Annika Vardhan Trivedi and Shivaay Singh Oberoi find themselves engaged in a marriage of convenience orchestrated by their families at a very tender age. Shivaay had promised to Annika that he would not marry her without her consent.
Years passed...
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Annika ran behind Shivaay to talk once they were out of the meeting room, but was disappointed to find him going along with her father. She quickly took her phone and dialled his number. He took the phone and immediately stopped in his tracks, then excused himself and looked around. Annika waved at him from where she was standing. He swiped answering the call. She frowned.
"What?" he snapped.
"Hello Shivaay! We... I need to talk with you." She said.
"I have to be somewhere else. We'll talk some other day."
"When are you free, then?" She asked.
"I don't roam around with my schedule all day."
"Ok, bye Shivaay." Annika said quickly, cut the call and walked back.
Annika smiled to herself. He was right, their talk could wait; she had so much work pending and since their proposal was now official, they had to speed up the process. Gauri had said that she would tag along her until the event was over and Annika was more than happy.
"Why didn't you all tell me Shivaay was sponsoring us, before?" Annika asked her team as they sat for post-tea discussions.
"Mam, I was about to inform you when we were approached for the same, but you were tensed and Harsh sir directly contacted us to go ahead." Kabir said politely.
"Dad was involved too?" Annika asked shocked. He promised her that he would not get involved in this project.
"No mam. We approached him and he directed us. That is it." Tara clarified.
Annika was relieved. Soon they indulged in work.
***
The week passed soon and the day of launch arrived. Annika was a nervous wreck. The event organisers had done a great job and Gauri had taken up to oversee the preparations. She had already been to many events like that, but never hosted one. It was very different from what she had imagined. Her family had arrived first and her mother had personally overtaken to check on the seating arrangements for the launch and for the after party, Annika hoped everything went as smoothly.
***
Shivaay was there too. He watched her running here and there instructing people, before she disappeared behind the stage. He was impressed at how she managed to pull off a big show, he rather expected it to be a simple event, but this was beyond his expectations.
She had also managed to convince her bade papa to come to the event and that's when he realised that the Annika who stood before him was very different from the one who was before three years. He had missed so much. She had all the rights to be angry, but she trusted him; they always had something special between them. A lump formed in his throat, the announcement that was going to be made that day was going to shatter her and the trust she had on him was going to crumble.
