The Accidental Fiancée by Zeenat Mahal Page B

didn’t get a chance to take any more digs at
her. With a sinking heart she realized that she had just committed
herself to voluntary torture. And boy, did Akbar Rasul know how to
vindicate himself.
    She got the first dose of it the very next
day. Her parents were all aflutter when she came down into the
living room. There was a huge bouquet on the center table. Red
roses. Ugh! So clichéd and… gag …over the top, just like the
man who’d brought them.
    ‘Khayyam, Akbar is here to take you out for
lunch,’ her father beamed.
    Akbar, who had stood up as she entered, said
with a mocking smile at her, ‘Hello, again.’
    Her father was overtly cheery. Unusually so.
She didn’t have the heart to resist. She smiled, ‘If you’re okay
with it, Abba .’
    ‘Yes, yes. Go ahead,’ her father practically
shooed them out of the room.
    ‘You’re such a hypocrite!’ Akbar said as
soon as they were out of earshot. ‘All sweetness and sting-less
with your parents, and for the rest of humanity you’re nothing
but…KK.’
    ‘Well at least I’m not a walking
cliché.’
    ‘What? You don’t like red roses? There isn’t
a woman in the world who doesn’t like red roses. But then you’re
not a woman are you, KK. Which is why instead of saying thank you
nicely, you’re complaining.’
    ‘Would it kill you to have some style,
Akbar? You’re still stuck with romance moves from your college
days.’
    ‘Darling, I don’t know who you’re calling
style-deprived, because this man in front of you is a class act.
See this thing I’m driving? It’s called a Mercedes in case you
didn’t know. It’s synonymous with class.’
    ‘I bet your clothes are branded and your
shoes are Italian.’
    ‘You sound accusatory, KK. Are you still
stuck in your graduate mentality of…what was it…oh yeah, equality,
fraternity and some such shit?’
    ‘Stop calling me that or I swear I’ll…’
    ‘You’ll what? Not marry me? Break my heart
and walk all over it? Oh, but wait…that’s you if I refuse!
Tell me why exactly you want that ring on your finger so badly that
you’ll even succumb, pitifully I may add, to your arch enemy?’
    ‘Nothing that concerns you. What we are
going to do about this engagement however, does concern you. My
plan is…’
    ‘Whoa, hold it right there, KK. Your plans
don’t feature in this gig okay? You begged me to put that ring on
your finger…’
    ‘I did not beg you!’
    ‘Yes you did, with your big beautiful brown
eyes…it was heart-wrenching, KK. Now, this is what you’re going to
do. You’re going to act like a devoted fiancée until the time I decide to call off the engagement, in a few weeks.’
    Khayyam was secretly quite relieved so she
kept her peace.
    They stopped at a red light. Leisurely Akbar
turned towards her and continued with open enjoyment, ‘You’ll be
pleasant and accommodating, you’ll dress up nicely to please your
future husband-who won’t be, but no one needs to know that, and you’ll thank me nicely when I give you roses.’
    ‘As long as they’re not red.’
    ‘You have to have the last word, don’t
you?’
    ‘So it would seem.’
    Akbar had to hand it to her; she didn’t lose
her cool, or show how much she resented his power over her. Why
though? What was hanging over her head that she’d expose herself to
his humiliation and taunts so easily? But then he thought smugly,
that wasn’t really his problem and he was going to take full
advantage of the situation because he hadn’t had so much fun in a
long time.
    The very next day Akbar came to Khayyam’s
house with his mother and his uncle to make it official. He brought
with him a diamond ring, the size of which made Khayyam flinch. It
was the most vulgar and ostentatious thing she’d ever seen and it
weighed a ton.
    As Akbar put it on her finger, he said with
a charming smile that fooled everyone but her, ‘I chose the ring
myself because I know exactly how much you like this kind of
thing.’
    She