Page 7 of Forged By Fate

She tilted her head upwards ever so slightly, and there was no way I could resist the invitation. I nuzzled the side of her jaw before I bent my head to kiss her. And then Tahira ruined it all.

Her piercing voice shattered the little bubble that closed us off from the world. Sunaina drew back in horror and whipped her head around to face the front. I was furious with Tahira and was about to snap at her when I felt Sunaina’s fingers digging into my forearms. I couldn’t tell if she was upset with Tahirafor interrupting us or if she was upset about the near kiss. She tried to pull away from me, and I felt like a monster for taking advantage of her. There was no place for stolen kisses in our fake marriage and she was right to be upset. I should have let her go, but the idiots behind us were even more drunk after a couple of beers. I didn’t want them to jostle her again.

So I tightened my arms around her to hold her in place, and somehow, my fingers found hers. We stood like that for the rest of the fireworks display, with our fingers intertwined, and it was pure torture. It gave me a glimpse of what it would be like if this marriage was real. I could hold Sunaina like this for the rest of our lives.

Then reality struck, and my throat closed in fear when I remembered that the rest of our lives could be very short. Forever was not as permanent as it sounded. I should know. I had lost everyone I had ever loved. Maybe I was cursed. Maybe it was fate. Maybe I deserved it. But I wasn’t going to risk losing anyone else in my life ever again.

There was no place for love in my life. I’d be a fool to leave myself so vulnerable again. If I allowed myself to fall in love with Sunaina and she was taken from me, I didn’t know if I’d ever recover. And it wasn’t just me. Aisha, who knew the terms of our marriage, was beginning to treat Sunaina like a mother. She had already been through hell once. I wasn’t going to put her through that again. The sooner we ended this farce, the better it would be for all of us. Sunaina would go on her way, and Aisha and I would get on with our lives.

But it wasn’t so easy. Sunaina might be my fake wife, but she was a real part of my family. When had that happened, I wondered. When did she become so essential to the functioning of the Chaudhry household?

Daima was perfectly capable of looking after all of us. She had done it for years. And yet, without me realising it, the reinsof my household were somehow firmly in Sunaina’s hands. She had become the centre of our lives.

When Aisha came home from school, she first called out for Aunty Sue, and Sunaina was always waiting to greet her. Always. No matter what plans she had during the day, she made sure she was back before Aisha got home from school. Sufi and Daima deferred to her in all matters of the household, from what to stock in the pantry to what flowers to arrange around the house. She entertained our guests as if she were born and bred to our lifestyle.

Somehow, she had my best friends, Sarang and Neil, eating out of her hand. She had even made friends with Diya, Isha and Shivina, three of the most intimidating royals in our circle. Those three women trusted nobody, and yet they trusted Sunaina and loved her enough to drag her to brunch every week.

Friday movie nights had been an institution in our house since Aisha came to live with me, but now, they were all hers. The rest of us would spend hours squabbling over what movie to watch, but she always knew exactly which one we’d all like. She made sure we didn’t run out of our favourite snacks, whether it was baked ragi chips for me, Aisha’s favourite candy, or even the awful matcha-flavoured crap that Sufi liked and especially Daima’s favourite ghee-fried mathri from the mathri-waali galli in Old Delhi that we all liked to steal. The den had Sunaina written all over it, from the colourful sequinned cushions that poked me in the ass to the soft, fluffy throws that softened the harsh masculinity of the room.

How the hell were we going to do movie nights without her? I clenched my jaw and blew out a breath as I realised that I had fucked this arrangement up spectacularly. This was all on me. Instead of keeping the boundaries of our fake relationship clear, I had allowed the lines to blur. And now we were all going to pay the price.

Still, it wasn’t too late to correct my mistake. Starting now.

I was going to make it clear to everyone, including Sunaina, that our relationship was strictly business. Nothing more.

When the fireworks display ended with a flourish, the crowds began to move towards the exit, and I pulled my arms off Sunaina sharply. She turned to me in surprise, but I avoided her eyes and reached for Aisha’s hand.

“Come on, sweetie. It’s time to get you home. Sufi and Sunaina have plans for the night,” I said, leading her towards the exit.

CHAPTER 5

SUNAINA

What just happened?

One minute, Viren and I were watching the fireworks with our fingers intertwined, and the next minute, he drew his arms away as if I had the plague. I had just started thinking maybe there was hope. That maybe he was attracted to me if nothing more. But the sight of his stony profile as he pointedly avoided my gaze told me otherwise.

He hustled us into the car, and I tried not to let Tahira’s smug smile affect me, but it pinched. As did the fact that my husband went back to pretending I was just a member of his staff. After I just spent a magical hour with his arms around me. Was he made of stone? Or was I a complete fool? Maybe both.

I pretended not to see Sufi’s commiserating glance because I was tired of being the object of pity in the Chaudhry household. Everyone felt sorry for me, the unwanted wife. And while I had Sufi, Daya Bua and Aisha rooting for us, Viren wanted nothing to do with the idea of us. I didn’t blame him. Well, not completely.

He was very clear about what he expected from this marriage. It wasn’t his fault I had the misfortune to fall in love with my temporary husband. I didn’t know when it began. Maybe it started when he rescued me from being sold into marriage to a cop twice my age. Or maybe it started when he faced down my nasty stepmother, who turned up at his doorstep with said cop and tried to bully me into going home with her. Or maybe it was triggered by his immense capacity for love.

This was a man who loved his cousin’s daughter like his own child, who loved his nanny like his own mother, and who had treated his secretary like a brother. He had welcomed me into his circle without ever making me feel cheap. His aunt had a lot of unflattering opinions about me because I didn’t belong to their social circle, but Viren made sure she never found out about our agreement because, in our society, nothing labelled a woman as a whore and a gold digger quite as much as the fact that she was a fake wife. His aunt might disapprove of me, but she was forced to treat me with the respect due to Viren Chaudhry’s wife.

Viren treated me like a queen because I was helping him secure Aisha’s future and safety. He treated me like his real wife in every way except the one that mattered. He gave me his friendship but nothing else. And yet, before I knew what was happening, I was head over heels in love with him. Of course, it didn’t help that he was six feet tall and built like a tank, with a hard, chiselled face and sharp, piercing brown eyes that seemed to look into my very soul.

Since I moved into Chaudhry House, I had spent many a sleepless night tortured by the idea of what could be. But the only time Viren came into my room was when I’d had a bad bout of viral fever. I was thrashing around in bed, unable to sleep because of the high temperature, and Viren spent all night in the big armchair next to my bed. He bathed my forehead with coldcloths sprinkled with eau de cologne and held my hand when I became too restless. At one point, I thought he climbed into bed with me and held me down until I fell asleep in his arms. But that must have been a fever-induced dream because when I opened my eyes the next morning, he was fast asleep in the armchair, looking like a fallen angel sent to tempt me into sin. If I hadn’t been so sick, I would have climbed onto his lap and woken him up with a kiss. Alas, I was too weak to even raise my head and look at him properly.

Which was a good thing because clearly, I was prone to making stupid decisions while I was sick. Even if I did manage to climb onto Viren’s lap, odds were that he’d open his eyes and push me away in horror immediately. Because in all the time that I’d known him, he had never shown any signs of wanting me on his lap or any other part of his delicious body.

Until tonight.

Tonight, for the first time, I felt like his wife. Like we were about to turn the page on our fake relationship. Like he wanted me as much as I wanted him. Until he pushed me away. Until he showed me my place.

I followed Sufi blindly towards the exit, taking short, shallow breaths, trying not to let my tears fall. I was damned if I shed any more tears over a man who didn’t want me. I got jostled in the crowd and crashed into the man walking in front of me. I apologised to him hastily and gripped Sufi’s hand tightly to avoid any more accidents, but the man I bumped into turned to stare at me.

“Sunaiana? Sunaina Chauhan?” he yelped.

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