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She didn’t turn to face him, nor did she acknowledge his presence or his greeting. With a last squeeze of her mother’s shoulders, Veda squared her own and walked out of the drawing room. Before she got to the front door, Ram Anna appeared, dressed in his lawyer’s robes. Flanked by her siblings, her pillars of support, she shoved the doors open and stepped outside.
Her security detail snapped to attention, her head of security, falling in place right behind her, his looming presence a deterrent like no other. She didn’t want them around, a walking, talking reminder of Agastya and her life with him, but she wasn’t foolish enough to send them away. Today, she was going to need all the help she could get.
Ram Anna peeled off to get into his car, his sunglasses shaded gaze looking towards the main gate but not seeing anything that seemed to worry him.
“Veda, Raashi,” he called out from where he stood beside his car. “Call me if you need me.”
Raashi nodded. Veda did her rapid blinking again. Damn these tears! And then they got into their own car, the bodyguards sliding in with them. The cars left the driveway in a convoy. Her tense gaze scanned the road the minute the main gate opened but Ram had been right. The paparazzi knew better than to stake out Chaitanya Gadde’s house. They probably thought she was at Kodela House anyway.
She relaxed at the sight of the normal scene that greeted her behind the gates, sighing as she settled into her seat. Her phone rang a second later.
Agastya.
She stared at his name flashing on her screen, a detached sense of reality descending on her.
“Want me to answer it for you?” Raashi asked, her voice dipped in acid.
Veda shook her head, silencing the phone and turning to look out of the window. A text pinged through a second later. She should ignore it, she knew. But her traitorous gaze swung to the phone even as her thumb swiped the screen open.
I’m sorry. Forgive me.
“Akka, you are NOT going to forgive him!” Raashi’s strident voice cut through her turmoil. “What he did-“
“Is between him and me,” Veda interrupted softly.
Raashi fell silent, the boundary Veda had drawn a brick wall between them.
Veda went back to contemplating the crowded, dusty roads outside. But what was between him and her? She didn’t know anymore. Once the dust from his betrayal had cleared, all she saw was rubble, the debris of her broken heart.
Thirty-Five
AGASTYA
“Why?”
Ganesh stared at him across the grimy, creaky wooden table. They sat alone in a small room at the police station where Ganesh was currently being held until further processing of his case.
Agastya sat back in his chair, his arms crossed over his chest and he studied the man he’d considered one of his closest friends.
“I asked you a question,” Agastya said softly.
Ganesh shrugged. “Does the ‘why’ matter?”
“It does to me.” Agastya’s gaze tracked the nervous hitch of Ganesh’s leg under the table, the tremor in his fingers.
“Why?” Ganesh challenged. “Why does it matter?”
“You were my friend.” Agastya lashed out, his control slipping. “I would have given you anything you asked for. Why would you do this?”
“You would have given me thousands of crores?” Ganesh raised an eyebrow, a small sneer tugging at his lips. “I didn’t realise we were that close.”
Rage and disappointment swirled in a toxic mess inside Agastya. “Money? That was it?”
“Money? That was it?” Ganesh mimicked Agastya, the sneer broadening. “When you’ve been wiping your arse with gold plated toilet paper no, you won’t understand what money means to other people. Especially big money like this.”
“You’ll never get out of here to be able to spend it now.”
“The problem with you, Agastya,” Ganesh mused. “Is that you think the truth always wins.”
