The Accidental Fiancée

A Romantic Short Story

Zeenat Mahal

Version 1.0

Copyright © Zeenat Mahal 2015

Published in 2015 by

Indireads Incorporated

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise
without the prior permission of the publisher.

The author asserts the moral right to be identified
as the authors of their stories. This is a work of fiction and any
resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely
coincidental.

ISBN:
978-1-927826-69-0

Cover Image by
Songbird Wedding,
an award-winning
photography company, owned by John Pesina, based out of Austin,
Texas. He specializes in vibrant and creative imagery with a photo
journalistic approach.

www.songbirdweddings.com

PRAISE FOR ZEENAT MAHAL

Readers who have read her earlier work
should be well informed about her impeccable writing skills and
those who are reading her for the first time will simply become
mute spectators of what she has to offer!

Book News India

The writing is breezy and fresh. The author
does a brilliant job of telling a story and giving a glimpse into
the culture of high-society Pakistan of the times.

Adite Banerjie, Best Selling Harlequin
Author

I loved this book. L.O.V.E.D it!

I wanted to be the one who had written
it!

Reet Singh, Best Selling Harlequin
Author

Dear Ms. Mahal, I love your voice …

Dear Author

TABLE OF CONTENT

Accidental
Fiancée

Excerpt from She Loves Me, He Loves
Me Not

More by Zeenat
Mahal

About
Indireads

About Zeenat
Mahal

More by
Indireads

The Accidental
Fiancé

‘…
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?’

‘Bad boy’ Akbar and ‘firebrand’ Khayyam were
rivals and enemies back in college, while studying architecture.
While he laughed at her feminist sentiments and views on
preservation, she denounced him as a commercial sellout with no
originality or talent. Humiliated in front of his admiring
hangers-on, Akbar will not pass up the chance to get his revenge
when fate presents Khayyam as his unlikely fiancée.

Read this delightful story to discover what
happens to these wildly different personalities when they
reluctantly exchange rings.

The Accidental Fiancé

Akbar’s plan was simple.

Get engaged to the girl his mother had
chosen for him and delay the marriage for as long as he could. So
he drove with his mother to the dingy little house that had seen
better days.

Giving her a disdainful look, as he helped
his mother out of the car, he queried, ‘She’s obviously marrying
for money. Aren’t you afraid she’ll poison you to get to me?’ He
paused and then added as an afterthought, ‘And then me to get
all
of my money?’

His mother gave him a look that used to send
his father into unscheduled panic-attacks. Akbar told himself he
was immune to them. Then he gave her his extra special smile. It
worked. It always did. On everyone, he grinned.

They were shown into a drab little drawing
room and he sat down on a shabby old couch. ‘
Ami
, I really
don’t have the time, so please hurry with this whole…’

‘Akbar, be quiet,
beta
.’

Defeated, he got his iPhone out.

Soon there was a flurry of movement and the
prospective parents-in-law came in. The father, thin and white
haired, looking crushed and forlorn, had put on a bravely polite
face. The mother, overweight and sad-looking, smiled a faded tired
smile. Akbar felt the first stirrings of pity mingled with
depression. The girl would probably be a pretty face with no
personality. He chatted with the prospectives pleasantly as they
waited for their daughter to make an entrance with the requisite
tea-trolley. He already knew they’d claim their daughter had made
‘everything from scratch’.

At last the creaking wheels of the trolley
became audible and the sound of china cups tinkling. Thank God!
They could get the obligatory cup of tea out of the way and he
could go back to his life. He looked towards the door out of sheer
habit as it opened.

Nothing could have prepared Akbar for the
sight that met his eyes. He stared in disbelief. Of all the gin
joints in the world, he thought, with a grin. Did she know that she
was to be paraded in front of
him
? He got up to receive his
soon-to-be-fiancée. His arch-nemesis, Khayyam Zafar, the terror of
his college days back in the 90’s, now pretending to be the demure
little bride-to-be. He smirked. What a harpy she was and how
devious.

Let the games begin.

She walked in and greeted his mother
pleasantly, but didn’t even spare him a glance. Didn’t she care who
she was being tied to for the rest of her life? The very picture of
a demure eastern girl, shy with her eyes cast down, she began to
pour tea. She was still oozing sexy though, with her warm skin
tones and high cheekbones, and that there was that mouth…

Her most misleading weapon, he reminded
himself. She had a nasty, sharp tongue in there somewhere.

As she handed him his cup of tea, he said
under his breath, ‘You must be
pretty
desperate to get
married.’

Her hand jerked, nearly spilling the tea on
him. Their eyes met. Imperceptibly, hers widened, and she squared
her shoulders, straightened her posture.

‘
You!
Is this some sick joke?’ she
hissed.

‘You tell me, KK?’

‘
Don’t call me that.’

And she offered him a plate.

He burst out laughing. He couldn’t help it.
It was so damn funny!

Still grinning like a Cheshire cat, his eyes
full of mirth and glued onto her, he addressed his not-to-be future
in-laws, ‘Uncle, Aunty, I am so happy to see K…Khayyam after all
these years! We were in college together, you know.’

Khayyam glared, then closed her eyes and
clenched her teeth while she mustered control. Letting her breath
out slowly, she opened her eyes, pasted a smile on her face and
turned towards her parents.

‘Really? How wonderful Khayyam,’ her father
gushed. ‘Why don’t you two sit and talk…and…we’ll be right here.
Bhabi
come and sit here. We should give them a chance to
catch up.’

They moved towards the other couch, which
was only two feet away but apparently that was all the privacy he
was willing to accord them.

Akbar turned towards Khayyam, ‘What were you
thinking, KK? Why did you agree to this?’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking
about.’

He scoffed.

‘You expect me to believe that you don’t
have an ulterior motive? You agreed to marry
me
, the most,
what was it again, ‘morally bankrupt man with pedestrian creative
instincts’ you’d ever seen? You agreed because you have an agenda
and I want to know what it is. Or have you changed from the
rebellious firebrand you were, to a commonplace girl who just wants
to snag a husband?’

She looked angry but almost as if she didn’t
want to be. She said quickly, ‘Okay look. I know what this looks
like but we have to go through with it for now…and I’ll…’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Why is what?’

‘Why do I have to go through with this? I
have the perfect opportunity to embarrass you. Why would I not take
it KK?’

‘Because you can’t embarrass our families
like this and you want to get even with me, not them. Or are you
still the arrogant, selfish, spoilt kid that you were in
college?’

‘Ah, the nostalgia of youth,’ he mocked. Her
words still stung.

The little
…

‘Look Akbar, if you go through with
this…farce, just think of the satisfaction you get out of it. You
get to show people that you won in the end. I was no better than
all those girls in college who drooled over you.’

Khayyam gave Akbar quick look and was
relieved to see that he was interested in this new angle. He was
frowning but there was a speculative gleam in his dark eyes
now.

‘Keep talking, KK.’ He watched as Khayyam
took a deep calming breath as if to control her anger, which he
secretly thought was completely uncalled for.

She said with a half-smirk, ‘You’ll be the
hero. I’ll be the weak-minded girl who falls for brawn and not
brains…’

‘You’re doing it again, KK.’

‘
Fine
…I’ll be the girl who falls for
you
.’

He smiled and nodded.

‘Now you’re talking, KK. I like that angle.
And I can see you really want this. I’ll find out why eventually,
so why not tell me yourself?’

She didn’t reply.

That had to be a first, he thought
surprised, as he looked at her sideways yet again. Her face looked
stricken and it was apparent she was trying to control her
emotions.

‘Are you planning on defending your beloved
local ruins with my name attached to yours? Because unlike you, I
have been building landmarks and making a name for myself, so
obviously my name counts and yours…not so much,’ he taunted.

She rolled her eyes. Then shrugged and said
casually—too casually, ‘It’s just that my…parents want this
and…’

Akbar looked at her squarely now, and while
there was a flash of panic that showed for an instant in her eyes,
she stared back at him steadily. There was a strange expression on
her face. Almost as if she were…
oh, wow
…pleading? Akbar
sniggered.

The moron knew. Khayyam could tell. He was
grinning at her with that same devilish look he had used on all the
girls in college. His eyes were dancing with joy.

He whispered, ‘If I do this, you owe me big
time and I
will
collect the debt.’

She had no option. Wearing the same plastic
smile, she nodded with relief. Too eagerly perhaps, because at once
he said, ‘What a come down, you’ve had KK. You actually seem
visibly relieved to be getting engaged. At your age I can
understand the desperation.’

‘I’m the same age as you…’

He interrupted smoothly, and with obvious
relish, ‘But for a man to be twenty-eight and unmarried is nothing
out of the ordinary, but a
woman
to be all of twenty-eight
and unmarried. Tsk, tsk, probably desperate, and sexually
frustrated.’

‘Shut up you sick juvenile…’

‘You want me to put a ring on your
finger?’

Khayyam fumed in silence for a full three
seconds. But she desisted from another attack.

Akbar watched in smug satisfaction. ‘This is
going to be so much fun, KK.’

Thankfully, Khayyam’s parents got involved
after that and Akbar 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.