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“Didn’t he?” he snaps. “He snatched everything from me, Jhanvi. What we are doing is only seizing it back.”

I don’t accept this, but Mohit presses the device in my palm and shuts it.

“Just this, Jhanvi, and then I swear I won’t ask you more favors. I will bring you out from there myself. Soon.”

I want that too. With that hope, I hide the device in my wallet and get up.

“I should go.”

He gives me a curt nod, but something changes in his eyes. He rises to his feet and cups my face. I freeze again. Mohit has cupped my face like that, stroked my cheeks, but none of it was over friendly. Tonight, it felt like he was doing this one level higher than before. He leans to kiss me and I close my eyes, unable to think if I really needed this. But the moment I shut my eyes, the only face I see is Aarav Raichand’s. Reality strikes hard, and for some odd reason, I push Mohit away before he can kiss me. He looks pissed and is as confused as I am at the moment. I can’t let him kiss me. I am married to someone else. I might not accept Aarav as my husband, but even then, infidelity is not my cup of tea. I’ve always been loyal to every relationship I had so far, be it with Daadi, Mohit, or my other friends.

“Are you kidding me?” he asks, annoyed at my reactions.

I calm my frantic heartbeats before responding.

“Until I am married to Aarav, we shouldn’t be doing this.”

“What?”

I know he is open to debate. Mohit has never kissed me before. On the forehead yes, when we were friends only, but ever since he proposed to me for marriage, he has never shown that urgency to kiss me or touch me beyond friendship level. In fact, even I didn’t mind because for me intimacy is an art to be developed, not jumped into because of your hormone’s imbalance. I somehow never felt the need to be intimate with Mohit, which is all wrong but needful at the moment.

“I should leave. Aarav will be suspicious otherwise.”

I turn around and before Mohit could stop me, I am out of his room.

CHAPTER 19

Aarav

Jhanvi came out of Mohit’s bedroom!!! It’s dreadful to watch it from my own eyes. When Jhanvi gave me the washroom excuse a while ago, I believed her, but not when I saw her taking the stairs instead. There are three washrooms down and she knows that well. Why would she go upstairs unless she had to meet someone? I didn’t want to suspect her intentions, but I’m already aware she hasn’t come back to me on her own. She has a motive to do so and somehow, it’s related to Durga Raichand and Mohit. Since the latter is nowhere seen in the party, I assume that’s where he is.. upstairs.. and my wife has gone to meet him. I didn’t want to follow her, yet I did. It took me time to reach the top floor, considering the guests kept on stopping me and wishing me for the wedding. After 10 minutes, when I finally reached Mohit’s bedroom door, I saw Jhanvi coming out and running back to the stairs. What happened in there? The mere thought of her with Mohit in one room alone churns my stomach.

“Hey, Aarav,” Mohit walks out of the room, almost clearing my doubt that she wasn’t alone inside. She was with him. “Jhanvi just left downstairs. Were you looking for her?”

He had that audacity to ask me? My fingers fisted on their own, and if he doesn’t stop mocking right now, I won’t mind shutting him up with my punch.

“Feels bad, doesn’t it?” Mohit grins. “To see your obsession in somebody else’s hand.”

“Jhanvi is not just my obsession,” I roar. “She is my wife.”

“Then what was she doing here with me? Wouldn’t you like to know?”

No! I don’t want to know what they were doing together. I’m well aware Mohit and Jhanvi have been friends all these years, and it was only three months ago that they agreed to marry each other. I don’t care what they shared between them in these three months, but it still pricks me to know they could still be sharing the same.Intimacy!!

“Actually, you know what?” Mohit reaches closer to me. “Doesn’t matter how much you brag about what you snatched from me. The truth is, you can never get what I have with Jhanvi. She might be your wife but she’s technically giving all those rights to me.”

The moment he says this, I grab his collar and pin him to the wall behind.

“One more filthy word against my wife and I will burn you down alive. Stay away from her.”

Mohit laughs. This man has no shame. He is laughing at my vulnerability. This is the first time I have unleashed my weakness on him. I shouldn’t have. Jhanvi might have been the pawn in my revenge, but now she’s also become my weakness, and I’ll never tolerate anyone else to play with it.

I push Mohit away like he’s some piece of crap I wouldn’t like to touch, and stride down. I can still hear his poisonous laugh behind. If Mohit thinks he won this round, he is wrong. Tonight, Aarav Raichand will prove who Jhanvi belongs to and will make sure Mohit sees that too.

Jhanvi is speaking to Durga Raichand and Jaya who is also invited to this party when suddenly she glances at me. I stop a server serving the alcohol and gulp an entire shot in one go without breaking my gaze from her. I sense her disapproval, but so be it.!! It was she who had come back to me stating she wanted to give this marriage a chance. Now it was time to prove that.

Without delay, I reach the group where Jhanvi is and grab her hand, and drag her to the dance floor. There are already couples around us ball dancing, lost in their partners. The lights are dim, giving us the privacy, we need to engage in a conversation that won’t be easy to have with people’s eyes on us.

“What are you doing?” she scolds me like I am an over pampered child who’s forcing her for things she doesn’t want to give me here.

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