Page 20 of Hateful Games

It may come as a shock but I’m moody, an extremely quiet person, and ambivert in nature. Commonly known as the girl with the resting bitch face. However, if you asked my best friend or my older sister, they’d tell you the opposite.

They often complain I can’t stop talking and can be blunt at times.

But they love me for me. They mean the world to me.

The ones who can get past my walls, I’m fiercely protective of them.

I simply can’t tolerate most people, especially the ones who love to point out loudly that you’re always so quiet. You know, the annoying ones in the group who go like this: ‘Oh, why aren’t you talking?’ As if that will magically turn the other person into a chatterbox.

I either want to tape their mouth shut or slap them in the face.

So you can imagine just how fast my heart is hyperventilating at the thought of spending the next week surrounded by strangers and an asshole fiancé.

Small talk is not my forte.

The place being London—one of my favorite cities—is a tiny blessing. There’s nothing I don’t love about here, minus the unpredictable weather and the fact I hate getting wet in the rain.

Oh, and Nova.

Sitting in the back seat of the car, I gaze at the tall buildings zooming past and the people on the street, buzzing with life. The sky is clear and bright, uplifting my mood a tad while my brain is still stuck on my fiancé’s callousness.

As predicted, he left me stranded at the airport.

Luckily, I had arranged transportation beforehand, listening to myself rather than my mother. Although I have a tiny intuition that she forgot to inform him that I’m arriving a day early. Not that it would’ve made any difference.

His apartment is a three-hour drive from the airport and if it were any other circumstances, I would be feeling sleepy as I rode to his place. Ever since our announcement was made in the media a day after my eighteenth birthday, our parents have been throwing us together in public at every opportunity.

My worst fear came true—being thrown into the limelight.

After spending all my life in the shadows, I’m now expected to constantly bask in the sunlight. Smile a certain way, behave as if my life is perfect, pretend to be blindly in love with my fiancé, who worships the ground I walk on.

I have been to so many galas in the last three months since I turned eighteen than I have my whole life. I hate everything about them. The mind-numbing chat, oohing and aahing over fashion, the tacky gossiping and the snide looks.

Our world may seem like a dream on the outside.

But the ones in the deep end know it’s cutthroat and vindictive, swarmed with vultures. While my family’s name instills respect with thinly veneered fear, Nova’s family name only evokes fear and wrath.

Bringing us together has made the two families untouchable and the most powerful in all of India. Everyone will bow down to us.

Exactly what our fathers crave.

I blink, my thoughts interrupted when the car comes to a stop outside a lavish high-rise apartment building. My neck straining while staring at the top. My elderly driver rounds the hood and opens my door.

Stepping out, I straighten my black denim skirt and halter top under my frayed denim jacket. I unpin my hair from the messy bun, letting it fall down to the middle of my shoulders.

“Why don’t you go inside, Miss Kapoor?” says my driver politely, his accent posh. “I’ll have your bags sent upstairs.”

“Thank you.”

I already have my phone and purse with me, carrying the important valuables as I enter the well-lit lobby. While the doorman holds the glass door open.

As conveyed by my mom, Nova stays alone in his private apartment, a short distance from his uni. Unlike most Indian parents, she didn’t seem too worried about sending her teenage daughter to live alone with a man.

As long as it’s the husband or fiancé, the normal rules of swearing off all men doesn’t seem to apply. It’s disheartening that even living in the twenty-first century, most parents subconsciously believe in the old patriarchal ways. That a woman needs a man to finally live her life, fulfill her wishes.

Or that they have the right to choose a man their daughter should marry.

Mine is even worse. I was used as a pawn in a power-hungry game between ruthless men.

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