आए मंन कारदा आए ठगी थोरिया
आए मंन कारदा आए सीना ज़ोरियाँ
आईने सिख लाइयाँ दिल दियाँ छोरियाँ
आए मॅन दियाँ ने कमज़ोरियाँ

Author's POV

One year! One year of plain ignorance, empty attempts to reach someone's heart, and pleasing the eyes with his view only to console yourself that he married you for a reason seemed like a lie all of a sudden. From little heartwarming touches to reserved words that were the need of the hour now felt real after reading the words written on those sheets. The foundation of their marriage stood null and void in front of her. No! The contract wasn't terminated. No! The divorce procedure wasn't ceased. No! There were no love confessions.

There was hope.

There was confusion between lies and truth.

There were proofs of his benevolent devotion.

But she couldn't understand the reasons. She sat on the bed with a sigh as the words roamed in front of her eyes, clearly stating that the business venture that formed the basis of their marriage was terminated six months back. Ishaan Malhotra and Agastya Kapoor were now partners in a completely new project that did not concern their marriage at all. The second legal form included an attested agreement stating that the marriage of Vanya, Ishaan's cousin, and Agastya, her brother, would not impact their relationship. In the future, if Vanya and Agastya decide to part ways, Ishaan promises to neither mistreat his Sanvi nor divorce her. What shocked her more was that he promised in legally binding terms that, upon one complaint from Sanvi regarding his behavior after Vanya's divorce, he would unquestionably transfer 50% of his holdings to her name. This clearly meant that the root cause of their alliance had been yanked away long back while she cluelessly let herself be tortured in the flames of those reasons.

6 months. For the last six months, he has been living in this marriage. For what? There was no damn explanation. This meant that even if this deal was the ignition of their union, it wasn't the fuel that kept their relationship running. He was with her for no motive, no selfish desire, and not even for the security of his investment. Why the hell did his brother never tell her all this? She wondered, confused. She immediately dialed her brother, seeking the answers she wanted.

"Why did you never tell me?" she asked as soon as he picked up the call.

She heard a long sigh from the other end.

"It doesn't matter, savi" he responded.

"It does to me, Bhai. He has been bearing the weight of this relationship for the past 6 months and getting nothing in return. Why did you never tell me?" she asked as tears slowly gathered in her eyes.

"In the last year, you have come home only once, bacha. It feels like ages since I have seen you. You demanded for one year. We gave you. Nothing changed. Now keep your word and after one month get back home. Your family is waiting for their princess to get back home. You would have given yourself false hopes if I had disclosed his moves to you. I don't want to hurt you" he elaborated.

"I'll be back super soon" She smiled as she knew the limit she asked for to create memories with her love was over.

Suddenly she heard a palm stretched out in front of her asking for the phone. She looked up at Ishaan who quietly waited for her to pass the phone, which she nodded and gave to him.

"Iss baar toh haath maangne nahi badhane aaye the issliye hakk nahi jatayenge saale sahab. Agli baar jab inhe hamare saath vidaa karenge toh yaad rakhiyega ham inke waqt par bhi hakk ki farmaish karenge" Ishaan said to Agastya indirectly telling him that he would demand rights on the time she spends talking to him as well in the near future. The hidden meaning behind his words made the brother-sister duo speechless. Ishaan ended the call and looked at his wife before sitting on his knees in front of her making her breath hitch. The last she remembered, they didn't have conversations like this. They didn't actually converse at all.

She averted her eyes from his knowing how they pulled her into a web of emotions. A soft grip of his warm hand on her chin forced her eyes to meet his eager ones. He breathed in relief as if his lungs had started accepting the flow of fresh air, making him feel alive. Her eyes held that power over him.

"We have done this hide and seek enough, Anvi. You asked for one last thing last night and now I have one last thing to ask for. After all, we have only one month to go for the divorce," he demanded softly. She nodded at him, asking him to state his wish.

"I want my wife back. I want the woman who didn't want to settle for anything less than my heart back for this left time," he said with a heavy voice. He dreaded her answer, but he knew he deserved it.

"For you to look at her like she was one of those girls out there desperate for your attention or revert her with cold silence? Everyone says right. I am so habitual to princess treatment that I can't bear this indifferent infliction from your family," she asked harshly while he shook his head in a no.

"Dad had just died, Anvi. You looked at me with so much affection that it looked like you wanted to fix me. When I realized you looked at the scarred pieces of me with the same level of affection. It was too late. You had drifted apart. I know my lack of expression has led us to this, but you only said that chips of old paint sometimes make the best of new paintings. Let's just start again with the same terms & conditions you kept on the day of marrying me" he pleaded holding her hands in his. He thought he had all the time in the world to cherish her so he thought he could focus on his dad's unfulfilled dream, i.e. the Silvi project for now. He just didn't realize that it wasn't forever that they agreed upon. Six months back when Anvi had gone home for one day he couldn't sleep all night. He felt that room to scary to survive in. The very next day, he eliminated every selfish reason for marrying her and wanted to start afresh with her. However, by then, Sanvi had started to maintain a distance that his silent acts of conveying his feelings couldn't eliminate.

"Give me one reason why I should give you a chance?" she was convinced but she intentionally asked that question, but his response made her eyes wide. She knew the fault wasn't only his. Even she made mistakes.

"Because I can't sleep without hugging you," Ishaan said almost immediately and then abruptly blinked, analyzing his own words. Oops! That was meant to be a secret. His wife thought she had cuddled into him for the first time yesterday. Well, consciously? Yes. Unconsciously, he hugged her to sleep every damn night. He pondered. Rubbing his nape, he quickly got up and said, "So this one month is a fresh start. Now let me get you your dinner"

Saying this, Ishaan went away, leaving a smiling Sanvi behind who couldn't help but feel all mushy at his words.

"Today this Reeta is going to die by my hands. I know she has OCD, but I have told her a hundred times that when I am on my period, don't take away the laundry basket without my permission. Ah! It's been a year now," Sanvi fumed, stepping down the stairs in a rush.

"Reeta," Sanvi called out, and the woman came running to her master's voice.

"I have told you so many times that don't pick my blood-stained clothes from the basket. I like to take a bath first and then wash them, but that does not mean you'll utilize that time and start washing them yourself. When will you learn?" she asked Reeta, ensuring no one was hearing them. She hated someone touching those sets of clothes. She liked washing them herself.

"Ma'am, I swear I enter your room only after the second half of the day. I haven't even touched the laundry basket of your chamber," she said, explaining herself, making Sanvi go quiet. Fuck! If not for Reeta's OCD, then who the hell would pick her dirty clothes and wash them with their own hands? She knew they weren't washed in the machine because the clothes were always devoid of even the tiniest of marks, which isn't possible with the automated technology available at the mansion.

Sanvi walked back to the room and surfed through the entire basket once again to check if her eyes were working properly. A minute later she heard the sound of the little portable cloth dryer from the balcony and rushed to see her husband putting her lowers inside it. Fudging no! This was so embarrassing. He was neither supposed to see them nor touch them. They would have surely disgusted him to take that step.

"Ishaan, what are you doing?" she asked, getting all flustered. Why didn't the earth open up and pull her inside?

"Neither is this the first time I am doing this job nor this will be the last," he answered, not even sparing her a glance as he kept putting her clothes in the dryer.

"I would have washed them," she murmured in a small voice, feeling uneasy all of a sudden. He instantly turned around and pulled her to himself. Wrapping his arms tenderly around her he said, "What difference does it make? One & the same thing" 

"They were stained," she told him.

"Stained with marks of purity, courage, and future prosperity. The ones you bear to give rise to evolution. When men say they are pregnant along with their women. They must be capable of contributing to the process from the instant they become a part of the woman's life. I wanted to be a part of you and I have always believed I am," he said, kissing her forehead while she couldn't help but feel the bliss pouring through his words. Her husband was blunt, but he taught her how natural it was for him to walk with her.

"Why?" she asked after a minute of peaceful silence.

"Your back pain increases due to long hours of standing. I was helping you reduce the trouble," he said, and she smiled. He melted right there. At her one smile.

"Will you always care like this?" she asked.

"Always have, always will. Just keep rewarding me with these pretty smiles," he said, making her giggle. She tip-toed and kissed his cheek. Before she could run away, he held her and tapped his other cheek with his finger. She blushed a little before dropping a kiss on his other cheek while he tightened his hold on her. Carefully brushing his lips on her in a soft peck he whispered against her petal-like lips, "Come get me from my study. You know what day it is"

It was their shopping day and his study was one of the most reserved areas of the mansion that she had full access to. Just like his heart. 

He left her there as she touched her lips with her fingers, unable to believe it was finally happening to her. Oh god, she was blushing like a teenager whose crush had just kissed her. Actually, he had.

"Shaan, how am I looking?" she asked barging inside his study, making his fluently addressing an online meeting tongue halt. He had never felt short of words in his entire life, unlike today. Dressed in a blank floral coat-pant with a cropped black blouse inside it, she looked breathtakingly powerful and endearingly cute. He just forgot to blink for a moment while the voices of his assistant and others from the PC kept getting louder in his headphone-clad ears. Whoa! Wasn't he one lucky bastard to be the husband of a beauty like her?

She didn't even look up at him, too busy adjusting the strap of her jet-black heels. Walking and stopping every two seconds to touch her footwear, she reached her husband, who had by now kept away the ear device and was simply admiring her. She finally looked at him and realized she had reached his desk. An arena that seemed too forbidden to her. Once she had by mistake knocked a file off his table and he had looked at her with such intensity that a sorry automatically slipped off her tongue. Just like that day, she started to take steps back when he pulled her to himself and she fell on his lap. Settling her properly on his thigh he started to remove the strap of her heel while she kept looking at him in shock. Her heart was running a marathon as she could feel her heartbeat ring in her ears. Ignoring the way his wife stilled due to their proximity, he threw her heels down on the floor and straightened up. Suddenly a voice shook them as they heard the group of men, shown by numerous boxes on the screen were looking at them open-mouthed. Sanvi looked horrified at Ishaan, who looked bored at their reaction. The meeting was still on and the entire board of directors had spotted them in that position. He looked at her with the same intensity in his eyes as the days she silently accepted his silence as a portrayal of anger. Now when she looked carefully the sparkle in his eyes spoke volumes of passion that scared her. Did she misunderstand him in the past?

He quietly dismissed the meeting and looked at her while saying, "You look as if a diamond has suddenly sparkled amidst the depths of nothingness"

In the nothingness of his world, she was his only diamond. Only precious asset. 

Coming back to the present, she asked, "Why did you remove my heels?"

"No one has the right to hurt you. Not even those ugly things" he had seen the rashes forming due to the strap of that heel. He would be damned if he let her walk in them. 

"But I looked pretty in them" she pouted. 

"I don't think a torch makes any difference to sunlight," he said telling her that she was as bright as the sun and the heels were incapable of enhancing her brightness. 

'For me pretty means my anvi. Nothing less. Nothing more. You are mine and that is the prettiest fact of my life' he mumbled to himself. I would be doomed if I let this fact change. 

She hugged him out of overwhelming warmth dripping down her soul while he finally smiled as this was the first time she let herself embrace him fully without worrying about the consequences. This was the beginning he yearned for. This was the relationship he wanted to have with her.

They parted and the zipper of her top got stuck in his manly pendant. She looked at the sparkling gold necklace with a sharp eagle shining on it. She was immediately enchanted. She kept looking at it as she traced every carving of the wing while his fingers worked on detaching the stuck chain. As he successfully removed the chain, he started to take it out of his neck. She looked at him questioningly as he made her wear the chain, making her eyes shine bright. Suddenly feeling bad, she said, "No! It's yours"

What if it belonged to his father, and I lost it? She asked herself. She couldn't live with that kind of regret. She had never seen him remove it. It was his favorite. She couldn't take the risk of losing these tidbits of affection.

"Just like you are," he said, joining his forehead with hers. Exactly after forty-five minutes, she and her fear stood side by side as she looked around the entire trial room, but the pendant was gone. She had seen the name of his father printed behind it. He was never going to forgive her for this. When his mother adjusted his study and touched his father's pen she had seen him fight with her. She was so dead. It was all over for her. Even if he would manage to forgive her, she wouldn't be able to get herself out of this guilt of making him lose something so precious. She slid down the seating rack. The determined side of her brain was ready to face it all, but what hurt the most was that she was going to give him the hurt of a lifetime. And she wasn't ready for it. Never would be. 

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Only me and those who I disturb regularly know how close I was to deleting this chapter of more than 2500 words. Why? Because I don't know what the hell I wrote so kindly do the honors of telling me about it. 

So how was it?

What's your opinion about Sanvi?

Opinion about Ishaan?

Your favorite dialogue?

Was there even one swoon-worthy moment in this chapter?

Anything you found cute?

Didn't they miss only one damn thing...i.e. communication?

Would Ishaan actually hate her for losing his father's pendant?

Did I make it worth your time?

Did I make it worth your weekend?

The best part?

Soo Sanvi promised her brother to return home after a month. Will Ishaan let her go? anyone who understood what he directly conveyed to her brother *wink*

Rate the update for me please:

1. #Okayish

2. #Enjoyedittothecore

3. #Bestofbest

Expecting a bright response from you guys because it's just your support that keeps me going. Your update ends here while mine starts the moment your comments start dropping by. Kindly leave your opinion in the comments section and you have the entire credit of making the author smile. Also don't forget to press the star button. Love you guys!

Random question: Something in this chapter that was unique?

Or

Ishaan's best dialogue?

Or

Red Velvet vs Butterscotch

With love

Ms. Bhatia