by MV Kasi
"Of course. We offer many customized packages to our clients as well. I can go over the features that I think would best suit your needs," he said formally.
He decided to keep a professional distance with her as he would with his company's client.
***
Over the next few weeks, during their interactions at Sia's company's new stores, Ajay never brought up their initial meetings. And when it came to having security installed at her house, he had offered to go there along with a small crew.
The security features she had requested needed really special care.
"You weren't kidding when you said your new house is extremely private," he remarked, when he arrived at her house.
It was almost an hour and a half away from the city center, and had very few homes around. And the homes that were around were huge farm houses of the elite.
"I like having a lot of my own space," she said quietly.
When Ajay went inside the house, he noticed that it was large and well-illuminated. And it was decorated with a very minimalistic design if any. It was so minimalistic that it was to the point of it being stark and devoid of any life.
There were absolutely no knick knacks, or any kind of side tables around the mostly white furniture. Even the walls, floor and curtains were stark white, devoid of any color.
He followed behind Sia as she took him for an elaborate home tour.
"This is my home office," she said, pointing at an almost barren room with a lot of soundproofing.
"So this is where you work. Plotting an elaborate scheme of world domination," he teased.
He knew he was blurring the lines between professional and personal distance. But she didn't seem to mind. In fact she looked amused at his statement.
And then, he watched her in utter fascination as her amusement faded from her face, and her usual mask of indifference slid over her features as she gazed up to him.
"You already have the blueprints and the requirements of my house. I'll be in my office room...until your guys finish up," she said quietly.
Taking cue from her, he went back to being professional. "We'll start with the installation of the new bedroom door," he said before leaving to do just that.
Sia had requested for a specially designed door on her bedroom that was made of a composite metal. It would be bullet proof and also bomb proof. And more importantly she wanted cameras installed around the door so she could hear if anyone was to approach the room. The rest of the rooms in her house which were as starkly furnished as her bedroom were also installed with high security features.
He had no idea why someone would need such extreme security in middle of nowhere.
But unlike most people who were paranoid about their safety, she wanted no armed guards around her. It was only her home she wanted to feel safe in.
After a long day of work, the security crew had left, and he did some final checks to ensure everything was working fine. Towards the end, he began to give her a demo.
"This box," he motioned to a sleek white box mounted on the wall. "It's the iris scanner. Lean forward and place your eyes up to the lenses," he said.
When she did as he instructed, he pressed a button, and typed into a handheld device.
"When this is activated, only people who are entered into the system will be able to get through the front door," he said.
When they entered the covered porch area, he led her to another set of doors that would lead them to the main house. There he took in her finger prints to open the door.
"And for your bedroom door," his voice turned husky. "It's a simultaneous finger scan, and a key card."
By the time he finished detailing all the security features, it was dark outside.
"Thank you for getting the work done this quickly. I understand it usually takes a few days for this level of detailed work," she said evenly.
He gave her a small smile. "You are welcome."
An awkward silence ensued.
Well, he felt awkward. And she only looked off-balance.
He could make that out only because the pulse was throbbing fast at her throat as she met his hooded eyes.
As they kept staring at each other, he began to feel something deep and wild pass through them. He knew what it was. But what he didn't understand was why?
He had never been attracted to women who refused to smile or laugh at anything. And Sia in particular had behaved as though she was born with a silver spoon in her ass, and with a sense of entitlement. As though she thought she earned it because she was so damn serious about everything in life.
But one look at her as she tried freezing him out with her cold, dead stare, he lost his mind.
He knew he should let her be, but he realized that he simply couldn't.
"Have dinner with me," he asked.
"No," she replied automatically, even though he could see her warring emotions on her face.
But somehow, she composed herself again, and walked towards the main door, and waited for him to leave.
"Are you sure, you don't want to go out with me?" he asked quietly, knowing it would be the last time he'd ask her.
"Yes. I'm quite sure," she answered with a slight shrug, even as her hands trembled slightly.
He knew when a woman was attracted to him. And Sia was definitely attracted.
"Call me if you have any questions about the security," he said softly.
"I will."
When he walked towards his car, he could feel her eyes on him from one of the windows.
***
A month later, he heard back from her.
Sia had specifically requested for him to fix a security glitch in her home system. There were several other accomplished employees who could handle the problem she had stated, but she had only wanted him to come.
He could have politely turned down her request asking for him in particular, and sent any of the capable crew he had. But apparently he was glutton for punishment.
And so, he went to her place.
When he arrived at her place, Sia was there to receive him.
"The rear camera next to the patio is not working," she stated calmly.
He checked it through the control panel and saw that it was working fine.
"It seems to be okay now," he said, showing her the camera view. They were seated on a sofa set in her living room, next to each other.
But she didn't bother to look at the screen. "Oh. Maybe I was mistaken," she said, shrugging slightly.
He smiled at her lame excuse. "Yes, maybe you were."
Unable to keep his resolution to not ask her out again, he caved. "So...While I'm here and I'm hungry with all the hard work I just did, would you like to go out somewhere?" he asked with a smile.
She watched him quietly for a few seconds, not replying. And then, she threw herself on him, pushing his back against the sofa they were seated on.
He was more than surprised. But he caught her in his arms automatically.
It was almost like Sia had unleashed an internal beast that had been repressed for too long. She pulled his head towards her, and her mouth crashed into his. And then, her hands fisted in front of his buttoned up shirt and pulled it apart, snapping several buttons in the process.
It was hotter than he had ever imagined. And his imagination when it came to her was pretty wild.
Not hesitating for even a second, he twisted until her back hit the sofa, and then he was all over her as well.
They used their hands, tongues, mouths and even their teeth to get as close as possible to each other. His hands slipped inside her top, to run his fingers greedily over her smooth bare skin
"God, I've been waiting for you. You have been torturing me for so damn long. You're like my very own unattainable princess," he groaned into her neck in between nibbling kisses.
Suddenly she froze under him. It took him a while to realize that she had stopped responding to him.
Slowly he raised his head to look at her face.
She l
ooked as though she was shocked. For a couple of seconds, she even looked unguarded, and also terrified.
He was confused by her reaction.
And then, right in front of him, slowly her eyes reverted to being cold and blank.
Without saying anything, she tried pushing him away from her.
"What's wrong?" he asked her in concern.
"Get off of me," she said in a dead tone.
"Sia, are you okay?"
"I've asked you to get off of me. What part of it didn't you understand?" she asked him. Her tone was pure ice.
He immediately pushed away from her, and stood up next to the sofa, watching her. Wondering if he had hurt her, or scared her in any way.
"I've changed my mind. I no longer want you. Please leave," she said.
He stared at her for a few seconds, his mind in turmoil. But he didn't bother to comment or argue the fact, and left her house immediately.
He was done with her.
He was sick of her hot and cold behavior with him.
He thought he saw something in her. Something exciting, and something beautiful that he wanted to be a part of. But it was just in his imagination.
Sia was simply cold.
When he left her home that night, he promised himself to leave her alone.
Yet again.
CHAPTER EIGHT
PRESENT
WHAT HAD SHE done!
Sia had horrible misgivings about that day as she waited in the hospital corridor. And it wasn't her usual paranoia.
Her stomach which was already a wreck, felt even worse due to her nervousness.
While she was trying to calm down, she saw Ajay arrive.
It was right on dot at eight in the morning. She had arrived a little early since she couldn't sleep that well the previous night. But Ajay looked unfazed, and sometimes, she couldn't read much of what went on in his head anyway. One minute he had an open smile, and the next minute, he'd have a fierce look.
"Ajay, how are you?" greeted a man who received him near the entrance.
And then, the man had a brief conversation with Ajay, which she couldn't hear. A couple of minutes later, they shook hands, and the man left. But not before he gave her a long speculative look.
When Ajay came towards her and looked at her, she nodded to him in acknowledgement. Before he could say anything, they were requested by a nurse to follow her inside.
"Mr. Manthena and Miss. Sampath, we are ready for you," said another nurse.
They were to have their blood drawn out for the tests, right next to each other. But they didn't talk. Unless the results were out, there shouldn't be much to plan from his end.
She was a little surprised that he didn't want to make the paternity test confidential. Especially, considering he didn't know he'd be the father. They could have had the blood drawn out separately on different days, but he had insisted that they do it on the same day.
Ajay obviously didn't trust her. And she wasn't offended by that fact. In fact, she thought he was a smart guy to not take any chances when it came to something big such as this.
The nurse drew blood from both of them, and the whole process was over without a glitch. All they had to do now was to wait a day or two for the results. Normally they would have to wait longer. But since Ajay's company provided security to the hospital, and he knew several people associated to the hospital, the process was to be much faster.
It was quite fascinating that he seemed to know a lot of people around. During the eight months, she had known him; she had observed that he was the kind of person, who would chat up people a lot. And during some of those chats, he would silently draw the other person in, to provide him with the information he needed. Information he used, to either build relationships with them, or to use it for a later use.
After the blood tests, they began to walk out of the hospital.
She was about to give him a polite nod before leaving, but Ajay stopped in front of her. "I'll get in touch with you when the results are out. Sia, I'm—" His phone began to vibrate, distracting him. He looked at the screen, before cutting it off to look at her again.
"We need to discuss a few more things before the results confirm that I'm—" His phone started vibrating loudly again. He looked at the screen and a slight frown crept on his face.
"It's Jo. She knows I'm getting the tests done today. Something urgent must have come up if she's calling me these many times. Just give me a minute. I'll check with her and get back to you," he said as he walked towards a huge window by a wall.
Meantime, she sat on a nearby chair, and checked her phone messages while she waited for him to come back.
A few messages were from work, and a couple of them were from Varun, demanding to know when she would visit him. She had been meeting him pretty regularly, but lately he was being too anxious. Wanting to know each and every little development in their plan.
She definitely owed it to him, since the whole thing would impact his life as well.
So she kept him informed. She had just finished sending a few text messages and was in middle of typing an email, when Ajay came back to her.
When she looked up at him, she saw a grim look on his face.
She gave him a questioning look.
"Can you come over to my place right now?" he asked.
She tensed immediately at his tone. "Why?"
"Jyotika is waiting there. She has something to say to you. She says it's quite urgent."
"Can't she do it over the phone?"
"No. She has insisted that you meet her at my place."
Sia paused.
Jyotika probably wanted a confirmation in person that there wouldn't be any intrusion in her and Ajay's soon-to-be-married life. Unfortunately, Ajay's fiancée was going to be hugely disappointed.
Sia hated scenes or any kind of drama. But she owed it to the other woman.
"Okay, I'll come. I'll just need to inform my ride to pick me from your place."
"I can drop you later," he offered.
"No. That's not required," she dismissed him coolly.
A look of annoyance passed on his face, but he didn't argue. He led the way to his car.
The drive to his home was filled with an awkward, loaded silence, since neither of them attempted to break it with any polite chit-chat.
It was so different from the ride in her car to his place, two months ago.
'Don't go there!' her mind shouted, making her quickly remove that thought from her head.
During the drive, she texted Ajay's address to Anjali, asking her to come after thirty minutes.
She hoped that the meeting with Jyotika wouldn't last more than a few minutes.
Soon, they arrived at Ajay's apartment building. After parking his car in the basement, he got out and began to head towards the elevators. She had stepped out of his car, but she still hovered uncertainly next to it, until he turned to see if she was following behind him.
Not wanting to give him a chance to speculate, she anxiously got into the elevator, and stood frozen as it went towards his fifth floor penthouse. The ride seemed to go on forever, making her break into a sweat. She literally began to see dark spots in front of her eyes.
"Are you okay?" Ajay's voice broke through her panic.
He was standing behind her, probably noticing her clenched fists, and her foot tapping nervously. With great effort, she whispered, "Yes."
As soon as they reached his floor, the doors thankfully opened to let her out. Before she could step out completely, Jyotika came rushing towards them, and held Ajay's arm.
"What is it, Jo?" he asked in concern.
Jyotika looked like she hadn't slept well. Her eyes looked puffy and slightly red, as though she had been crying for a while. Sia felt a twinge of pity, and she quickly crushed it. She couldn't afford to pity anyone in her life.
Another woman stood outside Ajay's penthouse. Sia was shocked to see that it was the nurse from the hospital. And as soon as the nurse saw Sia,
she looked very guilty and nervous.
'Shit! Danger! Danger!' Sia's mind was shouting through the alarm bells ringing in her head.
Ajay laid a gentle hand on Jyotika's back and led her towards his penthouse.
When Sia remained hovering near the elevator, he turned and threw her a look, as though asking her to follow him inside. But she remained frozen as she debated. Her mind was shouting at her to run away, but her instincts told her Ajay would definitely chase her, and drag her back if she ran.
Making up her mind, she followed behind them tensely.
"What is it, Jo? Why did you sound so panicked, and ask Sia to join us here?" he asked.
"Jay, she trapped you!" Jyotika announced with a distraught look.
"Jo...I know this is hard," he placated. "But I was well aware of what happened that night."
"You weren't, Jay. She planned it all along—"
"Even if it was true," he gently interrupted her. "I was more than willing that night."
Jyotika kept shaking her head with tears running down her cheeks. "God! Jay, she actually trapped you! She knew she would get pregnant that night! She came to you for the sole purpose of falling pregnant with your child!"
There was a deafening silence. And Sia saw the change in Ajay's body language.
"How did you find out?" Ajay asked grimly.
He trusted Jyotika. He didn't even question whether the fact was true or not. He just asked her how she had discovered that fact.
"After you told me that you might possibly father her child, I-I kept asking about Sia to everyone I knew. Not many people in our circle knew much about her. It was sheer luck that my friend Anita saw Sia at a hospital a few times. From the past four months. She said that Sia was supposedly getting a cosmetic procedure done. But something about that fact bothered me. So I asked Sia's doctor about her. But the doctor was not willing to disclose the details to me. So... so... I kept going to the hospital multiple times over the last few days, asking around a few people about whether anyone knew anything about her. I even offered enough monetary compensation. Finally, a nurse reached out to me early this morning, and gave me all the details. According to her, four months ago, Sia had gotten all her medical tests done to check whether she could carry a healthy baby. She had also been on a hormone therapy for two months to increase the fertility. She stopped when she finally fell pregnant with your child."
