Bound by Love

Armaan Verma stared at his legal adviser lethally.

The man hasn't yet found the information he needed even after ten months.

He could already see beads of perspiration forming on the older man's brows and upper lip. Any fool could see that the man is terrified.

He ought to be, Armaan thought, after the emotional turmoil Armaan is going through for past 10 months.

"There are no reports of her being spotted anywhere in the last two months. The last she attended, in the report, is a party held at Delhi" Kamal Mishra a fifty-year-old man who has been working for the Verma Industries for the past 10 years looked at his employer cautiously

"How difficult is it to find a woman. That too one as promiscuous as Janani Trivedi could be" Armaan thundered at the older man.

The name brought an acidic taste in his mouth.

"We are onto her, Mr Verma. I am sure by the evening the private investigators would definitely come up with information on the woman" Kamal Mishra informed with a conviction which he didn’t really feel.

Once Kamal Mishra left, Armaan looked at his laptop and the CCTV picture of Janani Trivedi.

His lips curled up in distaste.

She has a pretty face. A doe shaped eyes a dull brown with no warmth. Her eyes are colder and calculating than any women he had met so far. And he had his fair share of women in his life. All with dollar signs in their eyes. That’s telling something, isn't it.

Armaan Verma never trusted women since his mother walked out on them when Adesh was a baby and he was barely 5.

He had seen his father hitting the bottle and ruining the family fortune grieving for the woman who left him for another man.

And he would never trust a woman in his life.

Never ever

"Found any information??" Adesh asked looking at the photo of Janani Trivedi, hanging on the arms of a man thrice her age in front of a night club, with distaste.

"Not yet, but I will soon" Armaan said.

"How is Ava?? Did you talk to her today??" Adesh asked and Armaan sighed thinking about his three-year-old daughter whom he didn’t even knew existed until three months back.

"I went to the room, and she hid under her bed as usual. I don't know how to get her to talk to me. You know what happened the last time I tried."

Armaan still remember the terror in his little girl's eyes, the anguish on her face, how she hid behind her nanny shaking on her little feet.

"If we had known about Ava long before, you wouldn't have had to…" Adesh was cut off mid-sentence by Armaan

"Don't Adesh. Never wish my son away! He does exist and I will do everything in my power to get him back" Armaan said fiercely.

"I didn’t mean it that way Maan. I am just worried about you. How are you going to cope with two children? They would need a mother " Adesh said and Armaan let out a dark chuckle

"We grew up without a mother, didn’t we?? We turned out okay. Neither did we have a father, as a matter of fact. My children would at least have a father. And they will have an uncle too" Armaan said

Adesh looked at his older brother who has been a father figure for him. He doesn't remember his mother but his brother still does and that rejection at the early childhood had shaped his character.

His brother is cynical about life and could anyone blame him for that, when he never felt that kind of love or care when it matters. He had his older brother to look after him.

Who did his brother have...??

No one...

Adesh could only hope someone would come into his brother's life for his brother's sake and for the kids' sake.

Armaan saw a notification popping up in his laptop and looked up to see it was a mail from the private investigator. He opened the mail and smiled cynically.

They had tracked her down, at last.

The thieving child stealer. The whore. Janani Trivedi.

Words weren't enough to express the hate he has for this one woman he had never ever met in his life. She had dared to play with him.

She stole his son and tried to sell him back like a bargaining chip.

His son!

It troubled him a lot that he won't be able to take serious legal actions against this woman. Because he himself had broken the rules and law in bringing his son into this world.

Not only did he not want his private life laid open to the media, but he was also all too aware of the likely long-term repercussions of such a vengeful act.

He picked his phone and informed his private secretary to arrange his jet as soon as possible.

It's time he paid a little visit to his child's mother.

"Are you going in person?? You could ask Mr Mishra to deal with the legalities first" Adesh asked

"I once made a mistake of not getting down the business in person. I am not going to make the mistake again." Armaan said and walked out of his room.

Would the baby take after its lying, cheating mother? Was there such a thing as bad genes? He refused to accept that.

There could be no taint in an innocent child.

It will all come down to upbringing.

And he will not let even Janani Trivedi's shadow touch his son.

He reminded himself that on paper his son’s mother had appeared eminently respectable.

The only child of elderly, financially indebted parents, she had presented herself as a trained primary school teacher with a love of growing vegetables and cookery.

What a joke.

Her true interests were entirely different. And he had discovered it only after she had run from the hospital with his child.

She is a lying cheating thief, who gambled and whored around without conscience.

Time and time again he had blamed himself for his decision not to physically meet with the mother of his child, not to personalise in any way what was essentially a business arrangement.

Would he have recognised her true nature if he had?

He had not expected her to want to see him either.

When he came to collect the child from the hospital after the birth, she had already vanished, leaving behind only a note that spelt out her financial demands.

By then she had found out how rich he was and only greed had motivated her.

"Are you informing the police??" Adesh asked walking alongside him

"No" Armaan said shaking his head in negative.

"But..."

"There is no doubt Janani Trivedi deserves to be behind the bars. But I wouldn't be the person to put my son's mother there. Surrogate or not she happens to be my child's mother. And you know commercial surrogacy is banned in India, I can hardly go to the police" Armaan bit out grudgingly.

"But the police are already after her. You read the report on her stealing from the men who took her as escorts to those parties " Adesh reminded and Armaan sucked in a breath.

An escort for rich men....

That's what his son's mother is.

He just hoped his son wouldn't find out when he grows up.

"I don’t want the police involved " Armaan said and Advay shook his head

"You might not want that, but they are already involved"

"And then what??The elderly grandparents receive custody of my son? And the authorities are forced to enter the picture to consider his welfare. Surrogacy arrangements receive a divergent and uncertain reception here and I will not take any risk that could entail losing all rights to my son."

"But the Trivedi woman has already made it clear that she will only give your son back in return for a substantial sum of money"

"I will find some acceptable and legal way to bring this matter to a satisfactory conclusion" Armaan breathed softly "Without damaging publicity or a court case or sending her to prison."

They stood outside the nursery and Armaan took a deep breath before going inside his daughter's room followed by Adesh.

He saw her scrambling from the floor where she was sitting with a torn doll which had seen more days than her and running away from him to hide under the bed.

Armaan looked around the room and saw the dozens of toys he had bought for her which were all untouched.

The only toy she needs is the one she had when she came to live with him after her mother's tragic death.

'Will you marry me Armaan?? Will you' he still heard that voice as clear as yesterday.

And the guilt would always be there.

He could have saved her. He could have made a difference

"Maan" Adesh called tentatively and Armaan sighed

Armaan walked towards the bed and knelt down on the floor.

"Baby Ava...." Armaan called out softly and there was no response. There never was

"Daddy is going away for two days." Again, there was no response

"Daddy will bring you new toys" no response.

"Daddy will miss you" Armaan said, the only thing he heard in return was the sound of her breathing.

He stood up to leave and talked to the nanny.

"Take care of her" Armaan said and he felt the hands of the woman on his forearm.

"I know it hurts, she will come around" the woman said and Armaan shook off her hands from his and walked out rejecting the display of sympathy.

"I don't like her. There is something not right about her" Adesh voiced out what had been in his mind all along.

"Unfortunately, she is the only person Ava is comfortable with. So, we will have to live with it. And Advay, keep an eye on her always" with that said Armaan walked out of the Verma mansion without turning back.