To Love or Not To Love

Chapter 2

The next 48 hours

Khushi Gupta would have died of fatigue if a poor watchman who was to keep watch on her did not smuggle food and water to her from time to time. The guard was an old man who felt really sorry for her. He believed in her story. He was worldly-wise and didn't believe the girl to be capable of blackmail or extortion. But he didn't dare voice his opinion. He needed the money.

However, his conscience wouldn't allow the poor girl to suffer for no fault of hers. And so he quietly carried to her a glass of water, a piece of bread, some biscuits, a fruit whatever he could manage to get hold of and she gratefully accepted it.

Khushi Gupta had been locked up alone, in a tiny room with just one window, sunlight filtering in at dawn and a visible reflection of the moon at dusk. The room had a small bench attached to a desk that Khushi sat on, whenever she got tired of pacing the floor. She had questions, sadly no answers.  

She was also worried. Her parents, by now were definitely looking for her. She hadn't told them about her hairbrained idea.  They wouldn't know where to start. Her sister was probably crying her eyes out thinking something unholy had happened to Khushi. Well, something had definitely gone wrong. And for reasons she couldn't imagine, she was being held captive in a small dark room at the Sheesh Mahal.

Khushi was scared of enclosed spaces. She was also scared of the dark. She had lost her parents to a car accident at the dead of the night. And ever since that night, Khushi experienced panic attacks and claustrophobia when she was alone in enclosed dark spaces. She would gasp for breath in a perfectly ventilated small room and would often have dizzy spells and faint in the dark. Khushi was scared. She didn't know how to deal with it. She held her stomach and wept. She needed a source of light from somewhere.

*****

Arnav Singh Raizada was watching Khushi's reactions through the camera that was installed in the room. The camera was used by Arnav to study his competitors' behavior in his absence.  He usually gathered crucial insights that he subsequently used to break his competitors down. Whatever Arnav had been prepared to see, it had not been a girl clutching her stomach weeping profusely. For a moment, Arnav thought all this was wrong. This girl was innocent. Then the images of the fashion show flashed in front of his eyes. How she was the only one wearing a green dress in a fashion show when the theme was red. How she slipped instead of completing her walk on the ramp and landed straight into his arms. Arnav flinched.

She was no naïve 24-year-old girl. She was probably paid by the competition to ruin his fashion show. AR had a reputation and the amount of damage control he would have to do to keep this news away from the media was bad enough. He could not allow himself to be emotionally swayed at this juncture. Clearly, whoever this girl was, she was a very good actress. She didn't deserve any sympathy. Surely, whatever was there to know he would know in the next six hours. She would tell him, he thought while he stomped away from the monitor room.

The other person, standing right behind him, observing the entire scene silently, disagreed with ASR's conclusion. He asked security to switch on the lights in that room. The lights came on and the weeping on the monitor reduced to spasms eventually stopping within the next few minutes. The other person smiled. He might have angered ASR with his actions, but he still felt good about it. Something told him this girl was innocent. And although he was unable to do anything right now, he was going to ensure that the next 48 hours would be bearable for her.