Echoes Of Destiny | Multicouple ✓

33. ECHOES OF FLAME

Avya

As I settled myself on the leather chair, I avoided looking at the blue-grey eyes that followed my every movement.

They were trained on me as I took in everything from my surroundings.

His office was so well organized, everything in place, from the bookshelves to the files and documents.

Even the table separating us was meticulously arranged: laptop on one side, a few papers on the other, a paperweight at the exact center.

His chair perfectly across from mine, as he sat like a king looking down on his fellow subjects.

Small details, but they told a lot about him.

"Dr. Rawal, I need you to understand that my mother has always been very important to me. And under today's circumstances, her health is my utmost priority," he started, his voice calm and composed.

Gone was the Hridhaan I saw in the hospital.

Instead, here sat the cold business head of the Singhania Empire, imposing and all-consuming.

I hated how prominent and confident he sounded in that tone, and to be on the receiving end of that was something I despised more.

Maybe because you were once just like him, too confident in what you did, and demanding.

Minus the arrogance, I sure wasn't that full of myself.

The accident three months ago changed something in me, or it was the guilt that was holding back the assertive side of my personality.

I simply nodded, listening carefully to where he was going with this.

It was still raining outside when I entered the office, which to my expectations was just as I imagined suiting his image, but it was hauntingly silent here.

Must be soundproof.

"After talking to Dr. Mathur, he suggested that my best consult when it came to my mother was you," he stated. It wasn't a question, but I felt it necessary to fill the silence.

"Yes, she's been my patient for the last two years," I confirmed.

He sat back in his chair, his gaze scrutinizing as he started with the real conversation.

"How long did you know my mother?" he asked, his voice measured.

"I just said-" I started, but he continued, speaking as if I was the one interrupting him.

"Speak the truth, Dr. Rawal, only truth. When it comes to my mother, I don't care much about, well, anyone. You tell the truth or you don't speak at all," he finished.

My breaths were calm, but it took effort to keep them so. A few minutes in his vicinity, and it already felt suffocating.

"Five years. I have known her since the day she entered the Rawals' hospital."

I said, opting for the truth, offering an olive branch, and more because I was hoping he'd show the same trust when I asked him certain difficult questions too.

His eyes weren't wavering from his focus, aka my face, narrowing a little, as if contemplating if I was lying.

"How?" he simply asked.

I wasn't going to offer a whole story, so I told the basics.

"She was assigned to Dr. Mathur. And since he was my mentor even before I applied for medical college. I often used to observe his patients. That's how I met Mythila."