After The Rain

Chapter Eighteen - Henna Bonds

The way you feel when you kiss (her)
for the first time.
Like fire within your bones.
Like your soul has returned to the water.
Like every part of you that came
from a dead star
is alive again.

- Nikita Gill (That First Kiss)

~

What do you think? That it makes a difference to me, whether you are here or not? Even you weren't there, I would have still won. In fact, you vex me so much that sometimes I pray to Devi Maiya that you don't ever come in front me!

Her words rang in his mind as he had paced the length of his room and it rang still as he drove his car to a meeting that he had already asked Aman to handle on his own. His presence was not needed but Arnav could not spend any more time idle in his room, unable to concentrate on his laptop or files. He needed work to be thrown into his face, harshly enough to overpower the sting that Khushi's words left on him.

What else was he expecting? Wasn't this their whole relationship? That they would each express the contempt that they had for each other at the earliest given opportunity? How many times had he himself said those words to her. That it doesn't matter to him whether or not she is there. And yet, it had felt so unexpected when she threw that claim at him. It had drained every ounce of elation from him. It had punctured the delight that was growing in him at the awareness of his effect on her, on the fact that he was making her blush, making her fluster. But perhaps, he thought bitterly as he took a right, he had been misreading her.

She was just annoyed with him. She didn't want him around. It doesn't matter to her.

His sour mood persisted throughout his meeting and if it hadn't been for Aman's tentative suggestions, the deal would have slipped out of his hand. It was about three hours later that he found himself alone again in his office.

He leaned against his seat, perusing the space. He had once let Khushi fall from here. Granted he had known she would fall safely on the boxes, but still, it had been a fall from a floor. She must have been hurt.

He got up agitatedly and took his car keys. As he exited his office and moved briskly past his employees - who all hurried and almost tumbled over whilst trying to get out of his way - he remembered the moments he had spent with Khushi here, all those times he terrorized her, reduced her to tears and plotted new schemes to make this place fit the description he had given her on her first day of work. Hell.

All the days he spent teasing her had rendered the memory of their beginnings vague in his mind. They all came back to him now and he hated the fact that Khushi's words were actually an understatement.

You vex me.

No, he tormented her. Wishing that he never appears in front of her was a small thing to do.

Grimacing, he started the car. He covered the twenty minutes distance in fifteen and decided to take the back door to his room, not wanting to pass through the ceremony. Nani had rallied all the men in the house this morning, telling them that under no conditions were they to lurk around the mehndi ceremony. He didn't care about that, but he was in no mood for a lecture.

A hurried muttering caught his attention, and he looked up, his surprise increasing at the sight of the figure pacing the length of the poolside. Her hands were flying in the air and her lips were moving furiously.

Amused, Arnav walked over. She stopped just as he reached behind her and he heard her say,

"Oh yes! That's all I need to say! Yes, that's what I'll say."

He waited silently, curious as to what she was doing, but there was a sudden stiff in her shoulder, and before he knew it, she turned around, her wide eyes gawking at him in wonder.