Hello guys this is Janpa back again with yet another FF of Swasan titled…..
I DIDN’T MARRY YOU SWARA….
The story is based in USA….not in India.so you will see a lot many new sort of cities names…..
So let’s start..this….on a Question…..???
What do u think if you get hypnotized one day……and lose that memory of what u did when u were hypnotized…..
That’s what happened in Sanskar’s case……
So did the story start and end……to know this you have got to read this ff…..
On a sidewalk in downtown Boston, two thousand miles from home, Swara Bose should have been standing on the brink of sweet success. Instead, she caught the
distinctive whiff of failure.
Jet-lagged and dazed, Swara braced herself against the people jostling to get to work,
her cowboy boots and snug jeans at odds with the tailored suits and designer outfits of the
crowd. She peered up at the big, glass office building matching the address of the business
card she clutched in one hand. At the roof, huge metal letters spelled out MAHESHWARI
INDUSTRIES.
Please. She was supposed to believe the building was named after Sanskar ? Sanskar the
devil-may-care, Sanskar the definitely not-at-all-serious Maheshwari? This big, fancy office
building, not to mention the corporation it housed, was named after the casual smile of a
man she’d met sliding quarters into a slot machine in time to the song he’d been whistling?
The man she’d foolishly allowed to become her lover, and more, two nights ago?
“Drat,” she muttered, wishing her upbringing allowed her to use a word that was
much, much stronger.
The whiff of failure was becoming a positive stench. Here Swara’d thought she was
going to do something strong for a change, take action when a man walked out on her,
instead of sit huddled in her apartment, crying.
So she’d begged off work and maxed out her credit card — only to end up at this
phony address Sanskar had put on his sham of a business card.
She was no closer to the bum than before.
With a furious groan, Swara spun away. She tried to calm down, but it was so…stupid.
Indeed, she’d been so stupid since three days ago when Sanskar had looked up from the slot
machine and into her face, his easy grin fading. She’d been sucked in by his seemingly
awkward, apparently sincere, charm.
Oh, he’d been an operator, all right. He’d got her, a seasoned chorus girl, to believe
every honeyed word and warm look he’d tossed her way. He’d acted like he understood
her desire to desert the life of glitter in order to build a real home, a home with a man who
truly loved her. Swara supposed he had understood that part, for he’d used it. He’d
sweepingly declared he was that man. He’d said they were made for each other.
And she’d believed him.
She’d married him.
Just so he could have a one-night stand.
An awful pain constricted Swara’s chest. She’d been in love, while he’d — he’d — She
gritted her teeth and shook the pain away. Uh-uh. No matter what he’d intended, she
wasn’t going to cry.
She was going to seize her self-respect.
Swara brushed a windblown strand of hair from her eyes and straightened her
shoulders. She would declare to Sanskar , the world, and herself that she deserved to be treated better. She didn’t deserve to have a man marry her, and the very next morning sneak out on her.
Her smoldering anger burning once more, Swara narrowed her eyes and turned back to
the black glass office building. Her gaze traveled up to the huge metal letters and her brain began to function again.
Okay, so the building wasn’t named after Sanskar , but he’d known about it. He’d put this address on his fake card. There was a good chance he was related to whoever actually did run MAHESHWARI INDUSTRIES.
Yes, maybe he was related. Maybe someone inside the building knew Sanskar .
Better yet, maybe someone knew where Sanskar was.
The possibility galvanized Swara. She strode toward the busy revolving glass door at
the base of the building and joined the crowd filing into the lobby.
A gleaming black elevator took her to the top floor, the one indicated on the phony
business card. Swara’s jaw set as she took in the expanse of elegant marble, the partitions of polished oak paneling, and the humming professionalism.
Sanskar , the man who didn’t even wear a watch, wasn’t going to be found here.
But she didn’t expect to find him, Swara reminded herself. Just her next clue. An
address — a real address — would be nice.
Her cowboy boots clicked on the smooth wood floor as Swara approached the closest
cubicle, one that looked like reception. The fringes of her lucky faux-deerskin jacket
flicked over the marble countertop as she held out the well-worn business card. “Do you
— Well, have you ever heard of this guy?” she asked with a polite smile.
The woman on the other side of the marble counter skimmed Swara’s smile and looked
down at the card, the one Sanskar had given her the night they’d met.
The incandescent lights gleamed on the receptionist’s sleek chignon as she gave the card a good, long stare.
Then she looked up to give Swara an even longer stare. “That’s his personal card,” she finally said, sounding suspicious.
“His — ?” Swara blinked. “You mean…it’s real?”
Confusion now tinged the receptionist’s earlier suspicion. “Of course.”
Of course. Swara drew her hand back to look at the card, herself. It was real. It was
real. That meant — Her breath rushed into her lungs. Her head jerked up. “Then he’s
here.”
“Excuse me?”
“He’s here.”
Heat immediately flooded Swara’s veins. He was there. She’d found him.
Broad smile, gleaming eyes, aura of sincerity and acceptance. Handsome. Oh, handsome as all get out. Something inside her convulsed with an emotion that felt a lot like longing.
Swara instantly pulled herself back from that brink. Not longing. None of his sincerity
stuff had been real. He hadn’t loved her. He’d left her.
“I see, the card is — ahem. What I mean is, could you tell me where to find him, please?” Swara did her best to disguise herriotous emotions behind another polite smile.
The receptionist tapped the end of her pen on her desktop. “Well, since you have his
personal card…” She turned to glance at a computer monitor looming at her side.
“According to this, Mr. Maheshwari is in a conference right now.”
“Mr. Maheshwari? Is in a conference?”
“That’s right.” The receptionist turned back to Swara, stone-faced.
Swara looked back at her — and laughed.
Apparently Sanskar was a close enough
relative he’d been put in a job that rated a ‘Mr.’ from the company receptionist, but had to pay for it by sitting through a business conference. She could just see him, lounging in the back of the room and folding paper airplanes. Oh, it was a sad fact that despite the many choices of men available to a dancer in a glamorous Las Vegas production,
Swara always managed to pick the goof-offs, the dead-beats, and the lying bums.
The receptionist glanced back at her computer.
“The conference is supposed to last all day, but there will be a break for lunch.”
“Lunch!” Swara’s eyes went wide.
The receptionist regarded Swara thoughtfully.
“You do have Mr. Maheshwari’s personal card, so I suppose it would be all right if you waited.”
Swara gaped at the woman. She was supposed to wait for Sanskar , the scum-sucking
slug, until lunch? The horrible part was that she could feel the ‘good girl’ part of herself
starting to agree to this delay. She didn’t like to make trouble. Why not wait?
And then Swara remembered Sanskar had used the very same word yesterday, right
before he’d left her.
Wait.
Pressure built behind Swara’s forehead. The memory was painfully clear. Wait, Sanskar
had said, while strolling with a smile toward her front door. He would only be gone for a
minute, to pick up donuts and coffee. Be right back, he had said.
And Swara had believed him. Of course she had. She’d loved him.
And now she was supposed to wait? In the wake of her deep pain over the betrayal
roared a powerful combination of anger and fear. If she sat back, obliged — waited —
for a man who’d done that, what would it make her?
Swara looked straight at the receptionist. “I’m not waiting.”
“What?”
Before she could chicken out, Swara sidled around the marble counter.
“Now, just a minute,” squeaked the receptionist, rising from her seat.
But Swara was already stalking down one of the polished halls. Reason told her it
could take a while to track Sanskar down in this big office building. Common sense
screamed she was stepping out of bounds, but she couldn’t stop now. She was determined to retrieve her self-respect.
“This way?” Swara twirled to face the receptionist, who was scuttling after her down
the hall. “You might as well tell me, honey, or I’ll be opening every door in the place.”
“Now, really, you can’t — ”
“Oh, can’t I?” For once in her life, Swara would. Heart pounding, she twirled forward
again, groped for the first closed door she saw, and whipped it open.
She found a glossy wood table and a dozen black leather chairs — all empty.
“Wait — ” the receptionist squealed.
There was that word again. The worst part was Swara had waited. She’d waited amid
the tousled bed sheets, a stupid smile on her face, expecting to see Sanskar come back
through the door. She’d waited long after it had become clear he’d gone farther than the
corner donut joint. She’d waited until she’d had to admit she’d done it again, let herself get
used. Even despite the extraordinary precaution she’d taken. Even so!
But this was it, the last time.
“Call security,” Swara heard someone order behind her. She felt alarm, an amazed
shiver at her own gall, but her rage, and a kind of fear, overwhelmed everything. If she
stopped now, she’d never be able to look herself in the mirror again.
He’d promised her love, then sneaked out. She could not wait to deal with that.
Swara wrapped her hands around the knob of the next door down the hall, telling
herself she was going to keep on trying if it took all day, if it took all night —
Swara flung the door open and stopped dead. A dozen business-suited professionals
seated around a convex table stared at her in shock.
But the business-suited professionals filling the room were not what stopped Swara’s
heart. What did that was the one man standing at the head of the table, a pointer in his
hand and a fancy Italian designer suit stretched across his broad shoulders.
“Sanskar ,” Swara breathed.
Or was it? He looked so odd in that suit, as if he were born to it. His jaw was
unexpectedly clean-shaven and the dark curls Swara had loved to tousle were ruthlessly tamed.
Most peculiar of all, he stared at her in the same manner as the rest of the people in
the room. As if he’d never seen her before in his life.
Swara felt a hard bump in the progress of her quest. He was supposed to shrink back
in guilt. He was supposed to crumple in shame and panic. And for heaven’s sake, he was
supposed to look like Sanskar . Faded blue jeans, crooked grin, come-get-me eyes.
This man looked like he’d been carved from a slab of Massachusetts granite. His lips
were a straight slash of severity and his glacier-blue gaze was steady. Indeed, not a single
part of him moved as he stood there, pointer upraised. Strong and cool, he looked like —
a king.
He looked like he could be the actual, real-life head of MAHESHWARI INDUSTRIES.
Swara felt a shiver run down her spine. Her rage slipped. Was this Sanskar ?
But a commotion behind her — security? — propelled her back into action. “Okay,”
she said, and straightened. “Okay, so you didn’t feel anything, the way I did. That’s no
crime. But — ” She drew in a steadying breath against a sudden upwelling of pain. Two
days before she’d hoped for so much, been so happy. “But why’d you have to go and make
promises?” she whispered.
That’s when she caught it, finally, his reaction. He flinched. Five hours flying and
maxing out her credit card — for a flinch.
The next instant strong arms seized her from behind. Security. It was almost
laughable. He was the dirty rotten crumb, but she was about to be thrown from the
premises.
“Let her go.”
The words emerged from Sanskar . Yes, he heard himself say them, but he felt like he
was watching the whole drama from the end of a very long hall. Or as if he were in the
type of nightmare where one needed to escape dire disaster, but could not move one’s
arms or legs.
It had happened. The fallout he’d been dreading, the consequences of his ‘lost
weekend.’
But staring at the woman who’d interrupted his annual meeting of vice-presidents,
Sanskar could not believe the fallout was this bad. In skin-tight blue jeans and a jacket that
strained at her br*asts, all under a kittenish face framed by a great quantity of blond,
upswirled hair, she looked like she’d stepped out of some adolescent boy’s wet dream.
Or out of one of his father’s. Yes, the woman standing at the door of the conference
room looked exactly like one of Sanskar ‘s father’s ridiculous, inappropriate women; a
showgirl, an actress, or a lingerie model.
As if that weren’t bad enough, Sanskar had no idea who she was.
Jeff and Frank, the two security guards, stopped to look at Sanskar , their gazes
questioning his odd command.
The woman looked at him, too, her full lips parted.
She might have been his father’s type, but she was not his. Desperately, Sanskar assured
himself of this fact. He was a sober man, a responsible one. A throwback to good, old fashioned New England stock. This woman’s presence before him, her knowledge of his
name, her — her outrageous assertion he’d made her promises simply could not be.
But a deep abyss opened inside him. He’d also thought it impossible he could have
been sitting in the leather chair of his study at home one minute, and wandering a seedy
neighborhood he didn’t recognize the next — a neighborhood clear across the country, no less.
But it had happened.
He had to believe now that anything was possible.
“Let her go,” Sanskar repeated quietly.
The guards released her. As Sanskar saw her go free, he realized that any kind of chaos could ensue.
It was a moment that begged the mettle of a man who’d created his own billion-dollar,
cutting edge biogenetics company, someone who could make a decision despite a flurry of wild and contradictory stimuli.
So Sanskar made himself move. Through the heavy fog that surrounded him, he put
down his pointer and strode across the room. With a smooth, efficient gesture he took his own hold of the woman.
As he made contact, his arm muscles jumped. To give himself a better grip, Sanskar told himself.
“We’re going to talk,” he affirmed, looking down at her. “Alone.”
Her brows pulled together.
He didn’t want an argument about it, so Sanskar didn’t wait for one. Turning to his vice presidents, he made a brisk apology, something far too terse to make up for ending this
important annual meeting. Then he led the woman from the room.
She did not acquiesce, but neither did she resist. Sanskar could only hope she didn’t
realize his hand was trembling where it connected with her fake leather jacket.
He had no idea who she was, no memory of her face, and not an inkling of her name.
But Sanskar kept a bland expression on his face as he directed the woman down the
busy hall to his office. It wouldn’t do for any of the employees they passed to guess there were a good forty-eight hours missing from their meticulous chief’s memory.
Two days gone. Completely vanished.
Sanskar nearly reeled every time he thought about it. How could he have lost that much
time, just forgotten?
Okay, so he’d been hypnotized. Sanskar shuddered to think of how easily that had been
accomplished. But no matter how deep a trance he’d fallen into, he should have been able
to remember his actions. He should have been able to know, one way or another, if he’d
followed his stupid cousin Laksh’s suggestion.
Do what you want, instead of what you should.
Sanskar could feel his hand start to tighten around the woman’s forearm. With an effort,
he relaxed it. Surely even if he had followed Laksh’s idiot suggestion, it couldn’t have
involved this woman, stumbling beside him in her too-high-heeled boots. It simply
couldn’t. She wasn’t — He wasn’t — No.
“Please hold my calls,” Sanskar requested his assistant, as soon as they entered his
anteroom. Ignoring Mrs. Barnes’ startled glance, he ushered the other female through.
Whatever was going on, Sanskar wanted to hear about it in private.
Therefore, smiling inanely, he closed the door to his inner sanctum in his executive
assistant’s face.
And then it was quiet. They were alone.
Sanskar released his hold on the unknown woman with a deep, silent breath. He took a
discreet step to the side. She rubbed her arm where he’d been holding her. And their eyes
met.
She was still angry. Sanskar both saw and expected that. What he didn’t expect was the
punch it delivered to his gut. It was almost as if…he felt responsible.
Either that, or he was getting aroused.
Sanskar drew himself up. He was not getting aroused. Well, yes, he could see now that
she was pretty, on top of the obvious s*xual stuff. Her eyes were an extraordinary shade
of green, and…appealing. Her complexion was peaches and cream. And there was a
certain healthy vitality about her.
But that didn’t mean he was attracted to her.
Nor was he responsible for her mood.
“Please,” he said, at his most government-grant formal. “Have a seat.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You must be kidding.”
Her tone was a slap in the face, but Sanskar didn’t let it show. He was an expert at not
letting emotions show, especially pain.
“Suit yourself,” he replied mildly.
She crossed her befringed arms over her chest. “You don’t seem too surprised to see
me.”
“I…wouldn’t say that.”
Her eyebrows raised. “So you are surprised.” She sounded oddly bitter about it. “You
didn’t think I’d have the nerve to come after you even — even after what you did.”
After what he did? Sanskar calmed another guilty sinking in his gut. He couldn’t have
done anything to feel guilty about.
No, not even if the longer they stood together alone in his office the more he
became…aware of her; of the way her lips curved up at the corners, of the silky look of
her hair. A small, hot ball began to form deep inside him.
But he refused to believe he’d done anything irresponsible, anything reprehensible.
He was in no way like his father.
Meanwhile the woman’s fingers visibly tightened on her upper arms. “And now I
come here and — and, my God, Sanskar . This office. Your name on the — on the building.
And that suit — ” She paused, as if overcome by this last item on the list. She lowered her arms and snorted.
“Is there anything you told me that was the truth?”
Sanskar stopped breathing. She glared at him, as if she had no idea of what she’d just
said. In, out. Sanskar made himself breathe again.
“I do not lie,” he said, very softly.
Her eyes widened.
He made his voice even softer. “I never lied to you.”
“Huh.” Her gaze turned derisive. “How about ‘wait?'”
“Wait?”
“Oh, come on.” She laughed. “You aren’t going to pretend you forgot.”
Sanskar stared at her.
“Well.” She put her hands on her hips. “Are you?”
You forgot. The ball of heat inside Sanskar should have winked out then. She’d just
given herself away. But it didn’t wink out. In fact, it was no longer a discrete ball but an
over-arching sphere. He was reacting to her, vigorously, but not because there was any
history between them.
Oh no, it was all becoming crystal clear. Her presence here, his reaction to her — it
was all beginning to make sense.
“You know too much,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“‘I forgot.’ You know too much. How to get my goat. What to say. It’s too damn
convenient.”
Her eyes widened. “Ex-cuse me?”
Sanskar took a step back. A man who’d lost two days of his memory was in a vulnerable
position. An unscrupulous individual could take advantage. Or merely a mischievous one,
one without any sense of propriety or limits.
And Sanskar happened to know just such an individual. “Laksh sent you.”
“What?”
She seemed incredulous, too much so, and Sanskar felt all the pieces come together. Her
arrival at his important annual meeting, the impression of s*x kitten she exuded, his
reaction to her.
“Laksh, my beloved younger cousin.” Sanskar wanted to make it clear the jig was up. “He
was there during the hypnosis, he gave me the suggestion. Now he thinks to turn the
screw even further. Send some blond s*x goddess to my office during the vice presidents meeting. Very funny.”
The woman stared at him. “s*x goddess?”
An incredible burden rolled off of Sanskar . He was so relieved he laughed. “You nearly
had me there, for a minute.”
“I — I beg your pardon?” She managed to sound both indignant and incredulous.
“You must be an actress.” Sanskar smiled at her. “You’ve obviously been trained to
express and elicit emotion.”
She merely stared at him, open-mouthed.
Sighing, Sanskar turned for his massive office desk. “When I called in after being
missing for two days, Laksh claimed he’d been frantic, looking for me, that he regretted the
hypnotic suggestion, his little joke, but I guess that didn’t last. He sent you.”
Behind his desk now, Sanskar paused and threw the woman a cutting glance. “And I
have a good idea what he wanted me to think about you.”
Finally, the woman closed her mouth. But she wasn’t ready to give up the game.
“Hypnotic suggestion?” she repeated, very slowly.
“Are you saying…you don’t remember meeting me?”
“No.” Sanskar met the little actress’s eyes. “I’m saying I have never met you at all.”
She was looking at him as if he’d just grown another head. “You deny it?” she finally
asked, whisper soft.
“You deny we even met after my show on the Strip?”She’d been in a show? On the Strip? Sanskar ‘s heart plunged.
But no, no — She was an actress, a plant of Laksh’s. Of course. That’s how she knew it was in Las Vegas he’d finally ‘woken up’ from his trance. It’s how she knew the type of woman his father brought home, the type who’d happily prance naked on a spotlit stage.
He cleared his throat, doing his best not to envision this particular woman prancing
naked.
“Surely Laksh explained everything to you, but for the sake of argument, I’ll say it
again. For two days I was following a hypnotic suggestion. I don’t remember anything that happened. Which makes it easy for someone like you to help my cousin play this little trick on me.”
The fringes over her chest began to rise and fall with her alleged emotion. “I don’t
believe this,” she muttered. “I finally go to the trouble of tracking down the lout,
confronting him, and he claims he was ‘hypnotized.’ Doesn’t even remember me. That’s
cute. Convenient. And original.”
“I’m not ‘claiming’ I was hypnotized. It’s true.” Sanskar nearly bit his tongue. He didn’t
need to defend himself. She knew.
She took a step back. “I’ll tell you what’s true. You’re a lying…Casanova!”
Sanskar ‘s fingers clenched into fists. Was she saying — ? All right, he’d admit he was
attracted, maybe even aroused, but that was just from…surprise, and her acting ability.
She wasn’t his type; not understated elegance, sophisticated or genteel. And besides, she was only Laksh’s friend. Sanskar had never laid eyes on her before that morning. “We did not sleep together,” he told her, low.
She shot him a gaze replete with scorn. “Oh, right. You forgot.”
Sanskar ‘s jaw tightened. He could not have, would not have, slept with a Las Vegas
dancer. No, not even if watching the fringes rise and fall on her jacket was raising the
temperature beneath his suit to about four hundred degrees.
But the woman wasn’t done. With one hand, she pointed to a finger on the other.
“How do you intend to forget this?” she wanted to know.
Sanskar forced his gaze from her chest. “Excuse me?”
She began pulling on the indicated finger, then held up an object that was too small
for Sanskar to see. She shook it at him.
“Our wedding ring, Sanskar . So please tell me, did you intend to ‘forget’ we were married, too?”
Sanskar felt his heart stop right in its place. Married? Right before he passed out from
lack of oxygen, he dragged in a breath and reminded himself this was just Laksh. Really
playing hardball, even for a joke. He wasn’t married. Not to her.
And yet — and yet — he couldn’t remember those two days. Amnesia hadn’t been
part of Laksh’s suggestion. Why the hell couldn’t he remember?
Slowly, Sanskar shifted his gaze to meet hers.
Her eyes glittered with anger and insult. It was hard to believe even an actress could
pull it off.
“Here,” she said, and threw the ring hard. It made a small thud as it hit the carpet
behind Sanskar ‘s desk. “So much for your promises,” she whispered hoarsely.
Sanskar watched, immobilized, as she whirled and threw open the door.
He saw a flash
image of Mrs. Barnes and a lot of swinging fake leather fringe before the automatic spring
returned his abused office door to its frame.
It should have become quiet then, but Sanskar ‘s ears were ringing. For a long time he
could only stand there, eardrums vibrating. Then he turned. His gaze went down to the
floor.
The gold band lay behind the back wheel of his chair. Like a snake, waiting to strike.
Married, to a dancer on the Strip. Impetuously, foolishly tied to a woman with whom
he had not a thing in common, who could only be charmed by his money, who made a
living controlling the passions of others, and who could have no real feelings for him at all.
Married to the very kind of woman his father always married.
Sanskar stared at the ring and frowned. No. The ring was just a prop. Easily obtained.
Interchangeable. Hardly proof of anything.
He bent and picked it up. The metal was still warm from her finger.
Sanskar felt a large area hollow out in his stomach. His fingers tightened on the ring.
Prop?
Or evidence of what he’d actually done those two missing days?
The hollow in his stomach grew. No, Sanskar told himself. He was not his father.
But his eyes squeezed closed as he set the ring against his forehead. If only it all didn’t
make a horrible kind of sense.