"Saab ji, the meals are not ready yet. We did not expect your return," said the head maid, Deepa, giving him a remorseful smile.

Vikram Singhal had taken off to an unknown location after giving strict orders to take utmost care of Shikha. He needed to clear his mind after the unexpected meet with Shikha. His own home had felt alien in the few moments he had spent under the same roof as her.

Several questions hounded his mind, which was wrangled with many dilemmas. To agree or to disagree, to punish or to cherish, he knew not. He had imagined their meet, in the best of his dreams and in the worst of his nightmares, and none of those imaginations had done the slightest justice to the gust of emotions that shook his very soul when their eyes met once again.

She had undone, not just five years' worth of efforts to come to terms with never seeing her, but also the careful weave of restraint around his heart. The glint of desperation in her sunken eye had made his jaw clench with fury and his insides turn with remorse, and the memories of his own desperation flooded in his rattled mind.

"It's okay, Deepa. I'll cook for myself tonight," he said, jolting back to the present as the older woman eyed him with a confused gaze.

Deepa knew his habit of turning to cooking in the times of great distress. He churned up delicacies he had learned from his mother whilst she was alive and the recipe book she had left behind.

"But Saab ji..."

Her words fell on deaf ears as Vikram strode towards the kitchen, rolling his sleeves to his elbows. A random tune caught his ears, along with the clinking of the utensils. His eyes narrowed into slits, and he turned to his right to enter the kitchen.

"I hope you love sweets like me, baby. Because then I will make tons of sweets for both of us. It'll be fun, isn't it?" asked Shikha. She stood caressing her barely there bump and roasting the semolina in the pan.

"You can also like savouries like your father. I would still prepare them with the same vigor, but I wish you give me company for hogging the sweets, unlike your father," she said, with a whimsical smile playing on her lips.

The twang of sorrow in her quivering tone as she spoke of the unborn's father kicked him in the gut, but the unadulterated love in the gentle caress over her abdomen warmed his heart in a way he had never imagined.

"Or you could like both, I guess." A giggle escaped her lips and struck an unknown strain at his heart. The tension at his jaw eased and a morose smile made its way towards his lips.

"Mothers have unconditional love towards their children, isn't it?"

Words had rolled off his tongue without his knowledge. The ladle in Shikha's hand clanged against the pan when her grip loosened after listening to his voice. Vikram cleared his throat and averted his eyes from her form.

She regarded the bags under his eyes and the way his hair pointed in all directions. "You returned!"

Vikram arched his eyebrow. "I'm sorry. I cannot find out if you sounded pleased or pissed about my return?" he said, narrowing his eyes at her as she turned the stove off.

"Maybe pleased because I won't have to feel guilty pondering about the reasons for your disappearance. And wondering if it was my return which made your leave your own home," she said with her upper eyelashes kissing her cheeks.

Vikram let out the breath he had held without his knowledge and shook his head in disbelief. "I didn't think it would matter to you."

A knowing smile played on her lips, and the glint in her eyes made a shudder run down his spine. "Well, I didn't think you would leave, either. Assumptions. Both of them. And equally wrong."

Vikram did not utter a word for response. He gazed at her, trying to dissect the riddle hiding behind her smile. The gleam in her eyes, so familiar yet so alien, unraveled him like he had wanted to unravel her years ago.

"Well, would you like to have something? Would you like to try my Sooji ka Halwa? I can prepare something else..."

"Stop it!" he said, realization striking him like a lightning against a mere sapling.

"Stop what?" she asked, turning the stove on and averting her eyes from him.

"Stop trying to feign your affections for me, Shikha. We both know they lack a basis at the moment. It will not work," he said, supporting himself by the wall next to him.

An uncanny ghost of a smile hovered over her lips as she gazed at him over her shoulder. "If it is not working, why do you sound so perturbed?"

"Why are you doing this? I promised you protection and allowed you to stay here. Why do my feelings matter beyond that?" he asked, pushing himself off the wall and taking long strides towards her.

"What do I do, Vikram Singhal? In the few months I spent around you, you had turned me into a reflection of you. You chose the path of manipulating me into falling for you and ease the burning want in your heart. And here I am, trying to manipulate you into marrying me to fulfill the needs of my unborn child."

Vikram appeared as though someone had slapped him across his face. No wonder the glint in her eyes appeared familiar and yet alien. He was well acquainted with the glimmer of saccharine sweetness, but to see the same replace the naivety of Shikha had made it appear so alien to him.

"You are right, Shikha. But you know what changed? My feelings changed from sheer obsession to love. My conscience shifted from agreeing with the idea to abhorring it. So, with experience and for the concern of your mental well-being, stop progressing on this path, Shikha. It will ruin you, and I would hate for it to happen."

A sardonic smile stretched on her lips and her eyes glistened. "I'm afraid it's too late, Vikram. Too late. You plunged me into a storm of emotions so fierce, be it of infatuation, hatred or fear, that something in me changed forever. And it transformed into the one person my mind could not stop thinking about - you."

____________________________________________________