Love or Retribution?

Chapter - 28

Neither knew how long they stayed in that position, until his mobile rang, bringing him back to reality.

"Okay, thank you so much Nikhil", she heard him talking over the phone.

"No, I haven't talked to her yet, I will come back to the inn after making sure she is fine, you can ask Chef uncle to assign you a room, thanks again for taking care of everything at the inn Nikhil, bye", he continued before hanging up.

He leaned back against the door, the cold air started to hit him hard, he was still in his party Sherwani which did nothing to protect against the harsh chilly weather.

He ran his hands through the dress, he could not believe that it was just few hours ago he was getting ready in this dress, he knew it was going to be an eventful day, but never thought that it turn into such a disaster.

He couldn't hear her whimpering any more, he was not even sure if she was still there at the other side of the door.

He slowly got up hoping she would let him in now, when he heard the door unlatching.

She looked more devastated than he had expected her to be.

Her face was all red and her eyes were puffed up and life less.

"Subhi ma", he called and moved forward to hug her.

She immediately took few steps back, letting him in.

Bhargav hesitated for a second but then moved inside.

She went and sat on the floor, folded her knees and placed her head between them.

He too sat next to her without speaking a word.

Few more minutes passed in silence when suddenly she lifted her head and looked at him.

"I am hungry Bugsii", she said looking into his eyes.

"Heh! sorry, what!" Bhargav who was expecting her to say something emotional stumbled for a second.

"I am hungry, I haven't eaten anything from morning, can you make something for me?" she asked again.

"Ah... okay... sure, you go freshen up, I will make something", he said and got up, confused and little happy.

"Maggi, okay?" his voice came from the kitchen as she took her towel and started to go into the restroom.

"Yeah!"

Once she came out, they both ate in silence.

"Talk to me something Bugsii, this silence is making my mind to go back to things that happened today which I don't want to think or talk about yet", she said while taking a mouth full of maggi.

"What do you want me to talk about?"

"Anything! Basically, we don't know much about each other, talk about your college life, people you have met, Uncle and Aunty too if you can, as I said, anything."

"Okay, I did UG and PG at colleges in Coimbatore. Amma died around 10 years ago, cancer. I had just finished my MBA and was contemplating between owning a business and taking job, when she got diagnosed, aggressive pancreatic cancer that she died 4 months later. Appa struggled a lot to cope up with her loss that he followed her within two years. After that I didn't want to leave this place as it was the only thing that was familiar to me left, so I opened 'Subha graha'. I always had a passion towards cooking so started it as a small restaurant first and slowly developed it to what it is today, that's all", he said wiping the last piece of maggi from his plate and licked it from his finger, while she looked at him fondly with a teasing smile.