|| ENDLESS LOVE || -- A MaNan FF

|| Prologue ||

In a top floor apartment of one the tallest New York city sky scrappers, a man stood in the balcony sipping beer and looking out at the cities hustle and bustle in deep thought. It was night time and the city couldn't have been lit any brighter. However, his apartment and his heart spoke a different story. There was only darkness and gloom in them. He heard his cell phone ring in his pocket; he didn't even bother to look at the person calling him. He took it out irritated and threw it on the table beside him. As far as he was concerned, there wasn't anything in his life that gave him any sense of excitement. The world as he knew it had lost its charm; nothing reached him anymore; nothing excited him; his threshold for bearing pain kept growing every day. There was a deep hollow inside him that was only deepening as days passed. He was getting buried inside it.

He tried every single thing to bring him out of this hollow- Beer, Women, Gambling. He threw these huge wild parties, slept around with some of the most beautiful women in the city, and submerged himself in alcohol and weed. Nothing gave him any pleasure or satisfaction. The more women he slept with, the more hungry he became; nobody could satisfy him. Nobody could make him feel like she did.

He was almost always high on something on the other, he couldn't function without alcohol. His friends, colleagues and business partners became used to these disgusting habits of his. Nobody said anything to his face. He was a necessary evil for them. His quality of work and his focus wasn't there anymore, but he was still the founding partner, CEO and the major shareholder of their multi-billion dollar empire. They tolerated his eccentricities while bad-mouthing and cursing him behind his back. He had huge anger issues. He fired people at the drop of a hat. People in his company were growing restless with his attitude and the heartless playboy image the magazines had created about him in the social circles. It was affecting the company's reputation.

He had pushed away all his friends away. There was no one he wanted to talk to. Not a single soul in the whole wide world. He was drowning in his own misery.

The phone kept ringing again and again. He answered it irritatingly, it was an international call. "What the hell do you want????" he barked.

"Manik!!!" he heard a familiar voice.

"Cabir ? yeh kaunse number se call kar raha hai tu? I am sorry, I am a little drunk..." he tried to pull all his energy and focus on the call. It was his best friend Cabir, probably the only person with whom he was in at least on speaking terms. At one point they were inseparable, they've been best of friends since childhood, but now, he avoided him. He didn't want to speak with anyone more than it was necessary.

"Manik...Listen to me carefully; me and Mukthi have come to India for a visit. You will never believe whom I ran into in Bangalore."

"Who?" Manik asked in the most indifferent tone.

"NANDINI"

"KYA???????"

"Haan mere bhai, woh yahi hain, main ne usko follow kiya and got the address for you. She is staying here with her chachu's family in an apartment complex in the business district. You should come down Manik."

Manik just got a 1000 volts charge pass into him. He couldn't believe that she was in India, hell, he didn't even think she was still alive.

"Bhai, don't lose sight of her, I am starting right now!" he hung up unable to believe that this was really happening. A jolt of energy passed through his brain creating a mad rush. A rush to meet the love of his life, his passion, his inspiration, his wife, Nandini. After hanging up his call with Cabir, he called his secretary Rachel.