Chapter 13
CHAPTER 13
RANVIJAY
M a held her tongue until Sannata and Kaki Sa led Shivina upstairs, but then she dismissed the rest of the staff who had gathered to welcome my bride before she turned on me angrily.
“Are you out of your mind, Ranvijay? Or have the vigilante games you’ve been playing with your friends gone to your head? You cannot kidnap a woman and bring her home as your wife,” she said furiously.
“I did not kidnap anyone, Ma,” I argued. “Shivina took those pheras willingly. She married me willingly. And a wife’s place is with her husband.”
My mother stared at me, aghast.
“What is wrong with you, beta? She didn’t agree to be your wife. She merely agreed to stand in for Kavya at the wedding. I know what she did was heinous, but that does not give you the right to kidnap her. I’ve raised you to be better than that, Ranvijay.”
Her words stung me because I thought my mother knew me better than to believe I’d kidnap a woman.
“And what was I supposed to do, Ma? Go along with their plan and bring Kavya home even after she deceived me?”
“No! But you could have left Shivina alone,” she said.
“And what do you think would have happened to her in that palace?” I asked slowly.
Ma was taken aback.
“What do you mean?”
“Shivina was the only one who knew about the deception. And she failed them when they needed her the most. What do you think they would have done to her if I’d left her there?”
“Does it matter?” asked my mother.
Of course, it mattered! For some reason, Shivina mattered. Way more than Kavya. And I couldn’t explain why.
“We don’t know why Kavya wasn’t at the mandap on time or what she was doing, Ma. And if the truth is really sordid, what’s to stop them from killing Shivina to ensure her silence? The Dodiyas are the kind of people who will do whatever it takes to get their way.”
My mother sighed heavily.
“Even if you did it with the best intentions, I can’t condone what you’re doing now, beta. You cannot keep her here against her will. Let Shivina go home.”
“I told you, Ma. If I let her go now, they’ll come after her. Shivina is only safe as long as she’s under my protection. And I’m not letting her go until I find out exactly what Kavya was doing when she was supposed to be marrying me. Once I have that information, I’ll have something with which to negotiate Shivina’s safety. Only then can we put this disaster behind us.”
“Fine! At least tell her that. Put her mind to ease, beta. She must be terrified right now.”
“She deserves it,” I said darkly. “I’m not telling her anything until I have to.”
“None of this would have happened if you had only listened to me in the first place,” grumbled Ma. “I told you Kavya was not the right woman for you.”
“You were the one who introduced me to her in the first place,” I snapped in disbelief. How like my mother to forget that she was the one who set us on this disastrous path!
“Well, I hadn’t even met the girl! In theory, she seemed like the perfect wife for you. And I only requested you to meet her to see if she was your type.”
“Requested? You nagged me until I agreed to meet the woman,” I pointed out acidly.
“Yes, I nagged you to meet her. But I didn’t tell you to ask her to marry you on your very first meeting. That was all your doing,” she retorted. “Even after I begged you not to because she was nothing like the wife I had envisioned for you.”
I groaned and rubbed my eyes wearily. She was right. I had only myself to blame.
I hadn’t agreed to marry Kavya because I fell in love with her at first sight. I agreed to marry her because our very first meeting had convinced me that she’d make me the perfect wife. Because there was no way I could come to love a woman as cold and calculating as her. And that’s exactly what I was looking for - a loveless marriage.
After my last nightmarish marriage to Devika, I had no intention of falling in love ever again. Romantic love was a commercial construct, a marketing tool. And I wasn’t getting fooled again. But I did need an heir, which meant I needed a wife. This time around, I was determined to be wiser. This marriage was going to be a purely business arrangement. It was going so well, too. Until my fiancée tricked me into marrying the wrong woman. The one who made me feel things I had no business feeling.
“This isn’t the time to point fingers at each other, Ma. We need to find a solution. I’ve sent Raksha to find out what Kavya has been up to. If anyone can dig out the truth, it’s her. Meanwhile, I’m going to keep an eye on the woman upstairs because I don’t trust her one inch,” I replied as I walked towards the stairs.
“Ranvijay, be kind,” Ma called out as I ran up the stairs.
As if she needed to say that, I thought angrily. I was always kind. Even when people didn’t deserve it.
But when I walked into my bedroom, I found Shivina whispering on the phone to someone, and all thoughts of kindness flew out of my mind.
Sannata went pale at the sight of me, but I put a finger to my lips before she could alert Shivina to my presence. It was funny how someone I had trusted blindly had turned traitor within five minutes of meeting this woman. I had explicitly banned everybody from giving her a phone, and yet, here we were.
I wanted to hear what she was saying. Was she conspiring with the Dodiyas to blow my palace down? What did these people even want, I wondered.
But Shivina seemed to be talking to someone she loved. And from what she was saying, it seemed to be a man.
I’ll come to you tonight.
Like hell she would, I decided as I snatched the phone out of her hand with a snarl.
Her eyes widened in horror, and she backed away as I advanced on her.
“Hukum,” began Sannata placatingly, but I interrupted her.
“Leave us,” I said, but to my surprise, Sannata stood her ground.
“Not until you hear me out, Hukum,” she said stubbornly.
I could have staked my palace on Sannata’s loyalty to my family, so it infuriated me to see her defending the woman who had deceived me.
“Out,” I growled in a tone that brooked no argument, and she scurried from the room.
“That was rude and unnecessary,” said Shivina, and I was amazed at the audacity of the woman.
She tricked me into marrying her, turned my loyal staff against me, and had the gall to defend said staff after I caught her making plans to meet her lover.
“Are you delusional?” I asked conversationally.
She frowned even as she continued to back away because my whole body radiated fury, even if my tone didn’t. When her back hit a wall, she froze in place because she had nowhere to escape. And still, she raised her chin and frowned down her nose at me.
“Excuse me?”
“If I were in your place, I’d be on my knees begging for forgiveness,” I said softly. “And yet, all you do is talk back to me. You’ve been sniping at me since I discovered your deception, and I just don’t get it. If you think sassing me is going to stop me from throwing you in jail, you’ve got to be delusional.”
Shivina laughed bleakly.
“You think I’m sassing you? No, Your Highness. This is just me trying to survive in a world of entitled, self-centred royals who think the whole world revolves around them.”
“ Bull shit ,” I roared. “You seem to forget, little miss holier-than-thou, that you scammed me . For money! So don’t make this about entitled royals. I’m the victim here. Not you.”
“Sure, you’re the victim,” she said sarcastically. “Tell me, Your Highness, what did you do when you discovered that you married the wrong woman? Did you speak to your fiancée to find out where she was? Did you ask her why she didn’t show up to marry you? Did you even fucking care? No! You should have been heartbroken when you discovered the deception. But all I saw was anger. And all you cared about was carrying me off to prove a point. What about Kavya Baisa and the future you’d planned together? That didn’t seem to matter to either of you.”
She made valid points, but they did not change the fact that she was as much to blame here as Kavya. If she hadn’t agreed to stand in for her, I wouldn’t be married to the wrong woman!
“Well, look how that worked out for you. You’re a Maharani now,” I drawled.
“You think I wanted this?” she asked angrily. “I only agreed to stand in for Baisa at the wedding. I didn’t agree to be your wife.”
“Yes, I’m sure you’d have charged a lot more if you knew that was a possibility. Kavya was supposed to give me an heir. How much would you charge for that, Shivina?”
For a minute, I thought Shivina was about to launch herself at me. She looked furious enough to try and rip my face off. She clenched her fists tightly, and her body shook with the force of her anger.
I braced myself for impact and realised that I quite looked forward to being attacked. Mainly because it would give me an excuse to touch her again. But she drew herself up and shot me a scathing look instead.
“How’s the view from that ivory tower, Hukum?” she asked bleakly.
“Excuse me?” I couldn’t believe she had the audacity to sass me again.
“Okay, let me put it another way. Have you ever been homeless? Have you ever been responsible for a life other than yours? For a child?”
“Get to the point, Rani Sa,” I said through gritted teeth.
“That is my point. You’re far too privileged to know what it feels like to be kicked out onto the street in the middle of the night and have nowhere to go. You’ve never had to deal with the fear of keeping a little girl safe when you have no roof over your head. Yes, I helped the Dodiyas deceive you for money, but I did it for my sister’s sake. If it hadn’t been for her, I’d have stood by with a box of popcorn and clapped when you and Kavya Baisa found your perfect worlds imploding from the force of your entitlement. And if that’s too sassy for you, I have plenty more where that came from. Because I’m fucking sick of being the only person who’s being punished for this mess. The Dodiyas were the ones who actually deceived you, and yet, they are safe at home while my sister and I have to pay for their sins! So throw me in jail if you want to and be done with it,” she raged.
“Oh, but if I do that, how will you meet your lover tonight? Or did you forget your grand plan to be reunited with him, no matter what?” I asked snidely.
Shivina looked stricken at the reminder.
“You have to let me go,” she whispered, tears running down her face.
“Over my dead body,” I said, grabbing her by the shoulders.
“Please, I beg you,” she replied, shaking her head. The tears were flowing freely now, and Shivina was sobbing.
It only made me angrier that she was crying over some other man.
“Where was he when you married me? What kind of man allows the woman he loves to marry someone else, even temporarily?” I asked with disgust.
“You don’t understand,” she began to say, but I didn’t allow her to finish.
“I don’t even want to understand. You will stay here until I’m ready to let you go,” I snapped before I turned to leave the room.
She was right. I didn’t understand why the thought of her being with another man made me furious enough to want to punch a hole in the wall. Shivina was nothing to me. I barely knew the woman. So why did I go feral at the thought of the other man?
“It wasn’t a man! I was speaking to my sister,” she cried out, and I froze in my tracks. “The Dodiyas have held her hostage, and I have to go rescue her. Please let me go!”