A year and a half ago...

It was well over seven months and she was not traced. Not yet at least! She sighed and closed her eyes in gratitude to the Goddess she worshipped. As they said, thank God for small mercies! She was safe at the Corporal, and it was all that she required. She walked into the office that was empty at that time of the day. The huge vintage wall clock behind the reception said it was just past seven in the morning. She had come three hours early to finish her colleague Raina‟s work, as Raina was seven months pregnant, and could not afford to take leave. She was saving it to club it with her maternity leave so that she could take care of the baby for an extended period before joining back.

As she walked in, she felt relieved that her life was now a little better, if not completely out of the shadows cast by her destiny. She shivered involuntarily, at the thought of her past. It was dark and very harrowing but now it was in the past and the seven months that she had spent in Mumbai had given her a little courage to live what was left of her life.

Hope? Well there wasn‟t any left.She was hopeless!

She smiled as she opened the door for the cabin of Mukund Dhanjani, one of the Directors of the Corporal. She walked in and closed it with a resounding click. She did not want anyone to find out that she was doing Raina‟s work. Raina was cool about it, but it was she who insisted that Raina should take the credit. She never was the kind of a person to hog the limelight. She was shy and tried to remain in the background. Somehow she never could be like her siblings, who were more forth coming and dynamic. Moreover, in the situation she was in, it was better she stayed away from any kind of limelight, coz one never knew where danger lurked. As she breezed through, she was unaware of the fact, of the inner cabin being occupied by someone.

Kunwar Thakur Deepthimaan Singh ji Beerendra Singh ji Rathore heard the outer door open and someone enter the outer cabin. Who could it be? He mused. Housekeeping had no access to the director‟s cabin.
May be it was his executive assistant Subhojit. He thought.
He must have traced him to Mukund‟s room, as he alone knew about the overnight work that Deepthimaan was doing, to bail the Corporal out of the mess that Mukund had inadvertently placed it into. But he was due at ten, and it was only seven. Or, was it his personal assistant Neha? But she was on leave for the week. He craned his neck to see through the door drill and he found a long braid...thick dark hair that cascaded down the slender thighs of a lady who was dressed in a sari. Women in his office wore a sari? This was news to him.
The lady moved and so did her long braid, and he found a creamy expanse of her waist as her sari gave way and immediately she tucked it up making him to smile. So she was a prude! From his experience, he only knew such women to be attention mongers. She then turned slightly, and he craned his neck and grimaced as his shoulders ached with fatigue. He had been working nonstop for the past twenty-two hours, and he was restless and needed a coffee urgently to make him stay alive for finishing the case that he wrested off Mukund, one of his errant whiz kids that his father sired, as the dream of his father-the Corporal would collapse, if he did not interfere. His dad Raja Beerendra would skin him alive if it went off their radar. He smiled and pressed the intercom and waited for the lady to take the call, as it didn‟t matter to him who it was. She was his staff anyway.
Khushi jumped at the ringing phone, and stared at the buzzer...who could it be at that hour? So early? Anyways...she had to take it. She pushed the relevant button on, and then took the call...
“Good morning? How may I help you?” she said out of habit.
“Get me a coffee with lots of cream and sugar” came the voice that was so rich and vibrant that she for a moment felt it sink into her own self. If a man could sound so, early in the morning, how would he when... her thoughts made her gasp in awe! Khushi did not know what to say...she never expected anyone to be there inside, and she now was a little upset... What would Raina think?
...that she was trying to score brownie points by being extra nice, and then her boss would get to know eventually. She quickly walked to the pantry that was opposite to the cabin and switched on the coffee machine. It was her third month at the Corporal, and she did not know many people except for her immediate boss Mr. Avadhani, a sixty-two- year-old veteran and an auditor by profession, who made her work like a donkey. She knew Raina and a few other assistants and the cleaning staff, as she was the first to come and last to leave the office.
The coffee maker pinged, and she poured the coffee into a coffee jug and set it into a tray, with a cup and some extra sugar sachets. She already made coffee as ordered, but well... she didn‟t know how he liked it. She then knocked on the door, and walked in to the cabin.
“I couldn‟t! I didn‟t promise you anything babe! Had I, I would have kept it come what may!” He was talking to someone and she pushed the door with her back, turning around to make place for her to squeeze through...

“I am a Mehraana Rathore and I would never stand up on anyone! If I give my word, that means my life‟s at stake for keeping it.”
Somehow the conviction in his voice made her go still for a second. Her experience in men was something that made her reject everything that was contrary to her experience, which she was trying her best to fight. She shook her head in self-denial and pushed the door further.

“Aweeeee! Bad isn‟t it! Ok! Tell you what sweetie, let me make up for that one night of pining away ...” he drawled, and again his voice drew her attention, as it had some kind of a virile ring to it, that sent shivers down her spine. The man spoke as if it were a caress!

“Tomorrow?” He was answering obviously.
“Where else? At my farmhouse! Oh no...no!” he said lowering his voice to get that sexy tinge into it, and after a second of banter from the other side, he simply said very quietly, “Do you need a camp fire when I am with you? Seriously?”
Khushi turned towards him and stopped in her tracks as he raised his eyes to look at her. And she looked at the man finally!
Sitting before her was one of the most handsome specimens of the male species. Khushi could not believe it that she was looking at a man whose features were as if chiseled to scale with such precision, that she gasped at the sheer beauty of his presence. He was picture perfect handsome. Neither rugged nor soft featured. He had perfect set of eyes, a sharp nose and sensuous lips and a jaw that was set on his shoulders that were an expanse in themselves. His hair was short cropped, from the sides and the back, yet falling on to his broad forehead, all mussed up, making her to feel like running her fingers through his hair to muss it up a little more. His chin was slightly shadowed by the stubble, indicating that he hadn't been home the night before.
He wore a sky blue linen half-sleeved shirt that was crumpled and his tie hung on the other chair as she walked in gingerly.
“I prefer to be the center of attraction and you know that. And, I want to enjoy my woman without any distractions...none! So...” his lips broke into a wry smile, as he looked straight into Khushi‟s eyes...
Earlier their eyes hadn‟t met and when they did, she was in for a shock, as blue sapphires cut through straight into her very being, shooting slivers of electric jolts into her tummy, sending her entire body into jitters.
The tiny shards of awareness unsettled her, making her hands to shake and his voice prompted, “Sure honey, sleep tight for the day, as you won‟t be getting any tomorrow...bye!”
“...And who are you...?” His voice boomed, making her jerk in panic and she tripped on an extension cord, as hot liquid sloshed on to her left wrist.