Chapter 16
CHAPTER 16
VEER
I sha couldn’t fool me. She didn’t want a proper wedding because she had no intention of seeing it through beyond a year. She probably had an exit plan already in place in connivance with fucking Ranvijay Rathore.
Well, I wasn’t just a pretty face. I was going to tie her to me in ways that were even more binding than a court marriage. I was going to bind her to me with the seven wedding vows in her family’s own temple. I was going to turn this fake, temporary marriage into something more meaningful, I swore to myself.
I had to give it to the Mom brigade. They put together a simple but beautiful ceremony in the Bhawani Mata temple in a little village on the outskirts of Trikhera, where every ruler had bowed his head before the majesty of the goddess.
Dheer and Diya gave Isha away, and I was spellbound by her beauty in an amber-coloured lehenga, with a translucent veil over her head. The picture of absolute femininity. I couldn’t take my eyes off her as she walked to the mandap.
“You’re catching flies,” murmured Ranvijay in my ear. “Close your mouth.”
“Piss off,” I retorted, as I stared at my gorgeous bride.
“You’re in a temple, Ranveer,” whispered Ma disapprovingly. “Save those looks for later.”
I ignored them all because I had eyes only for Isha as she sat down next to me. She blushed deeply when she finally looked up at me.
“Everyone’s staring at us,” she hissed. “Look away.”
“I can’t,” I said simply. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“I’m going to kick you hard if you make me cry and ruin my makeup,” she said shakily.
“No, I will,” said Diya, who was sitting behind us in a chair. Her doctor had given her permission to get out of bed for today, but she wasn’t allowed to lift a finger. “Because I spent ages nagging the make-up artist to get her makeup just right because our Yuvarani Sa couldn’t be arsed to even pick the colours of her eye shadow.”
“She doesn’t need it,” I said firmly. “She looks amazing even without anything on her face.”
Diya gave me a slow, approving smile.
“Be good to her, Veer,” she whispered in my ear. “She deserves nothing less than absolutely everything.”
I nodded once, ignoring the lump in my throat. I didn’t know where this journey would lead us, but I knew that I was going to see it through to the end. When the priest asked us to garland each other, I bowed my head willingly vowing I would never play hard to get. Isha stared at me, her eyes full of conflicting emotions. I saw her anger, her pain, and her desire for me, and maybe I was deceiving myself, but I could swear I saw something else. Something that was reflected in my eyes because she couldn’t take her eyes off me either.
I could hear our families cheering in the background, but I didn’t register their noise or the chanting of the priests any more. Isha was all there was. She was everything.
The head priest narrated the meaning of the seven wedding vows and I meant each one of them as we went around the agni. At the end of the saptapadi, the earth didn’t move. The universe wasn’t shaken. Everyone and everything around us were the same. But I felt changed. I felt bound to Isha in a way I couldn’t explain. I only wished she felt the same.
After the wedding, we returned to the palace for a lavish wedding lunch at Trikhera Palace. The mahurat for Isha’s bidai was quite late in the evening, and as we got ready to leave, Diya sobbed openly about losing her best friend.
“We’re not moving to the other side of the world,” I said, with an exasperated eye roll.
Dheer trod on my foot hard and glared at me, daring me to complain.
“My wife will cry if she wants to,” he snarled. “And the next time you roll your eyes at her, I’ll pluck them out and play ping-pong with them.”
“Randheer! Apologise to Jamai Sa at once,” yelled his mother, and I smirked at him.
He growled under his breath and apologised reluctantly.
“It’s okay, Saale… Sahab,” I said, with a grin.
“Likewise, asshole,” he replied and hugged me tightly as he whispered in my ear. “Take care of my baby sister or I’ll hunt you down and skin you alive.”
“You can try, loser,” I said, rolling my eyes again.
“Enough with the bromance,” said my bride. “I want to go home.”
Both our mothers looked scandalised at her haste to get away, but the rest of us laughed in delight.
She piled into Dheer’s armoured SUV and I followed her in, trying not to sit on her long train-like dupatta. My parents followed us in their car. It was a short ride to Gulab Mahal, and as we drove up to the ornate wrought iron gates of the mansion, I was excited to see what Isha’s dream house looked like.
I was expecting a smaller version of the ornate Trikhera Palace. But it turned out to be a haveli, with tall curved pillars, jaalis and jharokhas, and a centre courtyard.
“There is a formal rose garden laid out behind the house, and a lily pond in the courtyard,” explained Isha, as we got out of the car.
Diya had already arranged for the house to be cleaned, painted, lit up and decorated with flowers for us. My parents waited for us at the door to perform the aarti, and I led Isha into her dream house. We couldn’t move in immediately because we needed to hire some help, but Dheer had loaned us some of his staff for the next few days.
Isha ran a fond hand over the furniture.
“Gulab Banna had this all hand-made by local artisans. Every painting, every cushion, every artefact that you see here is a testament to his exquisite taste.”
“I’m sure he’s very happy to know you finally got the house. You clearly love the place as much as he did,” I said, putting an arm around her.
Isha stiffened and shot me a quick look. With a deep breath, she skipped out of reach as tactfully as she could.
“Let me show you around the property,” she said, but Ma shook her head disapprovingly.
“Not now, beta. You can’t go scampering about the house on your wedding night,” she said pointedly.
Isha gave a huge sigh and followed her up to our bedroom. Ranvijay poured me a drink as I waited tactfully until I was summoned upstairs.
“Did you file the nominations?” I asked him because his firm was running my campaign.
“Of course! As soon as Chandel Sahab okayed it,” he replied. “The team will get in touch with you after your honeymoon to plan your campaign. Where are you guys going?”
I had no answer to that because we hadn’t planned anything. The wedding was arranged so quickly that we’d barely had a week to finalise the plans. And most of that time had been spent on arranging to take possession of this house and compiling my nomination papers. Diya and Ma had picked out my outfit because I didn’t have the time to go shopping.
Ranvijay sighed heavily and shook his head in disgust.
“I’m wondering if I should break Isha out of here before this goes any further. How could you forget about your honeymoon, Veer? I’ll get my team on it.”
“You’d need an army to pry Isha out of this house,” I informed him. “And they’d have to go through me first. Don’t worry about us, Ranvijay. We’ll figure out everything, including the honeymoon. All we need to do is pick a place, hop in my jet and fly away. We don’t need your team to plan that for us.”
I set my glass down and called out to my mother who had just come down the stairs.
“Let’s wind up this party, Ma. It’s getting late.”
They were all going back to the palace, and I couldn’t wait to be alone with my wife. A warmth settled around my heart at the sound of that word. It felt… right.
“Such haste is unseemly, Ranveer,” said my mother primly, but Baba led her out firmly.
I saw them to the car and looked up to see Isha standing at the window staring down at me. I held her eyes as I walked towards the house until she stepped away abruptly. I raced up the stairs and knocked on the door. There was a slight pause before she asked me to enter.
Isha stood in the middle of the room, still fully dressed in her wedding finery.
“Your mother wouldn’t allow me to change out of this outfit,” she complained.
“I’m glad,” I replied simply, running my eyes over her slowly.
She flushed at the look in my eyes and shifted uncomfortably. I exhaled slowly. This was not how I envisioned our wedding night. I had no intention of making love to her against her wishes. I wanted her as willing as I was. I knew I could make her want me physically, but I needed her to want me of her own will, not if I had to coerce her into it.
“You can change first,” I said softly, gesturing towards the huge en-suite bathroom.
Her eyes flew to mine and I smiled reassuringly at the question in them.
“We should get some sleep because Ma has a big puja planned in Jadhwal tomorrow. After that, we need to figure out a way to announce our wedding.”
Isha gave me a long look, and although I expected her to be relieved I wasn’t touching her, she looked almost miffed as she flounced out of the room.