The Return of Passion (Complete)

Chapter 16

"Okay! I accept! Now get the hell out of here! " Although he felt bad for doing so, there was no other choice than being the jerk for the time being before she once again opens her heart for him. She did not look up at him afraid that she would do something to hurt him badly, considering the amount of fury simmering inside her.

The car came to a screeching halt on the side of the highway as Aditya opened the door of his side.

"Good night my love! He whispered near her ear sliding out of the car before she could understand what had happened and strangle his throat for doing so.

***

THE SECOND NIGHT OF THE

VOGUE

NIHAR

----------------

Darting his gazes from one old man to another who talked business, he kept his eyes on the entrance. Alisha wasn't here yet. It's fifteen minutes past the time when the ramp walk should have started.

Keeping the smile intact on his face, he nodded at whatever the white haired man said and then his eyes slightly darted towards the other side of the hall where Shalini stood. Their eyes locked, the tension increasing within them....The guests had already started to get restless.

Alisha was supposed to reach here almost one hour ago. Her make up artist and designer waiting for with the dress wearing which she is supposed to walk down the ramp.

Shalini and Dhruv could easily handle the guest and even take care of Alisha's walk.... making a little change in the program but what they couldn't do is to control their own mind from getting into the negative thoughts that came almost naturally, fogging anything else.

'What's wrong Alisha? Why aren't you still here?!'

"What do you think Dhruv should we start the program or wait for her a little more? " Shalini was beside him the next moment carefully whispering the next words to him. And watched as his eyes darted to the main entrance once again, his face painted in anxiety.

"Don't worry I will try her cell." And for the nth time during the evening she called Alisha only to reach her voice mail.

***

With the blaring of the bell outside, she knew he was here. So he wasn't kidding there when he said about the escorting thing but the problem was she wasn't kidding either when she said about the'scandal' thing herself.

And god knows what this man wants from her now. Had this been a year and half ago, she would have given everything up to be with him. But now after he had left her in the most crucial point of life where she needed the support and care.....she had been left alone to deal with all of it on her own and damn her if she lets him play with her once again after all the underhanded tricks he used to publicly humiliated her.

Fixing her golden embroidery silk saree, she hurriedly put on the necklace before turning around only to find the man himself leaning on the door frame. His gazes ablaze raking up and down her body.

It wasn't daily that she decked up in sarees and although on one side he was thankful that there's no skin for the men to look at and no hot piece of slender legs to hook the eyes upon there was another problem with the look that she was donning tonight.

She was looking exceptionally desirable with the silk curving her body, the golden of her long heavy earning and incarnated designs of the adornment around her throat with small pieces of diamonds fixed at the lower end trying to compete with the glow on the face of its owner and darn, if it could. Her hair was fixed up into a tight bun with the long strand of Jasmine flowers attached to it, spreading a heady fragrance that gave an innuendo that....she is elusive....beyond reach.

"Stop looking at me! " she snapped her fingers in front of his eyes pissed off!

"Uh...." He blinked twice before coming out of the daze. "You look beautiful, that's all!" He tried to pull off with a smile but stop short watching the glare that she directed his way. Icy glare!

"Alisha don't do this to me! I am sorry and-and I really mean it. I know I have taken some bad decisions, the worst of all being the one to divorce you! But I am human and I ain't perfect in any way. I had made mistakes and now I wish to rectify them. I know it isn't easy but all I am asking for... is a chance. A chance for us! A chance for the sake for what we once had! A chance for the sake of love between us that had still not died down! " He strode forward from the threshold of the room much like a wounded soldier reaching back to his camp at the end of the day. With pain in the eyes, yet hope laying ahead.

"Please! " his hands reached up, caressing the soft of her face, his thumb lightly grazing the spot below her red plump lips.

"No! No!...don't you dare! " she hissed grasping his hand and tearing it away from her face.

"Don't you dare say things like this ever again to me! The things you are calling wrong decisions and mistakes were well thought strategies against me. To ruin me! " She took two steps back from where she initially stood making it quite clear a message about the space or rather the distance that she will always put up between them.

"What?" He asked, his face fallen as he tried to reach out once again to her.

"No! Don't move! You know what I am talking about. It weren't all foolish and wrong mistakes as simply as you put it. Most of them were well thought strategies against me! To publicly humiliate me you went as far as to do a press conference saying that....that.....I was like a log in BED! " her face went red, recalling that vile memory she so wanted to forget but couldn't!

"Oh God! I don't know why am I tolerating you! I don't know why I am even having this conversation with you!" She turned around to face the sterile wall of her room instead.

Her breath coming out in short pants as the fury inside her, grew. Much like the volcano at the verge of erupting.

The horrid memories coming back one after another with a vengeance. Like how she was standing alone in front of a crowd of reporters asking her what she wanted to say to her ex-husband who had told on national television that she isn't good at s*x!

How she was left feeling like a cheap gold digger when he filed an charge sheet against her in the court that she had manipulated his mother to get Nihar!

How lonely and how helpless she had felt when he had so mercilessly cut her out of his life, throwing the divorce papers on her face.

"It wasn't a plan against you Ali........it was....it happened at the time when I was confused and had mixed feelings....You remember what happened at mom's funeral? I-I pulled you up to me and didn't even realize it myself and when I did I was in denial mode. I didn't want to have feelings for you, still partially blinded by the pain that Joe was gone and foolishly blaming it on you when you were hurting more than I was.

It was then I went this low, to deny my feelings....to prove my own self wrong. But believe me when I say that those words hurt me more than they did to you. I am sorry! "

"And here we go again! Tada..another damn mistake you say! With all those emotions and feelings and-and belief and all that bluff! Please!" She put her palm up as a sign to stop.

"Please....don't give me this load of s**t! Because one more time and I will rub this same s**t on your pretty face!" She hissed loosing the control on herself as she went on to grab his shirt's collar. Their faces a few inches away as she shook him forcefully.

"I won't take it!" She fisted his collar in her hands. "I won't take it because you are LYING! Because now you're back to get something from me ONCE AGAIN! " She shook him again. "DO YOU HEAR ME?"

"I am not buying this charade because I know why you are back! YOU ARE HERE TO BE THE DAD OF YOUR BABY! " she started to laugh almost hyristically. Finally releasing Aditya as her head started to spin.

"Oh God Alisha! Are you alright? " She felt herself being supported by a pair of strong arms resting on her shoulder blade and she shrugged them away. She would rather fall down on the floor and hit her head than keep standing with the support of those arms.

***

For perhaps the hundredth time her cranky phone rang aloud and all he wanted to do was to hit it hard on the wall and then crush it well below his foot so that 'it' could never ring again.

He looked at the screen. 43 missed calls from some shalini.

'Darn it' And like the fate of all those 43 calls he let this one to go to the voice mail as well.

The results are due any time now!' He nervously ran a hand down his locks.

Walking to and fro in the empty sterile waiting room of the hospital. The strong smell of disinfectants giving him a headache.