Is Love Enough ??

Chapter 22

"Who the hell does he think he is?"

Anoop's voice boomed in their room and Kamal quickly rose where she had been sitting on her bed to go place a hand on her husband's arm.

"Shhhh," she said hastily glancing towards the closed door of their bedroom, "please, lower your voice, what if someone hears?" she said unhappily.

"I don't care," Anoop said angrily, "that arrogant good for nothing son of a..." he would have gone on when he saw the look on his wife's face and paused, but just for a second and then continued, "did you see? Did you see that haughty look? That...that mocking smile on his face," he said and abruptly turned around to grip the window sill, "he dares to come to my house, and mock me," he said infuriated beyond reason.

"Please calm down, I know it was quite a shock to see him here," Kamal said anxiously, "but we cannot do anything," she said as she watched the anger rise in her husband's eyes.

"The hell I can't," he yelled, and Kamal nervously glanced at the door.

She had been just as shocked to see Aryaman Khanna standing inside their house a little while ago as had been Anoop. For others, it may have been probably just a surprise. As she had slowly recovered, she had been filled with dread. And horror. She had immediately sensed her husband's anger. Her mind had whirled with several scenarios and none of them had been good. If Anoop lost his temper then everyone will know they had been lying to all so far...or if Aryaman commented about his status of being the son in law of the family then also everyone would know of their deceit and of course the fact that he and Kirti weren't even married...or if Aryaman and Anoop locked horns then it wouldn't end nicely for anyone. Though she had seen Aryaman raise a mocking eyebrow in their direction when Guddi had called him the son in law of the family, but he had refrained from saying anything. Of course, Anoop had gone rigid when Aryaman had placed a casual arm around Kirti. It would have been disastrous if Anoop had lost the bare grip he had had on how he felt. With everyone still about and her sisters joining them a few seconds later so they didn't miss anything important Kamal had made herself move stiffly to get the puja plate and perform a little Aarti for Kirti and Aryaman. She hadn't wanted to. But with the rest of them watching their every expression and move, she had felt pressured. Maybe...maybe if Kirti and Aryaman had been married she wouldn't have felt as uncomfortable but they weren't...married. She hadn't told this to anyone yet. Not even Preeti but from what she could gather Kamal was sure Preeti suspected the truth. Once the Aarti was over she had almost instructed Suraj to carry Aryaman's bag to another room when she had paused last second realizing it would have been a huge mistake. Anoop was barely tolerating Kirti, thinking that she must have gotten married to Aryaman after she had left here, if he was ton find out that wasn't the case, Kamal wasn't sure what would happen and she refused to think. Grudgingly, she had asked Suraj to take it to Kirti's room. She hadn't missed the shrewd assessing gaze of the boy who had caused so much grief to them and will continue to do so now that he was here. Had it been any other time, any other day she knew Anoop would have thrown Aryaman out. But then had it been any other time or any other day both Kirti and Aryaman wouldn't have been here. The look Aryaman had worn on his face had been sardonic. In a second he had understood the lies and the deception they had been playing at since the day Kirti arrived. How had he known? Had Kirti told him? Is that why he was here? So he could call them liars to their faces and let everyone know of their farce. No one was that smart to just assess things like that in an instant...Kamal had thought, frowning. Or was Aryaman an exception? How will she live with the fact that Kirti was now sharing her room with a man she wasn't married to? But she has been doing it since the day she left, said a voice in her head. True, she thought but then they hadn't been in this house, under their roof. Her head was aching with this sudden change of events and instead of understanding how delicate the situation had now become, her husband was busy nursing his hurt ego. This was no time to be doing that. This was time to think about how to handle questions that will once again come their way. Or how to ensure that the truth about the lies they had told one and all didn't come out. Four more days and then everything will go back to normal. It was just a matter of four days. But as usual it will come on her. She knew it.