Chapter 26
DAKSH
“What are you doing here?” Vedika asked, sounding a little dazed.
“I wanted to check on you,” he told her quietly, staying where he was so her father didn’t decapitate him.
“Why?” Aakash snarled. “Hasn’t your brother done enough damage?”
Daksh met the other man’s angry eyes. “I’m not my brother, Sir,” he said. “I’m just here as…”
“As?” Aakash raised his eyebrows when Daksh faltered. “As what? Ashish’s brother, Prasun’s son? What exactly?”
“Vedika’s friend.” A strange weight landed on his chest as he contemplated just how peripheral he was to her life when she seemed to spend all her time invading his thoughts.
“Being stranded together for a day doesn’t make you her friend,” Aakash snapped. “It doesn’t make you anything.”
“Pa.” Vedika appeared beside him. “Please stop.”
“I won’t have any member of his family hurting you anymore.” Aakash’s jaw clenched. “They’ve done enough.”
“Pa-“
“Enough Vedika. I allowed them to get this close because I thought you loved Ashish. I trusted your judgement and on paper, they looked good. I should have dug deeper. I should have seen what he was hiding and I should have known that he never wanted you. All that family wanted was an in to the Thakkar empire. Fucking social climbing gold diggers.”
Daksh’s gaze was trained on Vedika’s white face, the shocked pain reflecting on it.
“Aakash!” Kanak’s voice cracked through the room.
“What?” Aakash rounded on his wife, his fury blazing hot enough to incinerate all of them. “You want me to show them grace? After what they’ve done to my daughter? He betrayed her! He hurt her, broke her heart!” he roared.
“Stop shouting,” Kanak snapped. “You’re too old for a temper tantrum.”
Daksh’s eyebrows winged up. Was she trying to kill her husband? The man might stroke out with rage.
“I told you he didn’t break my heart.” Vedika’s quiet voice cut through the chaos before Aakash could deliver the blistering retort that Daksh could read on his face.
Everyone turned to her, silence blanketing them.
“He didn’t break my heart. I…wasn’t in love with him.
I loved him, yes. He was a good friend to me, a good partner, and I wanted that.
To feel safe and comfortable. He tolerated all my neuroses without complaint and that …
it meant something. But I wasn’t in love with him.
It doesn’t change the fact that he betrayed me, my trust, our friendship…
He jeopardised my work and ruined one of the biggest deals of my career.
But he didn’t break my heart, Pa. And none of this is Daksh’s fault. ”
Aakash gave Daksh another baleful glare. “I bet he has some angle, some way this show of sympathy could help him professionally.”
“Unless you’re going to transform into a Hainan Gibbon for me to photograph, I don’t think you’re much help to my career, Sir.”
“What the fuck is a Hainan Gibbon?” Aakash asked, nonplussed.
“An ape.”
A snort of laughter escaped Vikram.
“I like you, Daksh Mathur,” Kanak said, her eyes brimming with mirth.
Aakash glowered at all of them.
“Pa,” Vedika said softly. “It’s not your fault. None of this is. It’s mine. I have bad judgement. I fucked up by trusting him. I thought I’d found someone who could put up with me. I won’t make that mistake again.”
She turned to Daksh. “We’re killing the Banlay deal. It’s going to bankrupt Ashish. Your family, you included, should focus on digging him out of this hole. It won’t be easy.”
“And if he tries sticking his head out of that hole, I’ll play ‘whack a mole’ with him,” Aakash muttered.
“Shush!” Kanak hushed him. “I’m listening to them.”
“And what about you?” Daksh asked.
She gave him a watery smile. “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”
His gaze scanned her face, his chest tightening at the lines of strain lining it. “If you ever need me, you know how to reach me.”
“The Bat Signal?” she quipped, startling a smile out of him.
“Or a simple text would do,” Daksh grinned. “Unless you’ve deleted or blocked my number.”
“I still have it.” She tapped her phone and flashed the screen at him.
A loud laugh burst out of him as he saw she’d saved his number as ‘Fucking Lobster’.
He pulled out his phone and showed her his screen.
“Feral Mouse?” Vedika grinned as she read the name he’d used for her.
“I am so confused right now,” Aakash murmured from somewhere behind them.
“Don’t worry about it, darling,” Kanak replied, sounding positively riveted. “I’ll explain everything later.”
Daksh ignored all of them, his gaze still on Vedika’s smiling face. “I guess this is goodbye then,” he said, a strange hollowness opening up in the pit of his stomach.
She smiled brightly, nodding. “Don’t get eaten by a snow leopard or something.”
Daksh smiled through the strange ache inside him. “I’ll do my best,” he said briefly. “Goodbye Mouse.”
She didn’t reply immediately, blinking rapidly to hold back tears. Daksh nodded to the others and walked out. It was as the door was shutting behind him that he heard her husky reply, “Goodbye Daksh Mathur…thank you for making me feel like I was more than someone to be endured.”