SEAL THE DEAL

chapter 7

He put her glass in front of her and she accepted it with a soft 'thanks', her lips stretching into a smile before she took a small sip. Gosh, her smile was gorgeous too...plus she seemed nice so far.

Abhishek briefly wondered whether God had been a bit unfair when creating her.

Mani::-"I'm manisha . Nice to meet you,"

He looked at her extended hand and then he looked up at her face before he wrapped his hand around her smaller and softer one, feeling a sudden sense of warmth spread throughout his body at her touch. He didn't think of it much, putting it down to his body simply reacting to a clearly attractive member of the opposite gender.

Abhi:-"I'm Abhishek," he replied shortly, holding onto her hand for a couple of seconds out of politeness before pulling away.

An awkward silence took over the table for a few seconds, neither of Manisha knowing how she was supposed to act and how she was supposed to go about this.
Having had enough of the suffocating silence, Abhishek decided to speak up, "Do you want to order before...?" he trailed off, clearly not knowing how to word the rest of his sentence or how to broach the real reason behind this meeting. He'd come to the restaurant with a planned script but all the words he'd been hell-bent on saying had slowly died in his throat at the sight
of her smile and her calm and composed manner.

She nodded and reached for the menu, relieved at the appearance of a distraction that allowed her to ignore the two stifling words - 'arranged marriage' - that were hovering above both of their heads.

Mani:-"Yeah, let's do that," she agreed, swiftly tapping the button to call the waitress over.

A couple of minutes later, after their orders were done and sorted, she had returned to square one with the awkward silence once again consuming the table. And Manisha really couldn't handle awkward silences so she decided to pluck up all her courage and just dive right in.

Mani:-"So...do you have someone in your life?" Abhishek stopped messing around with his cuff links and looked up, caught completely off-guard by the straightforwardness of her words. She felt her cheeks warm up, biting her
bottom lip in mild embarrassment, "Sorry, that was a little blunt, I just thought it'd be better to get straight to the point instead of beating around the bush,"

Abhi:-"It's okay, I understand,"
Abhishek briefly wondered why he was even being nice to her. That wasn't part of his plan,and he wanted to bang his head against the table for not sticking to the plan.
All he could conclude was that it had been too long since he'd been laid. Way too long.

Abhi:-"And no, I don't," he answered her initial question honestly, mentally scolding himself for not taking the opportunity to lie to her so that he could escape from this big fat mad mess,

Abhi:-"Do you?"
Mani:-"No, I wouldn't be here if I did,"
She was fidgeting with the napkin on the table before she realised that it was probably a tell-tale indicator of her nervousness, making her stop. The action didn't go unnoticed by Abhishek.

Mani:-"Any crazy ex-girlfriends or rejected lovers you need to warn me about?" Manisha asked a few moments later, a mischievous glint in her eyes as she tried to eliminate the tension and break the ice a little.

Abhishek smiled for the first time that evening. It was faint and fleeting but she felt like she'd climbed to the top of Mount Everest.

Abhi:-"Nope...at least not that I know of,"
Both of them fell quiet again, but this time, it was a more comfortable silence; not one that they both felt the need to break and escape from.

It was unsurprising that she approached the sensitive subject first. Abhishek felt that she had come to terms with it all a little better than he had anyway...or maybe Manisha is just better at handling her emotions than he was. He'd never been too good at that.

She took a deep breath, and in true characteristic style, plunged right in, "Look, I know this is probably just as weird for you as it is for me. All I know is that JDB means everything to my family and this business deal is going to change everything. I'm sure you feel similarly about your father's company," she paused to catch a glimpse of Abhishek, his expression as stoic
and unreadable as ever, "But I think we could make it work, for the sake of our families and companies. And I think we could be good friends and get through it too," Manisha said, shyness
suddenly creeping up on her right at the end of her monologue.

Abhishek blinked a couple of times as it hit him that she was actually on her way to
agreeing to the arranged marriage.
Hell. He had to act fast.

Abhi:-"Are you completely sure about this?" he watched her carefully, "This is...a long-term thing. We can't just back out of it if we want to,"

He could literally see the internal battle playing out on her face and he felt that sense of connection with her again; Manisha too were facing the same unreasonable dilemma that he was,
and she too had the same expectations to live up to. Both of them stranded in the same boat in the middle of the sea...and abhishek suddenly didn't know how he felt about that anymore.

Manisha closed her eyes and nodded slowly, "I am," she replied after a few seconds, "I'm sure about this," she repeated, but to Abhishek, it sounded like she was speaking to herself more than she was speaking to him, "What about you?"
Abhishek felt all kinds of conflicted when she looked at him expectantly. For some reason, his initial resolve had melted away.

His mind was screaming at him to say no, to back out of this, to ask her to back out of this too. There was nothing he feared more than commitment and his mind was screaming at him to leave this dinner meeting and pretend like it never
even happened, to stick to what he'd decided earlier and ask her to refuse the marriage. But his heart, his heart wasn't so sure about the plan anymore.
Because she was willing to take the fall. Manisha was willing to make the sacrifice. That was a curveball he hadn't anticipated.
It was a war between Abhishek's mind and his heart, and in that split second where he
glanced at her, his heart emerged victorious.

Abhi:-"I guess I'm in too."