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Chapter 5 | Akshara

Two weeks later 

I had officially moved in with Abhinav Sharma, AKA my beloved fake husband, the night he had returned from his London trip, which could also count as the beginning of my sleepless nights. The next day, just as we had discussed, he accompanied me back to the coffee shop because he didn't trust me with the walls of his newly acquired free property. While I did get him to agree—after a very convincing and long talk—that I could, in fact, do a beautiful paint job, he ended up painting most of the place himself, souring my victory.

He exasperated me to no end the entire time, and I had no clue what to do with him.

He also wanted me to clear out my apartment in the East Village right away, but I ignored his wishes and slowly packed everything during the painting business. The hell with Kairav's threats.

Sitting alone in the middle of the coffee shop, munching on a sandwich I had put together in the back, I was waiting for the IKEA delivery guys to bring me my bookcase. Soon after, they arrived, but before I could tackle that project, the chairs were delivered.

When everything was said and done—the bookcase assembled, the chairs where I thought they should be— hours had passed, and I'd only just then sat my ass down for the first time. I groaned and leaned my head back against the wall. I thought closing my eyes just for a few seconds wasn't a bad idea because my eyesight was starting to get alarmingly blurry.

Of course doing that only reminded me of how much I needed more sleep. Every morning, I quietly got dressed and, as if I were an intruder, tiptoed out of Abhinav Sharma's little mansion to get to the shop. At night, I chose to disappear into my room the moment I stepped into his apartment.

All my attempts at talking with my husband had failed, one after another, so I had stopped after attempt number four. The more questions I asked, the more I tried to talk to him, either the quicker he annoyed me or the quicker he walked away from me. The short conversation we'd had on the terrace that first night had been our longest one.

Yet...yet, even after the painting was done, he had shown up every single night to pick me up on his way to the apartment. Was it to check on the property? To say I was confused about my husband would've been an understatement. I had no idea what to think about the man.

He had been the one to make the marriage offer, but with the way he was acting, so cool and distant at all times, you'd think I'd held an invisible gun to his head to make him say I do.

I didn't see things changing any time soon if I didn't do anything about it.

I also had no idea how we were going to keep this charade up if we actually had to stand next to each other and talk to people as a married couple. If anyone had seen us working together at the coffee shop, or even on the terrace that first night, they would've thought we were out on a never-ending blind date, forced to endure every minute instead of making a quick escape.

I must've been on the verge of falling asleep because when I heard a loud knock, I leaped up and somehow managed to hit the side of my thigh on the edge of the table in front of me. "Jesus Christ!" Pressing my hand to my leg to ease the pain, I hopped over to the door just as another loud knock filled the coffee shop.

Feeling a little drowsy and maybe a little jumpy too, I lifted the side of the newspaper that was protecting everything going on inside from wandering eyes. My heart rate somewhat slowed down when I saw it was just Abhinav Sharma standing on the other side of the glass. Lifting my finger to indicate it'd be a minute, I taped the newspaper back in place and let out a long breath before I started unlocking the door.