Hi,

I'm changing the approach a bit in this chapter. Nevertheless, I hope you'll like it. It's a bit short, but I'm starting to like this length. Perhaps we'll have a large number of short chapters instead of a small number of longer chapters. 

Looking forward to hear your thoughts!

CHAPTER THREE

Kingmaker

Most dangerous of all is a queen who carries her own sword...

The silence inside the empty waiting room was so flimsy that Anuradha Raj Maurya, amused herself by imagining those ever-vigilant bodyguards of hers were guarding it from outside those closed doors. She was still dressed in the elegant formals from the press conference, her nuptial chain tucked inside her high neck blouse. The fading youth had not diminished her beauty, instead the little smiling lines etched on her face added to her regal aura.

She was not crying anymore. Nevertheless, the red blotches left in her eyes by the traumatic night remained behind. It had been a while since she sent Myra home with Pritvi and Anuradha used the few moments of isolation to clear her thoughts.

The recent times had not been kind. She had learnt many lessons in the span of a couple of years. Anuradha was good at the game she was playing. She enjoyed being the puppeteer behind the curtains of the great business empire her husband had erected. However, recently there had been too many twists in the story that she found herself always caught in the eye of the storm.

Tonight was supposed to be the climax of a silent war stretching for longer than she could have anticipated. Anuradha let her weary body sink into the comfort of the plush sofa she had been sitting on and closed her eyes, as she wondered if Pritvi knew she was the one who had suggested his name. Even if he did, she was doubtful that Pritvi would ever fully grasp her intention behind doing so.

Sushant was blind in love. Anuradha had no other way of opening his blindfold than stripping him of his dreams with one unexpected strike. If her assumptions about his love was correct, Sushant would be reuniting with his brother very soon.

The sigh that escaped her lips had been unintentional. Anuradha had long back forsaken her juvenile dreams. Had she not, she would not have survived in the world her parents had thrown her into. Still, from a tiny corner of her cold heart she cherished a hope of seeing a peaceful family, where no one was plotting behind the other's back. At least they deserved to let go of their masks at home. She was nothing if not an ambitious woman. Anuradha would do anything under the sun to achieve her peace of mind.

That was how Sanaya found her, when she came to check on her 'Kaki mom'. For a one long minute Sanaya believed she was asleep and sat silent across from her without attempting to wake her up. They were not related and Sanaya liked to call herself, 'the Maurya charity project' but she knew deep down that they never considered her an outsider. She had almost slipped into remembering her days before Anuradha had came to pick her up from that terrible orphanage, when the older lady suddenly opened her eyes.

"Are they gone?" She asked as she straightened up.

"The reporters?" Sanaya clarified, "Still a few are loitering about. If you're asking about Priv, he went to take her home."

Anuradha started at her for a moment, massaging her temples with the tips of her fingers. She had known Sanaya for almost all her life. It didn't need an effort to know she was disturbed about something.

"You can say it you know," she said then, stretching out her hand to take the files Sanaya had brought. "You and Priv, both have this strange look when you have something you want to say and no one is listening."

"Kaki mom," Sanaya said slowly, taking her time to decide how best to phrase her concerns. "Do you believe her?"

"Who? Myra?"

"Is that even her real name?"

Anuradha chuckled, she almost had half a mind to reach out and ruffle Sanaya's hair, just like she used to when the girl was young.

"You and Priv, both of you want to eat her up."

"Both of us see through her," Sanaya contradicted darkly. "And we know Saket wouldn't keep something like this secret from us."

"So you think I'm lying too?" Anuradha mused softly and Sanaya's expression darkened. She fiddled her thumbs for a moment and then looked up at the older lady.

"I believe you have a reason," she said then.

This time Anuradha didn't bother with controlling her lips from twisting into a smile. She had always been proud of her choices. Sanaya had grown up exactly the way she had wanted to. Their minds were so alike that sometimes she saw the young girl as her own mirror reflection. She loved Pritvi, and admired him greatly. But he could not understand her the way Sanaya seemed to do with natural ease. There were no secrets between them.

"The police think Saket had attempted suicide," Anuradha uttered the words she despised bitterly. "The only reason they won't proceed in that angle is Myra."

Sanaya frowned a bit.

"So you think...?"

"Mauryas can't afford another scandal right now. Not just when everything between Sushant and Pritvi had sorted out."

"But can you trust her?"

"She cares for him," Anuradha said after a moment. "She had almost confessed the truth had I not covered it up."

"But what if she does?"

"She won't now." Anuradha rubbed her forehead, trying to subdue the throbbing behind her eyes. "I let her find out the enormity of Saket getting accused of suicide...if my assumptions are correct and she truly cares for him, she won't let him get in trouble. She has lied once, she'll take this as paying for her sin."

"You talk as if you know her," Sanaya spoke softly, admiration coloring her tone. "How well you read people!"

"Perhaps I had known someone like that before... Someone as juvenile, someone as easily corrupted..."

**

"If you get something you don't deserve, you let go of something you love...that's the real redemption," her Dida had once said.

"I can't do this!"

"Pardon?"

Myra jerked out of her trance rather abruptly at that voice. Pritvi stared straight ahead, but she knew he was watching her in that scientist – and – fly way once more. She flinched, thinking she had again spoken without realizing it and hung her head, examining her fingernails.

"Do you enjoy talking to yourself a lot?" He asked next as they waited for the color lights to change.

"I'm not mad!" She protested simultaneously.

Pritvi turned to look at her, eyebrows slightly raised. In the distant lights of the night, his eyes looked blue rather than gray.

"I hope so," he said seriously, before adding, "at least for my brother's sake."

"Oh, so you finally believe I'm saying the truth?"

"Should I not?"

Myra exhaled loudly.

"Do you enjoy interrogating people, or am I the lucky winner?"

"People, who have nothing to hide, don't mind questions." He sounded determined to speak in that icy monotone.

"I don't mind normal questions," she said after a moment.

"Tell me how you met," Pritvi said without missing a beat.

"Huh?"

"There you go, it's a normal question isn't it? Tell me how you met your boyfriend."
"I –"

"Is it that difficult or don't you remember?"

She flinched again, this time at the bitterness in his tone. She took a moment to take in the flash in his eyes and the way he clenched his jaw before speaking again.

"Stop the car."

Pritvi said nothing in reply as he obeyed her. There was something ugly in the silence, which proceeded after; he did not believe her. Myra hated that sense of superiority Pritvi seemed to emit, as if he could not imagine his brother choosing a girl like her.

"I know exactly what you're thinking," the words escaped her before she had thought it through. "You think that I chanced upon your brother when he was injured and am trying to mint my luck. Trust me, you can't be anymore wrong. I had no idea he was a Maurya, that he came with a baggage worth few hundred billions, and I don't care! Get this straight Mr.Maurya, not every girl in the street is a gold digger, some might love you for who you are, not who your father is. Thank you for the ride and good night!"

With that said, she stepped out and snapped the door shut. For five whole minutes Pritvi didn't move, as he watched her switching on the torch in her mobile and jogging forward to the pedestrian crossing a few blocks ahead. Her long skirt swished with every step she took and her hair whipped against her face. He watched as her fingers combed them back in frustration as she waited for the lights to change so she could cross the road.

It was long after she had vanished entirely from his view that he started his engine again. On his way back to the hospital Pritvi realized that he despised Myra Roy, or perhaps he despised the idea of her becoming his sister in law someday.

**

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Thanks for reading!

Until we meet again,

Sakura