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“That’s a bit of an overreaction, but I agree with you in principle. We don’t have to resort to such desperate measures,” he replied.
My fingers clenched around the fork that I had picked up again, and I wondered if I could get away with stabbing him with it. I was not a desperate measure. And marrying me wasn’t a fate worse than death!
Why did I waste so many years and so many tears on this man who clearly had a very low opinion of me? No wonder he fell in love with another woman nine years ago. He had never loved me at all. Our big romance was just a figment of my imagination. All we had going for us was physical attraction and proximity. The minute he met another woman, Dheer forgot all about me.
For nine years, I had mourned the death of a relationship that had never existed. I was such a fool.
Tears welled in my eyes as I realised that I had built such a foolish story around us, full of young love and heartbreak, while our reality was very different. There was no us. There was only idiotic, lovestruck me. And an opportunistic bastard who had played with my feelings.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to call Kirori Ji and send out a warning to the Goels,” said Dheer, as he threw down his napkin and rose from the table.
I held myself upright until he left the room, but as soon as the door closed behind him, I slumped in my chair and tried to blink back the tears.
“Randheer is right, Raji,” said his grandmother. “Your daughter’s safety is not his responsibility. And I won’t allow you to use this as an excuse to strike an alliance with us.”
Wow! Just… wow! I opened my mouth to blast the old bat back into the depths of hell from where she’d emerged, but Dheer’s mother beat me to it.
“Dheer never implied such a thing, Ma Sa,” she said sternly. “He risked his life twice to save Diya. Her safety is his biggest priority; if you can’t see that, that’s your problem.”
Umm, that was a bit of an exaggeration. Sure, he had saved my life, but nothing about me was a priority to Dheer.
“Oh, shut up,” snarled his grandmother, and we all rounded on her angrily.
“Hey!” I exclaimed, and Isha stood up angrily.
I wondered if she meant to throw the old hag out of the room physically, but her mother patted her on the arm gently, and she sat down again.
“If you can’t keep a civil tongue in your mouth, Ma Sa, maybe you’ll be more comfortable in your own room,” she said meaningfully, and Dheer’s grandmother let out an angry huff.
“Or, as Bhai Sa suggested the last time you were rude to Ma, maybe you’d be more comfortable living all by yourself in the choti haveli behind the palace. You wouldn’t have to see any of us ever again,” added Isha sweetly.
“You can gang up on me all you like, but don’t blame me if this girl brings disaster to our door,” replied Dheer’s grandmother acidly, before she rose and stalked out of the room.
“I’m so sorry, Diya. Please ignore Dadi Sa. She’s just bitter about not getting her way in the palace since our father died,” said Isha.
“And don’t believe a word of what she says. You won’t bring disaster in your wake. You’ll only bring us joy,” said her mother, making my tears well up again. “Please forget the past, and give Dheer a chance to make up for hurting you.”
“Thank you, Aunty. But I don’t think marriage is the right option here. Dheer and I… well, we aren’t meant to be together,” I said lamely.
What else could I say?
Dheer and Isha’s mother had known how much I had loved her son. She had seen us together and she had given her blessings for the wedding when she gifted me a pair of kundan bangles for my twenty-first birthday. It wasn’t her fault her son had come to my party with his new fiancée.
I wondered why he had never married that woman. Dheer had vanished from the public eye soon after my birthday party, and I’d had too much pride to enquire about him. Isha and I never discussed him, except for the one occasion a year later when my mother had asked her snidely when we could expect an invitation to his wedding. That’s when we found out that Dheer and Raksha weren’t together anymore.
We knew nothing about the woman, and she had disappeared as silently as she had appeared in our lives. Meanwhile, Dheer had reappeared on the social scene a couple of years later with a new woman on his arm at every event. He was clearly over the breakup.
“May I be excused?” I asked, pushing my chair back.
“Where are you going?” demanded my mother.
“I need some air, Ma.”
“What if Ayush’s men get at you again? Promise me you won’t leave the palace, Diya.”
“I won’t,” I promised. “I’m just going for a walk.”
“I’ll come with you,” offered Isha.
