Making Her Mine- An IPKKND story.

Chapter 66 - Orphan

Di may not have spoken up to Dadi, but she hadn't given up on the idea of bringing the boy to Shantivan.

"Chotay, will you be home in the afternoon today?" She asked him when he was heading out in the morning. "I'm bringing Aarav home, I want you to be there."

"I have a lot of things to do, Di. I can't cancel — especially with the wedding, I'll have to miss work again. I'll meet him in the evening, I'll try to come early."

"You're complaining about not being able to work because of the wedding?" She asked incredulously.

"I'm not complaining, it's just a fact, I will be missing work then, so I can't afford to now."

"Don't let Khushi hear you say that."

He grimaced knowingly.

—

Aman had rejected the offer of a vacation. Arnav was secretly relieved – there was a lot going on, and Aman on holiday now would put them all in some trouble.

"Is something wrong, Aman? Everything okay at home, with your family?" Arnav asked after their last meeting was done. "If there's something you need help with, you know you only have to ask."

Aman looked flustered. Which was not something Arnav had ever seen before. "Er – everything is okay, Sir. My family is fine. Er- thank you, I appreciate the –er –" he cleared his throat. This was not the sort of conversations they had often.

Arnav looked around the office, looking for a way to change the topic.

"The designers sent me the outfit designs for your wedding, sir," Aman said, coming to their rescue, holding up a folder.

Arnav grabbed it gladly, and began flipping through the pages. The outfits looked great  – even the sherwanis for him didn't look so bad. No one had ever seen him wear one, but he knew it would make Khushi very happy. Di as well, she'd been pestering him to wear one for years now.

"Good," he said, nodding approvingly. "Let me show them to Khushi."

Aman returned Khushi's wedding book, saying, "I took the liberty to make copies. I thought maybe we could arrange everything exactly as Khushiji wanted. There's a wedding planner—"

"Great, hired," Arnav said absently, picturing Khushi in the white outfit they had done for the haldi. She looked ethereal in white.

"The wedding is on the 24th, we will need to set up some fitting appointments this week..."

"Huh? Oh. 24th next month, right."

"And Anjali Ji is due the week before the wedding, so we should get all this out of the way before –"

"Huh?" Arnav returned to the conversation reluctantly. "Right. The baby! Yes, I know. But I can't put off the wedding longer than that. I can't have my grandmother stay much longer –" he stopped himself.

"Anjali ji told me," Aman was saying.

Arnav snapped the folder shut, pulled out of his distracted musings completely now, and narrowed his eyes.

"She told you about Dadi? When?" The question that hovered on his lips was, something else. But he didn't know what exactly the question he wanted to ask was.

"Oh..." Aman looked decidedly shifty. "I met her to help with Aarav – there was some legal work for fostering–"

"Oh, shit, I have to go home, he's coming today."

He hurried home, feeling slightly guilty because it was later than he had promised, and no one had even called him, which meant they didn't expect him to give up work. Khushi could have given him a heads up, at least.