“I don’t want you to force yourself into a relationship. I can’t watch you make that mistake.”
“How fucking arrogant of you!”
That took him aback.
“What qualifies you to determine if I am making a mistake or not? I don’t recall asking you for your input!” She stormed off towards the kitchen and Rian leapt up to follow her.
“You keep saying we are friends,” he argued. “This is how I protect my friends.”
She ignored him, swiping through her contact list. “I’m going to call Tarun and hope to god he lets me explain myself.”
Rian lost the last bits of his patience.
“No, you are not!” he barked, snatching the phone from her hand before she could resist. He was aware that he was behaving like an overbearing oaf, but logic and him were not occupying the same room today.
“I need my phone back,” Aditi ordered, a deathly chill in her voice. Her palm open, she extended her hand out. “Now, Rian.”
Given the disparity in their sizes, her attempt to intimidate him should have been amusing. It wasn't.
An angry Aditi terrified him as equally as she aroused him. It was the darndest feeling, not knowing if he wanted to apologise to her or lay her flat on the ground and fuck her thoroughly, until they both forgot what they were fighting about.
He slid the phone in his back pocket, a single brow rising in defiance, hoping that his size was a deterrent to her attacking him.
The murderous gaze she shot him had him changing his mind immediately. With a grunt of frustration, he dropped the phone on the counter nearby.
“I don’t like being at odds with you, Doc. I still don’t understand this whole arranged marriage business but if you feel so strongly about it, I'll apologise to your date.”
His offer bowled her clean, unexpectedly diffusing her ire. She poured herself a glass of water and gulped it, perturbed by the sudden highs and lows of her emotions. Rian’s interruption of her date had annoyed her. His offer to smooth things over with Tarun, to her consternation, annoyed her more. She could have avoided him altogether by going to a different restaurant tonight. She knew that. Mumbai only had severalthousandoptions to choose from. Still, she’d insisted on meeting Tarun at The Mumbai Map. Was it even Rian’s fault when she’d all but dared him to react?
She’d lost her mind, she decided, gulping a second glass just to have something to do.
“Why are you so hell bent on meeting someone this quickly?” Rian asked. “It’s like you’re working on a find-a-groom deadline.”
“I may as well be. When I go back for my parent’s anniversary party next month, I’ll inevitably be asked about my future. If I don’t have a good answer, I’ll have to meet their choice of men again.”
“Just say no.”
“That’s not an option.”
“You are a strong, independent woman! Why are you letting others decide the course of your life?”
“I’m not!” she insisted. He scoffed and Aditi wanted to tear her hair out, or better—his.
“Of course you are,” he condescended to her. “You don’t need to marry to have a satisfying life. Focus on your career.”
Her forehead creased and she frowned, as if he had missed a very crucial point. “I love being a doctor. But what makes you think that I don't want a family, too?”
Her simple question instantly extinguished even the most minimal feeling of righteousness he’d retained to justify his actions.
“I want a family, Bugs. I want a husband, kids, the works. Call me traditional and maybe I am, but I want it all. Career, love, a house with people who want to be with each other, chatter around the dining table, festivals with friends and family crowding into my home. . .and a life partner to hold me at night. Iwantthat.”
Her voice grew emotional and with each word, her longing spun a silver web around him, invisible to the naked eye but there nonetheless. In the centre, hidden away until now, were dreams he’d never known existed.
A slowly ageing Aditi whose laugh lines only made her more beautiful, playing the perfect hostess to a crowd of guests. Children who cuddled into her motherly embrace for her warmth. And a partner who hugged her possessively, playfully demanding her time and attention when those children ran to join their friends. A partner. Her partner. Him?
His vision superimposed with reality. The little children faded away, the crowds disappeared, the lively chatter dulled to a hum, until it was just him and her.
It could be their world.