BEYOND THE CLOUDS (Completed)

Chapter 5

Shehnaaz saw a sea of pictures featuring the gorgeous hunk, Sidharth Shukla, the CEO of Jubilee Chain of Hotels.

She observed a pattern. In each picture he looked hotter than the earlier and also had a different girl hanging off his arm, again, every girl hotter than the previous one.

There were many news articles that had written about his never ending list of girlfriends, his date and dump tactics, some also called him a womanizer.

Shehnaaz knew better than to believe the sleazy sounding news bits and moved to some meaningful research.

His Wikipedia page referred to him as Sidharth ‘Jubilee’ Shukla and spoke about his numerous conquests and accomplishments as one of the youngest CEO’s in the country.

There were article after article speaking about his recently acquired inheritance and his entry into to the list of billionaires of India.

“Whoa !!” She exclaimed, raising her eyebrows.

“I knew he would be filthy rich, it was evident from the luxury brands he sported, but definitely a guy with a questionable character." she smirked.

There was one face however that resurfaced after every other pic, His pictures with Devanshi Malhotra.

They were smiling at each other in one particular image.

He wasn’t in his usual suited avatar.

He was wearing a casual white t shirt and chino shorts and she wore a blue floral sundress and a straw hat.

“The Malabar Hill Sweethearts, Sidharth Shukla and Devanshi Malhotra spotted at a Fishing Event”. 

The headline beneath read. She opened the article and read every word carefully.

It spoke about their on again – off again status, their rumored engagement, almost two paragraphs about Sidharth’s infidelity and Devanshi’s understanding nature.

Basically painting a monster out of him and a saint out of her.

Another picture showed them at a family gathering and that’s were she realized that Devanshi was Adhimaan Malhotra’s sister.

No wonder her face looked familiar, Shehnaaz thought. She must have seen her in passing at the engagement party.

She was still engrossed in the pics when a heavy hand rested on her shoulder from behind. Shehnaaz gasped and turned around

“Heyyy.. chill baby, main hu” Kartik’s smiling face calmed her down.

“When did you come?” She asked checking out his freshly showered self and Freddy’s clothes on him.

“Ummm.. while you were busy ogling at greek gods, I guess” Kartik looked over her shoulder at the open laptop behind her.

“Umm wohhh.. achha… nai main toh
bass aise hi timepass kar rahi thi” She stuttered, feeling a ball lodge in the pit of her stomach.

What she was going to tell Kartik will definitely make him go ballistic. She mulled over the thought for a moment and braced herself following him to the kitchen.

“Sunn I need to get something out of my system” she calmly announced picking at the helm of his tshirt while he fixed himself a cup of coffee.

Kartik gave her a backward glance, awaiting her to speak.

She narrated the whole scene word by word as she saw the steam fly out of his ears in anger.

The moment she stopped speaking Kartik, cracked his knuckles and turned back fully glaring at her