Beguiled

Prologue

      "Krish?"

      Krishna would know that voice anywhere. It was his father. His father always smelled of cologne. Apart from that, people had always told him how much he resembled his father. He didn't see it. Literally. He didn't.

    One accident when he was thirteen and he could only see blobs and blurry images till now.

     "Buddy, what are you doing here? It's your wedding night." His father said slipping into the bar stool to the right of him.

   He felt the ridges of the crystal glass through his fingertips. He had been fiddling with a processo for the past hour. One accident and he was here, thirty years old, married to someone he didn't want to. He had married her and f*cked her. What else did his parents expect?

     Krishna was happy to be single all his life. He had been utterly satisfied in Moscow. But it was his father who told him of his mother who was sick with worry. He had come here and realised that his parents lived in the past while he had moved on. They tried setting him up with a girl. He refused.

      "Aghanya, he's not a child. You need to stop this!" He heard his father hiss.

       "We were married and had him by his age! Do you want him to be alone all his life, Viren?"

     He could hear his father's exasperated sigh, "You can't foist
a girl on him like that!"

     "What other option do I have? He broke up with Usha. She was perfect for him."

       A glass clinked on the table. He was back at the bar again. He guessed the bartender had served his father's drink, after all his father owned the hotel.

     "Just came here to grab a drink, dad."

       "You should be upstairs...resting. Were the accomodations not to your liking?"

        "They were fine."

     His father sighed as if he could read Krishna entirely. Krishna heard him pick his glass and take a sip, "You know, your mother and I weren't in love too, when we got married. We almost didn't get married. It was an arranged marriage. But in the end, we fell in love and it's been a nice run."

       He knew that. He had read and heard their love story a thousand times.

     His father continued, "You have dated Usha. And that child has liked you since she was in pigtails. It'll work out, son."

        Krishna resisted the urge to snicker, he took a sip of his drink instead. Yes, Usha Rane, the girl who had had a crush on him since years. The one who followed him to Moscow. The one who was his wife now.

     He had dated her, only  so she could understand how much ill-matched they were. And she had understood. Understood so well that he had caught her with someone else in bed.

      His loosened his grip fearing that he might shatter  the crystal glass. What angered him wasn't her cheating, it was the callous way she did it. As if he wouldn't catch her because he was f*cking blind.

   Krishna didn't know what stories she spun when she came back home. His mother had called him relentlessly. He didn't want to tell her that her dream daughter-in-law had cheated on him.

    Maybe that had made her sick. Krishna had decided to bite his tongue and marry her just to appease his parents.

   How flawless she had been today.

   I have changed, Krish.

     She had said. Indeed she had. Previously she smelled of Vanilla, but now she smelled of Citrus. He couldn't miss the shocked 'What' she uttered when he told her to strip.

    Usha Rane had completely transformed herself. It hadn't just been different this time. She was like a totally different person. The sounds she had made and the way she moved her hands over his body were different. They dripped with innocence and tenderness. It shook him to the core. 

   That was what had disturbed him. They had always been good in bed. But this time had been different. It had reached into him. When it was done, he couldn't stay there anymore. So he showered and came to the bar.

       "I'm fine, dad. Honestly, just came to grab a drink." He tossed back his drink and stood up. He heard the stool sliding.

    "Good. I'll not bore you then."

    They walked back to the lobby together. Just then he heard his name being called.

     "Krish! Krish!" It was Usha who held his forearms. "Is the wedding over?! Krish?!"

      "Usha beta what's wrong?" His father asked.

     She whimpered, "Uncle they're telling me the wedding is done. But I was asleep - and I-Krish! Tell me the wedding is not done!"

        That's when his head spun. She certainly smelled foul like liquor and her usual smell, Vanilla. If she was here. Then who the heck did he marry?

       His whole body grew rigid. She had seemed like someone else because he realised she was someone else. He had married her twin - Asha Rane. The prodigical daughter.

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A/N: Should I have waited until I finished till I finished Shattered? yes. but also I couldn't control. I just had to write this story.