Prejudice

7. Calling For Trouble

Life was slowly falling into place.

Shraddha was fairly comfortable around Pranav as the time passed. She had got used to his caring ways to handle her gently in bed. He was successful in breaking her shell and she would reciprocate his advances with same passion. The hesitation and resistance for both of them, was soon replaced by eagerness and excitement.
It was more than two weeks to their wedding.

Pranav was a sweet talker. He would never loose his calm, but refuse to say another word and go quiet if the topic of conversation was anything personal. He would never talk much about his brother, father or business.
But he would like to talk about his late mother. He would fondly relive her memories and talk about how compassionate she was.
They would fall into small conversation, after an intense intimate session. He would try his best to engage her in pillow talks.

She had seen that circular locket, dangling in a gold chain. It was a pretty circular locket in royal blue colour. It looked like a simple piece of blue glass. Nothing was special about it. He would distract her by his talks, whenever she focused her gaze on the locket. And he would simply snatch it away, if she tried to touch it.

The cold glass would rest on her bare chest whenever Pranav hovered over her. But that moment would be too intimate for her to think about the locket.

Shraddha was still trying to figure out her mysterious husband and her brother in law, who was hardly home.

Jay would come home exactly at eight in the morning. He would immediately leave after the breakfast and would mysteriously appear at the dinner table. She had hardly seen him enter the house, once he left in the morning. She never had a moment to talk to Jay, nor did Jay made any effort to talk to her.

She was asked to look after the changing of garlands on Pranav's mother's paintings and photo frames. She would observe as the staff would put a garland of fresh flowers on every frame, except the one in his study room.

She had once gone to that room, in Pranav's absence. She did not find anything suspicious in the fairly furnished room. She climbed the staircase that led to the birds room.

There was a wooden door, with a touch screen panel. She tried to look around for the lock or a latch, but then she realized, it was protected with a bio-metric lock.

She did not understand the reason to secure the birds with bio-metric lock.

Frustrated, she was back to looking something to push away her day.

Jay had been stalking the girl in his thoughts for a long time now. This was the first, that he had chased a girl, that too, in shadows.
Diya was fully aware that she was being watched by Jay. But after the warning from her cousin, she chose to ignore him. She would change the course of the track, whenever she would see Jay around. She had simply given up on a couple of classes, because Jay was lingering around.

Jay was aware of what she was trying to do, and he was enjoying the cat and mouse chase. He was just pushing her limits until she decided to confront him.
He was sure, she would at least complain it to Ajay, but that never happened. He had seen Ajay walk pass him, as if nothing happened.

That made Jay bolder and he decided to take a chance.

Diya was once in the girls washroom, when Jay entered. It was as if a signal to all other girls, and everyone just left, deserting the washroom.

Diya looked up in the mirror and found Jay staring at her.
Horrified, she turned around with a gasp. Jay was quick to approach her and trap her between him and the mirror behind her.

"Is the Dove running away from me?" He asked in a whisper.

Diya looked at him with wide horrified eyes and lips parted in shock.