BEYOND THE CLOUDS (Completed)

Chapter 24

The tough lessons that life taught had turned him into a control freak, who had trained his mind and body to think ahead of time and be prepared for whatever challenges were thrown at him.

His over protectiveness for people dear to him than his life was also a result of the same. Up until now, he had exercised his rights to look out for only two people.

One was his bade papa, until he was alive and now it was Shehnaaz.

From the first look itself, his heart had sealed the deal with Shehnaaz and he had set about making every effort to woo her.

Sometimes when he was sitting in the calm of his office, he often looked at her picture hidden in a private folder on his laptop and thought about how fortunate it was that she was reciprocating with the warmth that he felt in his heart.

Although there was no real confession from both their sides but her genuine smile and gestures were a proof enough for him that she was in this as deep as he was.

From his childhood, when there had been hard times, one question had fogged his mind from time to time, Why Me? Why me all the time? But still he had willed himself to move out of the rut he was constantly getting pulled in.

For the first time in his life, he had felt like without any conscious effort from his side lady luck had finally shone on him and sent this pretty angel into his life.

And he had no intention to lose her. So he had done what he did to ensure his bade papa was safe at all times.

From the first time he had met her in the airplane, he had assigned a security personnel who was to follow Shehnaaz every place she went, discreetly ofcourse and protect her from any potential threat or report about her safety and whereabouts otherwise.

This is how Sidharth had come to know about her flying to Jeddah and through the security tail only had Sidharth discovered about her hidden mother.

He was sitting in an important meeting with a few French delegates, when the guy had called him and informed him about her purpose of Pune visit.

The real one.

After that Sidharth had just been present physically in the meeting.

His mind had drifted away going through every word that Shehnaaz had said before she left yesterday. She had lied to him, he didn’t understand why, since the other person in question was only her mother.

But that didn’t take away the fact that she had lied about visiting Kartik’s relative rather than telling him about her mother.

Did she not tell him about her mother because she was in a mental health asylum, out of shame maybe.

No, she;s definitely above all that. His mind reasoned again siding with Shehnaaz, leaving him grappling helplessly for a clue which would explain her deceit.

He felt a dull ache in his chest, as his anger built up slowly. He wanted the meeting to be over soon, but to his bad luck, before this meeting got over, the people from his next scheduled meeting had arrived and he could afford only a break of two minutes to use the restroom before he put his game face and headed to his cabin.

Being a thorough professional and an astute businessman, he sat through the extra long meeting and pretended to be an attentive audience, but whatever the two gentlemen seated in his cabin spoke, was literally bouncing off his head as his mind was trained on a single question.

Why did she lie? Unable to handle the stabbing feeling of betrayal, he turned to his favorite friend that helped him drown until he couldn’t even remember his name.