The Best Friend of the Bride (COMPLETED)

Chapter Eight

The days were passing by slowly for Aryan. At the same time, they were moving too fast. He couldn't fathom why fate had been so evil towards him. He had everything within his reach- family, the business, money and possibly even true love; when life played a cruel joke on him. He was suddenly on the verge of losing everything.

Replaying his last moments with that exquisitely beautiful girl inside his head, he felt his heartbeat fasten as he thought of the hug they shared. The momentary stillness of time, the touching of their bodies, the connection of their souls was enough to make his body pine for her. The look in her chocolate eyes after the hug was that of pure bliss and had been haunting him since the very moment when the hug had ended. He was a fool to have left her then, without any details.

Just as he had driven out of her driveway, on the night of the reception, his phone rang. Pulling over, he had answered it to find his distressed father talking hastily from the other end, instructing him to come back urgently as a major problem had arisen in their business. He had refused to divulge any more details, lest he be overheard. Hurriedly, Aryan had chartered a flight back to New York and was in the air within an hour, having just gone back to his grandparent's house to leave the car and change into more appropriate clothes for the long journey.

He hopped into a taxi and scuttled into the terminal, not realising that along with forgetting his cellphone in the backseat, he was leaving behind a fragment of his heart.

He just couldn't stop thinking about her. She had become his hobbyhorse, his mind going back to her whenever he had even a free second, which had suddenly become very difficult to come by. Work had been strenuous and the entire business was at stake. Thinking about her unique smile lit up his rather unhappy life, but at the same time caused excruciating pain to him. Not only had he lost her number, but also, he didn't even know her name. Her attractiveness had distracted him from asking her for her identity before they parted ways. On top of everything, he couldn't even ask his grandparents for assistance as they had left for a pilgrimage, the morning of the wedding itself and were to return after a month.

Dejected, he had tried finding his cell phone by making numerous calls to India, but was unsuccessful so far. As he tried dialling the number again, he heard the door open and looked up to see his father entering the room worriedly. Sending his father home, he stayed back to work during the night. Though a few problems had been arising the past few months at work, nothing had been so life-changing. Work had completely taken over his life now and he didn't have more than a moment to spare. Something had to be done, and soon, to save all their faces.

To add to his personal heartbreak, the business had suffered a lot in the few days that he had spent in India. Funds were missing and the once profitable balance sheet was surprisingly showing losses of over millions of dollars. Entries had been passed, and the benefactors of the embezzled billions couldn't be traced, no matter how hard they sat and tried to find the culprit. Not wanting to create an unfortunate situation, his father hadn't informed the police, but they sat all day and night to try to figure what had gone wrong. Even the employees hadn't been informed and for everyone outside the management, the business continued to function normally.

A few hours later, completely exhausted, he walked over to the bathroom. He looked into the mirror, and his unshaved reflection looked back at him, giving him the impression of having aged drastically within a couple of days. Suddenly, an idea struck him. He felt stupid for having not thought of it earlier, and going back to his desk, focused as hard as ever. After more than a week of sleepless nights, Aryan had finally found something that was sure to make his father's hairs stand on an end.

The culprit had been right before their eyes all along, pretending to help with the investigation, while stealing more money from the company's accounts. His very own uncle- his mother's brother, whom Aryan looked so much like; had been inconspicuously stealing their treasure, until the figure became so huge that it started right at their faces. For fraud of such degree, he was sure that a few employees were involved as well. After another hour of investigating thoroughly, he knew exactly what had been done.

Certain of his findings, he dialled his father, not bothering that it was 5:00 am. For the first time since he had left India, the mystery girl was nowhere on his mind and all he cared about was that his uncle should be punished for what he had done.

***

The next morning, his uncle came to office as usual and was shocked to find the police with his arrest warrant. A few employees, who had been helping him on promises of a higher paying job and a more luxurious life, were put behind bars too. It hadn't been difficult to put two and two together. His uncle had been employed by his father a few years after they moved to America, as he had lost his own job in the recession and had a huge family to feed. Being his brother-in-law, Mr. Kapoor had offered him a high post in his business. However, with each passing year, his uncle had been getting greedier and wanted a share of the business that he now thought was his own. When Aryan had been announced as the next CEO, after his father's retirement, his uncle couldn't see his sweat and toil being snatched like that by a 24 year old, and so he had hatched plan after plan, to stop it from happening. When all his evil schemes failed, he had turned to bankrupting the business and keeping the money for himself. If he couldn't lead the company, neither could Aryan.

Finally, after an annoyingly tiring week, satisfied that his business was saved, Aryan was ready to head home and sleep, when his new cellphone rang and awoke him from his stage of semi-stupor. His sister was flying back from a trip to Costa Rica and expected him to be at the airport in three hours, to receive her and her friends.

To kill time, he tried locating his phone again, or finding out anything about his mystery girl, but even after three hours, he was no closer than he had been when he had left Indian soil. Miserable, he made his way to the airport to the buried thunderstorm that, concealed from him, was about to change his life forever.