"Jab manzil hi badal jaye toh raaste bhi dhundle nazar aate hai,
Kya yeh sahi faisla hai
Ya kismat ka koi mazak hai?"

~ Author ~

Mumbai, India

"Sir, Saad Merchant is here to meet you," Aanchal twists her foot as she hurriedly enters, making Kabir wince at the sight. She quickly gets back in position and acts as if it was nothing.

Kabir gave her a pitied glance. "Send him in and please make sure I have no visitors or anyone entering the room." A few minutes later, a middle-aged man enters, a sling bag hanging down his right shoulder. Dressed in a sleek pantsuit, he walks in confidently, giving a small smile to Kabir.

Kabir reciprocates the polite gesture and pulls a chair for him before he goes back to his seat. "It's been a long while, uncle," he said while giving a sign to Aanchal to send some refreshments inside.

"You don't call me unless there's work," the old man remarked and laughed, which made Kabir smile at him.

"I am really sorry," he apologized. Saad swatted his hand nonchalantly in the air as he kept his bag on the table. "What is it you wanted to talk about?"

The smile slipped away from Kabir's face as he got serious when finally the talk started. The door opens and Aanchal enters holding a tray. She keeps the beverages on the table and leaves. As he heard the door being shut, Kabir braced himself to speak.

"Earlier when I joined the business, Dad had told me that to become a CEO, one needs to fulfil a few conditions. I want to know the conditions. Did you bring the file?" Upon asking, Saad pulls a folder from his bag and slips it towards Kabir. Kabir takes the file from him and skims through the pages, reading the file very carefully.

"You have to have a higher degree of education, that is, you are supposed to do a master's," he said.

"Done with that, what's next?"

"You are supposed to work on the trainee level to understand the workings of the office, to be more levelled and understanding as a kind CEO," Kabir looks up from the file to stare at the man in front of him and then goes back to reread the file.

"Wait, what is this?" Kabir's eyes widen as he reads a particular line. Saad's mouth forms an O as he understood which clause Kabir was being so agitated about.

"If you want to inherit the position of the CEO, you need to be married at least for two years," Saad deconstructed the lines for him in easy words but even though Kabir was able to understand what was written in those lines, it still made it difficult for him to believe that this was actually true.

"Your father and Vikas came up with this final clause after a lot of thought and deliberation you know," he clarified, "their main reason for keeping this clause was to make sure to remind their children that the world doesn't revolve around work and office and that there's a home you have to go back to, because your family is waiting for you," a small smile lingered on Saad's lips as he said those lines as he remembered the moment Vikas Mathur had told him, learning from his past mistakes.

But here in the present, Kabir Raizada was unhappy with this unusual clause. Marriage? What the actual fuck?

Kabir could not believe what had been decided by the two best friends. But then again, he knew very well that they were known to make things difficult for anyone. This just got complicated.

At this point in time, he wasn't ready to fall in love, let alone get married. His only goal was to inherit the CEO position. But the elders played their game. They were still puppets in their hands, ready to dance to their tunes.

"Is there no other alternative?" He inquired. Saad shook his head in a no and Kabir's jaw clenched in anger.

* * *

"Pacing to and fro won't bring you any solution," Maan advised as he watched his friend take quick steps in the living hall of the AV Villa.

Kabir paid no heed to his words. His feet couldn't stop, the irritation over the clause had made him mad. His heart almost sank but he did not know what to do with it. He had an alternative, the solution to the problem.

Marriage.

But with who?

That was the problem.

"I need to get married," he said and Maan rolled his eyes at him as he knew that this was the answer that he would receive from his friend.

"And with whom?" He asks further.

"I have to figure that out."

Maan clicked his tongue. "Don't be so rash, Kabir," he tried his best to make him understand, but Kabir being Kabir, was not in the mood to listen to his best friend.

"Being rash in what?" Shikha Mathur's soft voice echoed in the hall as she and Divya entered, holding trays of snacks. Maan let out a sigh of relief as he was finally able to shift his focus to something normal for the moment.

The ladies kept the tray on the table and sat on the sofa. Kabir looks at them softly and sits beside his best friend, facing the ladies. "You should have asked the maid to bring the food," he tiredly said, not liking the fact that they were doing the work when they had so many people to help.

"We like to take care of our children," Divya says, smiling warmly at her son. "It makes us happy."

Even if Kabir Raizada was disturbed, this little statement broke his tension, bringing a small smile to his face. Mother's love can melt a stone and he was still a human. For Kabir, Divya Raizada meant the world to him, his world and his anchor during his difficult times. Every time he fell, it was her who helped him get back to his feet and start again.

When Radhika passed away, she and Shikha never left his side. Oh, there was Shikha Mathur, his second mother. If he hated Meher Mathur with everything in him, he equally loved Shikha Mathur with every fibre in his body. That lady never acted differently with him and every time something went wrong, she would always support him.

She was one of the major reasons why he was able to come out of depression when Radhika died. And Kabir Raizada owed these women for giving him the purpose to live his life again.

And the purpose was to become the CEO of the AV Group.

But now the journey to reach that dream seemed a bit hazy as he saw a big hurdle blocking his way.

"What are you so tense about, bete?" Divya asks as she notices her son getting lost in his thoughts.

Kabir shakes his head. "Nothing Mom, just work stress."

Divya clicks her tongue. "It's not right to bring your work home, Kabir. Kab sudhroge?"

Shikha tuts looking at her. "Why are you scolding him Divi? At least he comes home to spend time with you. Look at my daughter. Even if we stay in the same home, she barely spends time with anyone let alone give me some time in specific. They just came back today and this girl went to the office. I don't know what has happened to her," the frustration was so evident on her face that the air went tense all of a sudden.

Kabir rolled his eyes at the mention of her. His heart swelled in pleasure hearing her mother diss her. Petty, but felt great. Seems like Meher Mathur wasted her entire self sharpening her brain rather than developing some emotional connection.

"Give the girl a rest, Shikha," Divya pacified but Shikha was far too angry with her daughter.

"I shouldn't have agreed to send her to Bangalore and the US. She has aggressively changed. She barely wants to stay at home," Shikha cries in frustration, but successfully maintains her composure. "Kabir is a good son, Divya. He's doing everything he can to stay happy and alive," she sadly smiled at him and Divya hugged her friend, giving her strength.

Meher had built a wall around herself that was very difficult to break and Shikha hated that. She hated that her daughter wasn't like the normal ones who shared everything with their mother, had a boyfriend, went out and even came back home to spend time with their family.

"If only she had a partner then she would have improved," she sighs.

"Are you still on the groom hunt? I swear don't do it, Shikha, Meher will hate you," Divya breaks the hug to look at her, the warning underlined in her tone. Maan's eyes travel to Kabir. A slow smirk appears on his face as he watches his best friend's face conjuring an idea, an idea that was possibly a danger.

Maan knew what Kabir was going for.

And Maan was right. Kabir indeed thought what none of the people could have ever imagined.

The thought of marrying Meher Mathur.

The thought abruptly came to him, no matter how worse that idea was, he couldn't help but weigh down the stakes of marrying her.

And he had a lot to lose.

But one prime thing to gain. The esteemed position.

He had to just get married to a woman. Rather than marrying an unknown, it was a better decision to marry someone he knew, someone on the same level as him, someone he won't have to give money to when things went south.

Meher was the perfect candidate. Neither she was a mess in love nor she had money vows.

It was a clear win-win.

If Shikha Mathur was hell bent on finding Meher a potential match, she would do it for real and he knew for a fact that the latter has to go for it.

Though Meher had the complete liberty to reject the proposal, he knew that she had to meet him a couple of times before coming up with the necessary decision.

And now Kabir Raizada had his head fixed, he knew how to approach the topic and would be smooth enough to pull it off.

If persuasion won't work then manipulation would be his way out.

And he had made up his mind.

He was going to marry Meher Mathur at any cost.

* * *

Kabir loosened his tie when he entered his penthouse. He sprawled himself on his bed and stared at the ceiling. His soulless self thought over his decision every second. Was it right?

Was it right to get whatever you want by hook or crook?

There was a silence in his soul, there was a chill in his blood, the coldness bringing stillness to his brain. His head moved over to his right, there was a big portrait of him and Radhika. Their picture.

He tried to remember when it was taken. Was it during their trip to Goa or was it during their beach date in Pondicherry? He couldn't recall. But he recalled taking the picture. He recalled how happy she was when she took it, her eyes sparkled when she smiled.

Kabir tried to smile, but sadly, he couldn't. Radhika was his last string of happiness which he was clinging on to but that did not last. He was still trying to pick up the pieces that were broken from the day he lost her. But every time he picked a piece, the shards of the glass of happiness pricked him, the bloody pain only reminded him bitterly of what he had lost and what had stayed.

It was the memories.

Memories of the time when he once smiled, genuinely, memories of the time when he actually cried in her arms and memory of the time when he asked her to marry him, to be his forever.

Marriage, what a complicated piece of shit it was.

When you had the urge, it didn't happen and now when you don't, you have to do it because of one stupid clause.

Even if it was with his arch nemesis, it was still a marriage by all means, she would be his wife in front of the entire world. Was he ready for that?

Probably, no.

Was he ready to step into this sinkhole?

No.

But then again, the urge, the raging fire to win that position, to prove to a certain someone that he is more than a competent individual triggered him more than ever to go for it.

The problem wasn't the marriage anymore.

The problem was Meher Mathur. Would she say yes to him?

A hundred per cent no.

It was pretty obvious.

But even if she says no, he knew that he would bend the entire world to get that yes, no matter what. He had not forgotten about what Meher had done to him, years ago. He had not forgotten how she had ruined the relationship he so desperately wanted to cherish. He had not forgotten how unbothered she was when Radhika died and how she happily left her home to fulfil her dreams.

He was not the kind to take revenge. But he was also not the kind to forget and forgive.

He had not forgiven her and he would never do that even if they were the last people standing on this land.

But desperate times need desperate measures. If it wasn't for that clause, he would have never gotten himself entangled in this mess.

He fished his phone from his pocket and opened his contacts. His fingers hovered over Meher's contact, contemplating if it was okay to start by calling or maybe tone it down.

His senses pointed to the latter. He opened his WhatsApp and opened his chat with Meher which for all obvious reasons had remained blank for years.

He thinks of all sorts of messages that he could send to her without being weird.

And in the end, he quickly types a message and sends and waits for her to read it.

The blue ticks appeared within thirty seconds but there was no reply.

Figured.

It was not easy to convince Meher after all.

This chapter was shorter than usual and maybe that's what I am planning to do from now on. My main target is usually to write 3000 words but nowadays due to time constraints, I am unable to follow that target. So I kept a smaller target- 2000-2500 words. This would help me write better and help me be more consistent.

Also, from chapter 11, there will be a switch in the POVS, that is, there will be first person POV from now on, for most of the chapters. That was the plan all along.

Kabir now wants to marry Meher for the sake of the CEO position. Will Meher agree?

Also please be more proactive in the comments section so that I can know what you all are thinking about the story and how much I should improve.

SO PLEASE VOTE AND COMMENT :)

Recommend me some Indian books on Wattpad so I can read them. My brain is too jammed lmao. I need a break. Don't suggest me Siddhi's books because I have read them already lol.

Signing off as I have shit loads to study.

With Love,

Akii.