Making Her Mine- An IPKKND story.

Chapter 17 - Winning is losing

The Gupta household was a lot less unbearable today, somehow. Arnav decided he didn't mind the noise or the heat so much anymore and that he could work here after all.

He settled down with his computer at Khushi's desk, where a statue of Devi Maiyya and a statue of Nataraja, the lord of dance, were placed with red cloth, incense, and an assortment of religious paraphernalia around them.

He was fond of that Devi Maiyya statue; he had once rescued it from falling to the floor and ended up in a tumble with Khushi trapped beneath him. He was fond of the Nataraja statue too. He ran a finger along the gilt arc that circled the figure, remembering how Khushi had looked at him the night she had won it—his Nani's prized possession.

She had looked like a goddess herself that night, a goddess in many different avatars. He wondered if she knew what it was like to watch her dance. It had been Akash and Payal's sangeet, a dance competition Khushi had come up with and taken so seriously that he had somehow gotten dragged into it, even though he wouldn't have cared otherwise who between the two families won. Then, for her final performance, her partner hadn't shown up, and he had impulsively decided to step in and dance in place of the missing Sarita because Khushi had looked so lost alone on the stage. When they had danced together, something electric had passed between them.

They were better without words, he and Khushi. For Arnav, dancing with Khushi—when he hadn't so much as waved an arm in time with music in more than fifteen years—had been a confession of sorts: that he was hers. And when every inch of her skin woke to his touch, when she fumbled at his glance, when she followed him with her eyes that night, unconsciously mimicking his gestures, she had let him know that she was his, too.

He hadn't known then, but they had been like two spinning balls in orbit, falling inevitably toward one another. He had wanted her, with more than a tinge of darkness in his desire. He had begun to understand, too, deep down, that she didn't deserve that from him. So, even though she seemed to be as helplessly drawn to him, he had held back, unwilling despite his desire to cloud the brightness that was Khushi.

The realization that she was afraid of him, as much as she was drawn to him, pained him. Seeing her with NK had made it worse—not because he thought she had any romantic feelings for NK; he had known she didn't—but because of how lighthearted her laughter was around Arnav's ridiculous Australia-returned cousin. If he was jealous, it was not because NK was a threat, but because he wished he could make her laugh like that. When she laughed at whatever nonsense NK was spouting, she would flash that bedazzling smile that Arnav had rarely seen directed at him. Her eyes would sparkle and dance. And then, sometimes, she would catch Arnav's eye mid-laugh, and it would all go away—all her laughter and sparkle—as if he had blown out a candle flame. He hated making her laughter die out by just catching her eye.

"What happened?"

Khushi was standing by the desk, staring at him with a worried frown.

"What happened?" he returned.

"Why are you so—why didn't you—you said you were going to the office," she finished.

"Huh?" He glanced at the computer screen in front of him, which had the swirling lights of his screensaver; he hadn't touched it for a while. "Uh, I figured I could work here after all."

She was looking at him closely, as if to pry some secret from his face.

"Are you okay?" she asked finally. "Did something happen?"

He shrugged and stuck out his lip to indicate he didn't know what she meant. The shuttered expression she had been wearing near constantly since she had realized why he had married her returned, and she left.

They weren't exactly fighting, but Arnav wasn't sure he was making much progress in winning Khushi back.