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“Really Raashi? This is what you got your Phd for? To fuck a man who didn’t even clear his twelfth-grade board exams? Whose father had to pay for him to get his certificates so they could maintain their reputation in society? To be seen with a man whose own father refers to him as his biggest mistake.”
He glanced at Harsh’s frozen face. “Oh yes, Jr. Kodela. You may not know me, but I know you. I know everyone.”
Everything around Harsh went silent as the man’s words tumbled and spun in the air around them. He didn’t dare look at Raashi, shame coursing through him. What could he even say? Every word spoken had been the truth. His truth.
“No,” she answered, this time her voice ringing through the tiny corridor. “I didn’t get a Phd so I could fuck him. If we needed academic degrees to sleep with people, you’d be a born-again virgin, wouldn’t you? After all, your degrees are accumulating dust while you spend time earning money from people’s misfortunes.”
“Why?” The man stepped closer to her. “Why are you with him?”
“Because I choose to be,” she answered coolly, tipping her chin up to meet the other man’s cold gaze. “Harsh is my choice and I owe no one any explanations about that. Especially not you. He is my –“
“Fiancé.” The word left him on an explosive rush. Raashi didn’t look at him, her entire body stilling and seeming to be locked in place. “The wedding is in less than a month. We’ll be sure to send you an invite.”
“Wedding?” The other man’s eyes narrowed, fury sparking in his eyes. “I didn’t see anything about that in the news.”
“Surprise.” Raashi smiled, a coldly vicious smile even as her fingers trembled in Harsh’s grip. “I guess your spies don’t quite have their fingers in every pie worth knowing.”
Harsh lifted her hand to his lips, kissing the back of her palm. Her hand shook so hard it almost fell out of his grasp.
“I think this is going to be the biggest mistake of your life.”
“Anant,” Raashi drawled. “When are you going to realise that nobody gives a fuck what you think.”
Anant… Anant…Oh Fuck! Anant Madhavan. CEO and Founder of TV Plus, Chaitanya Gadde’s one time partner and now biggest competitor. No wonder the dickhead was familiar.
And he’d just told him that Raashi and he were getting married in less than a month.
Oh fuckity fuck…they were in trouble.
Eighteen
RAASHI
They traveled to Kodela House in silence. They walked into a room full of people who sat there, watching them, again in complete silence. The Kodelas were there in full force and so was her father. She searched for her brother, her biggest ally, but he wasn’t there. Her heart sank as she saw the stunned, blank, and in some cases, angry faces staring at them.
For a moment, just one tiny moment, Raashi considered turning around and running. But where would she go? Everyone kept looking at each other and then at them, nobody wanting to be the one to break the silence first.
“Anant Madhavan,” her father said finally. “That’s whom you leak the news of your upcoming wedding to? Not your father who basically runs a what do they call it?” he paused, snapping his fingers. “A news channel! That’s right!”
Of course, her father would worry about who got the scoop, she thought wearily, even as Harsh tensed beside her.
“How utterly irresponsible and typical of you Raashi!” Her father was on his feet now, pacing in front of them. “Only ever thinking of yourself!”
Hot and cold. Every inch of her ran blazing hot and ice cold as her gaze darted to the other people in her room, some sympathetic, some coldly furious like her father.
“We were already fake dating,” she shrugged, going on the offensive as always. “Now we’re fake engaged. What’s the biggie?”
“The biggie,” her father gritted out, getting right in her face. “Is that breaking an engagement with a wedding date set for later this month is not as easy as the two of you calling off some casual dating.”
A broad shoulder inserted itself between her father’s furious face and her own flushed one.
“You have something to say, you say it to me.”
The lethally vicious voice was so different from Harsh’s normally genial one that Raashi blinked up at him, unsure if he was really the same person. But yes, that was Harsh standing between her and her father. A very different Harsh than the one she’d known until now.
Her father scoffed, the sound dying in the unnatural quiet of the room. “Can you believe that?” he asked everyone. “Look at the way he’s talking to me. Kodela Garu, is this the upbringing you’ve given your son?”
“That one?” Suryakanth Kodela waved a dismissive hand in the air. “Can’t do anything with that one.”
