RISHTAA: An Arranged Love (IPKKND AU) **ON HIATUS**

Chapter 10: Arnav

"If you can't handle this then I don't know what I employ you for. I have enough to deal with without holding your hand."

"I'll make some calls," Aman offered briskly.

"No. You should concentrate on your end. Aakash is handling the Nainital side and I'll handle the rest."

"Arnav? Is everything okay?"

Arnav frowned at Aman's uncharacteristic hesitancy. He'd come to admire the other man's almost brutal honesty over the years, a quality that had saved them time and time again when it came to AR. He'd respected Aman from the first day of their acquaintance, and that respect had deepened into an unlikely friendship in the chaos of AR Group's first few years.

But his relationship with Aman only worked if he was equally as honest.

"No," he screwed his eyes shut, "It's not."


"Is there anything I can do?"

Arnav sighed, "No."

"I know that sigh. It's a girl," Aman was quick to stifle his laughter but it carried through the phone regardless.

"Shut up, Aman," his irritation flared, "I don't pay you to laugh at me."

"You hardly pay me at all. I can't afford to feed myself here, I'm practically begging on the streets!"

"What the--! You're in a five-star suite with a dedicated driver and a gaggle of people at your beck and call."

"Wait," Aman mastered his mirth, "Is it the girl Nani-ji took you to see? Family from Lucknow, sweet making father, college degree?"

"No!" Arnav exclaimed, but then followed it with a softly spoken admission, "Yes. I can't sleep, I can barely eat. It's ridiculous."

It felt like weakness, but a weight lifted off him at the confession.

Maybe talking about her will highlight how absurd this infatuation is.

Aman chuckled, "Good luck bro. I hear that everyone loves her. Nani-ji's ready to show the priests your horoscopes."

Arnav gave a noncommittal grunt as he sat up in the lounge chair, staring up at the stars.

"How the mighty have fallen," Aman took advantage of his silence to gloat some more.

"Yeah. Right. I'll speak to you tomorrow. This damned contract will be dealt with one way or another. And Aman? Don't breathe a word of this to anyone."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

Ending the call with a press of a button, Arnav leaned back and closed his eyes. His left arm still tingled where he'd brushed against her, half accidentally. The image of her as she bent for the matches, her back exposed but for the two-inch strip of her blouse and two insubstantial doris, swam against his eyelids.

Your attraction is a series of electrochemical responses in the body. Lust, pure and simple. Master it.

She was too goddamned distracting. The nights spent lying awake as her smiling face swam in front of his eyes were taxing his sanity. And Di, in that overly exuberant way of hers, had come up with a childish plan to give them privacy.

"I'll take her to the terrace, Chhote, and then leave under some pretext. Just meet her there before dinner."

He scoffed at the memory of her words.

The day I need romantic advice from Di is the day I stop calling myself Arnav Singh Raizada.

He frowned as a soft ringing reached him, stopping and starting at random intervals. Arnav opened one eye - slowly - to see Khushi tip-toeing down the terrace stairs, stopping frequently to glance at him. A smile threatened to form on his lips as he realised that she'd forgotten the chime of her payal. He waited in absolute stillness, his eyes almost closed.

Talking to her will only encourage this madness.

So focussed was she on him, and on her imagined stealth, that she stumbled into one of the earthen pots that lined the poolside. She slipped, caught herself on the small table, and righted herself with a sharp yelp. Then she froze and stared at him for several heartbeats before approaching with exaggerated care, her payal ringing with every step. She stopped a few feet away.

"Arnav-ji?"

He willed himself not to react, though his heart surged with some emotion he didn't care to identify. His name had never sounded sweeter.

"Arnav-ji?"

She waited a full minute before turning, muttering, "It's good that he's asleep, he told that Aman-ji that he couldn't sleep. Working too hard, like Anjali-ji said."

"Me-ee-eh."

A loud bleat sounded. Arnav shifted slightly to watch Nani's pet goat - Lakshmi - amble into the poolside.

What the--! How did she escape from Nani's room? These servants can't keep track of one stupid goat!

He shut his eyes as Khushi gave a loud gasp. Her payal rang out - step step step - and then --

"What's a goat doing here?" she mused out loud.

"Beehhh" answered Lakshmi.

Arnav opened one eye cautiously. She was crouched on the floor, unheeding of her sari, scratching behind Lakshmi's ears as she inspected the silver and blue "ghagra" and matching "socks" the goat wore.

"Why are you in such a big house?" she asked her new friend, "Or are you lost? Come, I'll take you to Anjali-ji."

She reached out, but Lakshmi ran back inside with a bleat. Khushi took a few steps before halting abruptly at the glass doors. Then, she smacked herself on the head, the sound of it audible in the moonlit silence.

"Khushi," she muttered to herself, "Were you planning to follow that goat into his bedroom?"

Arnav felt his eyebrows come together in an involuntary frown.

She's very strange.

He shut his eyes as she turned again. Her payal rang out as she strolled around the poolside and her floral scent wafted to him as she passed near his chair. Arnav only opened his eyes when he heard her move away. Now she stood on the other side of the pool, illuminated by moonlight, her face upturned to the stars. His eyes traced the curve of her cheek, the line of her jaw, the curl of her hair about her neck, the swell of her ...

He looked away, inhaling sharply as he realised where his thoughts had taken him.

"I'm so confused, Amma," came her voice, "I don't know what to do. I can't marry an atheist who doesn't smile ... even though he ..."

Arnav glanced at her.

Is she ... talking to the stars? To her parents?

"He ... we ... I don't know," Khushi continued, "No one will talk to me about it. Everyone says that I'll know. How will I know? He won't even talk to me."

Something uncoiled in his chest at her words. Arnav opened his eyes as she crept back to the terrace on ringing feet, trying to ignore the guilt surging inside him for picking this girl for his plans.

This is what you wanted, Arnav. She's following your script.

There was something almost heartbreaking about her innocence, as if it needed to be protected and nurtured.

An atheist who doesn't smile ... He won't even talk to me.

She looked for her parents in the stars.

I find Mamma in these plants.