A Loveless Arranged Marriage

Chapter 16. Time to forget the past

 Previously, we saw that Arvind and Shahina were blessed with a baby girl, and they named their baby girl "Isha". Let's see what happened next.

After 2 weeks, we see Rishi in Rishi's house. Rishi was wearing a black blazer, a white shirt, and blue jeans, and he was waiting for Deepa in the living hall. Deepa also came out of her room after some time and asked Rishi, "Can we go now?" Rishi was going to say yes, but when he saw her, he got mesmerised by her beauty. Deepa was dressed in a black saree; her hair was tied in side-swept curls, and she was wearing a small earring. After some seconds, Rishi replied, "Yay, we can go now." Then they both got out of the house, and they both reached the parking lot. After getting into the car, they both started heading to Rishi's office. While they were heading to the office, Rishi complimented Deepa. He says, "Hey, Deepa, you look beautiful in this saree." For that, Deepa replied, "Thanks for that compliment, but you could have chosen some other attire rather than coming in this formal outfit." Rishi then replied, "Yes, I also think about that, but it is our dress code," and after saying it, he continued with his driving.

After 18 minutes, Rishi and Deepa reached Rishi's office. When they were entering the office, it was filled with Christmas vibes. There was a Christmas garland hanging around the walls, a Christmas tree, and a directional board kept in the waiting hall. The directional board was showing directions to the office park. When they both came to the office park, the entrance of the park was decorated with fairy lights. When they passed through the entrance, they saw there were more than 150 large dining tables placed in the park. Also, there were large numbers of people present at that party. Rishi asked Deepa to follow him. Rishi then started heading to table number 57, where his colleagues Arvind, Akshaya and his family, Ibrahim, Sunny, and some of his team members and their families were presented.

After 10 minutes, the party started. The general manager came in front of everybody, and he started saying, "Welcome my fellow employees and their families to this Christmas party. It is nice to see all of you. As most of you know me, I will still introduce myself. I'm Paul Lucas, the general manager of this Mumbai division of the company. I don't want to waste your time by giving you a long speech. We will start the party with a small musical performance from the HR team. So, we will welcome the HR team." After Paul's speech, everyone applauded him, and at the same time, Sunny said to Ibrahim, "Ibrahim bro, I am surprised by seeing the GM end his speech so short." Ibrahim replied, "Yay, even I was surprised by that, but let's avoid it and enjoy the programme." After hearing this, Sunny didn't reply to anything and continued to watch the HR team's performance. After that, a dance performance by the newbies of the company and a game show were conducted. After all this, Paul came to the front of everyone and started saying, "So, you've quite enjoyed it till now. Here comes another event, a couple dance, but there is something different here. I will select five couples from among you, and they will perform the couple dance for just 2 minutes. The couple will be selected by the spotlight, which will be controlled by me. So be ready for it." After hearing it, Rishi said to Arvind, "Arvind, today he planned for something," and Arvind replied, "Yes, let's see who will be a couple scapegoats."

The spotlight started tracing among the crowd whenever the light passed through someone. Most of the people wished that the spotlight didn't choose them. But still, the spotlight had chosen 4 out of 5 couples among the crowd. There is still one couple to be chosen among the crowd. The spotlight then started tracing among the crowd. The spotlight started slowly approaching Rishi. Rishi wished in his mind that the spotlight wouldn't stop on him. But fate and Paul have something against Rishi, which made Rishi and Deepa the fifth couple chosen for the couple dance. When the spotlight stopped on Rishi, everyone around him cheered for him. Rishi was making a fake smile, but inside he was wondering why Paul chose him. On the other side, Deepa was enjoying this moment. The manager then asked them to introduce themselves. After that introduction, the manager asked them one by one to start the couple dance. While they were dancing, Rishi asked Deepa, "Deepa, are you enjoying this moment?" Deepa replied, "Yay," and Rishi then replied, "Oh, but I am not feeling well." Deepa then asked him, "Why what happened?" and Rishi replied, "Deepa, see, I know the couple dance, but I am feeling nervous because I am doing it for the first time." For that, Deepa replied, "Rishi, we are just dancing, nothing more than that. If you get nervous, just look into my eyes." Rishi then said, "Ok, fine, we will try to avoid the audience as much as possible." Deepa then replied, "I am okay with it," and Rishi replied, "Ok, fine then."