BEYOND THE CLOUDS (Completed)

Chapter 59

At the crack of the dawn, Shehnaaz and Sidharth boarded the Jubilee jet.

No matter how many times she had travelled in the machine, it never failed to wow her anew. They were flying to Greece. Actually, it was Sidharth who had to fly to Greece for some work at the Jubilee facility there, but Shehnaaz insisted that she tag along. The bruised memories and the aftermath of the Cairo trip didn’t allow her heart to rest.

She was just starting to get comfortable, bouncing her hands on the soft cushions of the armrests when Sidharth walked in, back to looking every bit of the suave, stylish and handsome man that he was.

“You okay sweetheart? Comfortable?” her husband’s sweet voice interrupted her thoughts. She smiled warmly at him.

“Mhm, you tell me, are you ok?” she asked as her smile faded into concern. Although with the injuries healed, the prime of his face was back but his eye was still under recovery. He did a fab job hiding the hideous bruise behind his shades but Shehnaaz knew from his pained expressions and sudden twitching of his face that it still hurt.

“Yeah, m fine. Just want to get some things rolling. I have too much of work to catch up on” with a swift but caressing peck on her forehead, his focus shifted to the laptop in his hand. His long absence from work had piled a lot of work on his back and he was slowly catching up, utilizing every waking moment.

He immersed himself into what looked like a myriad of numbers on a spread sheet while Shehnaaz just sat beside him, watching him work and slowly, her thoughts drifted back in time.
 
It had been a month since Sidharth had come back home. Shehnaaz was relieved, ecstatic even but also anxious. So much so that she hadn’t left his side for a single moment even. His injured face and three broken ribs made her mad with rage, to the point that she wanted to break through the police custody and physically harm Mr. & Mrs. Shukla in the most heinous way possible.

With an expert panel of doctors assigned to treat him, he was well looked after and was put on absolute bed rest. But the prescribed course of medicines was so heavy it made him sleep like a log for hours together. Even with the heavy sedatives he would wince with pain in his sleep, owing to his throbbing wounds and that would break Shehnaaz’s heart.

Apart from the severed ribs, his body didn’t have anymore than a few bruises, but it was his face that had suffered the most. For the initial two three days he couldn’t even speak and only communicated in sign language. She tended to each of his needs, fed and washed him. It felt like he had become a small kid who needed to be looked after.
And she did all of that patiently.

Many times, his impatience got the better out of him and because he couldn’t be verbose while showing his discontent, he threw things around in anger.

Three cell phones, two vases and a bottle of water later Shehnaaz finally put her foot down and gave him a good and a well-deserved yelling. Sidharth’s silence was evidence of his guilt and he never repeated the mistake again. Now sitting beside him in the plane she chuckled as she recalled his scared face. With her face rested on his arm, she snuggled closer and went back to her thought, leaving her busy husband to work. On the fourth day when he feebly called out for her, it felt like a festival worth celebrating.

By the tenth day, Sidharth seemed to have restored much of his energy and was slowly getting back on track.

Although he was working from home, Shehnaaz observed the seasoned businessman in him take over as he overlooked all the daily business operations globally as well as filling out the backlog due to his absence in the past few days.

Shehnaaz was leaving no stone unturned to make him realize that she had put the past behind them and was ready to start afresh on their marriage. She had now shifted back to their room, sleeping in the same bed as him, basically breathing the air that he was breathing.