The Marriage Contract

5 - The Marriage Contract

It's you from the video! The words kept ringing in her ears from the moment they were out of her mouth. If regret could be a face, it would be her —at this exact moment, with her hands covering her mouth and her eyes looking around at the unhappy faces in the room, frantically, in panic.

"Yes, that was my famous butt you saw in the video." Abhimanyu replied, making light of an otherwise very awkward situation. "It did look pretty smashing, if I must say so myself. Do you think I should do a nude bum photoshoot, Neil? For the fans." Abhimanyu's voice was sarcastic whilst he look a jibe at Neil, his eyes hard and his hand sticking out pointedly towards Richa and Akshara, taking a dig at the word "fans".

Akshara looked at Abhimanyu with distaste in her eyes as she remembered the entirety of that video. She remembered him smashing that poor guys' phone on the ground and then walking away. But to be honest, if someone had been filming her private business while she was fully naked, she would have had a similar reaction too. But that also did not absolve Abhimanyu from his actions. And why was she thinking too much about him? He was just a job. A mark.

"Abhimanyu." Harshvardhan Birla warned, trying his best to control his son's pesky behaviour.

Akshara watched Abhimanyu with curiosity dancing along her eyes as he paid no heed to his father Harshvardhan's warning and instead just rolled his eyes whilst taking his seat at the kitchen island confer. She didn't need to be Sherlock Holmes to notice that he was clearly unhappy with whatever arrangement his father and Neil —as he had called the shorter man standing beside him —had made in cahoots with Richa.

She wanted to sympathize with him, she really, really did, but she was also aware that it was not her place to say anything. She was just here to do her job, fulfill the requirements of her contracts and in return cash in on a big paycheck. Easy money. But looking at Abhimanyu, she felt like she was going to earn every single penny.

"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to blurt that out —about the video. I just...I just was shocked. I didn't expect to see him here." Her voice trailed off as she noticed Richa shooting daggers at her with her eyes.

Harshvardhan cleared his throat, shooting Akshara with a side eye, not impressed with her chatterbox self. "Well anyway, shall we begin?"

"Yes." Richa nodded, as she took out 5 copies of a legally binding contract, resting in a clear case cover and handed it out to Harshvardhan, Abhimanyu, Neil, Akshara and kept one copy to herself. "I made some amendments."

"Amendments?" Harshvardhan Birla asked, pointing an eyebrow as he flipped through the contract.

"Ah, yes. I had to. Seeing how..." Richa paused to look at Abhimanyu who oblivious to the room around him was just staring unabashedly at Akshara —who God bless her innocence was engrossed in reading the contract to notice the lion waiting on his delicacy of a prey.

"Seeing how what?" Harshvardhan questioned, snapping Richa out of her thoughts.

"Seeing how...colourful...Dr. Birla's life is." She finished, trying her best to stay neutral.

"Thanks. And I take pride in that." Abhimanyu replied, interrupting the conversation, casually.

Harshvardhan and Richa ignored Abhimanyu's notorious behaviour and went back to flipping through the 10 page contract.

"So the contract is very basic, like we discussed over the phone. But before we go into that, I would like to inform you that I have raised my fee. So instead of 30, you are now gonna to pay me 50 lacs."

"50? Why?" Harshvardhan asked, appalled.

"Because finding someone who has no prior history with Dr. Birla was a task in itself. There are almost next to zero girls whom Dr Birla has not slept with. If  she has two legs and is breathing, then there is a high chance she's slept with him."Richa explained.