Pallavi ran inside the hall of the Rao Mansion, her long hair almost dishevelled in the wind, eyes wide and searching. She almost dashed with Reddy as the latter came hurriedly from the kitchen on hearing her rapid footsteps. 

"Madam.. aap?"

"Reddy... where is he? I.."

"Madam, Anna is actually.. I mean.."

"What has happened? Woh theek hain naa? Kahan hain? Maine news mein dekha.."

As if on cue, Raghav trudged up gingerly upstairs, to appear suddenly at the top of the staircase from where he could look down on them. 

"Reddy! How long will my dinner take...."

He stopped short finally noticing Pallavi who had whipped her face up to look at him. Their eyes met and incidentally both felt a jolt of something unknown travel like lightning through their spines. Raghav looked at her in shock and hurried downstairs, forgetting about Reddy and his dinner, his eyes trained on only Pallavi as she stood almost rooted to her place. 

"Pallavi..?"

He asked tremulously, having forgotten about the canvas of pain splattered all over his bruised and battered body, wrapped securely under the black housecoat and robe, his impressive torso not on full display, for maybe the first time since she had found him in his manor. 

He had reached at the bottom most step of the staircase when Pallavi finally managed to shake herself out of her trance and what followed next was almost a blur. She had covered the fifteen feet distance between them in a matter of a nanosecond maybe, almost flying into him. Raghav didn't get time to even exclaim as his arms automatically opened to accommodate her slim frame.  

They both got the waft of the other's fragrance. 

Her lavender perfume and strawberry shampoo mixed with a hint of vanilla of the body lotion. 

His musk cologne and spicy aftershave mixed with a draft of the citrusy aqua bodywash. 

The contact sent an almost electric shock through their individual bodies and Raghav swallowed a painful gasp at the strong impact on his bruised chest. Pallavi had her arms wrapped around his powerful shoulders, almost hanging from his neck at this point and he had his arms wrapped around her willowy saree wrapped waist. 

His face was buried in her hair unknowingly and she instinctively burrowed her own face in the crook of his neck, inhaling his natural scent hungrily. 

Tears had sprung in both of their eyes, which they wanted to hide from the other. Which in itself was a pretty lost cause consider they could feel the moisture over themselves because of the way they had entwined with each other like two limpets. 

Had someone seen the silhouette then it would have casted the shape of only one person. 

Pallavi separated first, after what must have been a good five minutes and immediately attacked Raghav's face with a flurry of kisses which the latter had tried to initiate as well resulting in their aquiline noses colliding adorably. 

"Ghamandi Rao!"

"Saree Ka Dukaan!"

They exclaimed frustrated simultaneously and then glared at the other with wet eyes and flushed faces. 

"Mujhe kiss karne do!"

"Tum mereko kiss karne do pehle.."

"Nhi!"

"Kyun!"

"Mujhe pehle karni hain.. tum baad mein kar lena.."

"Arre par.."

"Nhi! Chup chaap khade raho statue banke and let me do what I want."

Raghav looked at her a mixture of exasperated fondness and a gut wrenching ache in his handsome eyes. 

"Ab tum iss baat pe bhi ladega kya merese Saree Ka Dukaan."

Pallavi's voice was clogged with emotions which streamed down her beautiful face in the form of long threads of tears shocking Raghav badly. He had never seen his fierce Saree Ka Dukaan cry before. He had seen her eyes betray her pain many a times but she had been too strong, too composed to let the liquid collected in those mesmerizing marble depths flow. 

This was perhaps the only time, her tears had betrayed her completely. 

He cupped her face in his large palms, his onyx eyes drooping in her obvious grief, making her look more tiny than ever which only served to create a major pang in his cold heart. 

Pallavi had her own hands ascend to touch his bigger ones, which were cradling her face with such tenderness making her feel like she was the most precious thing in the entire fucking universe. 

"Haan! Main toh ladungi aur jeetungi bhi.. jaise hamesha jeet ti hun.. now let me kiss you.."

He crushed his eyes close, an expression of exquisite agony on his chiselled features, leaving her face slowly, accepting his defeat in front of her.. again. Pallavi didn't waste a second before her hand were now cradling his face, those lithe fingers holding his bearded jaw and defined cheeks. 

And then she mapped all the contours of his face with those petal soft lips, showering butterfly kisses all over his cool skin. She manoeuvred his face to access each inch of his skin, covering his temples, forehead, eyes, nose, cheeks, jaw and chin with her breathless kisses. 

She pressed the softest kisses ever on the heated skin of the large bluish purple bruise under his right eye, which covered his cheekbone, slightly yellowing over the edges. 

He hissed in pain as her lips found an inflamed area hidden in his stubble at the jaw and could almost sense the punch which would have resulted in that bruise. 

A low sob escaped her while kissing the painful looking split on his lower lip and she licked it lightly as if to smooth the skin there and then drunk in the few stray tears which had rolled down his still closed eyes. 

When she finally separated, her hands lowering to rest against his heaving velvet covered chest. Raghav opened his eyes finally and gazed down at her, emotions warring so mightily in those obsidian depths that for a second she felt like his gaze alone would consume her.

He had had his long arms wrapped around her waist firmly all the while, keeping her body in contact with his, afraid that if he left her, she might have disappeared in the surrounding air. 

"Pall..avi."

His voice broke and he hated himself for that little evidence of weakness. She seemed to swallow a lead stone which had accumulated in her throat and closed her eyes instantly unable to hold his gaze any longer. A meek sob slipping past her lips before she could catch it. 

"Ēḍavaku nā ... Do not cry my love...."

"I am sorry!"

She managed to utter before bursting into an uncontrollable fit of sobbing and found herself being immediately dragged to his chest where she buried her reddening face. Raghav felt his heart break with every whimpering tear washed apology she said muffled against his chest. 

"I.. am sorry Raghav... I am so.. so sorry... I am sorry..."

"Saree Ka Dukaan... kyun maanfi maang raha hain.. tumne kuch nhi kiya.. pata hain mereko.."

"Par ye sab meri wajah se hua! He did this because of me! I am sorry... please... please trust me Raghav... mere haath mein hota toh main kabhi... nhi hone deti.. I am sorry.. so so sorry.."

"Hush... calm down love.. please. Kuch nhi hua... sab theek hain.. main theek hain.."

"Nhi.. theek hain.. kuch theek nhi hain... How could he? How could he do this? How dare he! How fucking dare he!"

Pallavi almost screamed removing her face from his chest to look up at him, anguished and enraged equally. Raghav brushed aside the few strands of hair which had stuck to her cheek with the dried tears with one hand while the other was still wrapped around her waist. 

"Calm down Pallavi.. shaant... aur rona band karo abhi.. please. Tumhare ko pata hain na, tum rote hue bohot bekaar dikta hain? Red Panda ban jata hain.."

Pallavi glared at him but couldn't find the energy to continue the banter he was obviously trying to divert her attention to. She could feel the humiliation he must have felt sizzle in her own body, making her skin roil with it. 

How could that piece of shit do this!

When Vijay had learnt of his daughter's increased association with Raghav Rao, he had gotten to Pallavi's marriage alliances with an unforeseen gusto. Sharda and Milind had tried disassuading him from compelling Pallavi to agree to get married to someone without her consent but to no avail. 

Vijay had taken a promise from Pallavi, keeping his own life as a stake, a classic emotional manipulative move - that she would never meet with Raghav again and get married to the man he would choose for her. Pallavi, helpless, confused and in a state of dilemma had agreed. And thus she was forced to cut all ties with her Ghamandi Rao... the man she had been secretly falling for since the past few days. 

Raghav had always been very clear about his intention. He had told her, he hated her when he truly despised her, had told her that he kind of admired her courage when she stood up to him, because he really did and when he had started liking her, he had told that to her on her bewildered face as well. 

Sometimes his brutal frankness took her aback and sometimes it made her want to throw all caution to the wind and melt into him and fulfil all her hidden desires and secret fantasies. All her carefully crafted barriers would come open like the peels of an onion in his presence and she would find herself turning towards him like a sunflower towards the sun. 

It was all coming up beautifully, with Raghav's candid hints and her playful nudgings when Vijay had dropped the bomb on her. 

She had like a dutiful daughter, agreed, locking away the agony of separation deep inside her heart and had informed Raghav rather rudely that she couldn't continue with whatever situation- ship they had found themselves in. 

He had been persistent for some time, trying to figure out her sudden diffidence but to no avail. 

Then he had just left heart broken.

And that had been a month since she had last set eyes upon him. 

She would dream of him often, her pillow stained with her dried tears for hours in the darkest depths of the night. She would search for him everywhere, in the stars, in the moon, in the air, in other people, in the sunlight, in her sarees.. on the news, in the papers, on the net and drink in any sight of him like a man parched for days in a desert having found an oasis. 

Vijay had fixed her marriage with a fairly decent guy named Aditya. Now Aditya was in the Hyderabad Police Force and on the surface a very mild mannered, good hearted man. Pallavi truly had nothing to say against him, so she didn't. Not that any of her words would have been taken in account anyways. 

Her father had started to show some colours she didn't know, he possessed. 

Everything was going smoothly. Her life slowly becoming dull and lifeless, filled with the daily drudgery she was initially used to before her self proclaimed Don's entry in her life when something truly horrific had occurred.

Vijay had apparently been sowing the seeds of doubt and utter disdain for Raghav in Aditya's head. Pallavi's prior interaction with the Diamond King had been twisted by him to create something ugly. It was only because of Amrutha that Pallavi had come to know of the disgusting plan which her so called fiance' and father had plotted. 

"Kaka and Aditya jiju want to trap Raghav, Pallavi. They have filed a case in your name in the police station against Raghav. It says that apparently he has molested you and tried to rape you. Because of his high profile public persona and reputation you are too afraid to come in light, so your dad and your to be husband can file it for you. Jiju's father is the Commissioner of Hyderabad Police.... they have gone to arrest Raghav. It will truly be a disaster Pallavi. Not only is this morally and ethically wrong, it is legally wrong and... the rape accused specially with a womanizer reputation might not receive bail. Stop this somehow... "

Pallavi had run to the Police Station, horror, terror and an acute sense of disbelieved disgust warring inside her. On reaching she had found that her father and Aditya had already left and apparently Raghav had been brought in for interrogation but he hadn't been arrested due to lack of evidence. She had invalidated the FIR immediately with the help of the IO. 

She had ran back home then, determined to cut off all ties with Aditya only to come back at the moment when he was regaling everyone in the Deshmukh House, how he had relished beating Raghav Rao black and blue during the interrogation like he was some lowlife criminal caught red handed on basis of irrefutable evidence and not someone barely proven as a culprit based on an illegal report. 

She had seen literal red and before her brain could have caught up with her limbs, she had found her hand connecting with Aditya's face with such vigour that the snap of his neck had broken like a crack of a whip in the air. 

"You bloody disgusting brute! Get the hell out of my house and never show your face to me ever again or else I will break every single bone in your worthless body!"

She would have been appalled at her own choice of words had she not been fuming like a dragon on fire. But at that moment only pain and humiliation and a blinding wrath had her nerves in a chokehold. 

She had run to the Rao Mansion from there, ignoring everyone else's calls from behind without a second's reluctance. Her infinite patience, unbelievable restraint and infallible resilience had finally shattered like a house of cards in the wind. 

She could not give a flying fuck about anyone, anymore.

Anyone except her Ghamandi Rao.

"Your so called fiance might be the SHO of Hyderabad Police and his father might be the Commissioner but I have far more connections than that. Those idiots thought they'll get away with this indignity. I will crush them under the heel of my boot before they can scream abort. Don't worry about that. By the time I will be done with your to be husband, he will not remember his own name..."

"Don't call him by any relation to me!"

Pallavi snapped, her pretty features marred in disgust. Raghav's eyes twinkled in mischief next. 

"Accha? So you are not marrying this shit stain?"

"No! God no! The Devil no!"

"Waise Pallavi... manaa ki tum mereko pasand nhi karta par aisa replacement chuna? Mereko pehle se hi pata tha, tumhara taste bohot ghatiyan hain.."

Pallavi gawked at him for some seconds and then pushed on his chest to come out of his embrace harshly. 

"You absolute jerk! I came literally running in your arms, breaking off my engagement with another man, literally smothered you with kisses and this is what you infer from this?"

Raghav raised an eyebrow, fighting a smile with all his might. 

"Haa.. main irresistible hain pata hain.. par iska matlab ye toh nhi nikaal sakte na ki tum pasand karta hain."

Before Pallavi could say anything else she finally noticed all the staff who had gathered in the hall hearing the commotion and had been looking down at their feet having glimpsed a second of that heart warming scene from some time ago, their eyes moist with tears.

"Your boss has to be the smartest most stupid man I have ever met in this life!"

She exclaimed throwing her hands in the air dramatically making everyone chuckle under their breaths while Raghav just tilted his head, eyebrows high on his deadpan face. Pallavi looked at him for some time, waiting for him to react, say anything.. only for him to keep staring at her. 

Then she got the hint and felt the colour rise on her cheeks instantly. 

"I am not saying I love you to you in front of everyone. So forget it."

She barked, embarrassed and annoyed at one go. To her immense surprise Raghav burst out laughing at that followed by his equally amused staff. Pallavi looked confused and then Farhad taking pity on his poor to be Bhabi, tapped on her shoulder from the back.

"Bhabi.. aapna Anna ko I love you boldiya while trying to say ki aap unhe sabke saamne I love you nhi bolengi."

Pallavi felt the colour in her cheeks spread to the tips of her ears making them burn and she swiftly turned to storm away only for feeling a strong arm literally whisk her away from her feet. 

"Raghav! Kya kar rahe ho?"

She squeaked blushing adorably while Raghav had her in his arms, bridal style and started walking towards his room, upstairs. 

"Tumne toh I love you toh bol diya, ab mera turn hain, isliye le jaa raha hain.."

She hid her face in the crook of his neck and murmured against his coffee coloured skin.

"Woh toh wahaan niche bhi bol saktein the naa..upar le jaane ki kya zaroorat hain.."

Raghav looked down at her and smirked like Satan himself making a jolt of thrill pass her spine.

"You would have put me on a no touch ban for life had I told it in my style downstairs. And anyways, Farhad is a kid still.. I don't want to scar him for life."

"Raghav!"

Pallavi squeaked softly. 

"Anna! I am twenty five!"

Farhad's whiny words remained lost in the haze of Raghav and Pallavi's shared chuckles as they entered the bedroom. 

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