Delicate - A Rikara Tale (Completed!)

Eight - Decisions and Desperation

A/N : So, y'all had to wait again. Here's why:

1. I am a final year Post Grad student who is working on her dissertation. It takes a lot of time and energy out of me and  I barely have time for myself.

2. I have a freelancing gig.

3. I have exams soon. Like this week.

4. I am sick and only able to write so much.

Updates will be when I can manage them but they will be long. The good news is that the story is outlined and plotted so i will be finishing this even if it takes me a month or more. All i need to know is that I am not wasting my time writing this.

Please vote, comment and share this story if you think I deserve it. I always want to know what you think, even if you did not like it. Especially if you did not like it. Informing me of any characters I wrote badly, any grammar error and any plot error would help me write this story better.

If you don't know what to comment, tell me when you read the story (do any of you read late into the night and then are zombies the next day but still read the next night?) Tell me things that you wish had happened. Tell me about your mood, your favourite song. Say something. XD.

Enough of my bakbak. Here you go:

The cat like smirk on the half-hidden face made Gauri shudder. How did something that was not real affect her? Why did it leave such a deep, visceral impact on her? Something in her recoiled at the single, visible eye and the smug grin on the painted woman's face.

Gauri took a step back, only to hit something hard.

That something hard could not have been a wall. Walls did not have the warm breath that she felt on her neck.

"This is my biggest fear"

Om's words were a whisper, a soft, exhausted one that made Gauri's wariness give way to empathy.

"Who is she?" the words left her mouth before she could stop them and Gauri turned around, expecting to find her husband's face, a picture of rage. Men did not like being questioned.

But Gauri found herself alone in the room.

With nothing but the terrifying yet beautiful painting which she could not take her eyes off.

---

Shit. Shit. Shit.

This was not supposed to happen. He was supposed to get her to open up to him, not lay his soul bare to her!

What was it about her that had made him open up like a tightly closed bud unfurling itself to bloom? He could feel his walls coming down when she was around, even though he had not known her for very long. Was it because he had pushed his feelings deep down and now they would not be contained? Was it because to gain her trust, he had to naturally start trusting her?

His wife was a stranger to him as well as a very likely a victim of circumstances.

But Bela or Ishana, whoever she really was, had appeared to be the same. A damsel in distress. But she was an illusion, a snake pretending to be a rope. She had vanished into thin air like a magician's ultimate act after her deceit had been brought to light, leaving him behind with more issues that he had already started out with.

It had not been just her. Riddhima. His so-called father.

Mother too, Omkara admitted bitterly, for she had been selfish in her desperation and grief, too broken to think about how her action would affect her 'Acha Bacha'.