UNEDITED

Part – 45

Madhu was lying on the bed looking up at the ceiling lost in her thoughts. She was thinking about Rk's proposal.

A movie offer for me? Really? No, I can't believe it. When I was in relationship with Rk, he could have easily offered me a movie but he didn't do that. He fooled me then but now he's genuinely interested to make me a heroine. Why? Maybe, his guilt is forcing him to do that.

Hmm... should I accept his proposal or reject it? I don't know. I have been lately rejecting all his proposals so one more rejection will do no harm, right? But then, wasn't becoming a heroine my life time dream?

Wait! Is becoming a heroine still a life time dream of mine? No, of course not! My daughter is my life time dream and reality.

Oh my God! What will happen to my Ruhi if I decide to take up this offer?

Will my work take me away from my daughter? Obviously!

Will I get time to take care of her? I don't think so. My life will change. Her life will change. Nothing will be like before. So, do I want all these changes to happen?

"Mama" Ruhi woke up from her sleep and sat upright on the bed, scratching her head, feeling disorientated. "Mama" she cried.

"I'm here, baby" Madhu slipped her hands around Ruhi's hips from behind and picked her up and placed her on her belly. "Go back to sleep" she pulled her daughter to lie on her chest and patted her bum gently; hoping she would fall asleep again but little Ruhi had other plan. She pushed herself up and Madhu propped her knees up so that Ruhi can lean her back on them.

"Where's papa?" Ruhi asked as she played with her momma's shirt button.

"He is in the other house"

"I want papa" she said softly making Madhu to strain her ears to catch her words.

"He will come here to see you, tomorrow"

"I want to see papa now"

"Only sometimes back we came from papa's place" After their conversation regarding Dipali's desire to cast Madhu in her next film, Rk took Madhu and Ruhi to a small restaurant few blocks away from his apartment to have a family dinner and after that he came to drop them safe at the big house and went back to his place not before reminding Madhu to think and make the right decision.

"I want papa" Ruhi said as her eyes welled up. This wasn't the first time Ruhi crying in the midnight to see her daddy. Ever since he moved out this was happening. Ruhi gets cranky more than before. 

"Wait, I will make a call to your papa and you talk with him, okay?" Madhu stretched her hand out and took her phone from the bedside table and speed dialed Rk's number.

"Hello, Madhu? Is everything alright? Is Ruhi crying?" he asked worriedly. Madhu without a word passed the phone to Ruhi.

"Papa, come home" she cried over the phone.

"I'm coming, darling. I'm coming" he said and hung up. Ruhi kept kissing the phone and telling him how much she missed him thinking her papa was on-line.

"Your papa's coming?" Madhu asked as she took the phone the Ruhi hand and discarded it on the bed after making sure the call was already ended.

"Oui" Ruhi squealed and bounced on Madhu's belly. Gone all her crocodile tears! Madhu thought.

"You tell your papa not to leave us, Ruhi" Madhu said to her daughter knowing only she can convince her daddy.

"Okie. Ruhi tell papa nah leave Ruhi and mama" she repeated shaking her hands and head.

"Good"

"We'll hug papa...um...tight...like this..., mama" Ruhi tightly wrapped her arms around her mama's neck and hugged her "...and keep with us, mama"

"Yeah, alright, we will keep papa in our tight wrap" Madhu said and laughed. Ruhi too joined her in laughing.

Once their laughter died down, Madhu cupped her daughter's face in her palms. "You look beautiful, Ruhi" she leaned up and kissed Ruhi's forehead.

Ruhi smiled forming two small depressions on either side of her cheeks. "You got these cute dimples from your papa" Madhu said as she circled the dimples with her thumbs. "Papa" Ruhi said and smiled widely showing her perfectly aligned rice like teeth.

One word 'papa' is enough to light up my daughter's face. Madhu thought as she ran her fingers through Ruhi's hair untangling the tangles.

Wasn't I like her? Just looking at Rk, I felt myself exploding like fireworks?

"Am I punishing your papa or myself by pushing him away from me, Ruhi?" Madhu asked hoping her two and half years old daughter will shed some light on her confusing feelings.

"Why you punishing papa?" Ruhi asked with wide eyed shock.

"No, I am not punishing and I won't punish your papa, Ruhi" she reassured her daughter.

Liar, liar pants on fire! Her subconscious mocked her.

"You punish me?" Ruhi asked placing both her palms over her chest.

"Why would I punish you, my baby, when you're so good?" Madhu asked playfully pinching her chubby cheeks.

"You punish yourself, mama?"

"Yes" Madhu nodded her head. She was punishing herself by not welcoming happiness in her life.

"You bad?" Ruhi asked. Her momma only told her 'good' means no punishment so if she's punishing herself means she must be bad, right? That was Ruhi's logic.

"I don't know, Ruhi"

"You're good, mama" Ruhi's lower lips trembled and her eyes glistened. She didn't want her momma to be bad. "I love you, mama" she said holding her momma's face with her puny hands and bending down, she kissed her momma's nose tip.

Rk slowly opened the door and sneaked into their room not wanting to disturb the mom-daughter moment.

Feeling his presence they turned their heads to his direction. Madhu smiled when her eyes met with Rk's. Ruhi shrieked 'Papa' breaking her parents' eye lock. She sprung up to her feet and literally leapt out of the bed. Rk was quick enough to catch his daughter from falling down and getting hurt.

"Don't jump, Ruhi baby" he said clutching her securely to his chest and then looked up at Madhu in surprise.

"What?" Madhu asked with a frown.

"You didn't panic?"

"I know you would catch her" she trusted him.

"Ah, yeah, right. I would never let her fall"

"I know"

"So baby, why were you crying earlier?"

"I missed you, papa" Ruhi said softly as if she was telling him a secret.

"You were with me the whole day, right?" he asked as lied on the bed next to Madhu and settled Ruhi on his torso.

"You sleep here, papa"

"Okay"

"Forever?" Madhu asked hopefully.

"You want me to sleep forever?" Rk teased though he got what she was meaning to say.

"No, I want you to stay with us forever" her words weren't a surprise to him. She wanted to live with him, thats for sure, but she wasn't ready to settle down. He realized that when he moved out. He thought if he stayed away from her, she might see someone else and hitch up to him but that wasn't happening much to his relief. She felt lonely though she had Ruhi. She missed him and that made her to show up at his place more often. She gave him every possible reason to make him believe that she wasn't there to see him just like how today she told she brought Ruhi to the salon but he knew her better.

"Oui" Ruhi agreed and launched herself on her daddy and hugged him tight. "Mama, hug papa" she told. She wanted extra support to hold her daddy down there. She wasn't letting him go anywhere. "Mama. Come. Hug." Ruhi ordered when Madhu hesitated.

They didn't know when and how but there was this awkwardness wedged between them.

She felt she was losing Rk but she didn't blame him. She pushed him beyond limits and now he wasn't turning back to her. He was distant with her.

So what will he think if I get closer with him now?

Will he think I am doing this just because he made a movie proposal to me?

Will he think I am being selfish here?

Will he think I am a cheap girl?

"I won't" he said. Madhu looked stunned wondering whether he miraculously reading her mind.

"What you won't?" She asked.

"Mama, hug, papa or he will leave us" Ruhi shouted.

"I won't leave you..." He said looking at Ruhi "...and your momma, Ruhi" while saying this he averted his gaze towards Madhu. "Where will I go without you two?" He asked to Ruhi.

"To that house" Ruhi said sadly.

"That house is our painting house. We go there to paint, Ruhi."

"Really?" Ruhi asked.

"Ask your papa why can't you both paint here in this house, Ruhi?"

"Papa, why can't you... What you told, mama?" She forgot the exact line her momma told her to ask to her papa so wanted a repeat.

Rk laughed at Ruhi's cuteness.

"Don't laugh at my daughter." Madhu slapped his arm.

"Don't slap my papa, mama" Ruhi sided her daddy and rubbed the place where her momma hit her papa.

"Ah, papa's pari" Rk took Ruhi's hand and kissed her palm.

"Pari? No, I am papa's Ruhi" Ruhi corrected. She didn't get who this Pari was.

Now it was Madhu's turn to laugh.

"Don't laugh at my daughter" Rk threw her own words back at her and laughed. Ruhi too laughed for no reason.

"Pari means Angel, darling. You are my angel so I called you Papa's Pari" he explained to her.

"Ohhh" Ruhi cutely made her lips in 'O' shape as she nodded her head. She had seen angels in cartoons and her papa and mama had told her many times that angels were good. "Angels good. Ruhi good. So Ruhi is Pari, right?" She asked cutely.

"Right, my clever girl" Rk kissed her forehead. Ruhi smiled and settled her head on his chest, feeling sleepy.

"Mama, I feel sleepy" she said looking at her momma.

"Sleep, baby" Madhu said as she tucked a piece of hair behind Ruhi's ear.

"You hug papa" she instructed. She didn't want to let her papa go. She wanted to hug him tight and hold him to herself but what if she had loosened her hold on him in her sleep? What if he had escaped from her? So she wanted her momma to hold her papa till she wakes up the next morning. "Mama!" She shouted when her momma didn't oblige to her words.

"Alright! I am hugging him tight." Madhu turned to her side and threw a leg over his and an arm over Ruhi's back who was lying on top of him and her head perfectly fitting in the curve of his neck. She inhaled his manly scent and unknowingly she nuzzled his neck making him groan inwardly.

"Don't go, papa" saying that, Ruhi went to a peaceful sleep.

"Don't go, Rk" Madhu too whispered the same near his ear.

"Have you given a thought on what we discussed this evening?" He asked without replying to what she wished and said.

"I have"

"And?" He waited for her reply.

"I am worried about Ruhi"

"What?" He slightly moved his head away and turned to her side to meet her eye to eye. She instantly missed his delicious scent.

"Ruhi is still a baby. She needs me."

"I understand but I am there to take care of her when you are in shooting, right? So you need not worry about our daughter. You just take up this exciting offer, Madhu, please. Oh and trust me when I say you are in the right age to make your debut and you will rule the film industry"

"No, actually...um... I have thought about something else... and made up mind too..." She stammered as she didn't know how to tell her decision to him.

"What have you thought?"

"I will tell that later..."

"Why can't you tell me now?"

"I want to meet Dipali before I tell anything to you"

"Sure, you can meet Dipali. I can make arrangements tomorrow but what's all with this suspense? Just tell me, are you accepting or rejecting the damn big offer?"

"I might accept the offer on certain conditions"

"And they are?"

"I will tell that later but remember, only if you agree to my conditions, I will agree to work in this movie" she warned.

"What more conditions you can possibly put on me, Madhu?" He asked out of curiosity. "You said there won't be any relationship between us and I agreed though I tried to built one. I unashamedly proposed you marriage too many times but you turned me down." Ouch! The burn still burns! "You said I should quit my acting career and move here to France with you two and I agreed for that condition too. What more you expect me to do? Tell me, I want to know?"

She didn't reply to his question. He sighed in frustration.

"What you miss the most, Rk?" Madhu asked after few minutes of silence. She leaned up by balancing her weight with her elbow and looked straight into his eyes to try and understand his emotions.

"I don't miss anything. I have got everything" he lied so he looked away from her.

"Except Ruhi and her love, you didn't gain anything, Rk. You lost everything you once loved"

"Thank you" he said.

"What for?" She frowned.

"For Ruhi" he clarified. "Thanks for giving me Ruhi" He had been saying this to her for the thousandth time now.

"Oh"

Well, she thought he thanked her sarcastically for mercilessly snatching everything from him and taking her perfectly planned revenge on him.

"Stop thinking bad about him, Madhu. He is nothing like he was before. He is a good man, now" she scolded herself.

"Though my loses are big..." Yeah, he lost his life style, his home, his fans, his identity, his... his everything he painstakingly built up for years, so, obviously it was a big lose to him, right? "...they are insignificant in front of my gain, insignificant in front of my daughter" He said and kissed sleeping Ruhi's head. "I love Ruhi" he whispered and closed his eyes to sleep.

"I love you" she muttered those three words in her mind but couldn't voice out.

Why? She asked herself and she knew why!

She couldn't voice out her love for him because she was angry on him.

She was scared.

And finally, she was a coward.

Her love was always a joke to him. He had always stomped her love beneath his foot like an ugly bug. So would she dare to confess again? No, she wouldn't.

She also wanted to punish him more and more and more though she said to her daughter she won't punish her papa.

Wait! Was it a lie then?

Was she going to punish him more?

Well, how could she punish him in the first place when she loves him?

Yeah, she had found her love for him from the pit of her heart from where she buried it.

Well, he made her find the love by showing his undeniable love for her.

Love. Punishment. Love. She was confused. She didn't know what to pick.

"Isn't his repentance a best punishment, Madhu?" Someone, maybe, her subconscious questioned from the back of her head. "Making someone feel so guilty and remorseful of their own deed is a best punishment? So what more punishments are you thinking to give him?"

She didn't have an answer for that so she simply shut her brain and willed to sleep but she couldn't.

She tossed and turned on the bed.

She took Ruhi off his chest and gently placed her between them and snuggled closer to her baby who always helped her get some sleep but not today.

She looked at Rk and he was having an undisturbed sleep.

She envied him for that.

She sighed and turned, facing away from him. She decided to close her eyes and imagine one of her favorite movie scenes. It was a trick she followed since she was a small girl. She won't get scary dreams because she would be thinking about movies and her favorite cine-couples and soon she would fall asleep.

"Hope my ever successful trick works now and I get some sleep." She thought and closed her eyes.

Voila! There he was. She saw him even when she had her eye-lids closed.

RK!

Once he was her dream.

Later, he turned as her nightmare.

And now? Her sinner? No!

Her love? Maybe.

Her happiness? Definitely.

Suddenly, she felt an arm thrown over her waist. It was Rk's again. Well, not in dream but in reality.

"Oh God! He is everywhere" she groaned but held his protective arm with hers.

She tilted her head back to look at him when she felt his hot breath on the back of her neck.

He had shifted Ruhi to the other side and he came to the middle of the bed.

"Sleep" he whispered with his eyes closed.

She turned around and hugged him.

He smiled loving the closeness.

"I am hugging you just because Ruhi asked me to hug you and not let you go so don't think I wanted to hug you" she said. His smile dropped.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Everything we are doing is for Ruhi. There is nothing between us. I am just the baby daddy like you love to put!" He said that because she hurt his ego.

He removed her hand off his stomach and turned to the other side and held his daughter so that she won't roll off the bed in her sleep.

Missing his warmth and caring so much of her precious sleep, she ignored the sting his words caused her and wrapped an arm of hers around his waist from behind.

He didn't push her hand away this time.

"Good for him." She thought. If he had done that she would have kicked him out of her room and locked the door!

She smiled when he interlaced his fingers with her hand resting over him and soon they went to deep slumber.

... To be continued!

Wow, what a miracle! I updated within three days from posting the previous part.

What made me post an update this soon? You guys must be wondering the same, right?

Well, the reason is all your COMMENTS!!!

You all overwhelmed me with your warm words!

Few comments were so sweet and that made me smile.

Few comments were honest and that helped me realize where I was actually going wrong.

Few comments were interesting. I got some ideas and inspiration.

Few comments were short yet demanding to update soon. But still I appreciate the fact you guys commented!

I loved each and every comment! Thank you so much guys!

Please keep supporting me through your votes and comments!
Thanks all!!!

(P.S - I will reply to previous and this part's comments later as it's already late (4.45 in the morning). I need some sleep. Bye!)