The Marriage Contract

69 - A Storm Brewing

"Shreya Swamimaran has decided to step down from her position as the board member of Birla Hospital." Harshvardhan Birla announced as he entered Abhimanyu's cabin without knocking.

Abhimanyu leaned back in his chair, silently impressed by just how effectively the threat of exposing Shreya has worked. It hadn't even been two days since he had told Shreya to not interfere with his and Akshara's matters no more and he hadn't seen Shreya since. She really did take his threat to heart.

She hadn't even showed her face to Birla Hospital yesterday.

"Oh, that's...surprising." Abhimanyu was nonchalant with his response as he fixated his eyes on the iPad screen in front of him.

"Yes. It is. She apparently went on vacation overnight, without informing anymore and today, the entire board just received an email informing us of her decision to resign. Apparently she got 'bored' of being a board member and needed some excitement in her life." Harshvardhan Birla informed his son, not buying into the reason for Shreya's sudden departure.

"Oh. Good for her." Abhimanyu tried to feign interest in the topic of discussion but failed miserably.

"Did you have something to do with it?" Harshvardhan asked point blank.

Abhimanyu looked up at his father from the iPad screen. "What makes you think I had anything to do with Shreya's decision to step down from the board of Birla Hospital? She is an independent woman who can make her own decisions. So why would she let me dictate her life for her? I am a nobody to her."

Harshvardhan narrowed his eyes at Abhimanyu suspiciously before nodding his head. "Alright then."

"Is that all or is there something else you'd like to tell me?"

Harshvardhan shook his head. "No, that's all."

"Alright then, I would love to chat some more with you but I have a lot of pending case files to go through."

Harshvardhan knew that was his son's polite way of telling him to get out of his office. Harshvardhan turned on his heel and was about to exit the cabin when he turned around to face him again.

"Abhimanyu..." Son.

Abhimanyu looked up to face his father. "Yes."

"You are doing okay, right? Are you...happy?" Vulnerability reflected in his voice. As a father, all he wanted to do was to embrace his son and hold him in his arms –just once. That is all he wanted. But somehow, it seemed impossible in this life time.

"Yes, I am doing okay." Abhimanyu answered curtly, not wanting to expand on his words.

Knowing this was the most conversation he was going to get out of his son, Harshvardhan Birla gave his son a soft smile before exiting his cabin. No one would be able to understand a father's pain. Especially when that father had to purposely be a villain in his own son's life.

~*~

Weeks passed without a hitch. Without Shreya's interference, the work for the Birla Hospital Children's Ward and the Charity Wing went rather spectacularly. Akshara would accompany Abhimanyu to the hospital, spend her time in his cabin, going on the floor designs and then spend the rest of her days at the construction site, overseeing everything.

They normally would have lunch either in the Hospital's cafeteria or as they both preferred it most of the time –in the privacy of Abhimanyu's cabin.

All in all, one could say that life for Abhimanyu and Akshara which a few days ago had been a whirlwind roller-coaster was now rather smooth sailing.