[Sequel of Warm Love, hence can't be read as a standalone.]
In the first phase, Reyansh concealed a web of mysteries, but as they stand face to face once more, it's Kiraz who holds the tantalizing secrets waiting to be unveiled. These hidden truths...
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If being a mess is the right acronym to justify my state, then one must be mistaken.
Because mess would be an understatement to describe how my insides are shredded into pieces, letting blood engrave on my bones, increasing the prickling, suffocating feeling I am having. Then, in the next second, the hollowness mostly occupied with pain is replaced with an intangible weight, like a dormant volcano being squeezed, with nature just waiting for its impact to burn everything near it.
I had almost stopped breathing when I realized how the course of my obliviousness had led me to unbearable pain. I hated the very moment I walked to the second floor when I had been doing great in the confines of my office room, constantly shaking my head at the giddiness of both father and son—Reyansh and Veer—and how much Veer's antics resembled Reyansh's.
My mind was over the clouds, drunk on the treasure happiness brought by time in my embrace. I was so happy that I instantly agreed to meet a customer who insisted. Which is odd as I've a rule; no meeting with customer.
Why did I? I should have, as always, refused and kept my veil. But I agreed and went to meet the customer who happened to be none other than my husband's 'lost brother,' aka Rishabh Malhotra, or more like Rishabh Rathore.
Upon seeing him, I should have turned on my heels and acted as if I had not seen him, but the threatening hold he has over me forced me to stand upright, so rigid that anyone could mistake me for a statue. I will tell Reyansh the truth. I will, but I don't want to add more to his burden when his mother, the same mother who gave birth to him, has refused to choose him. I just don't want to hurt him more. He is almost like a living corpse, and no matter how many lies he has concealed in him, my traitorous heart is devoted to him and will only beat as if taking its last breath in his presence.
But everything was scattered. The moment the photos were spread before me, my whole world seemed to crumple around me. The weight crushed me, suffocating me under its burden. Breathing became a task, and tears flowed like a fountain. My shaking fingers settled on the photos, which were nothing but agony to my eyes. One showed Reyansh kissing Amaya's cheek. Okay, Kabir also kisses my cheek lovingly. Another showed him kissing her knuckles. Okay, Kabir does that too, and many other gentlemen have as well. Could it be just a loving gesture? The third one was on her neck, so intimate that the still image couldn't hide the sparkle of bubbling laughter on Amaya's soft features.
"What are these?"
"The proof of your husband's invested time over the past five years."
"If you think I believe you-"
"Still blind to him," he mocked me, a bubble of laughter pushing against his high cheekbones, a glint shining in his brown eyes, just like his father's. "How foolish of you to think men like him would be committed to one woman."
