’t know how much time had passed, because all the songs on her workout playlist had also ended.
She removed the phone from the strap of her arm to hit the button of another playlist.
“Need help holding the bag still?” a deep voice asked her from behind.
She yelped in surprise, hitting the kick-boxing bag accidentally, and had to jerk back, away from the heavy swinging bag. Her sudden movement dropped her phone from her hands onto the gym floor. Soon she could see half a dozen pieces of what used to be her phone scattered around.
Shit. Most of her contacts were stored in that phone. Now she’d have to waste at least a couple of hours to buy a new phone and retrieve her contacts list.
But she had bigger worries, and a more immediate danger.
On instinct, she widened her stance, ready to swing around, and kick the intruder in his face, either to dislocate his jaw or at least break his damn nose.
“Whoa, whoa, easy lady,” said a laughing man’s voice, moving away from her swing.
Shit. Maybe she shouldn’t have come alone to the gym at five thirty in the morning. But she was feeling restless that she didn’t have a good enough lead. Wanting to kill time, she had decided to go to the exclusive gym that specialized in kick boxing. She had been frequenting the place since the past two days. And she preferred to practice during early mornings when not enough people were around.
When she had arrived, she could only see some bleary eyed receptionists at the front desk. The first floor was almost empty with only two or three guys lifting weights. Ignoring them, she had gone to the second floor where the punching bags were placed.
She thought it was a perfect timing to avoid crowds. But now she was paying the price of being attacked. As soon as she turned around, the air left with a whoosh from her lungs. And it wasn’t because of her move. It was because of the face in front of her.
She kept staring at the amused boyish grin with twin dimples on the man’s face.
“That looks like one hell of a fall,” he said as he looked down at her broken phone.
She didn’t even bat an eyelid when the man knelt down and picked up the pieces.
“I think I can salvage this,” he
murmured, and began to work on fixing her phone.
His eyes were focused on the job at hand and he had an intense look of concentration as he worked.
Sia realized that she was gawking at a complete stranger like an idiot instead of demanding her personal property back.
“Wait, you don’t have to…” Her damn voice was soft and whispery as it drifted off.
The man looked up briefly at her and smiled.
That little stretch of his mouth muscles was causing havoc to her insides. And it wasn’t because of the panic she usually felt, it was because of the beautiful face in front of her. And it was having a strange effect on her.
What the hell was happening?
Her usual cold and aloof protective barrier was having a tough time emerging. Maybe it was because she felt a false sense of security around him, especially due to his blindingly good looks combined with the boy-next-door smile.
But she wasn’t the type of woman who usually got affected by some pretty boy’s face. Then what the hell was so damn special about him?
It really didn’t make any sense. He was just a guy. Weren’t they all the same? Yet somehow she felt a strange sense of connection with him. Especially with his smile.
You are just horny. You are a twenty four year old with a good imagination and a healthy sex drive.
Yes. That must be it.
She rationalized it that way, looking at his ripped body that was barely concealed in his work-out shorts.
He definitely must be one of the personal trainers at the gym. Probably hired to attract the female clients with his smile and body.
“Like what you see?” he asked, without raising his head. He was still working intently on her phone, but had a small smirk on his face.
At his teasing remark, she snapped out of whatever had possessed her.
What the hell was she doing? She asked herself again.
“I think I can fix my phone by myself,” she stated coolly, extending her hand as irritation slowly crept into her.
“I’m almost done. This is a newer model, so there are smaller parts that need to be placed in the right sequence. And besides, I caused you to drop it in the first place,” he said.