"In here, sir," Gulal Singh stopped in front of a door on the ground floor of the lavish Rajvansh Vilas.

Anthony acknowledged with a nod.

The servant bowed and walked away.

Anthony looked at his retreating back thoughtfully. Gulal Singh was a loyal servant to Rajvanshs who had been invited to witness the ceremony from which everyone else had been kept away. He was an important person in Rajvansh household with deep-rooted connections back home. From the information he had collected about Uday Rajvansh, he had figured that Gulal Singh not only worked as his personal butler but his family also served as his eyes and ears to keep an unofficial tab on the comings and goings of their common native town and Rajvansh's current election seat, Shahpura. No wonder Uday Rajvansh had resolved most of the recent issues there before they could make it to the headlines. Shahpura was ranked as the most progressive and prosperous constituency of the state.

Uday Rajvansh's grandfather and father had always fought the elections from the Chomu constituency. Simultaneously they had worked to get their ancestral Tazimi Thikana, Shahpura, a constituency status. That status was finally granted just ten years back. The Rajvanshs moved their election seat to Shahpura without delay and while they've always won the elections from there, this head-seat of theirs hadn't proven lucky enough to actually bring them to the power. Last elections were particularly brutal for the Rajvansh scion. This year Anthony would obviously follow the state elections with keen interest. Maybe, Lady Luck would shine on Uday Rajvansh this time around.

Knocking on the door, he turned the knob and entered the room.

Niyati, who had been sitting on a brocaded couch in the sitting area of the two-part luxurious bedroom, was in the process of gracefully standing up. Anthony had to blink. Her face had been covered earlier during the ceremony so the effect of her complete look was nothing short of gobsmacking right now. Adorned in the traditional Rajputi bridal gear of lehenga, odhani, and poshak, complete with the trademark Rajputi headgear of rakhdi and sheeshphool, a huge round nose ring, rectangular-ish special Rajasthani necklace, heavy bajubands on her upper arms, along with other royal jewelry, Niyati looked like a genuine princess. If someone would not know of her origins, they could never tell that she was an orphan from Saint Theresa Orphanage in Mumbai. She was a beautiful girl, no doubt, but right now she resembled every inch the royalty she had married into. Actually, it seemed like she had always belonged here in this grandeur.

It was her nervous expressions, that morphed into relief when she saw that it was him, which gave her away. Then she looked the young, vulnerable and scared girl she was at the moment.

"Anthony uncle," she smiled. "I was afraid you had left."

"Without meeting you? Not on your life."

"Can... you not... stay a bit longer?"

"I have to report in the office tomorrow, my child. As it is I have been on a leave for the past month."

Her face dimmed but she bravely said, "I understand, uncle. You have done a lot for me. I cannot thank you enough. I shall be in your debt all my life."

"How many times have I told you that I don't want your gratitude, Niyati? I only want your well-being and happiness. You are like my daughter and daughters don't thank their fathers for getting them married, no matter the circumstances."

Niyati swallowed back a lump that had suddenly appeared in her throat.

"Now, my dear, I want to talk to you before I leave. Come let's sit here," he motioned towards the couch Niyati had just vacated.

He could see the apprehension in Niyati's eyes as they sat down but Anthony strongly believed that being forewarned was being forearmed.

He came straight to the point. "As you can see that Uday Rajvansh is not very happy with the arrangement, I want you to keep your eyes and ears open, Niyati. Try to listen to the things around you as much as possible and don't give away too much information about yourself. Okay?"

"I don't understand.

"Information is a weapon, Niyati. I want you to know them inside out and I want them to keep guessing about your strengths and weaknesses."

"But why?"

"Because Kaveri Devi will hover around you like a helicopter, I can see that. You are carrying her precious grandchild for whom she has sacrificed her elder son. She will not let you out of her sight. But if you think that her concern automatically converts into her loyalty, then no, it won't be so. Her loyalty belongs solely to her son. So anything that she knows about you, just assume that Uday Rajvansh does too. Don't confide in her anything that can be used against you. Ever."

"I still don't... understand."

"Niyati, my child, you will be cherished in this house as long as you are carrying this baby. But have you thought what will happen after that?"

She looked at him blankly.

Anthony sighed, "Once this baby is out of your body and you are two different entities, you are perfectly expendable. Do you understand what I am saying?

Fear washed over her.

Anthony quickly clarified, "He won't hurt you. He is not that kind of a man. I'd made sure of that before even initially approaching him. But there are many ways to dispose of a person without physically hurting them. He could put an unimaginable level of mental pressure on you that you yourself would want to leave the baby in their care and go away. A divorce is always an option and these people would fight for the custody of the child by any means necessary. Just stay alert, my child. Give them nothing that can be used against you in the courts. That's all I am saying. Okay?"

"Can he ...take away my ....baby?

"If he wants to, what will stop him from trying?"

Niyati couldn't think of a single thing. Uday Rajvansh intimidated her by his sheer presence. He had this air about him that gave the onlooker an impression of steely unbending will and if he wanted her baby, really, what will stop him? Especially when she was the reason he had to bend his will this time. He won't be taking his ire out on his dead brother or his mother, it would be her he would target.

Looking at her paling hue, Anthony rushed to assure her, "Don't worry, Niyati. You are not alone. I am there, am I not? And all the property and money that I have gotten transferred in your name, it is not just insurance for your comfortable future but it is also the financial weapon to fight him if such battle ensues. Or, hopefully, a deterrence against any such battle since Rajvansh's wouldn't want their ancestral property going to someone unrelated to them.'

"I told you I don't want their money, uncle. It made him madder, didn't it?"

"But it made your position safer. Don't underestimate Uday Rajvansh, Niyati. Three years back during his party clean up, he had so smoothly disposed of three senior leaders of his party who had a political career spanning longer than Uday Rajvansh's total lifetime, that it had left the whole political society marveling. God knows what tricks he used but not one squeak came out of his party office in a country where the firing of party leaders had reshaped the whole face of politics so many times. Those were some seasoned politicians, you are just a young girl. Do you think you stand a chance against him without a penny to your name?"

Niyati gulped, shaking her head.

"Anyway, you can rest easy for now. Don't work yourself up over what all I said, it is not good for the baby. Nothing is happening for a year at least, I can guarantee that. With elections looming ahead and Abhay Rajvansh scandal looming behind him, Uday Rajvansh is in a very precarious position at the moment. He will not want to open another front for himself. Then his mother's happiness is also to be considered. So, right now you concentrate on eating healthy, staying happy and taking good care of yourself. I didn't want to leave you ignorant to possible future scenarios, that is all. We will talk again when I come next time."

"You will come... next time?" Niyati asked, surprised. She had thought that she will be on her own now that Anthony uncle had fulfilled his promise to his sister.

"Of course. I will not leave you alone to face them. You have nothing to fear. It isn't everyday one comes across an honest soul like yours, my child, and I am glad I figured that before making a wrong judgment call. You are my responsibility now. My sister has given you in my care and I will not let either of you down."

Something heavy lodged itself in Niyati's chest. No one had ever felt responsible for her. She found herself incapable of handling this compassion shown to her. So, instead, she concentrated on the strength those words gave her. Later, in solitude, she will savor Anthony uncle's kindness. Again, and again, and again, she knew.

"Thank you, uncle. It means a lot to me," aloud she said.

"Don't forget that I am only a phone call away. Between here and Delhi, it will take me less than two hours to reach you if you need me."

"I know," Niyati smiled.

"And what all I said might just turn out to be my paranoia. But doesn't hurt to stay prepared, does it?"

It does not, Niyati silently agreed.

"So no reason to worry right away. Kaveri Devi will bend backward to keep you in a good mood right now. Your only job is to stay happy and take care of yourself, okay?"

Niyati nodded.

Anthony affectionately patted her head, "See you soon. God bless you!"

.

.

.

.

Will God truly bless me this time? Niyati thought maudlinly. Tough, considering there was no prior evidence of such benevolence from the Almighty in her life, she told herself in the next breath.

It had been two hours since Anthony uncle had left. After a change of clothes, and after a super healthy yet delicious meal under Kaveri Devi's cautious supervision, she was taking rest on the older lady's cajoling insistence. On the most comfortable bed she has ever lain on. In, what was without question, the most opulent room she had ever been in. The curtains of this room must have cost more than all her life savings. And she was going to live here now.

In her marital home. Her first ever family experience.

But without any love.

Ironic, considering all she'd ever wanted was some love.

But there still was no love for her on this earth. No sense of belonging in her fate.

Not to any person. Not to any place. Nowhere.

She was cursed to be unwanted.

Since the beginning.

Left on a dumpster as a newborn, on a dark rainy night, in the suburbs of Bhandup in Mumbai twenty-five years back, was how her life had begun. Not even a note begging for compassion for her was found on her. She was coldheartedly abandoned by someone, just like that. Who? Her mother? Her father? She would never know. When she was around eight or nine years old she had woven a fantasy reason in her mind that she had been kidnapped from the hospital by some evil woman to spite her parents. That someone will come looking for her one day. That she will reunite with her mother who had been waiting for her on tenterhooks with a heart full of love and concern for years. But as she grew up and acknowledged the hopeless heartbreaking manner in which this world worked, she put a full stop to all the silliness. Nobody was searching for her. No use twisting the facts she didn't really know and couldn't really change. She was an unwanted baby, and that was probably the real truth. An unwed mother probably left her on the garbage dump to save her own face.

But where did she get her name from then, she had questioned Sister Sophia a few years later. Among all the nuns, who loved them orphan kids in their own detached fashion, Niyati had felt closest to Sister Sophia. The kind woman had tried to divert her from looking for the origins of her name but she had been pitifully curious for any crumb of her past. How was she to know that those answers were going to break her little heart even more? She had been adopted as an infant. In spite of being sickly with pneumoniac tendency due to being left out in the elements only a day after her birth, she had been a beautiful baby. Her adoption had gone through easily. That couple had given her the name Niyati Mishra. She had found a home for herself. Or not. Turned out the couple couldn't cope with her frequent sickness, expenditure on doctors and general fussiness of her sickly self. She was returned to the orphanage with 'thanks but no thanks' three months later. The adoptive parents said that for a girl child, she was too much work which they didn't sign up for and fled. But the name stuck. Nobody had the time or interest in searching for a new name for her. Even her name was an unwanted charity.

Then came the chapter of Abhay Rajvansh in her life. An extremely short chapter. And an extremely bitter one. A sum total of two months of courtship full of sham love and empty promises, and two nights of physical passion. He was 'interning' at the five-star hotel in Mumbai where she was working as a receptionist. He was bored and she was a needy fool. She hadn't known who he was when she had fallen hook line and sinker for his honeyed trap. If she had known he came from this kind of money, she would have stayed clear of him at all costs. Everybody knows that upper-class elites don't marry girls like her. Never. But she didn't know who he was and he had obviously lied left right and center. But how had that profligate knew so well what will make her click was beyond her! Probably because he had honed this art of seducing stupid young girls to an art form, now that she knew more about him. He had been a consummate playboy and she was his usual way of passing time until his big brother found another task for him to learn some ropes of the business.

He hadn't flirted with her or anything. He had pretended to directly dive into the deep end with sincere-sounding promises of love, meeting the parents, marriage, children. He had really looked like an answer to all her prayers. So serious, so genuine, so caring. Unaffected that she was an orphan, only wanting her love. A companion who had similar goals in life. Good looking and so knowledgable, yet no airs. Too good to be true, now that she thinks of it. In the hindsight, she'd behaved out of character, not him. She, who never gave anyone any liberty with herself, who kept a low profile and a sane head on her shoulders, who knew what she was waiting for in life, who had been mature enough since the young age. Exactly how desperate had she become to not see through his web of lies? So gullible that she had believed all the crap he had dished out? So afraid of losing the stable family life he had sketched in front of her eyes that she'd fallen into bed with him? Not once, but twice. Don't you trust me, he had asked. Well, now she knew not to trust any Rajvansh. Anthony uncle certainly didn't need to worry on that account.

She still can't get over the humiliation she had been subjected to in the month after she had discovered she was pregnant and tried to contact Abhay Rajvansh. She might have been trying to contact life-form on Pluto with all the success she'd had. He turned out to be similarly efficient in dodging his discarded women as he had been in procuring them. Had Sister Sophia not lent her a sympathetic ear and rock-solid support, she would have been all on her own. No money, no family and responsibility of a tiny life on her shoulders that had scared the shit out of her when it had made its presence known initially.

Her hand automatically lifted to caress her still flat stomach. Her heart which had started racing with suppressed anger instantly slowed down. Her baby was her life now. The small bean inside her had somehow become the core of her strength, and it was up to her to become strong for her baby. She took a deep breath. Abhay Rajvansh had been a nightmare, which was behind her now. And no matter what Uday Rajvansh thinks, she was here on sufferance too. She would have much preferred Anthony uncle's assistant as her husband. But Sister Sophia had run the show and this was what she had thought was right for the baby.

Now she will have to make the best of this situation.

For her baby's sake.

And most certainly, no one was taking her only flesh and blood away from her.

If Uday Rajvansh has any designs in that direction, she will kill him first.

Let's see how all this money of his helps him then!

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