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And then with one last smile for the fallen man, he wandered off to look for his bride. It was his wedding day, after all!
Forty
Raashi
“You hit him?” Raashi screeched.
“I did.” Harsh slipped his jacket off and tossed it on to the chair in the corner of the presidential suite. Unbuttoning his cuffs, he opened out the top two buttons of his shirt. He slipped his belt out of the loops with a soft snick and dropped it on his jacket.
What he did not do was look at the bride standing near the bed and frothing at the mouth with unbridled fury. She knew, the frothing bride knew, he was making a point of ignoring her.
“You are the most immature, irritating, idiotic human being I have ever had the misfortune to meet,” she seethed as she started yanking her jewellery off.
Harsh sat down on the couch, crossed one leg over the other and took a sip from the hip flask he’d stocked for himself. Raashi wanted to throw that damn thing into a pit and then drop a hundred kilograms of manure on it.
“I think you mean you’ve ever had the misfortune to marry,” Harsh drawled now with a wicked grin.
“I wouldn’t know,” Raashi said frostily. “It’s not like I’ve married lots of people.”
“Touché.” Harsh toasted her with his hip flask. “I’m the lucky one. Or is it the unlucky one?”
“You’ll be the dead one if you don’t stop annoying me.”
She stormed past him towards where her suitcase was propped against the wall. Dragging it behind her, she hefted it on to the bed and popped it open. She rummaged around for something comfortable to wear but found nothing. Raashi closed her eyes, frustration screaming inside her. Serves her right for allowing her mother and sister to pack for her. She grabbed the silky, barely-there negligee and marched towards the bathroom, her heavily embellished ghaghra trailing after her.
A soft snicker followed her from the room making her want to throw something at his head. As she caught sight of her wild-eyed reflection, she stopped, forcing herself to take a deep breath. She undressed more slowly, slipping into the disgustingly sexy outfit her sister had packed for her. What was she thinking? She knew that this was a marriage of convenience. It was as fake as Harsh’s heroines’ boobs. So why did Veda think she needed sexy lingerie on her wedding night.
She folded and stacked her reception outfit, suppressing a sudden urge to sob. She wanted to go home. She just needed to get through tonight and then…nope, then she went to Harsh’s home, not hers.
She sniffled as the tears escaped. Veda akka would be there, she reminded herself. She wouldn’t be all alone. But she would be all alone in the bedroom with him, like she was tonight. In the presidential suite of the finest hotel in town.
Raashi closed her eyes and pressed her flushed, feverish forehead to the cool marble of the bathroom wall. One night. She could manage tonight.
“Are you still pouting about your boyfriend, Viper?” Harsh’s laconic voice sounded through the bathroom door.
Her head reared back, eyes spitting fire at the wooden door that was all that stood between them.
"He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Your situationship then?” he taunted.
“My nothing now.”
“Your complicated past?”
Raashi stayed silent, the words he uttered a truth bomb that exploded at the very core of her being.
“Bullseye,” he murmured.
Raashi flattened her palm against the door. “You shouldn’t have punched him.”
“Why?” She could hear the anger threading through his tone. “Feeling bad for him? Save the sympathy, Rash. He doesn’t need it.”
“He’ll retaliate,” she told the hardheaded idiot she’d married. “And he’ll come for blood.”
She closed her eyes wearily. She was so tired of living like this. This was supposed to have been her fresh start. Instead, she was still crawling out of the debris of her first start at life. And then she would need to start all over again when she left Harsh, when they finally divorced each other. When their fake marriage ended…why did the thought of that send so much pain rolling through her?
“He can come for blood, Raashi.” Harsh’s quiet voice reached her. “He can sure as hell try. But if he comes for you, he’ll find me waiting for him. And blood isn’t all I’ll have to offer.”
