The Bestseller She Wrote (26 page)

‘Relationship,’ Shreya completed the sentence for him. ‘Why are you finding it so difficult to say the word?’

Aditya didn’t attempt to answer her question. He just looked at her. And after a long stare, he firmly said, ‘We need to end this, Shreya. This has to stop.’

‘You thought about them but not about me? Thank you, Aditya,’ she spat out. Bitterness was writ all over her face.

‘I did think about you. If we let this go on, it will only lead to more pain.’

‘Why do you want to live life the way the world wants you to live? Why can’t we go on the way we are? Why do you want to end it?’ She was now embarrassingly loud. People around were looking at them. ‘Why does it have to end like this?’ she yelled.

‘I tried doing it gradually. I have been trying to slowly cut the relationship off but it is not working. I have given you so many hints in the last three weeks that it is over. I don’t have either the courage or the will to go about this slowly, Shreya. So the only alternative is to end it.’ He sat up straight and looked around. People were still looking at them. He bent and moved forward a bit. When he was close enough to Shreya, he whispered, ‘Once and for all.’

‘What about my book? You promised to help me all through, remember? And now you are walking away from your commitment.’

Aditya couldn’t make up his mind on whether it was a serious attempt at changing the topic or whether Shreya was actually concerned about her book, at this point.

‘So it was all about the book for you, right?’

‘How dare you, Aditya! Of course it is about you. The book is just a small part of who you are,’ Shreya cried out, offended. ‘Why do you keep bringing it up as if I am someone who is exploiting our relationship for my gains? If it is bothering you so much, I won’t ask you again.’

‘Forget it, Shreya,’ Aditya said as he got up. ‘I need to get back to the hospital.’

‘Aditya, this is just not done,’ Shreya yelled as Aditya got up from his chair. ‘You can’t leave me like this and walk away. I am not an object,’ she continued. Her voice was filled with anger. Aditya turned and started walking towards the exit. Shreya chased him. ‘Wait, Aditya,’ she hollered. Aditya stopped and turned.

‘You have no right to dump me like this.’

‘We were never destined to be together,’ Aditya responded. His voice was now emotionless which irritated Shreya even more. ‘More than destiny I think it was a lapse in judgment. A momentary blinding of one’s rationality that brought us together. I am just correcting it for the larger good of both
of us.’

‘Who the fuck are you to decide what is good for us?’

Aditya didn’t stay to hear the last few words. He had already reached his car. He opened the door, got in, and waited for a couple of seconds for Shreya, so that he could drop her back to the bank. But when she continued standing on his side of the car and yelling at him, Aditya just shifted the car into drive mode and drove off. As he was driving away, he heard Shreya scream, ‘You are finished, Aditya Kapoor. You are finished. I will make sure of that.’

61

M
AYA WAS BROUGHT
back home, the next morning. Her parents and Aditya were with her. Aditya was driving and Maya’s father was sitting next to him in the front seat. Maya’s mom was with her in the backseat. The drive back was a very quiet one. No one spoke. Maya had not broken her vow of silence towards Aditya even when she regained consciousness. She had refused to meet him in the hospital.

Once they reached home, Maya walked straight into her room. Aditya walked in behind her. ‘I’m so happy you are back, baby,’ he said as he held her shoulders from behind and softly kissed the back of her head.

In one swift move Maya jerked his hand off her shoulders and turned to face him. ‘Don’t touch me!’ she whispered as loudly as she could. She pointed a finger at Aditya and angrily muttered, teeth clenched, ‘Don’t ever touch me again,’ she reiterated.

‘Maya,’ Aditya looked at her, devastated. ‘I am sorry for all that I did. It was a mistake, Maya. A mistake I will never commit again, ever. I promise.’

‘Mistake?’ Maya looked at him in disgust. ‘Cheating is never a mistake. It is a choice, Aditya. When you made that choice, you were aware of the repercussions, yet you went ahead with it. I pity myself that I placed my faith in you. I trusted you blindly.’

Aditya tried his best to convince Maya to forgive him, to let him back in her life, to forget the past and make a new beginning. But Maya was a strong woman. She had made up her mind. Finally when the argument showed no signs of dying down, she pulled the plug. In the calmest of voices, she said, ‘We can’t stay together any longer, Aditya. You need to go. If you don’t, I will.’

‘Maya . . . please don’t . . .’ He had not even completed what he was saying when Maya interrupted him and turned back towards the cupboard. She stretched upwards and tried to pull out a suitcase from the loft. ‘Forget it. I will leave.’

Aditya didn’t know what to do. He just turned and walked out of the house. He felt that Maya was too agitated to listen to reason. He hoped he would be able to sort things out with her later.

Once he was out of the house he phoned Sanjay. He briefed Sanjay of his discussion with Shreya and about Maya throwing him out of the house and asked him for a place to stay.

That night Shreya called him a few times but Aditya refused to pick up any of her calls.

62

‘
I
F YOU NEED
to come back again to pick up something, coordinate with mom,’ Maya said curtly, when Aditya went there the next morning to pick up his clothes.

‘Why me?’ said Maya’s mother in an aggressive tone. Both of Maya’s parents had stopped talking to Aditya the day they got to know of his relationship with Shreya. They had always held Aditya in high esteem. He was the ideal son-in-law, the ideal husband, the ideal father—a showcase husband in more ways than one. But everything came crashing down for them, the day they heard about Aditya’s affair. ‘I don’t even want to see his face; neither does your father.’ Maya’s mom was very clear.

Maya ignored the outpouring and looked Aditya in the eye and said, ‘Just make sure you come and go when I am not at home.’

He took his stuff and went back to Sanjay’s house. It was eleven by the time he reached office. He dumped his bag on his table and went up to Sanjay’s floor. He wanted to give him the keys to the house.

The moment he stepped out of the elevator and turned towards Sanjay’s cabin he stopped. With her back towards him, sitting in front of Sanjay, was Shreya. He didn’t want to talk to her and turned back. He pinged Sanjay, ‘Call me when you are finished with her.’

Back in his room, he got busy with some weekly reports. An hour passed. Sanjay had not returned his call.

‘He is still in a meeting,’ Sanjay’s secretary told him, when he called to check.

‘With Shreya Kaushik?’ Aditya asked. The secretary replied in the affirmative.

Aditya started getting worried. Sanjay was his friend, but he was the head of HR too. And no one spends an hour and a half with the HR Head . . . without reason.

*

‘Sexual harassment! She wants to file a formal complaint against you,’ Sanjay said with a straight face as Aditya looked on, aghast. Sanjay had called him and asked to meet at the Starbucks coffee shop outside the Mumbai airport. ‘I can’t be seen talking to you in office immediately after she has spoken to me. That’s why I called you here,’ he explained before dropping the bombshell.

Aditya nearly fell off his chair when he heard this. ‘Harassment?’ he asked, words barely coming out of his mouth. ‘We had a sexual relationship quite alright, but harassment? Did she tell you who started it all?’

‘It doesn’t matter, Aditya. She is a woman and if she complains, the organisation will invariably take a lenient view towards her.’

‘What about evidence?’ Aditya asked. ‘Does evidence mean anything? Can she prove that I . . .’ he hesitated, ‘Forget all that. Tell me what all she said.’ He looked expectantly at Sanjay. ‘Don’t omit anything.’

‘She called me this morning, saying that she wanted to talk to me. You had told me that things were not going well between the two of you, so I asked her to come up to my cabin. I thought she might want some help in sorting out the problems that you have with her. But this one came as a beamer. She walked up to me and even before she settled down, her first line was that she wanted to lodge an official complaint against you for sexual harassment. She claims you forced yourself on her.’

‘I forced myself on her?’

‘Apparently you did. She has messages to prove it. I saw a few. In one of those you have apologised for having kissed her, possibly forcibly. There are some wherein you have invited her to accompany you to Pune when you were on your book tour, promising her a good time. They are extremely suggestive, Aditya, the sort that can get anyone in trouble,’ Sanjay said, looking grave.

‘Those were not one-sided messages. She responded equally passionately to each of those. I bet she didn’t tell you that!?’

‘No she didn’t. But if you have them, we can counter her. Take her head on.’

‘I was deleting her messages every day before I went home, Sanjay. Only on days Maya was travelling would I hold on to the messages before deleting everything once and for all.’ He made a face. ‘And that is proving to be my Achilles’ heel. The messages got backed up and appeared on Maya’s phone.’ Then as if struck by a bolt from the blue, he remembered, ‘Hold it. Hold it, Sanjay. My phone backup at home will have some of the messages. We might have something to prove that it was a consensual relationship. I will talk to Maya and get those messages out from the backup in the laptop.

‘I’m not sure, Aditya. If I know Maya, she will not help you with this, at least for now. In any case I have managed to dissuade Shreya for now. I have convinced her not to file her complaint. I told her that if this gets out, a lot of muck would flow on both sides. And that no one would remain untouched by it. She is a sensible girl. She agreed to keep it on hold for the time being. But . . .’

Aditya raised his eyelashes and looked at Sanjay, ‘But what?’

‘But under one condition.’

‘And that is . . .?’

‘That under no circumstance she be moved out of your team. She claims that she is not an escapist and that she would fight her way through.’

‘And what did you say?’

‘As if I had a choice, Aditya,’ Sanjay exclaimed.

63

B
EFORE LEAVING
S
TARBUCKS
, Sanjay warned Aditya to lie low for a few days. He also impressed on him the need to stay away from getting into a conflict with Shreya.

Aditya realised that the evidence Shreya had was enough to send him into professional oblivion even if he did prove that their relationship was consensual.

It was an uneasy truce for Aditya. He had to face Shreya every day in office. She would be her bubbly self, smiling and talking normally to everyone and making sure that no one faulted her for anything. She was probably being extra cautious so as to not give anyone a chance to take her to task.

Three weeks had passed and Aditya had still not moved out of Sanjay’s house. Staying with Sanjay, he had to encounter Diana frequently. In fact it had helped him clear a lot of misconceptions about her. She was a regular visitor to Sanjay’s house and the two of them planned to get married in another six months. In fact, Diana had already partially moved in.

Aditya was in a particularly broody mood that day. He had returned from a leadership training programme which had been conducted by an external agency. As a part of the programme, there was a team-building exercise wherein the audience was divided into six teams to perform some activities. Shreya had slimed her way into his team. Throughout the day, she was on the same table, next to him. Aditya was worried, not because she was next to him, but because despite whatever was going on between them, he had a weak spot for her.

‘Is there any way you can get her out of my hair for a few hours of the day at least?’ Aditya pleaded.

‘You know what I have told her, don’t you?’ Sanjay argued.

‘Give her a project. Give her something. Show it to her as a move up the chain. She is mind-fucking me. I can’t handle it, Sanjay. I’m going insane.’

Diana was listening to all this. She had thus far maintained a stoic silence on all the happenings around her.

‘I think I may be able to help,’ she finally said. Both Sanjay and Aditya looked at her. ‘Tim is looking for people to join the team driving the collaboration and the cross-sell effort between different teams of his—branch banking, whatever remains of Assets, Non-Resident Business, Operations, etc. Everyone on the team will be on project mode. They will double hat, do their current jobs and additionally work on this. I can push Tim to get her on the project. I will position it as young blood with a fresh perspective. She can’t say no to Tim. It will keep her busy at least for a few hours a day. I will make her travel to other locations so that she gets away from you for as long as possible.’

‘What makes you think that she will agree?’ Sanjay asked her.