by Zeenat Mahal
The Accidental Fiancée
A Romantic Short Story
Zeenat Mahal
Version 1.0
Copyright © Zeenat Mahal 2015
Published in 2015 by
Indireads Incorporated
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the authors of their stories. This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-927826-69-0
Cover Image by Songbird Wedding, an award-winning photography company, owned by John Pesina, based out of Austin, Texas. He specializes in vibrant and creative imagery with a photo journalistic approach.
www.songbirdweddings.com
PRAISE FOR ZEENAT MAHAL
Readers who have read her earlier work should be well informed about her impeccable writing skills and those who are reading her for the first time will simply become mute spectators of what she has to offer!
Book News India
The writing is breezy and fresh. The author does a brilliant job of telling a story and giving a glimpse into the culture of high-society Pakistan of the times.
Adite Banerjie, Best Selling Harlequin Author
I loved this book. L.O.V.E.D it!
I wanted to be the one who had written it!
Reet Singh, Best Selling Harlequin Author
Dear Ms. Mahal, I love your voice …
Dear Author
TABLE OF CONTENT
Accidental Fiancée
Excerpt from She Loves Me, He Loves Me Not
More by Zeenat Mahal
About Indireads
About Zeenat Mahal
More by Indireads
The Accidental Fiancé
‘…Tell me why exactly you want that ring on your finger so badly that you’ll even succumb, pitifully I may add, to your arch enemy?’
‘Bad boy’ Akbar and ‘firebrand’ Khayyam were rivals and enemies back in college, while studying architecture. While he laughed at her feminist sentiments and views on preservation, she denounced him as a commercial sellout with no originality or talent. Humiliated in front of his admiring hangers-on, Akbar will not pass up the chance to get his revenge when fate presents Khayyam as his unlikely fiancée.
Read this delightful story to discover what happens to these wildly different personalities when they reluctantly exchange rings.
The Accidental Fiancé
Akbar’s plan was simple.
Get engaged to the girl his mother had chosen for him and delay the marriage for as long as he could. So he drove with his mother to the dingy little house that had seen better days.
Giving her a disdainful look, as he helped his mother out of the car, he queried, ‘She’s obviously marrying for money. Aren’t you afraid she’ll poison you to get to me?’ He paused and then added as an afterthought, ‘And then me to get all of my money?’
His mother gave him a look that used to send his father into unscheduled panic-attacks. Akbar told himself he was immune to them. Then he gave her his extra special smile. It worked. It always did. On everyone, he grinned.
They were shown into a drab little drawing room and he sat down on a shabby old couch. ‘Ami, I really don’t have the time, so please hurry with this whole…’
‘Akbar, be quiet, beta.’
Defeated, he got his iPhone out.
Soon there was a flurry of movement and the prospective parents-in-law came in. The father, thin and white haired, looking crushed and forlorn, had put on a bravely polite face. The mother, overweight and sad-looking, smiled a faded tired smile. Akbar felt the first stirrings of pity mingled with depression. The girl would probably be a pretty face with no personality. He chatted with the prospectives pleasantly as they waited for their daughter to make an entrance with the requisite tea-trolley. He already knew they’d claim their daughter had made ‘everything from scratch’.
At last the creaking wheels of the trolley became audible and the sound of china cups tinkling. Thank God! They could get the obligatory cup of tea out of the way and he could go back to his life. He looked towards the door out of sheer habit as it opened.
Nothing could have prepared Akbar for the sight that met his eyes. He stared in disbelief. Of all the gin joints in the world, he thought, with a grin. Did she know that she was to be paraded in front of him? He got up to receive his soon-to-be-fiancée. His arch-nemesis, Khayyam Zafar, the terror of his college days back in the 90’s, now pretending to be the demure little bride-to-be. He smirked. What a harpy she was and how devious.
Let the games begin.
She walked in and greeted his mother pleasantly, but didn’t even spare him a glance. Didn’t she care who she was being tied to for the rest of her life? The very picture of a demure eastern girl, shy with her eyes cast down, she began to pour tea. She was still oozing sexy though, with her warm skin tones and high cheekbones, and that there was that mouth…
Her most misleading weapon, he reminded himself. She had a nasty, sharp tongue in there somewhere.
As she handed him his cup of tea, he said under his breath, ‘You must be pretty desperate to get married.’
Her hand jerked, nearly spilling the tea on him. Their eyes met. Imperceptibly, hers widened, and she squared her shoulders, straightened her posture.
‘You! Is this some sick joke?’ she hissed.
‘You tell me, KK?’
‘Don’t call me that.’
And she offered him a plate.
He burst out laughing. He couldn’t help it. It was so damn funny!
Still grinning like a Cheshire cat, his eyes full of mirth and glued onto her, he addressed his not-to-be future in-laws, ‘Uncle, Aunty, I am so happy to see K…Khayyam after all these years! We were in college together, you know.’
Khayyam glared, then closed her eyes and clenched her teeth while she mustered control. Letting her breath out slowly, she opened her eyes, pasted a smile on her face and turned towards her parents.
‘Really? How wonderful Khayyam,’ her father gushed. ‘Why don’t you two sit and talk…and…we’ll be right here. Bhabi come and sit here. We should give them a chance to catch up.’
They moved towards the other couch, which was only two feet away but apparently that was all the privacy he was willing to accord them.
Akbar turned towards Khayyam, ‘What were you thinking, KK? Why did you agree to this?’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
He scoffed.
‘You expect me to believe that you don’t have an ulterior motive? You agreed to marry me, the most, what was it again, ‘morally bankrupt man with pedestrian creative instincts’ you’d ever seen? You agreed because you have an agenda and I want to know what it is. Or have you changed from the rebellious firebrand you were, to a commonplace girl who just wants to snag a husband?’
She looked angry but almost as if she didn’t want to be. She said quickly, ‘Okay look. I know what this looks like but we have to go through with it for now…and I’ll…’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Why is what?’
‘Why do I have to go through with this? I have the perfect opportunity to embarrass you. Why would I not take it KK?’
‘Because you can’t embarrass our families like this and you want to get even with me, not them. Or are you still the arrogant, selfish, spoilt kid that you were in college?’
‘Ah, the nostalgia of youth,’ he mocked. Her words still
stung.
The little…
‘Look Akbar, if you go through with this…farce, just think of the satisfaction you get out of it. You get to show people that you won in the end. I was no better than all those girls in college who drooled over you.’
Khayyam gave Akbar quick look and was relieved to see that he was interested in this new angle. He was frowning but there was a speculative gleam in his dark eyes now.
‘Keep talking, KK.’ He watched as Khayyam took a deep calming breath as if to control her anger, which he secretly thought was completely uncalled for.
She said with a half-smirk, ‘You’ll be the hero. I’ll be the weak-minded girl who falls for brawn and not brains…’
‘You’re doing it again, KK.’
‘Fine…I’ll be the girl who falls for you.’
He smiled and nodded.
‘Now you’re talking, KK. I like that angle. And I can see you really want this. I’ll find out why eventually, so why not tell me yourself?’
She didn’t reply.
That had to be a first, he thought surprised, as he looked at her sideways yet again. Her face looked stricken and it was apparent she was trying to control her emotions.
‘Are you planning on defending your beloved local ruins with my name attached to yours? Because unlike you, I have been building landmarks and making a name for myself, so obviously my name counts and yours…not so much,’ he taunted.
She rolled her eyes. Then shrugged and said casually—too casually, ‘It’s just that my…parents want this and…’
Akbar looked at her squarely now, and while there was a flash of panic that showed for an instant in her eyes, she stared back at him steadily. There was a strange expression on her face. Almost as if she were…oh, wow…pleading? Akbar sniggered.
The moron knew. Khayyam could tell. He was grinning at her with that same devilish look he had used on all the girls in college. His eyes were dancing with joy.
He whispered, ‘If I do this, you owe me big time and I will collect the debt.’
She had no option. Wearing the same plastic smile, she nodded with relief. Too eagerly perhaps, because at once he said, ‘What a come down, you’ve had KK. You actually seem visibly relieved to be getting engaged. At your age I can understand the desperation.’
‘I’m the same age as you…’
He interrupted smoothly, and with obvious relish, ‘But for a man to be twenty-eight and unmarried is nothing out of the ordinary, but a woman to be all of twenty-eight and unmarried. Tsk, tsk, probably desperate, and sexually frustrated.’
‘Shut up you sick juvenile…’
‘You want me to put a ring on your finger?’
Khayyam fumed in silence for a full three seconds. But she desisted from another attack.
Akbar watched in smug satisfaction. ‘This is going to be so much fun, KK.’
Thankfully, Khayyam’s parents got involved after that and Akbar didn’t get a chance to take any more digs at her. With a sinking heart she realized that she had just committed herself to voluntary torture. And boy, did Akbar Rasul know how to vindicate himself.
She got the first dose of it the very next day. Her parents were all aflutter when she came down into the living room. There was a huge bouquet on the center table. Red roses. Ugh! So clichéd and…gag…over the top, just like the man who’d brought them.
‘Khayyam, Akbar is here to take you out for lunch,’ her father beamed.
Akbar, who had stood up as she entered, said with a mocking smile at her, ‘Hello, again.’
Her father was overtly cheery. Unusually so. She didn’t have the heart to resist. She smiled, ‘If you’re okay with it, Abba.’
‘Yes, yes. Go ahead,’ her father practically shooed them out of the room.
‘You’re such a hypocrite!’ Akbar said as soon as they were out of earshot. ‘All sweetness and sting-less with your parents, and for the rest of humanity you’re nothing but…KK.’
‘Well at least I’m not a walking cliché.’
‘What? You don’t like red roses? There isn’t a woman in the world who doesn’t like red roses. But then you’re not a woman are you, KK. Which is why instead of saying thank you nicely, you’re complaining.’
‘Would it kill you to have some style, Akbar? You’re still stuck with romance moves from your college days.’
‘Darling, I don’t know who you’re calling style-deprived, because this man in front of you is a class act. See this thing I’m driving? It’s called a Mercedes in case you didn’t know. It’s synonymous with class.’
‘I bet your clothes are branded and your shoes are Italian.’
‘You sound accusatory, KK. Are you still stuck in your graduate mentality of…what was it…oh yeah, equality, fraternity and some such shit?’
‘Stop calling me that or I swear I’ll…’
‘You’ll what? Not marry me? Break my heart and walk all over it? Oh, but wait…that’s you if I refuse! Tell me why exactly you want that ring on your finger so badly that you’ll even succumb, pitifully I may add, to your arch enemy?’
‘Nothing that concerns you. What we are going to do about this engagement however, does concern you. My plan is…’
‘Whoa, hold it right there, KK. Your plans don’t feature in this gig okay? You begged me to put that ring on your finger…’
‘I did not beg you!’
‘Yes you did, with your big beautiful brown eyes…it was heart-wrenching, KK. Now, this is what you’re going to do. You’re going to act like a devoted fiancée until the time I decide to call off the engagement, in a few weeks.’
Khayyam was secretly quite relieved so she kept her peace.
They stopped at a red light. Leisurely Akbar turned towards her and continued with open enjoyment, ‘You’ll be pleasant and accommodating, you’ll dress up nicely to please your future husband-who won’t be, but no one needs to know that, and you’ll thank me nicely when I give you roses.’
‘As long as they’re not red.’
‘You have to have the last word, don’t you?’
‘So it would seem.’
Akbar had to hand it to her; she didn’t lose her cool, or show how much she resented his power over her. Why though? What was hanging over her head that she’d expose herself to his humiliation and taunts so easily? But then he thought smugly, that wasn’t really his problem and he was going to take full advantage of the situation because he hadn’t had so much fun in a long time.
The very next day Akbar came to Khayyam’s house with his mother and his uncle to make it official. He brought with him a diamond ring, the size of which made Khayyam flinch. It was the most vulgar and ostentatious thing she’d ever seen and it weighed a ton.
As Akbar put it on her finger, he said with a charming smile that fooled everyone but her, ‘I chose the ring myself because I know exactly how much you like this kind of thing.’
She smiled, with her eyes daggers drawn to his jeering ones. But she couldn’t say a single thing as he laughed cheerfully in her face.
***
It became a habit with him to call on her for dinner dates or lunches. It was so much fun goading her, especially in front of her parents when she pretended to have reformed and couldn’t bite back.
He recalled clearly the first time he’d seen her in college. He’d been besotted with her dusky beauty, until she’d started speaking vociferously about her favorite causes—feminism, helping the marginalized and saving old buildings. And then she’d gone head to head with him in their first year of college, competing for the prestigious Punjab Student of the Year Award. It was to be judged by none other than his idol Shoaib Peerzada. Akbar considered him to be the greatest Pakistani architect of all time and desperately wanted to impress him.
Her architectural project had been impractical but ‘green’ and she’d snagged the coveted prize that he’d been after. Just swiped it clean from under his nose, and done it while openly criticizing him and his ‘loose ways with eve
rything that should be sacred’. Just because he’d designed something that represented commercial contemporary architecture as a replacement of the old, dilapidated buildings of the city, which were practically a heap of stones and dust, even if they were historical. She’d come down on him and his project like a ton of bricks. It had been epic. It was a politically correct decision for the administrators of the award, but she’d taken it as a validation of her stance.
She sat across from him now, absentmindedly eating her salad. He recalled his lame-ass attempt to bury the hatchet at graduation. In her typical KK-way, she’d been arrogant and dismissive. His youthful fragile ego had been bruised badly. She shot him down in front of all his friends and all the girls who worshipped the ground he walked on. She’d called him quite a few epithets that were probably true and a few that weren’t but it was that last thing she’d said that still rankled.
‘Akbar Rasul, you’re a depraved, grossly over-confident, spoilt boy, without an iota of real talent! What you have is a pedestrian and cheap desire to make a name for yourself by razing to the ground what men greater than you have accomplished. And if you think your charming little act is going to work on me, you’re sadly mistaken. I’m not your average bimbo, and you’ll never be able to fool me, so why don’t you take your offer of friendship somewhere else, and start planning your vulgar high-rises?’
He bristled at the memory.
What better way to put an end to their feud other than right where it had started? He was going to have to intimate their old classmates with this latest development.
***
Akbar invited Khayyam to dinner but forgot to divulge the delicious little detail about their classmates joining them. He looked for her reaction as she walked in with the bad boy as her fiancé, in front of all the people who had once hero-worshipped her. Her expression of stunned disbelief was as rewarding as could be expected.