Gehraiyaan.

Chapter 22

"Hey", he smiles faintly and swings the door open, slowly. "Come in", his voice cracks for a split second, before he steps away from the door, allowing me to walk in.

I ran the thought of meeting him a thousand times over, before showing up at his doorstep.

A part of me simply wanted to put an end to everything, but a major part of my heart desperately wanted to talk through things with him. Perhaps, today is the last chance we have to sit down together to share a conversation and I honestly don't want to live with the regrets of letting the chance slip off my fingers. I'm living a life full of regrets.

His spacious apartment is empty; it's just the two of us and an abundance of light. I trail behind him, without uttering a word, towards the long couch.

"How have you been?", Darshan gestures me to sit down. "The same", I force a smile at him and settle down, pushing my hair behind my ear.

"Did you have breakfast, Navya?", Darshan questions and I answer him with a brief nod.

"Do you want a cup of coffee?", Darshan asks next and I shake my head in disagreement. "One cup of coffee won't hurt. At all", his voice softens and there's nothing much I can tell him after that.

"Come to the kitchen with me. There's no one at home to give you company", he invites and I follow him to the kitchen.

He turns on the stove, and pour two mugs of fresh-milk into a pot. Within three minutes, he has managed to create a mess in the kitchen, with milk spilt on the marbled counter and spoons simply tossed around. It sort of triggers my OCD.

I fetch a napkin and wipe away the milk that's running around the space. "I rarely visit the kitchen. Usually, my cook does everything - from making me coffee to dinner", Darshan tells me. "That's extremely obvious", I smile at him, a little.

"He has made me promise him that I'd never visit the kitchen because it takes longer for him to clean the mess than cook a buffet", Darshan says and I chuckle, softly.

"Where is he now?", I look around his apartment. "He went back to his village to meet his kids. He offered for a replacement but I cannot going through the hassle of telling a brand new cook about my entire menu, how much salt I take and all of that", he sighs. Right. Rich people problems.

"Plus, the replacement is a woman. It'll be uncomfortable to be around a woman I don't know, I usually roam around shirtless. She'll think I'm about to abuse her, or something", he rolls his eyes.

"Right. There are stories about your apartment going around, anyways", I hint and he looks at me perplexed. "In the office?", he narrows his eyes and I nod my head, making him laugh.

"I'm more than interested to know what they're saying!", he leans against the marbled counter with his arms crossed. "That you bring women in and do...stuff with them", I subtly tell him.

"Stuff, as in - sex?", he straight up questions, laughing hard. "Maybe, I don't know. Ask your employees", I shrug, awkwardly, taking my gaze away from him. "I would love to remain under disguise and listen to what people have to say about me. That would be so fucking fun!", he talks, while stirring coffee with sugar.

"Doesn't it make you mad?", I look at him, keenly. "Well, if it was true and if the truth spilled out, then definitely", he casually says.

"Rule number one in life is to never take things personally, Navya. People will have something or the other to talk about you and if you know that it's not true - laugh it off and move on", he smiles at me and slides my mug of coffee across the counter.

He sandwiches his warm mug of coffee between his palms and turns around, leaning his back against the kitchen counter, and right beside me, leaving a unnoticeable gap between our shoulders.