Dream and Destiny:The Saga of Love, Faith and Betrayal. *Editing*

Chapter Twenty Six

In the wee hours of the next morning, randhir felt bit suffocated and his sleep thinned up. He woke up and opened the windows for ventilation; sanyukta was still sleeping, like a baby, gripping his hand tight. He looked at her and smiled, there were few sweat beads on her forehead. She too was suffocating. He gently wiped the sweat off her face and removed her shrug so that she could feel better.

As he removed her shrug all her hair fell aside revealing her neck and something unusual caught his eyes. He narrowed his eyes trying to figure it out but ended up with nothing as the room was gloomy; he gently bent forward and switched on the bed lamp. Soon the room filled up with a light orange shaded light. In that diaphanous light he figured out that the 'unusual' on her neck was finger imprints.

"wh..at..The..." he was dumbstruck. Did someone tried to strangle her? —he asked himself, to which he couldn't find any answer. So he decided to wait all the hours till she woke up and once she wakes up, to ask her.

Right the moment randhir saw those imprints on her neck, sleep deprived him and he couldn't stop thinking about her, it's nothing like suspecting her, but he was worried just that he had a strong haunch that something wasn't good. However, the time flew and soon the sun rose, so does the world, to its routine, sanyukta jostled her lashes up around 8 am only to find randhir staring at her silently.

"rain-deeeer" she nearly sang making a puppy pout, throwing her hands round his waist., she moved closer and rested her head in his lap, he had his palm on her head, caressing her hair lovingly.

"baby.." he mumbled,

"umm" she turned to face him.

"is everything okay?" he asked. "

everything is absolutely fine" she shrugged.

"sure?" he narrowed his eyes.

"damn sure" she said "what happened babuu...my rain-deer is super protective this morning"

"woh..." randhir was still hesitating whether to ask her about those imprints or not. Whilst sanyukta got up and pulled his cheeks

"cho chweeet" She pecked his nose and jumped out of their bed. She checked her watch and rushed into the loo without giving randhir a chance to speak, with nothing to do, randhir too got down the bed and began to freshen up.

after around an 15 minutes, sanyukta exited the loo with water drops dribbling down her hair, a bath robe covering her wet body till a bit above her knees, randhir was sitting on the bed and was watching her, she shot a coy smile at him and walked up to the mirror. She stood in front of the mirror finger combing her wet stray locks, a second later she felt randhir's hand on her stomach, from behind and his breathe on her neck, she looked up at the mirror whilst randhir pulled her much into him that she instantly turned on, she breathed in sharply with her eyes closed and a heavenly smile on her lips, he pulled all her hair to a side that it exposed her neck, and he placed a wet kiss there. "rannuu" she moaned, while he began to nibble her neck, simultaneously fiddling the knot of her bath robe, round her stomach.

Heat rose up her cheeks; she turned to face him instantly opening the knot by herself. randhir looked at her for a second, tied the knot back and made her look up at him holding her chin in between his fingers.

"Is everything okay?" he asked staring straight in to her eyes.

"Everything is fine randhir" she sounded pretty confident. Randhir sighed and looked at her, she raised her eyebrows, whilst he silently pulled the sleeve of her bath robe down, it exposed her neck and major part of her shoulder, revealing the finger imprints on her neck back to her nape.

"ye sab kya hai?" he asked looking in to mirror

"whaat?" she sounded befuddled, trying to look in to the mirror, however after a minute long struggle she happened to catch a glimpse of the finger imprints and was astonished.

"What the heck?" she turned around and bent forward much into the mirror for a clear glimpse "ye sab..." she tried to recall everything she had done from the last morning and she did,

"That bloody parth" she gritted as it struck to her that those imprints were of parth's fingers, and she remembered their encounter the previous evening.

She looked pissed off and her face turned red out of wrath, she raised her head and faced randhir through mirror, randhir was looking at her with a curious look on his face as if searching for answers.

"Huh! Okay!" she drooped and said "yesterday I had a meeting with my business rival and he threatened me. That's what actually happened" she sighed.

"You want me to handle?" he asked sounding protective, hugging her even more tightly from behind.

"No babuuuu, it's all quite common for me." she rubbed his day old stubble with her palm blowing kisses to him through the mirror

He smiled and said "be careful na"

"I'll be.... Waise, no one can harm me as long as my rain-deer is with me" she simpered,

"san-yuck-tha" randhir stuck his tongue out, feeling all mischievous, sanyukta, with a glint of naughtiness in her eyes turned around to make him shut, but before she could make him shut, randhir's phone on the bed sang loudly, randhir looked at her pouting his lips, she winked and pushed him away.

She took her clothes and began to change while randhir settled on the bed with his phone stuck to his ears.it was randhir's mom who had called him.

Pretty ten minutes rolled and sanyukta walked up to bed all decked up to leave for her work and found randhir sitting silently on the bed,

"kya hua" she tousled his hair settling beside him.

"Mom wants to meet you" randhir said and a wave of silence and strange nervousness engulfed them.