“Grr…bye!” Chaahat turned away from him, more confused than angry. It was obvious that he was pulling her leg for the number of times she had sworn the words, ‘fuck you’ at him. But even then…Chaahat felt attracted towards Shaan and then she felt repelled. She wanted to kiss him one minute even when she wanted to beat him up the next. Why did he have to tease her so? And his kisses drove her crazy as well. Men had obliged her whims, always, unlike her parents. But this man, Shaan, was too damn unpredictable. And he was a sexy bastard over that!
“Hey!” Shaan stopped her, throwing an arm around her shoulder. “Don’t be angry. Just that I’m attracted to you, too much.” His voice was a whisper in her ear, making her shiver in response. “Can we kiss and make up?”
Chaahat turned to look up at him, not really knowing what to do. Her body clamoured to be near his, while her mind fought her all the way. Shaan took the decision out of her hands as he bent down to press his lips to hers and she was lost, her arms circling his lean waist as she clung to him for dear life. It was a good thing that there was still another half an hour to go before the workers arrived as the two were completely oblivious to their surroundings.
Chaahat gave back as good as she got as she pulled the hem of his t-shirt out of where it was tucked into his jeans and ran her hands over the skin of his smooth back and his hair roughened chest, revelling in the texture.
Groaning under her ministrations, Shaan pulled her closer, one hand at her nape while the other arm curled around her thin waist as he explored her delicious mouth with his tongue. “Chaahat…” he moaned again as he lifted his head to study her face, before he pressed his lips gently over her closed eyelids in turn.
Chaahat jerked as she came to her senses. What the hell was she doing, allowing Dev’s manager to kiss her like this? She stared, horrified at the state of his clothes. Had she really done that to him? Unbuckled his belt and opened the button on his jeans? Her face burned with colour. It wasn’t as if she had never had sex before. But it wasn’t like her to behave like this, in such a wild fashion. She turned away, raking back the loose strands of hair from her face before wrapping her arms tightly around herself. This just wasn’t done, her losing control like this.
“Chaahat…” Shaan placed a gentle hand on her shoulder only to have her jerk away from him, moving away a few steps. With a sigh, he walked forward and asked, “Have you had breakfast? We can go to the community kitchen now, if you’d like.”
“I don’t eat breakfast.” Her voice was hoarse. “What I really need is a smoke. Tch! I shouldn’t have come down to Dev’s farm! Only I never knew that he had such stupid rules in place before I did.”
“What do you mean, you don’t eat breakfast? You mean you have nothing?” There was a deep scowl on Shaan’s face as he stopped in his tracks and turned to her to pierce her with his golden eyes.
“It’s none of your bloody business.” Chaahat continued to walk ahead, flinging the words at him over her shoulder.
Shaan swore under his breath. No wonder she was so thin. Was she trying to kill herself? Unless she had been so ill that her appetite had deserted her. “Are you recovering from an illness?”
Chaahat stopped so suddenly that Shaan slammed into her, wrapping both his arms around her to stop her from falling headlong.
“Shaan! Why the hell do you keep harping that I’m unwell? There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m as strong as a horse. Stop bothering me, will you?” She tried to pull his arms away from where they were crossed at her waist even as her traitorous body pressed closer into his embrace, enjoying the feel of his muscular chest against her back.
“But I’m bothered.” Shaan insisted as he buried his face in the crook of her neck, breathing deeply of her womanly scent. She smelled even better this morning, without the distraction of the smell of the cigarette smoke of last night. “You are too thin, Chaahat…”
“Just too bad if I don’t fit your idea of a perfect woman.” Chaahat jumped out of his arms as if stung. It wasn’t too difficult this time as Shaan had loosened his grip while he was kissing her neck.
“What? Where did that come from?” Shaan stared at her angry face, confusion on his own.
“I am thin because that’s exactly how I want to be. I don’t care if it doesn’t suit your highness’s tastes.” Chaahat walked faster now, away from the line of poly houses and in the direction of the main house.
“Listen, Chaahat.” Shaan held her by the arm and stopped her yet again. “You know very well that I wasn’t offending you. You also know that whatever your shape, I’m attracted to you. I can’t see the reason for your anger. I…”
Chaahat turned towards him, throwing her arms up in the air in frustration. “What the hell will you have me do?’
He grinned. “You came looking for me, right? You must have had a reason for that. Come and sit with me while I have breakfast. I’m hungry.”
“Ugh! Who feels hungry at eight in the morning?” She made a face at him even as she fell in step with him to walk in the opposite direction.
“Hardworking farmers who wake up at six.”
“What?” Chaahat stopped again. “You wake up at such an ungodly hour?” She shook her head. “You’re as mad as Dev.”
His hand at her elbow, Shaan walked on, surprised at himself. There had been a time—in another life as Nishaan Ahuja—when he used to go to sleep at six in the morning. But all that had changed as he began to enjoy his work as Dev’s manager. “Ungodly! How quaint!” He laughed.
Chaahat found herself grinning up at him as they stepped into the dining room that could comfortably seat fifty people, with square tables placed at intervals, four chairs around each of them. Shaan pulled her along to the buffet counter where a choice of kanda poha, aloo parathas, boiled eggs, chutneys and sauces were on offer along with huge steel flasks containing coffee and tea.
“Is an army stationed here or what?” asked Chaahat, her voice heavy with sarcasm as she noted the counter that was groaning under the food containers.
Shaan laughed. “Then you must check out how it is at lunch time.” Mealtimes were fun at Wadhwa Farm, all the workers coming together to have their food, making every meal a celebration. Shaan had begun to enjoy this way of community life at the farm. It was so different from his life in Delhi as a billionaire businessman’s only son and heir.
Chaahat refused to accept the plate that Shaan tried to hand her, even as he greeted some of the others who had walked in for breakfast. Some people had already finished and were on their way out to go to work. “I don’t want to eat, Shaan. I might just throw up if I swallow even a morsel.” Even as she insisted, Chaahat’s stomach growled noisily, making Shaan give her a keen look.
He didn’t say anything as he piled his plate with food, enough for two, before they walked over to an empty table, Chaahat carrying two mugs of coffee. He began to eat the moment he settled down, taking a bite of the hot paratha dripping with butter. He licked his fingers one by one, making an event of it, studying Chaahat’s face from the corner of his eyes, watching for her reaction.
Chaahat studied his plate and then his face avidly, watching the way he relished every bite, saliva pooling in her mouth. Without really being aware of what she was doing, she reached out to tear a piece of the paratha and popped it into her mouth. The perfectly proportioned spice in the filling and the flaky outer layer simply melted even as the flavours exploded in her mouth. Chaahat was so ravenously hungry, what with abstaining from eating too much and not having a chance to smoke—which actually helped curb her hunger pangs—that she could have eaten a whole horse. There was only so much resistance she could offer.
Without saying anything, Shaan placed the extra spoon he had brought along in her hand and continued to eat his food silently when she dug into the mound of poha he had piled on his plate, eating her way through half of it along with one whole paratha and an egg. She sat back with a sigh, patting her stomach while sipping her coffee.
“Do yo
u wanna have more coffee?” asked Shaan, getting up to go for a refill, a smile of satisfaction on his face.
“Not for me, no. And why are you grinning like that?” she demanded, glaring at him fiercely.
“Huh! I wasn’t grinning. Let me go get some more coffee. Do you want another egg or something?” he asked solicitously.
Her furious expression took a turn for the worse as she shot fire at him from her steel grey eyes, not bothering to give him an answer.
Shaan went ahead, greeting more people on his way to and from the counter, bringing back another cup of coffee with him.
“Aren’t you eating too much?” asked Chaahat angrily. To be truthful, she felt jealous, wondering how he managed to be lean and fit after consuming such heavy meals. She had watched him work his way through three parathas and an equal number of eggs along with the poha. “Where does it all go?” she asked rhetorically.
A mischievous look on his face, Shaan bent his arm at the elbow and offered his biceps for her to touch. “Feel those muscles? That’s where.”
“Very funny.” Chaahat pouted at him. She was too happy with her full stomach to pick up another argument with him.
“Tell me something. Why do you not eat properly?” he asked casually, determined to elicit an answer this time. The dining hall was almost empty as it was time for everyone to be at work, except for a few stragglers.
Chaahat sat back in her chair, her feet stretched in front of her, crossed at the ankles. “Why do you ask? It’s really not your business, is it?” The words were pretty mild for Chaahat and Shaan rightly presumed that her irritation level had dropped down drastically because of her full stomach.
Shaking his head, he said, “Believe me, it’s not idle curiosity. You don’t need to admit it to me. But just hear me out. If you aren’t recovering from some serious illness, then you have starved yourself into losing weight rapidly. I…” He paused when Chaahat got up with a jerk, her chair falling on its back with a crash.
“Dr. Shaan, why the hell don’t you try your psychoanalysis on someone else? Just leave me alone.” She took a few steps on her way out, only to find her hand snagged by his, stopping her in her tracks.
Shaan could make out that he had hit a nerve. With a sigh, he insisted, “Please come back and sit down, Chaahat. As I said before, you don’t need to admit to anything. Just hear me out.” He didn’t give her a choice as he got up to lift her chair off the floor, setting it right before pushing her gently into it. “And I’m not trying to analyse you or anything. A friend of mine from college faced hell because she was overweight. Sanjana became desperate in the second year. She stopped eating and took up smoking. She shrivelled up over the next few months, looking sick and thin. Her skin and hair lost their lustre and she also aged a lot during that time. It wasn’t easy to make her see sense. For one thing, we, her friends, didn’t realise that she was actually ill and needed treatment, both physically and mentally. One fine day, in the middle of the final year, Sanjana dropped down in a faint and couldn’t be revived by splashing water on her face. She was taken off in an ambulance and hospitalised for a prolonged treatment before she could get to normal. The doctors said that she had become extremely dehydrated, almost emaciated and had developed excruciating stomach cramps. She was forced to drop that year and complete it much later. Even today, she needs to be careful not to remain on an empty stomach for long. I…”
“Tch!” While Chaahat tried to give him a disgusted look, she was shaken by his words. Shaan could have been talking about her life. She had been twenty kilos overweight and it had been difficult to chuck it as she loved to eat. And then there was this dream that she had of becoming a model. As it is, she was starting out late at twenty-three. Girls as young as sixteen and seventeen were vying with each other to get into the forefront of the fashion industry. But thanks to her parents’ insistence that she finish her MBA, Chaahat hadn’t had much of a choice. Her excess weight had been one more reason for the delay in getting into her dream profession.
Chaahat had been desperate to lose weight. She had been to three different dieticians and every outing had failed as she couldn’t keep away from food. And somehow, Chaahat never had the energy to exercise regularly. When she heard from someone about how starving and smoking helped him lose weight, she immediately decided to try it out. It hadn’t been easy in the beginning. But soon, she realised that the more she smoked, the less hungry she felt. And that’s how Chaahat had managed to shed seventeen kilos in eight months. She felt quite proud of herself. “Cut out the lecture, Shaan,” she ordered now.
“Is that what it was?” Shaan looked intently into her eyes, his honey gold gaze pinning her.
“I don’t care, do you hear?” Chaahat snarled. “I’ve got what I wanted, okay? I’ve lost a lot of weight in the past few months. Three more kilos and I’m good to go.”
“So, what happens after you lose those three kilos?”
“Huh?!” She stared at him owlishly, not clear about what he was asking, before her brow cleared. “I try my chance at becoming a fashion model. That’s what.”
“And how do you plan to maintain your weight? By continuing to starve?”
Chaahat got up once again, carefully this time. She’d better not let him see that she was nervous. “I don’t really see the point to this conversation. And isn’t Dev paying you a salary to work for him? I’d better take myself off. Bye.” She walked away on long legs, her strides carrying her further and further away from Shaan who was still sitting at the table where they had shared breakfast.
But the trouble was that even though she had left his physical presence, his words continued to work on Chaahat’s mind, disturbing her to no end. She had noticed a drop in her energy levels over the past months, when she had been confident that she would feel more energetic with the loss of the excess weight. But it hadn’t worked that way. And it wasn’t easy to keep away from all the food that she enjoyed so much. Chaahat groaned when she thought of missing out on her favourite mutton biryani and malai kofta.
Right at that moment, Chaahat hated Shaan from the bottom of her heart. How dare he disturb her tranquillity?
4
It was past ten that night when Shaan got up to open his door to Chaahat. He wasn’t really surprised to see her there. She had avoided him the whole day after they had breakfasted together. “Hey! Come on in,” he invited, a smile on his face.
“I hate you Shaan!” Chaahat declared vehemently, glaring at him.
With a hand on her arm, Shaan drew her into his cottage before shutting the door firmly. Placing both his hands on her shoulders, he said, “Tell me something new.”
Her grey eyes shimmered in the overhead light, making Shaan wonder if it was due to tears. He wasn’t too disturbed as he realised that his words were probably working on her mind. Good! That was exactly what he had intended.
“Shaan, can you be serious for a minute here? You made some strong statements in the morning and then there was that story about your friend…”
“That wasn’t a story, but the truth.” Shaan’s voice was firm. “Why don’t you come in and sit down? Will you have something to drink? I have coffee and beer.”
“Beer!” Chaahat’s voice was bitter. “Are you trying to make me fat?”
“Why would I do that?” He pushed her gently down on a sofa and sat down next to her.
Chaahat broke down, covering her face in both her hands as tears burst forth, her slender frame trembling under the onslaught of emotions. She didn’t protest when Shaan pulled her into his arms, hugging her close, pressing her face into his shoulder. She continued to cry her heart out, the frustrations of the past ten plus years—since the time she had been a preteen and had begun to gain excess weight—making her lose control completely.
After she left the dining room, her stomach full with the breakfast that she hadn’t meant to eat, Chaahat had directly gone to her room in Dev’s home, refusing to go down for lunch or dinner. She had been highly dist
urbed by the picture Shaan had painted of his friend’s life that had sounded so similar to her own. Then what the hell was the solution? Did that mean she could never be a model? That she could never have a slim body? Did that mean that she should take up a boring desk job in an MNC as her parents wanted her to? The thoughts had eaten into her the whole day, making her lose the degree of complacency she had acquired after losing weight.
Shaan had asked her a question: how was she going to manage to maintain her weight? That had cut deep. Chaahat loved to eat. She hadn’t thought too far into the future and had presumed somewhere along the way that she would reach her ideal weight and then eat all her favourite foods. But she had sat the whole day thinking about everything and had rightly concluded that it wasn’t going to work that way. She had really begun to hate Shaan for his hard-hitting words.
Shaan stroked Chaahat’s back soothingly, not uttering a word until her sobs reduced to hiccups. She recovered after a few minutes to move away from him, sitting back on the sofa, her back straight. She took the tissues Shaan handed her to wipe her face before facing him squarely. “You might think that you know it all, Shaan. But I do have a few aces up my sleeve. I’ve lost seventeen kilos in the past few months, after I stopped eating big meals and started smoking. Smoking has kept my appetite to the minimum. I just need to take out three more kilos and I’m good to go.” Her eyes were still a little too bright, appearing like molten steel, but were no less challenging as they gazed boldly into his honey gold ones.
“At what cost?” His voice was soft, though equally challenging.
“What an asshole! Did you even hear me?” Her eyes shot daggers at him.
“Of course, I did. You have lost a lot of weight since you started smoking. Didn’t you say you wanted to be a fashion model? You…”
“Exactly!” Chaahat had a triumphant note in her voice. “I’m glad that you finally got the point.” She got up. “I’ll be seeing you then. Goodnight.”
“Chaahat, listen. Come back here. We aren’t done. I…”
Leo's Desire (Written in the Stars Book 2) Page 4
