The Return of Passion (Complete)

Chapter 14

NIHAR, MUMBAI

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Monday

She walked passed the tables, supervising and observing the works as people sketched and drew. Cloured and painted. Mixed and matched.

All over the hall, all she could see were a splash of colors.

Silk, satin, cotton and chiffon, nothing was left as the country's best designers worked together for the winter collection ramp walk. Destined to be a launched on 23rd December and continue till the x'mas.

A three days ramp walk with lots of pomp and fanfare.

"Here's the list of guests ma'm!" A pretty girl handed over a notebook.

"Okay? How many? " Alisha asked absent mindedly going through the names.

"Superficially, five hundred and thirty two cards are to be sent but around two thousands guests are expected like each year, considering the families and extended families that show up with crowd. "

"Okay! " her eyes fixated at the specific name on the fifth line of third page. 'Aditya Singhania'

Should she say something and put this name out?

'Don't be silly Alisha, if you do so...It would raise a fuss and what's the big deal? The last time they had met, he had promised to be respectful towards her.

Handing the list back, she was about to get back to her own room to work on the her own dress. When Shalini unexpectedly showed up. "Mind coming with me for a few minutes? "

"What if I meet at lunch with you, instead?"

"Don't ditch me like this! Please Ali! The models are here! And I don't want to be there alone watching their....left...right....left march." Shalini pouted, angling her neck at such an angle so that nobody else could see her face. And both of them burst out giggling.

"I am sorry for this....but why don't you take someone else with you?" Alisha winked, pointing at Dhruv, who sat a little away from them talking what seemed some useless business with Kumar.

"okay! It would be fun!" She winked back, sashaying towards the two men.

***

"Why don't you understand women? This is not my work!" Dhruv palmed his face. This was seriously now getting on his nerves.

"Oh com'on! I can't sit here alone plus you are the CEO and you must be here because it's important!" Shalini was back to her ever cheerful state. "com'on girls time for round two!" And her so called important work started again. The flock of girls walked down the ramp.

"One..two..three..four!"

"one..two..three..four!"

"I am not taking this s**t anymore!" He roared standing up at his place. "I am leaving!"

"Oh! Alright then....I thought I could invite you to lunch with Alisha but....." She deliberately stopped, trying to gauge his expression. "I think you are not interested!" It was hard, very hard to keep the evil smile from her face, yet she kept a poker face watching as he sat back down on his chair with a sigh.

"You sure you don't want to leave?" She asked, a bout of giggles already coming up! As he sniggered!

***

1st NIGHT

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23rd Dec

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His deep green eyes roamed around the capacious amphitheater where he was seated, bathed in golden grandeur, the large crystal chandeliers hanging low over their heads as people dressed in their finest flitted in and out taking their seats on the either sides of the runway

While his eyes searched for a specific pair of dark black ones. He knew she was around! He could feel it! Yet his eyes could not pin point exactly where his gem was! When the lights dimmed, a soft voice from the speaker came.

"I hereby present the whizzbang series collection of this fall. 'Vogue by the decade' 2017-18."

And one after another the round spot lights along the narrow pathway lightened up. The music was the cue, that it was time....

Siddtharth Malhotra, one of the best models and superstars of the current Bollywood, walked in as the show stopper.

It was grand, the epitome of richness and elegance mixed together produced an aroma of attitude, an attitude that doesn't resemble arrogance yet signifies a character that nobody dares to look down upon.

"Nihar have been uplifted from it's already high standards once again!" Aditya heard the female reporter on the side line from where the runway was being filmed. "Making an blockbuster return in the headlines of the world with the fantaboulus design of this fall!"

The oohs .... and aahs... never ceased from the female spectators as the event reached it's culmination.

His anxious eyes looking around with boredom, for this to be over as soon as possible. He was tired, without sleep and food from last 24 hours. From the last few days, he had been super-excited after all that Dr. Lokhande have told him. But after each high comes the low and last night it was his chance to feel it.

The mind is an strange animal after all, no matter how much he tried to stop those discerning cognition that threatened to take his sanity away. He can't!

He had twisted and turned inside the sheets, the thoughts only taking bad turns as the night progressed.

She had left him once before, for no fault of his under the circumstances and false allegations. But he had indeed learned a lesson from that. Hadn't he? That she isn't someone to be caught and nailed down.

She had left him once! can't she do it again when she learns of his second deceit!

The divorce was the most foolish decision he had ever taken in his life, with anger and pain overpowering and shadowing his rational thinking, he had then choose the only option that seemed to be offering some solace. The 'Divorce ' and then 'purva' as the next step as he went on to hurt Alisha as much as he could. Unable to understand that it wasn't Alisha anymore that he was taking his revenge on, it was him.....his own self, that was being burnt from inside all due to his own choices.

And he had successfully kept this uncaring attitude up until he face another strike of fate, 'His mother's death' that the curtain he had kept painting, believing it to be the real world fell....for once and for all! Leaving him bare to face the real world where he could not live without her!

And last night, he was forced to think about another step he had taken to be with her....to be the sperm donor. He could only hope that it doesn't blow up on him! It was true that he could not take it that she carries the baby of some other man! Damn the process!

But he had a feeling that she would go running seven seas away from him, if she got a whiff of the scandal!

"Darn!" Thinking about these things all over again was making him sick. He can't even put his own thoughts in order or even understand what he wanted. On one hand he hoped that she hadn't gotten pregnant so that he doesn't feel the guilt of lying to her, while on another note, he wanted nothing more than to get the news that she's pregnant!

Damn! He wanted to pull his hair out!

The loud thunder of clapping bought him back to the present, his eyes focusing back on the ramp as walked in the lady that he so wanted to call his own, now and forever! In the arms of Siddharth Malhotra, the show stopper.

Kissing her cheeks, he extended his arms for her to take as she smiled, linking their arms before walking up the runway with the elegance and flow of a river and the beauty of a golden phoenix. yes, a damn phoenix is what she looked like.

And all Aditya was aware of was the warm blood gushing through his veins and had to tear his eyes way to keep his sanity or it had taken less than a minute go go up there and tear them away from each other.

Adding to that was her dress bolder than anything he had ever seen her in, an off-shouldered body-con type top, which had been deliberately scrunched in small plates to be hooked up at the side with numerous sparkling american diamonds embedded in the material and then there was the smooth free flow of the heavy material that went down till her feet.

A moment and then they were walking back and Aditya realized that he had been gifted a bouquet of beautiful flowers which he had toppled over before..... so that the thorns doesn't prick him and now that he had came back to pick it up, there was no beauty to behold either!

***

He watched her for next half an hour as she sashayed through the crowd of people, they talked to her. complemented her, congratulated and she took it all with utmost graciousness and even stopped to make small talks with all those who asked about, how she got such an beautiful dress and how much it had costed.

The younger lot of teens were more interested in taking selfies than actual talking.

And somewhere during that time her eyes caught his and he braced himself for her to turn around with disgust. While the exact opposite happened!

She smiled a little at him and even joined their group of business men, he was talking too. And that got him worried more than ever because that calm expression and smile meant that she was moving on.

"Good evening gentlemen, I hope you all are enjoying the night?"

"Of course, since it's the finest wine I have tasted in months, all thanks to Anne that she dragged me here with her." Bhaskar spoke, sipping the grape wine as he pointed at his wife among a group of women a few meters away talking animatedly. As others laughed along with Alisha.

And then she excused herself once again, yet his eyes never left her as the night went on. It was quarter hour later that he saw her slipping out of sight and from the hall through the door to side corridor. And obeying his instincts, he followed!

The moonlight being the only source of illumination, he followed her on her tracks silently waiting for an opportunity to talk to her.

And she after searching for a nice spot, finally found one of the large french architectural window, opening to the garden outside. Propping her knees up, she sat down on the window sill, hanging her legs towards the garden. popping the rest of the buttons of her white fur coat closed, she sighed in relaxation. After all, the night had went more smoothly than she had imagined!

There were very less questions about how she got Nihar and more less about her messy divorce and the infamous press conference. All thanks to the remarkably impressive designs, that nobody is talking about anything else, lest about her personal life. ' perhaps life was finally getting back on the track.' But then could life ever go back to how it used to be? More so, after the guilt that is still heaved on her shoulders about never letting her daughter meet her own father. With the false allegations and the disgusting plot used against them, she had been a mere pawn at the hands of fate. Yet, till today she hadn't been able to forgive herself for doing what she had done.

Fleeing from him like that without any questions to him, without any explanation from her. And the most heinous one, to keep their daughter as an secret.....away from him. No! Life could never get back to how it used to be....it's too late for that! The guilt of all these realizations were the reason that she had said nothing in the hospital when he abruptly announced that he wanted a divorce!

'She gave him what he wanted!'

This is the reason why she hadn't said anything back when he and his girlfriend had badmouthed her on national television! The Guilt of her own choices! Those choices for which she could not repent enough! And that is the reason why today she was trying to be at least respective towards him because it wasn't completely his fault. She was equally into it!

Releasing a deep breath she closed her eyes feeling the ice cold air blowing on her face when she sensed someone beside her.

"Hey!" He tried to smile at her. "Hey!" She spoke a little later coming down from the sill as she did so. "What are you doing here? I-I mean were you looking for someone?"

"Yes, I was looking for you!" He knew whatever he had done before was going hit him back now! And he was ready to brace it all. He have to!

"Looking for me?" She chuckled lightly. "Why? What's left to look?"

"everything that I had missed to look before!"