Free The Promise by Nikita Singh

ways to get money out of you. I was against it, but eventually, I had to agree. I did not want to lose him and we needed money. I love him.'

    Arjun said nothing. He just shook his head in disgust. He was still wrapping his head around the fact that the girl he had allowed to pass through all his defences, had betrayed him. She was married, for God's sake. How could he not see that she had never had real feelings for him? She had been a darn good actress. He was sickened by the way she had played with him, his heart. He turned away from her. She followed him.
    'I am pregnant, Arjun. I have a baby on the way-his baby. I had no other option but to do what he asked me to,' Prehal sobbed.
    'I know that. How can you be so blind? Don't you see that he got you pregnant for a reason? He wanted money, and just that. When you refused to cooperate, he accidentally got you pregnant so that you would have to do whatever he said.' Arjun ran his fingers through his hair, frustrated.
    'How do you know that?'
    'The same way I know that you were trying to find a way to get ... intimate with me, so that you could later tell me that it was my baby.'
    'If it means anything to you-I was not going to do that. I have known you for the last four months, and it was somehow more than enough time to understand you. I could never betray you like that,' Prehal said.
    'Then why did you tell Utkarsh that you were going to do it?' Seeing Prehal look up at him in surprise, Arjun continued, 'Yes, I met him before coming here. I know everything.'

    She nodded, before saying, 'I told him that, to see if he would make me stop. I am bearing his child, but he still wants me to sleep with another man just for some cash. That opened my eyes. I know what kind of a man he is and that's when I decided to leave him. I would prefer raising my child alone, than living with that man.'
    'Why do I not believe you?'
    'Because I broke your trust. I know you will never believe me again.'
    That was the last time he met Prehal. He told her what he found out about Utkarsh, just to save her the torture of finding it out herself-as soon as Arjun had confronted him, Utkarsh knew that his plan did not have any chance of working anymore. He had already decided not to have anything to do with Prehal after that; she had nothing to offer him-no money. He was planning on getting rid of the unborn baby anyway, once he got the cash. And if Prehal refused to get an abortion, just like she had refused everything else, he would have taken the cash and left.
    Prehal told Arjun that she had suspected that. She looked sad and even though Arjun still found it extremely difficult to believe anything she said, he pitied the situation she was stuck in.
    'How could you have been so stupid? So blind?' he murmured, frustration seeping out of his tone.
    'I was in love,' she said softly.
    Arjun could not take any more of it. He gave her a cheque with a sum he thought appropriate to help her get through the pregnancy and take care of the child. And then, he asked her to leave. It did not come to him as a surprise when she took the cheque with her and left.

    Six years later, when he was twenty-nine, Shambhavi came into his life. Over the years, he had turned from a newbie to someone who excelled in his field, and along with it, came the polish his personality needed to fit into the posh businessclass society he was now rightfully a part of. No one who met him could guess where he came from and what he had gone through. No one made fun of his accent behind his back, like the women who would flirt with him in those tedious dinners he used to attend when he first started getting recognition ... although he never posed to be someone he wasn't. He could do without the pretences the high-class life brought with it. He wore what he felt like wearing, ate what he felt like eating and built what he felt like building. No one had a say in anything he did.
    It was only when he met Shambhavi that he started to wonder