Billionaire's 'lost' wife

Chapter 19- Brothers-out-law

Vit got up in the morning feeling refreshed after a long time and started to execute his plan. He called Param to tell him that he will be at the start-up event in the morning and drop by the office in the evening. Param decided he will pickup Vit just before lunch and they will together drive to office.

Vit dressed in his business formals, his choice was deep charcoal gray suit with contrasting red shirt as part of power dressing. He wanted to impress Chetan into telling all Rukma's secrets. The list he had prepared of the prospective matches was in his breast pocket and another copy on his phone.

On the way to the event he decided to chat with Rukma.

'Good morning.'

Rukma was on her way to the university, she decided to ignore him.

Bugged with her non-response,  Vit decided to throw the bomb,so when  he was nearing the venue he messaged, 'On my to meet Chetan.'

Another message ping that Rukma decided to ignore. But when she looked at the screen few minutes later, she screamed at the screen, 'Bloody Hell'

'What have you got to do with him?' she added the enraged emoji.

'Man to man talk with my brother-in-law. <smiling emoji>.' Vit was imagining Rukma's reaction and laughing at the screen when the car stopped. The driver who had served the family for more than a decade thought Vit had finally gone mad.

Vit walked into the event and started to check on the variety of businesses at the start-up stalls. He found at least a few that he wanted his team to look at. He looked around for Chetan as he wanted to catch him before Yash did.

He finally spotted Chetan talking and directing his team. He was giving finishing touches to the presentation. Vit met him and asked him to join for a cup of coffee in the makeshift office dedicated to his company. They walked to the other end, and when Vit opened the office door Chetan walked in and sat on the chair across the desk.

'Apologies for yesterday.' Chetan said while taking the chair.

'Why?' Vit was surprised and stopped on his way to the chair across.He could not think of anything that Chetan should apologize for.

'I do not think Rukma see you out of the house. She usually does, and I assumed the same and that is why I did not check on you again.'

Many thoughts rushed in Vit's head starting with the slap he received and how he was literally kicked out of the house. There was no way he was discussing any of it with Chetan. He decided to close this discussion by saying, 'She was very courteous and polite in the circumstances.'

Chetan was surprised by the response but decided to let the two of them sort it out. Therefore he asked, 'So what is it that you wanted to talk about?'

'Well, let us see, you are here for funding your company?'

'Yes we are looking at next level growth and looking for strategic investor at this stage. Both money and skills are needed to grow in East Europe and Latin America.'

'And what is the target investment?'

'Around 100 crores ( approx 15 million dollars).'

'So you are running around for 100 crores while your sister is throwing away easy 100 crores.' Vit said with a smile.

Chetan's literally jumped out of his chair and shock was writ on his face, 'What! what are you talking about?'

Vit had the smile of satisfaction, 'So she did not tell you till now.' He waited for the effect to sink in and then continued, ' She has the chance to  get easy 100 crores with no strings attached.'

When Chetan kept on looking quizzically, Vit decided to add, 'Well there is a string attached, and that string is me.'

Since Chetan was still in a shock and tried to process what was being told, Vit decided to go for the kill and took out the list from his breast pocket and put it on the table. 'My guess is that she is rejecting easy money because she plans to hook one of these guys. Some of them are bigger fishes than me, some have equally big businesses and some have less net worth. There are enough photographs of her with all of them.'

Vit took out his phone and put it in front of Chetan to scroll through. Chetan stared at the phone thinking what it was, he looked through some of the pictures and these were of Rukma with various businessmen at official and semi-official events. He was  finding it hard to understand what Vit was alleging.

'So you have collected all this as evidence to say that my sister is trying to marry one of these people?'

'Yes, that is precisely my point.' Vit said looking directly at Chetan, happy that he was finally getting somewhere with his investigation.

Chetan was thoroughly confused by now, 'I am unable to understand the connection between you, 100 crores, these 'prospective matches' , marriage and my sister. ' He had walked in thinking that this meeting was all about business but it had taken a very, very personal turn.