Chương 12: Quirky Revelations

"You are not a kid, you know", he entered saying that and switched on the lights.

She was already up, leaning on her pillow giving him a cold stare. He handed the chocolate to her, only to let her brawl with it trying to open it with one hand.

He sighed and snatched it from her. "Ask help, you won't die", he complained while opening it for her. He pulled up a chair and sat on it looking at her enjoy eating. It was funny how she got excited about simple stuffs.

"Yum!", she said before realizing he was there and turned to put on a serious face which only made him laugh more.

He cleared his throat and pondered about Sheela's suggestion. "Listen... Um.... I need a favor from you", the sentence was finally out of his mouth.

"I thought I was the patient here", she gave another snarky remark.

"Can't you shut your smart mouth for one minute?", he asked.

"What do you need?", she looked at him quizzingly. He handed over another stick of kit kat to her, "Um….. You know about the animal testing scandal, right?"

"Yeah"

"Even after we proved it was fake, people are still agitated. Sales is dropping drastically, and investors are sitting on my head". After he made himself say that he immediately regretted it. Asking her help was a bad idea.

"You need my help partially as your wife and partially as Riya's choice CEO to help bring up Sales. I thought you'll ask me as soon as we were married."

It was his turn to look quizzingly, "So? Will you help me?"

"Hmm… What will I get in return?"

"What do you want?"

There was pin drop silence. Both involved in deep thinking.

Riya spoke first, "Since you volunteered to help me now, I can't consider it as repayment to this. Instead, I want the formula for your perfume."

"Wah! You really know how to make a deal. Maybe I shouldn't have agreed to help you without a reward", "Fine! You can have the formula. But why particularly my perfume?"

"None of your business", she said making him snort.

She smirked at him triumphantly. "You are really lousy, you know. How can you let your own employee badmouth you? If he dares to bark at you, he should know you'll bite his head off. That's how they know who is boss!", she continued eating her chocolate.

He calmly considered her for a moment, "It's really difficult to take you seriously with a shoulder patch and chocolate crumbs all over your lips", as soon as he said that, she was flushed with embarrassment and hurriedly tried wiping off the crumbs.

He contemplated with fascination for a while. It was his first time seeing her being normal and it sure felt different. "I'll bring dinner", he passed on some wet wipes and walked out leaving her with the last piece of chocolate.

He fed her dinner, took her to the restroom and let her sleep for the day.

Riya felt challenging to prepare her mind every time for being touched, but Dhruv eased it for her by informing, before helping her out.

The day brightly started with birds chirping and wind blowing outside Dhruv's window. Sun's rays bit his cheeks through the small opening of his drapes, but he ignored everything and continued sleeping. Due to the incessant ringing of his phone, he finally grunted and opened his eyes, partly conscious.

"Helloo....", he groused in a sleepy voice with no response from the other side. He cleared his eyes to check if the call was still on and noticed it was Riya.

"Riya?", he asked while sitting up sluggishly.

"I want to pee", she said awkwardly being responded with a big yawn from his side. "Are you still sleeping? What kind of CEO are you?", she questioned only to be ignored this time.

"I'll come", he cut the call and went to her room.

"Since when you've been awake?", was his first question. "Half an hour or so. Called you because you didn't come".

"I'm Sorry. Come", he helped her up from the bed.

She suddenly lost her balance and was about to fall when she caught him on time.

Their faces were so close to each other with his hands almost holding her in a hug. She looked deeply into his sleepy grey eyes. His black hair was tousled carelessly, and the perfume was now mild but smellable. He came to the revelation that her beauty was all natural. She looked exactly the same as she returned home yesterday. She was biting her lip which in some odd way aroused him and his breath quickened.

They both sharply turned their faces to the other side, almost at the same time, and walked over to the restroom.

She leaned on him while brushing and he was observing her. She did everything thrice, goggle, brush, goggle, face wash, every ritual, exactly thrice. "Why three times?", his curious voice echoed in the vast room.

"I don't know. Maybe lucky charm"

He chuckled. "What if you do it more than thrice?"

"Then... it won't be good….. stop asking questions and hold me properly", she felt awkward letting him know her secret quirky habits. This made her vulnerable and she hated it.

He thought it was cute and chuckled again.

He gradually helped her sit on the bed. "Hey! About what we spoke yesterday?", he started the conversation doubtfully.

"Do you have a proposal? I don't like empty words.", all of a sudden she transformed into her professional distant self.

"I have one.", he said and she replied in a flash, "Send it to Kamu and me. We'll see it. How urgent is it?"

"As soon as possible?"

"I'll see what we can do.", she cut the conversation. In a minute, he forgot he thought she was cute.

"Hm….Thanks…." "By the way, I've been dreading to ask you this. Do you want to change your clothes? You are in your suit since yesterday."

She was well aware of it, but she'd been dreading it too. Her body was very sensitive, and she never wanted anyone to see her naked, ever!

She bit her lip furiously than before.

"I want to… But can you close your eyes?"

"I don't want to see you either, but if I close my eyes, I might hurt you by accident.", he said with open palm.

He was right. She knew she shouldn't be immature about it, but it wasn't shyness that made her feel this nervous. It was something else.

"Okay. Just one condition! You shouldn't ask me any questions after.", she looked down at her one good hand now scratching her pants anxiously.

"That's…..weird! But okay. I won't ask anything." He saw her skeptically.

"I have a black frock on the second shelf. I want you to help me into that. It's…..uh…. pretty simple, mechanism wise", she couldn't believe she was saying stupid stuffs to him.

He moved swiftly to the wardrobe which obviously had nothing more than 5 clothes as he expected, "Don't worry about mechanism. I've removed a lot to know that", he had a smug look on his face and brought the dress she asked. Now she couldn't stop thinking about how many girls he had been with.

He very carefully removed her patch and kept it aside. He touched the first button of her shirt, but she caught his hand. She let out two deep breaths and told herself it was only medical and she had no choice before letting him continue.

His only motive was to help her, and he never really gave it much thought as he wasn't interested in her that way.

He meticulously removed her shirt while concentrating only on not hurting her hand.

Once he fully removed it, she was sitting with her inner wear facing down and he couldn't believe what he was seeing!

He had been with multiple girls throughout, some with love, some without, some he didn't even know the name of, but never once in his life had seen something like it.

His eyes went wide with shock and he couldn't move a muscle.

Her body was covered in scars and marks. Some even looked like burn marks. Although he never had any feelings for her, his heart ached on witnessing that.

'Who the hell did this to you?' he fisted his hands with eyes burning with fury.