AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Dev put a hand on her phone and lowered it. “Let it go, Avantika. He only had my best interests at heart when he did it.”
“Your best interests?! Is that how you’re going to justify his actions? Thanks to him, Aaryan got hurt.”
“Not too badly, I believe,” Uncle Raj interjected. “Your brother defended himself pretty well, from what I heard.”
Avantika was bubbling with fury now. “Are you using that as an excuse? No wonder, Sanjana won’t forgive you. You’re even worse than I imagined you to be. Wait till I tell her that I met you. She will never want to talk to you after I tell her how unrepentant you sound.”
His uncle frowned at him. “Why is she friends with Sanjana? Aren’t the Rajpoots your enemies?” His uncle waved a finger between Dev and her. “Wait, why areyouwithher?”
Avantika’s face split into a smile as she faced Dev. “He doesn’t know, does he?”
“Avantika…” Dev warned. But it was of no use.
“How can you not tell your uncle that Aaryan and Sanjana are living together now? That they’re wildly in love and hope to marry soon.”
His uncle’s face reddened, and his angry eyes landed on him. “Is what she’s saying true?”
“Yes, Uncle.”
“And you didn’t think it was necessary to inform me?”
Dev opened his mouth to protest, but his uncle cut him off.
“And now you’re here withher,” Uncle Raj said. “I remember complaining years ago to your dad that this girl took too much of your time. He never believed it. Looks like the past is seeping into your present again. I’m thoroughly disappointed in you, Dev.”
His uncle spun around and left without another word.
Dev shook his head and sighed. “Let’s sit.”
Seated opposite, Avantika stared at him. “Awful man. My memories of him from years ago are a bit hazy now, but I do remember that he brought his son with him to Shimla one summer. His son had been horrible too. He’d thought no end of himself. I remember vaguely that he was into drinking and weed. But he pretended to be perfect in front of the adults.”
“My cousin, I agree, was spoilt. Unfortunately, he passed away in a road accident several years ago. But Uncle Raj is a decent man.”
“If that’s true, why didn’t you tell him about Aaryan and Sanjana?”
“Uncle and I care for one another. That doesn’t mean I owe him an explanation for what I do in my life. He will be mad at me for a while, but he will come around. Sanjana and I are his only family.”
Avantika sighed. “He really needs to pay for what he did to Aaryan. You need to do something.”
“And you need to let it go. Uncle Raj is my family. I can’t turn against him.”
A waitress approached them with iPads for the menu. She poured water into the glasses as well. Avantika waited until she left before she spoke again.
“I can’t let it go,” she fumed. “You ought to be angry with him too! Aaryan is your sister’s love. You should be affronted on her behalf, at least. Unless…”
“Unless…?”
“Unless you were in cahoots with your uncle all along.” She dropped the iPad on the table, her eyes blazing with a mixture of fear and anger. “Oh God! Are you planning to hurt Aaryan again? Are you putting on this nice act for Sanjana only to separate them?”
Her distrust stabbed his chest.
“Fuck! You really do have a low opinion of me.”
“Considering that you’ve tried to jeopardize all my brothers’ love lives, I’d say I have a pretty good reason to doubt you.”
Molten anger rushed through him. He was tired of being the bad guy in everyone’s lives, especially hers. He was tired of getting slammed from all sides and being blamed for everything, every single time. He was tired of the fact that he couldn’t even blame her anger and distrust toward him on anything or anyone else because his own actions in the past had gotten them to where they were today.
He leaned forward on the table. His voice was low when he spoke. “Let’s talk about your brothers and their love lives, shall we? First, Shaurya and Myra. I’m sure you know that Myra worked for me for four years before I moved to Dubai. Her dad’s property in Shimla bordered my dad’s. My dad had illegally tried to claim a parcel of her dad’s land. They’d been battling over that for a long time. Once my father died, I returned that land back to Myra’s dad.”
