Manan ff : Shining Armour

chapter 66(A) -part 2

Pooja continued for next 45 minutes, Nandini stood next to Gagan and navya watching Malhotra family along with Abhimanyu take part in pooja but mainly her eyes were on manik. She could clearly guess maniks different behavior due to Rishab's absence but both stayed quite.

As soon as pooja ended, everyone took prashad. And currently everyone were chatting, Raj and Nyonika were attending the guests and the relatives who joined the function now.

Manik gave few instructions to the workers about the lunch arrangement and turned around, only to look at Nandini who took a plate full of things used in pooja and started walking towards Nyonika to give the plate. He couldn't hold himself so he walked up to her and stood in front of her with smile on his face, but it soon disappeared when Nandini raised her face and looked at him before moving aside and walked away without giving two hoots for his presence. Manik looked at himself and wondered.

"Am I invisible ? Damn Nandini, only she can shake my whole confidence" shaking his head with a frown on his face, he walked away to take care of other works.

Here Nandini handed over the plate to Nyonika, who thanked her back. Later she turned around to look at all the people engrossed in chatting, lately her eyes fell on soha who was standing near the pillar and texting someone. Smirking she turned around in search of Arav.

She saw Arav sitting on Druv's lap and talking to him animatedly, she walked up to them.

"Druv actually manik was searching for you, he had some work I guess " she told him faking innocence.

"Oki but Nandini can you look after Arav " Druv asked standing up.

"Sure " she said smiling. Druv walked away bidding bye to Arav.

"Hey ! Iron man, wanna have some fun " she asked Arav.

"Yeah massi, it's soo boling (boring) over here" Arav said pouting.

"Boring , you mean " Nandini corrected him.

"Uh-uh " Arav nodded.

"Oki so why don't we play something, what say ?" Nandini said winking at him.

"Yayee !! Let's play Iron man " Arav exclaimed.

"Cool, so Arav do one thing, look at that aunty over there " she said pointing at soha .." She is best at playing iron man, why don't you make her sit on that chair over there and get your toys and play with her buddy " Nandini said in excitement which doubled Arav's excitement.

"Oki ...but massi ??" Arav asked.

"Yeah " Nandini asked with a smile on her face.

"Why don't you play with me ?" Arav asked patting his chin raising his eyebrows.

Nandini's smile vanished at his question.

"I would love to play with you baby, but I have some work to do so next time I'll play with you pakka (really)" Nandini covered up.

"Okey -dokey " Arav said cheekily before rushing towards soha.

Nandini went near her friends, where everyone was present except manik, who was talking to Raj about something. She stood there and watched Arav's action.

Arav did exactly as Nandini said, soha agreed to play with him thinking that she could impress manik. Arav made her sit on the chair near the pillar and went to his play room to get his toys.

As soon as Arav made soha sit on the chair, Nandini went near Cabir who was talking to navya.

As Nandini stood next to Cabir, giving him innocent smile, his senses heightened sensing danger. He raised his eyebrows, instead of talking to him, she turned towards navya and spoke.