6. My Boss. My Tormentor. My Husband.

ROSE

I couldn’t believe it.

I was pregnant.

I was fucking pregnant with his baby.

With Ryan Johnson’s baby.

Oh god. I was pregnant with a baby whose father left me and was now in another country, probably with another woman.

But as I sat there with that knowledge, surprisingly that thought didn’t upset me as much as it did before. Now it just made me fucking furious. If only I got my hands on him!

The fucking bastard!

A week has passed since the day I got to know that I was pregnant. And, I was still upset with Michael for hiding it from me for those few weeks before I had went on a suicide spree.

I couldn’t bring myself to believe that either. That I, Rose Kapoor, fell down this deep into the well of my misery and tried to end my fucking life. And I hadn’t known that it wasn’t just me. With my stupid actions, I would’ve not only hurt myself but also my baby.

My hand dropped to caress my still flat stomach as I thought about how I could have hurt this little life growing inside me and I felt the ache in my chest of guilt and sadness. But I pushed that sadness aside, where my baby was concerned I didn’t want to be sad.

It was amazing how everything I felt depressed about had suddenly changed in a week. A week after my ordeal in the hospital, a week in which I had come to terms with my pregnancy and a week in which I came to know what I was going to do next.

And here I was, on my way to where I was supposed to be.

I smiled softly as I acknowledged the fact that this was the first thing that had truly made me happy in so long.

“First time?” The cab driver’s question startled me out of my musings and when I looked at him, his eyes flicked to my stomach where I was still lightly caressing it.

“Yeah.” I answered.

“Congratulations…” He replied.

“Thank you.” I smiled at him and turned to look out the window as the familiar streets came into view and soon the car stopped in front of the place that was supposed to be my home.

At least, it had felt like one until Ryan left. I hadn’t been here since I was admitted to the hospital that first time because of alcohol poisoning. And then when Monica had taken me to her place, I had refused to come back here as I afraid of all the memories.

But now here I was.

Because I knew Michael had lied to me. I knew it. I could feel it. But I needed something to make me believe in myself. Michael had told me that Ryan wasn’t there in the hospital. That ‘he’ wasn’t the one who had tormented me in the hospital bathroom.

Michael told me that I was fúcking hallucinating. I had nodded my head, but I didn’t believe a word of what he said. I knew deep inside my soul that Ryan had been there.

I knew Ryan had been there. I refused to believe anything else. Because I had looked into his grey eyes when I had confessed my love and begged him not to leave me. And he had stared at me with his grey eyes filled with unshed tears as he had demanded me to be his lioness. I had seen the hurt and pain in his eyes because I had been hurt and in pain.

I had known what Ryan Johnson looked like when he had been furious and hurting. And that night in that hospital bathroom, I had seen it in his eyes, those grey depths that had been the only window to his soul in that darkened bathroom. Dressed in all black with a mask hiding his face from me, he had made me realise how strong I could be.

As I paid the fare and stepped out of the cab, my mind went to all the times I had come to our apartment with Ryan. I swallowed the tightness in my throat and walked inside the building.

In the front lobby, the doorman smiled at me. I nodded at him in return as I made my way to the elevator.

“Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. Do not think about it,” I chanted in my mind the whole time I was in the elevator. But when the elevator doors opened on the top floor, I couldn’t stop it. Even after trying so hard, tears welled up in my eyes.

__

“On your knees.” His sharp command made my eyes widen in alarm. He couldn’t be serious. “Now!” He was serious.

Once again I looked at the numbers on the panel. Thirty-two. I licked my lips, ready to reason with him. But he didn’t give me a chance. Grabbing my hair more tightly than before, he made the back of my eyes sting with pain. He met my eyes as he said, “Make me cum.”

I stopped breathing. What was he doing? How could he? What if someone saw us? Finally, I found my voice. “I am not going to suck you in the elevator.”

His eyes seemed to darken even more. He gave a tug on my hair to draw his words deeper as he said, “I’m done playing nice with you. You suck me now and make me cum before we reach my floor, or I’m going to fuck you here, against the elevator wall.”

__

I shook off the memory. Breathing deeply and wiping the tears off my face, I walked to the only apartment on the top floor. My fingers shook as I opened the locked door. My whole body felt cold, waiting for all the emotions I was so tired of blocking.

As I stepped into the apartment that had once felt like a home, now it felt and looked empty and cold. Clean. Everything was in its place. The damage I remembered, the cushions and bottles strewn all over the floor, was gone.

Walking further inside, I looked everywhere and saw everything that had happened between him and me like a film playing over in front of my eyes.

The deal in the kitchen that I had made for Aditya.

My apology, when I had dropped down to my knees in front of those floor-to-ceiling windows.

That time when he had pushed me against this very door, kissing me so brutally. And I had thrown my shoe at him.

I smiled a wobbly smile, even as silent tears slid down my cheeks at the memories unfurling in my mind. I walked to the bedroom, and I remembered when I had waited for him blindfolded on the bed. And then an image of him with me in his arms came back to haunt me. The first time he had made love to me. The time when he had cared for me after my kidnapping.

The last time when he had made his vows to me with every thrust of his hard cock inside me.

I opened the closet and looked through the dresses he had given me on numerous occasions. My favourite one, that he had given me after my accident, which had something to do with my confession which was under the influence of painkillers— that I loved colors.

I took out every dress and all the things that I wanted, and then my eyes caught the red silk… I chuckled as I remembered that day, with me standing on the roadside, my clothes had been totally ruined because of the billionaire who hadn’t seemed to care who was in his way.

That day seemed so long ago. How far I had come. I was supposed to build a life for myself, get a job, and live independently. But here I was, reminiscing about my boss who had been my tormentor and now the father of my unborn child.

When I had all the things packed and ready to leave this part of my life behind, I took one last look at the bedroom before I started to close the door. But something caught my eyes and I paused.

I pushed the door back, opening it wider, as I made my way to the bed. His side of the bed.

Part of me was afraid to hope. Part of me just wanted it to end. And a small part of me wanted it to be what I thought it was. But it was shining so bright in the light, when seen from a different angle.

I watched as my hand reached for the pillow, my fingers shaking as I grabbed the pillow and lifted it.

And there it was…

A ring wedged between the mattress and the bedpost. A ring I had seen him wearing on his pinky finger, a very thin small band, dotted with tiny diamonds. I had thought about it but had never asked him about it either, and it had been left unasked, like so many other things he had kept hidden from me.

And it was kind of funny that now I carried his child, his DNA, but I still didn’t know much about his life back at home.

But I knew about his emotions, how he felt, how he reacted.

And I knew what he had been saying. A smile, first in so many days that I could feel in my whole body, tilted my lips up as I took the ring and slid it on my finger. “Oh, Mr. Ryan Johnson….”

I exited the bedroom, ready to do what I was supposed to do this whole time.

But wait… There was something else. He wasn’t done yet.

There were files on the table in the living room. The files that I remembered vaguely, were in the two envelopes he had left me. I scrunched up my nose, not really wanting to know, but needing to.

Putting the bag down, I took a seat on the sofa. The first file I picked up was a contract that he had had me sign all those months ago and a note with, “I’m sorry”, in it. And the second… it took my breath away as I went through the papers.

Ryan k. Johnson. The man I hated to love didn’t just leave me with a heartbreak and his baby, but more. He had been a mystery. He was my boss, my tormentor. And now he was my husband.

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A. Gupta