Spoiled • 18+ • Arranged Marriage Story

Eight

Sakshi sat at the dinner table eating her dinner as she set the cutlery down. As usual, the food was delicious. Sakshi had worn a saree for dinner. She was back to playing the perfect daughter-in-law again. Inside, she was raging. She wanted to scream.

But now was not the time. When she woke up from her nap, Sakshi had a realization that baba wasn't here anymore and it was upto her to clean up her own mess.

"Honey, you should tell everyone about what we decided." She took Siddharth's hand in hers and she smiled brightly. He looked at her stunned and she noticed, his hands were shaky.

She wondered what he was nervous about. "Ah yes. We have decided to not get divorced."

She looked pointedly at Sanjay Sandhini and he had a pleased look on his face. Her insides burned. She knew he thought he had bested her. But she didn't let it show. She promised herself that she would bring him down and then bring down his entire family.

She looked at her husband and at their joined hands and she withdrew her hand. She knew it would destroy him too. She was aware that she was just using him for the time being. When the time would come, she would leave him. It would be an appropriate revenge for all the suffering she went through through for five years.

Later, while in their room. Sakshi began the process of removing everything. He was there too, on the couch, his feet were up the table and his laptop was on his lap. He was solely focused on working.

Strange enough, the atmosphere between them seemed amicable. In the past, even even they were in the same room beside each other, there was always a frost wall between them. But it wasn't the case now.

"You looked beautiful today."

She snapped her eyes to him and he looked at her with a lazy look in her eyes. She scoffed and continued working on removing the jewelery. "Ofcourse I did. Not because I am arrogant about my looks or anything but because..." She paused to remove her earrings. "Because men always get hard for traditionalism. It's that patriarchal standards that makes you think so."

She stopped once she realised she was letting her mouth run. She didn't know what was wrong with her and why she was expressing her opinions so freely to him - a man who was a stranger to her until a week ago. If she had run her mouth in front of baba, she shuddered to even think about it.

She looked at Siddharth warily to see if she had angered him. His attention was on his laptop but a smile set his lips to a curve. He switched off the laptop and shut it. He crossed his arms behind his head and leaned back stretching himself. His T-shirt rose and the skin at his hips peeped out and she looked away, her face hot.

"That much is true. Men's base desires do revolve round patriarchal standards of beauty and traditionalism. But, I wasn't complimenting you just about that." He said and Sakshi saw him stand up and place his laptop on the table.

"Maybe, I am biased and adhere to standards of beauty because I do think you look more beautiful when you wear sarees..."

She watched him through the mirror as he walked to the bed next and pulled off the comforter and patted it.

"But trust me darling, this time I meant to compliment you because of the efforts you took. I know it's hard to dress up, even worse when everyone has their eyes on you."

Sakshi didn't know why her face was red. Actually, she knew. It was what he had called her. It was annoyingly becoming her favorite word and the thing that annoyed her the most was that she secretly wished he would say it more often. She liked how it rolled off his tongue and his lips.

Now her heart was racing, Sakshi noticed the bother. Sakshi brushed it off. It was probably because she was ovulating. Her hormones were clouding her brain. That was why she had cried her eyes out in the morning. Probably. She looked at the dresser table. It had been long since she used it. Maybe she should use it tonight and get right in the head.