20. OS 18. Too Tempting to Resist (Part 20)

Part 20


 He banged on the shut bedroom door like a mad man, forgetting that he was cool ASR for a moment.

"Open the door, Khushi Kumari Gupta!" he yelled.

"No, I won't," she yelled right back, secure in her room. There was no way he could enter her bedroom past the locked door.

"You lied to your family," he fumed. "You lied about your tummy ache."

Khushi blew away strands of hair that had fallen on her cheek by pursing her lips. Placing her hands on her hips and throwing her head back in challenge, she said, "My tummy is mine. So is its ache. Aap ghar jaayiye."

"How dare you!" he yelled, furious.

Khushi hit her head with her hand. "You are jiji's jetji. Isliye hum aapko seh rahe hein. Nahi tho I would have shouted at you and thrown you out."


That was the last straw on the ASR camel's broad back.

"You and whose army?" he shouted even as he tried to kick the door down.

Khushi jumped. Was he kicking the door?

"Pagal he aap?" she asked, her eyes bewildered. Why had her simple action of avoiding a function at his home turned him from a sane businessman into a mad caveman?

ASR was too busy trying to knock down the door to answer.

Khushi looked at the poor door that was straining to stay shut against her jiji's jetji's pagalpan. What would buaji say when she returned home and found the door broken?

Khushi clutched her heart in panic.

Buaji's belan was more terrifying that the insane man on the other side of the wooden door.

Khushi gulped, trying to calm herself. 'There is no other way, Khussi,' she told herself. 'Open the door and face that rakshas' madness.'

ASR made a running jump to attack the door just as Khushi threw open the door and stepped back.

He fell inside the room and unable to stop the momentum, landed flat on her bed, bringing down the mosquito cover and the bed posts. Golden stars and green parrots fell on his head.

"What the," he muttered, getting the gold and green mobiles off his luscious hair and sitting up.

"You mad man!" Khushi thundered. "What have you done to my bed? What will I tell buaji when she gets back home? How can I explain why my bed is broken and the door is battered?"

ASR sat in Khushi's bed, surveying the damage he had caused. The room looked as though a full herd of bulls had run over it at will. Had he really done this? He, Arnav Singh Raizada?

Khushi clutched her head.

"He Devi Maiyya, what will I tell buaji?" Khushi lamented. "She will think jiji is going to marry into a mad family, that jiji's jetji belongs to Agra pagalkhana."

ASR clenched his jaw in anger. Who did this girl think she was to insult ASR?

"Poor jiji!" Khushi continued on her merry way. "The flower of her happiness will wilt even before it has bloomed."

ASR frowned. Flower? He hadn't destroyed any flowers. He looked around to make sure he hadn't knocked down a vase.

"Her pyaar ki kali was on the verge of blooming and then this rakshas came and plucked it and left it to die," Khushi went on with her drama.

ASR almost shuddered at the melodrama.

"Poor Akash jiju. Jiji and Jiju must have been so happy today at their mehendi! But it is to be short-lived. When buaji sees the condition of this house, she will cancel the wedding. Poor jiju will long for his Payalji and poor jiji will long for her Akashji. And never the twain shall marry!" Khushi cried. "It is all your fault," she told him to his face.

"It is your fault," he retorted. His heart quailed at the thought of Akash and Payal. Would buaji really cancel the wedding?

"This is my house. You came here. You almost destroyed my bedroom door. You broke my bed. And you are saying it is my fault?" Khushi shot right back. "Agar hum aapke ghar aate and if I broke down your bedroom door and your bed, then it would have been my fault. Devi Maiyya knows I never refuse to accept my guilt. But here I am innocent. Here the bed is mine. The house is mine. The door is mine. So it is your fault."

ASR looked at the door and the bed.


Khushi's hazel eyes slowly filled with tears.

As he watched, one drop trailed down her alabaster cheek.

The fight died within him. He stood there, hurt, lost, defeated, scared, speechless.

Khushi sniffed. "Poor jiji and jiju...hamare kaaran..."

ASR blinked. He was ASR and ASR could make impossible things happen. He had forgotten that fact for a moment.

He pulled out his phone and told her gruffly, "Get dressed."

"Ji?" she asked, perplexed.

"I will make sure everything is fine when buaji returns," he promised. "But the workers will need time. We need to extend the mehendi and keep your family at my house a couple of hours longer. Get dressed."

Khushi nodded and ran to her wardrobe to pull out an anarkali.

ASR quickly phoned a home maintenance company and offered them an indecent amount of money to get the repairs done in two hours.

Ten minutes later, Aman was overseeing the repairs at her home and ASR was driving Khushi to his house for the mehendi.

He turned his head to look at her pensive face.

She was with him, sitting by his side, in his car. He blinked. Had he really tried to get to her by breaking her door? He shook his head. What had gotten into him? ASR never did things like that.

He looked at the slim fingers of her hands resting on her lap.

There was no mehendi on them.

He looked straight at the road ahead. It was Payal's mehendi. Khushi was her sister. She had to have mehendi on her hands.

He nodded.

That's why, he decided. That's why he was taking her home.