Pretend To Be Mine

by P. G. Van

  “I got to go now… don’t want to get into trouble with the missus.” He smiled into the phone before ending the call.

  He pressed her palm to his lips and mumbled, “Is our stalker back?”

  “Yes,” she whispered looking up at him as he turned around to face her.

  He cupped her face with his hands and gently ran his lips over hers. “I am going to catch that guy tonight.”

  “Is he still taking pictures of us?” she asked against his lips, her hands running all over his chest.

  “I can’t see when my eyes are lowered.” He ran his warm lips along her jawline.

  “Give me a boost, and I’ll straddle your hips with my legs. Hug me, and you’ll be able to look at him.”

  “You never cease to amaze me.” He laughed pulling her up, so he was carrying her, her eyes level with his. Dheeraj averted his eyes and saw that the photographer was still clicking pictures.

  “Yes, he is taking our picture, and I want to find out why and who he is working for. Get off me and do something to me before running away from me and run in his direction but not toward him,” Dheeraj instructed.

  Anjali nodded and let out a loud squeal before loosening her legs around him. Her feet landed on the soft sand, and she started running away from him. She could hear Dheeraj behind her for a few moments, and then he was off on a tangent to ambush the man who was secretly taking their pictures.

  “Be careful,” she called out following him and saw that the man was running away from them. She watched as Dheeraj sprinted to the man, his long legs giving him the advantage to close the gap between him and the cameraman.

  By the time Anjali caught up with them, the man was being held down by the security guards, and Dheeraj was looking at the pictures he had taken.

  “Baby, look he has been taking pictures of us all along.” Dheeraj was angry but managed to sound like they were a couple.

  “But why? They are such private moments of ours.” Anjali faked unhappiness.

  “I will press charges with the local authorities if you don’t tell us why you were taking pictures of us.”

  The man was a local, and his English was not good. All he managed to say was that he was given an assignment to take their pictures with no specific requirements. Dheeraj let the man go after taking the memory card in the camera and warned the man never to show up in front of him again.

  Anjali watched as the man was escorted out of the resort by the guards. “You should have deleted the pictures.”

  “I want to see what pictures he got of us. We may be able to use some for other purposes when we go back. These can come in handy.”

  “You are unbelievable.” She laughed following him back into their suite.

  “I know.” He grinned, cockily.

  “I want to look at the pictures with you. I’m worried about the kind of pictures he took.”

  The next thirty minutes they spent looking through a thousand-odd pictures the man had taken of them over the past few days.

  “This is scary. I had no idea this man was following us all along.” She shook her head in disbelief and wondered if it had anything to do with someone wanting to prove Dheeraj to be gay and why someone would go out of their way to prove it. What would they gain?

  “I suspect just one person who could be behind this, and it confirms my suspicion.”

  Anjali looked at him. “Is this someone trying prove their hunch to be true?”

  “Huh?” He looked confused.

  “That article about…” She couldn’t get herself to complete her sentence.

  “Geetanjali, what are you talking about?”

  She suddenly felt embarrassed. “Dheeraj, I thought… Is the contract about that article?”

  “What article?”

  “Okay, forget it. What is this about?” She knew at that point she had made a bad assumption that Dheeraj wanted a fake marriage to prove he was not gay.

  Dheeraj looked at her in silence, adamancy spilling in his glare.

  Anjali took a deep breath. “There was a blog online about you where the blogger wondered if you were gay because you’re never seen with women in the city.”

  “What? What in the…”

  “I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have made assumptions.”

  “I don’t believe this, and you thought that was the reason?”

  She nodded, and he ran his fingers through his hair as if in frustration.

  “Why the act then? Who is it that is watching you?”

  “Watching us. An old friend who is no longer on good terms with me. He knows me too well to the point where he suspects I am putting on a show with the marriage.”

  “Why does he care?”

  “Geetanjali, I was hoping for it to be a little longer before I told you about the real reason for me to ask you to do this.”

  The tone of his voice got her worried. “Dheeraj, what is it?”

  He shook his head and took a deep breath. “I really wanted you to get used to me, and I hoped to have more time… time to figure out ways to convince you not to if you choose to step away from the deal.”

  “You are really scaring me now. What are you talking about?” The time they had spent together was short, but they hung out long enough to know something about each other. She was confident it would not be something illegal or unethical, but she just could not figure out what he was so worried about.

  “I don’t even know where to start.” Dheeraj looked dejected.

  “Okay… let’s talk about this friend turned foe.”

  He nodded. “His name is Raghav, and he is my childhood friend. I’ve known him longer than I’ve known Richa. He and I were so thick we kept up the friendship even when I was in America and started a joint business venture with him.”

  “Is this really something I need to know about?” she asked, not seeing any correlation.

  “Yes, you do. Raghav is my age, and even though there was almost a five-year age gap between him and my younger sister, I set them up, and they hit it off. They got married, and I thought she was really happy… until the accident.”

  A dark and dingy feeling started to creep up around Anjali. She didn’t remember any of his close family who attended the wedding, not even his sister. That got her to assume the worst.

  “What happened to her?”

  Dheeraj gritted his teeth. “Janu died a miserable death… all because of him.”

  “Dheeraj, I’m sorry.” Anjali put one arm around him and held him close.

  “It was my fault, I should have known what I was doing. I am the reason for my sister’s death. She was barely twenty-three when she died. She didn’t deserve…”

  Anjali didn’t let him go on. She stood up to hug him, and he buried his face into her belly. A shudder passed through her at his sudden burst of emotion, but she comforted him. She felt the moisture from his eyes through the thin material of her tank top.

  She let him hold her in silence for an uncertain amount of time before he pulled back to look up at her. “When I said I was desperate, I wasn’t kidding.”

  “Dheeraj, how can you hold yourself responsible for your sister’s death?”

  “I should have known… known that my best friend was not the same guy I knew. He had turned into a druggie, and when the accident happened, he was so high on coke that he ran over a few homeless people, killing them, and then leaving my injured sister in the car and absconded.”

  Anjali gasped at the atrocity of the event.

  “That bastard, if only he had brought Janu to the hospital in time, she would have survived. I hate him so much I want him to rot in jail forever for what he did,” Dheeraj growled.

  Anjali saw the sadness in his eyes and was following what he was saying, but she could not figure out how she fit into the puzzle and what made him desperate for her to agree to the contract.

  As if he sensed her apprehension, he shook his head and looked at her. “My sister was seven months pregnant, and yet, he left her in the
damaged car to die. She was in the back seat lying flat when the accident happened.”

  “I’m sorry. No one deserves this kind of a loss.”

  “Geetanjali…” he stood up to cup her face with his hands. “I need your help. I need your help to raise my sister’s daughter… the premature baby you cared for, twenty-four hours straight.”

  Anjali’s head started to spin when she realized the connection. He wanted her for the baby. To care for his sister’s child. “Why…”

  He didn’t let her finish. “I watched you care for the baby the night when every road in the city was blocked due to the rain. You cared for her tirelessly when the next shift nurse couldn’t make it into work. I want you to be the one to help me raise her.”

  She sat next to him feeling numb. Was it because she didn’t expect this much sorrow hidden inside him or was she worried about caring for a child? Caring for premature babies was her profession, and she was good at it. When she graduated college as a pediatric technician and could not pay for an advanced degree, she became a nurse practitioner specializing in premature babies.

  “How is this linked to Raghav, your brother-in-law?”

  “That bastard. He is trying to use his child to get out of jail claiming I am unfit to care for his daughter, although I have legal guardianship of her as per my sister’s last wish.”

  Anjali gasped inwardly when she figured out the link. “He wants to show you as unfit by claiming you will never have a family or be able to raise a child.”

  “I raised my sister as a teenager after my parents passed away in an accident, and he knows that. He knows too much about me… knows how I feel about marriage so he is using it against me.”

  “Dheeraj, I wish you’d told me this sooner but…” She paused when he looked at her, his eyes expecting the worse.

  “I couldn’t take the risk of you not accepting.”

  “You need a caregiver, a nanny… not me.”

  “I need you… the person who took care of a stranger’s child like your own.” His eyes held an intense look.

  “Is this the part where you said I could walk away if I chose to?” She kept her eyes trained on him.

  Dheeraj responded after a long moment of silence.

  “Yes. I… I will understand if you chose not to continue with the contract.” He suddenly sounded dejected.

  She smiled and bent down to plant a kiss on his cheek. “Now I know what you meant when you said, ‘Only you can do the job’ when we met the first time.”

  “Are you willing to stay in contract?” he asked, his voice wobbling.

  “Yes, it’s like I get my job back plus a boatload a money.” She smiled.

  “Geetanjali, I have one more thing to tell you. You should be mad about this, and I will understand if…”

  “Now what?”

  “I’m the reason you lost your job. I made the hospital fire you, so I could hire you. I’m sorry… I needed you.”

  Anjali took a step back from him to look at him. “You did what?”

  “Geetanjali… I…” His voice was lost in a loud slashing sound, and he felt the heat creep up his cheek matching the fire burning in her eyes.

  He rubbed his jaw slowly and looked at her feeling the burn from her slap. “I’m sorry, I totally deserved that.”

  “You deserve a lot more, but I don’t want you caught with swollen cheeks when we go out to dinner.”

  He smiled at her as she reached for the cold beer can from the small fridge and placed it on his cheek.

  “This is going to cost you,” she growled, the edge of her mouth curling up.

  “As I said, I want the baby. She is all I have left of my family, and you can have half my net worth if you choose.”

  “I don’t want what’s not mine. You just need to pay a ten percent penalty for keeping me in the dark,” she said in a firm yet playful tone.

  Dheeraj let out a victorious laugh and pulled her into a bear hug. “I love you, Geetanjali.”

  Chapter 8

  Almost a week later, Anjali sat next to Dheeraj in the back seat of the SUV as they pulled into the parking lot of the hospital where she started her career. Her stomach felt queasy as the vehicle came to a stop, and she turned to look at Dheeraj. The man who drove them to the hospital held the door open for Dheeraj, but he sat frozen in his seat.

  Anjali reached out and took his hand in hers. “Dheeraj, let’s go.”

  He turned to look at her, his masculine features appearing tender giving him a vulnerable appearance. At that moment, he did not look to be the man who commands more than half the economy of the city—the powerful businessman.

  Dheeraj took her hand and looked at her for a long moment in silence.

  “Anjali… I don’t know if I can do this.”

  “You know you cannot, but I am here to help,” she assured him.

  “What if…”

  She didn’t let him finish. “Mr. Varma, I have a job to do. If you want to stay here, be my guest.”

  Anjali pushed open the door and stood next to the car waiting for him. “I… I need you to show up in the hospital to bring the baby home. Will you please move?”

  Dheeraj finally smiled and came around to stand next to her. He looked down at her and held her hand. “Help me raise this child as my daughter… give her to me.”

  Anjali had an unexplained teary moment yet again and laughed taking his hand and leading him into the hospital. “I will.”

  They walked into the hospital looking the part of a happy and nervous couple who are about to become parents. A nagging voice inside her head reminded Anjali not to get attached to the life or the people. She had work to do once she gets the money to keep a promise her father broke many years ago.

  Anjali smiled at the head of the hospital, Manish, her previous employer, as he walked down the hallway to greet them.

  “Hello, Anjali. Good to see you again.”

  “Thank you, sir.” She smiled at Manish.

  “I hope Dheeraj told you about everything. Just so you know, I was opposed to letting you go, but I don’t have much choice when the chairman insists.” Manish winked at Dheeraj who still had a cold expression on his face.

  Anjali managed to smile in spite of the confusion in her head.

  “I am so happy you two found love as a result of what happened with…”

  Dheeraj didn’t let Manish continue. “Where is the baby, Manish. We want to take her home today.”

  “The Pediatric Department head is performing the final assessment as we speak. You will be able to take her home today.”

  “Any objections to release her to me?” Dheeraj’s voice was firm.

  “No objections from a medical perspective but… we need a name for the baby for her records.”

  Dheeraj stopped and looked at Manish like he said the weirdest thing ever.

  “Don’t tell me you haven’t thought of a name for her. We need to send that to the court in this matter,” Manish’s tone was soft.

  “We have short-listed some names,” Anjali offered when Dheeraj looked at Manish, a blank expression on his face.

  “Good. Follow me, please.”

  Anjali took Dheeraj’s hand in hers, her apprehensions about the responsibility of taking care of a child pushed to the back of her mind. He looked down at her as if grateful for the comfort, and she again saw the tenderness she saw in him when they were in Bali when he talked about his sister.

  She stopped right outside one of the rooms in the Premature Care Department when she felt a tug on her hand. She looked up at Dheeraj, but his eyes were downcast, and it was hard to read him.

  “Manish, sir. Please give us a few minutes.”

  “I will wait at the nurses’ station for you.” Manish left them alone in the long hallway.

  Anjali looked up at him, her hands reaching up slowly to slide over his clenched jaw. “Dheeraj, what’s the matter?”

  “Maybe he is right.”

  “Who?” She looked up at him
.

  “Raghav. Maybe he should be the one to care for her.”

  Anjali’s first response was to remind him that his brother-in-law was a drug addict, but she knew it wasn’t her place. Taking care of the child was her job not give him advice. “What makes you think that?”

  “I suck at this…”

  “How do you know that?” She kept her voice steady.

  He looked at her, puzzled. “I suck because I’ve never done this… taking care of a child.”

  “Isn’t that the reason for me being here?”

  “What happens after you leave?” he whispered sending tremors through her.

  She took a deep breath. “As agreed, you will hire a nanny when she no longer needs my care. She will go to school, and you will spend time with her.”

  Dheeraj put his arms around her bearing the heaviness in his heart on her shoulders. She ran her hands on his back. “Dheeraj, you love her… you will figure it out. I’m only needed because she is so little now.”

  “I need you,” he mumbled, and his breath swept some warmth on her neck.

  “Let’s take her home.” She pulled back to look at him, and he nodded.

  “We need to give her a name.” His voice was weak.

  “What do you want to name her?”

  “I don’t know… I can’t think of anything.”

  She smiled at him. “How about Inara? Ray of light, your ray of hope.”

  “I like that name… Inara.” Dheeraj looked relieved.

  *****

  A couple of weeks passed, and Anjali fell into a routine and took care of the newborn and enjoyed the bouquet of flowers that arrived for her every day. She saw very little of Dheeraj as he was away most of the two weeks on business but every bunch of flowers had a sweet, sometimes cheesy message, and she enjoyed them. He had asked her to teach him how to handle his niece, but every time she tried to put the baby in his hands, his muscular arms trembled.

  Anjali breezed through the next couple of weeks as the baby slept most of the time. The baby was going through some stomach issues, and that was the only time she would cry—high pitched and surprisingly loud for a baby of that age.

  It was late morning, and she had put the baby down for a nap and was in the shower when she heard the sound she dreaded most. The baby had woken up and was crying, and it was out of the norm. It was the first time the child was waking up from her sleep wailing so loudly, so high- pitched that she could hear even as she washed her hair.