Sanskar had been fuming as he entered their room with Swara following behind him. He paced a bit before turning at her "What did you think you were trying to do there?"

"I...." she tried to explain but he cut in even before she could get a word out, she had never seen him this angry

"Who gave you the right to interfere?"

"Laksh was about to lose it. He would have come at you"

"And that gave you the right to interfere? Did you even realize the position you put me in, with him? That my wife had to interfere between us and pull me away!"

"Sanskar, he would have hit you!" Swara shot back trying to make him see reason, she had after all been only trying to help

"And you thought I couldn't handle him?"

"You know he is volatile, and you were riling him. He was going to apply his boxing practice to good use on you, if I hadn't saved your ass!" Swara was really getting pissed off at Sanskar's attitude right now

"Swara, when you don't know anything, just butt out! He first got interested in boxing watching me for heaven sakes! I know what he is capable of." He screamed at her

"I was only trying to help, you idiot! May be I should have just let him hit a few punches, in his crazy state, and let you bleed"

"May be you should have! You would have seen who would have gotten hurt then! And don't worry I wasn't going to ask you to help if I did bleed" He retorted angrily

"I wouldn't have helped you, the way you are behaving, anyway!"

They were both fuming, high on adrenaline by now, breathing hard trying to control they anger as they faced each other off.

Then some thing changed in the air. There was a different spark flowing between them and without realizing what was going on, Sanskar pulled her closer to him and kissed her hard on the lips. Swara was stunned for a moment, but then she too kissed him back with equal fervor. His hands tangled through her hair even as she gripped his shoulders tightly, each trying to bring the other closer, heating up things even further.

By the time they parted, they were both trying to catch their breath. As Sanskar calmed down a bit and realized what had happened, he dashed out of the room, leaving Swara to still catch her breath, as he tried to put some distance between them and make sense of things.

By the time he returned, it was fairly late. In a way he was happy about it. He was sure everyone would be asleep by then, even Swara, at least he hoped for it as he tried to climb up the stairs. But as fate would have it, he came across her as she was walking down the stairs just then. Neither spoke for a moment, before Swara broke the silence.

"You must be hungry. Come, I will serve you dinner"

"I am not hungry" he replied avoiding her gaze as he tried to make his way up, walking past her, but just then his stomach growled

"Your stomach has given you away" Swara commented "Come on, you are hungry and I am too. I haven't had my dinner yet, and if I don't eat soon, my stomach will start making noises too" she added trying to lighten the atmosphere

He stood still for a moment, surprised at her attempt and unsure of how to address the big elephant in the room. She seemed to have been acting as though the moment never happened, should he follow suit? It had been in the heat of the moment after all. They were both adults. That was it, right? If he was honest, he had been hungry. He sighed and followed her down.

She served them both and sat to have her dinner, along with him. After a while, he tried to break the ice by saying some thing that had been on in his mind "You didn't need to wait for me to have your dinner"

She looked up from her food, replying with a simple "I know. I wanted to"

"Why?" slipped from his mouth even before he could stop it. She responded with only a shrug

"You are picking up some bad habits" He added, trying to dilute some of the awkwardness from what had transpired and covering up for his question.

"I am glad you do realize that this is a bad habit" she said referring to the shrug "Can you guess where I might have picked it up?"

He lifted his brows at her comment "Point taken"

After dinner, as she started to clear things, he started helping, but she asked him to let it be

"Swara, I am not one of those men who cannot help his wife..." he trailed off, realizing he was bringing them back in dangerous territory. She glanced at him once before asking him to help her carry a few things back.

Their walk back to their room had been a silent one. Once he reached the room, he picked up his pillow and went towards the sofa.

"What are you doing?" Swara asked him

"I think it might be better if I sleep on the sofa from now on" he answered settling down to sleep.

Even after lights had been turned off, both were wide awake and knew that the other was as well.

"I have a way to get Ragini to reveal the truth" Sanskar had said after some time

"Without impacting her relationship with Laksh?" Swara asked

"Is that necessary?" He asked. Swara had nodded back, but then realized he wouldn't be able to see her in the darkness, but even before she could reply, he added "Fine. That is what we will do then. I need some time to have everything in place, but I will let you know once everything is ready"

They had fallen back in silence, before Swara pulled the courage to ask him some thing that she had been pondering over for a long time.

"Sanskar, can I ask you some thing?" Not hearing him respond for some time, but taking this still as a go ahead to ask, she continued "What was that incident? The one that changed everything"

He was quite for some time before he spoke "I had a big fight with Durga Prasad. There were things that were said by each one. I was angry and I was about to hit him. Laksh stepped in, volatile as ever. We both went at each other with every thing we had, before others pulled up apart. That day I left the house, my family and every thing associated with the Maheshwari name, behind"

"What happened to make you so angry?"

Sanskar had again gone quiet for a long time and she wasn't sure if he was ever going to reply when he spoke again "Do you remember I had told you that I was in love once?"

Truth be told, she remembered it but he had been so emotionless when he told her about it that she hadn't been sure what to believe. Him mentioning it now, brought a strange dreadful feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Sanskar continued "Her name was Kavita. She was an orphan. She was" he paused for a second before adding "a Bengali girl." Swara was aware she was the reason for the pause "I wanted to marry her, but I belonged to a very traditional Marwari family. They made it clear they would accept a Bengali girl into the family. I was given a strict warning that I had to cease all contact with her"

"Did you?" Swara asked softly

"No. Though I let everyone believe I had. But then we decided we would elope and get married. I didn't let anyone in my family know about this, but I shared it with Laksh. Laksh unfortunately, revealed it to the family, after I left. Kavita and I reached the temple to get married. I went ahead to talk to the panditji, to make the arrangements"

He took a deep breath here, one that even Swara could clearly hear. She realized belatedly that he must have done it to reign in his emotions. She was concerned, wondering what had caused him so much pain.

When he finally continued, there was an edge to his voice "When I returned back, she was lying in a pool of blood. She had been attacked, to prevent the wedding. She died in my arms"

They were both quiet after this, for a long time, as Swara was trying to process this and realize what Sanskar must have gone through.

"Who...?" she had uttered apprehensively

"Durga Prasad" She could feel the anger in his voice as her uttered the name

"Bade Pape! No that cannot be. There must be some mistake Sanskar"

"There is no mistake" he cut in

"You were angry. He seemed like the obvious choice. There must be something else Sanskar."

"Yes, I was angry during those initial days, but then there came a time when I did calm down. I wanted to bring him to justice. I investigated this further"

"And?"

"All trails still ended at him"

"Why didn't you go to the authorities when you found out?"

"The methods and ways I had to pursue, in order to dig the details, weren't exactly ones that would stand up in a court of law" he put in bluntly

"Is that why you hate Laksh too?" she asked after another bout of silence

"I don't hate Laksh"

"But...."

"Laksh is immature, he is rash and yes he is also brattish. He was my brother. I had grown up with him. I knew him better than anyone, and yet I had trusted him with my secret not realizing that he would have obviously told the family" She hadn't missed his use of 'was' not 'is' when referring to Laksh as his brother

"No, I don't hate him. I hate myself for what happened. I was the one who sowed the seeds that led to her death. I have her innocent blood on my hands" He said, his voice breaking up a bit as he uttered those last words.

She sat up in her bed, almost leaping out to go over to him. She had this intense feeling of wanting to hold him tight and take away his pain, but she knew he would not be okay it. She controlled her impulse

"So what are you going to do now? How are you going to reveal the truth?" she asked trying to distract him from the pain he was going through.

"I am taking away everything that matters to Durga Prasad. His business, his status, the power he holds."

"and then?"

"And then once I close all these doors for him, I will leave him with only one option of confessing his crime, if he wants everything back."

"You don't want to go to the authorities? I don't understand"

"I will punish him my way, where he cannot buy his way to freedom with his money. If doesn't confess, he will lose everything that he values forever. And if he does confess, he will have to live with the fact that everything that he has will be given back to him by me, on my terms"

"But Sanskar, I remember you once told me that I should not close all the openings for Ragini. I should leave her with one so that she can escape, else she will lash out at me? If you close all the doors for Bade Papa and leave him with an option that isn't really one, wont he lash out at you? Wont he hurt you?" She asked concerned

Sanskar didn't reply, but closed the discussion with a "Good night, Swara. Go to sleep now. There is lot to be done tomorrow"

He didn't answer her, but she knew why. He expected that attack to come through, knew of it always and he was willing to take that hit, however fatal it might it. He had left himself no exit plan. That left her unsettled.

Her husband had been an enigma to her. As she looked back now, she realized that their first meeting had already been tainted by Laksh's view of Sanskar and Sanskar hadn't helped much to change that view.

Yes, he was good looking, she had admitted that when she first saw him, but equally, he had been extremely arrogant and that had angered her no end. Every interaction of hers with him had only left her angrier that the previous one.

When she had decided to reunite her parents again, she had realized that she would need someone who could help her be close to Ragini always, allowing her to be in the Maheswari Mansion. There was no one who could possible provide her this, except for him. There had also been another reason why she had gone to him, it was because she knew that any deal with him would be all business and not involve any emotions, after all he hadn't been keen to display any.

But that is where she had been wrong. When he could bring such intense emotions of anger in her during their few initial interactions, she should have realized that he would be able to bring other very intense emotions in her too.

As she looked back at the past, she realized that his arrogance hasn't been because of any superior feelings, no, it has been because of his lack of fear of failure. He has lost everything at one point and build it back again, he wasn't scared of losing again because he had faith in himself to recover from it. That gave him his confidence. What she had thought to be his aloof and condescending attitude, had actually been his desire to create some distance between himself and his family, so that he could go ahead with his goals. By the same token, he avoided building any new bonds that could hold him back and make him fear failure, for the loss of them.

After her meeting with him, she wasn't sure he would help her even if she agreed to his conditions but for some reason he had. When she entered the house, as his wife, he had shown her more facets of his personality, albeit not directly. She had seen his protective nature, not just his sharp mind, in how he countered Ragini for her. She had seen the warmth that he shared with members of his family, other than Bade Papa and Laksh. She had seen the caring nature when he interacted with her mother and even when he had calmed her down during her mother's disappearance. And today, she had seen pain in him that moved her more than anything else had.

When she had met Laksh in college, they did have this friend-foe relationship for a while, which had slowly changed into friendship. Ragini had been the one instrumental in making peace between them before the three became a close knit group. She had cared for him as a friend and when he fell in love with her, Ragini, who had been closer to him than she was, had been the one who pushed her to respond. Swara had seen him as a logical life partner. She had seen dreams of their future together and become emotionally attached to those dreams. That friendship, trust and dreams coming all together had been love for her. When they were shattered, she was hurt along with those dreams.

With Sanskar however, it was completely different. He had shown her no dreams, expressed no deep feelings and expected none in return. And yet, he had been bringing out feelings in her that were more intense than anything she had experienced before. She worried about him. The thought of him getting hurt built a strange anxiety in her. His rare smile, his unique mannerisms, brought a smile to her face. And the thought of all of this ending once Ragini's truth was revealed, a painful constriction in her chest.

She had deep feelings for him, of that much she was sure. But she wasn't sure to what extent they went. Did they mean that she loved her husband? She still wasn't sure.

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