"I'm proud to be called your husband, Rani sa", Abhyansh said and Isha smiled at how he still made her heart flutter, just with a single sentence...
"Ranawat...", An irritated groan escaped Abhyansh's throat as soon as he heard his brother-in-law's tone... "What a surprise...", he heard again, he could sense the unpleasant tone of Ranveer but he stayed silent.
"Yeah! I see, you are delighted with my arrival...", Abhyansh mocked
"Of course I'm", Ranveer responded in an equally disinterested tone...
"Maharaj... How is your journey ?", Ragini greeted Abhyansh with a wide smile, passing on the water glass to Abhyansh.
"You are a queen... You don't have to do such things", Abhyansh said humbly, accepting the water glass, his soft tone for Ragini surprised the Rajput siblings...
"Learnt from the best", Ragini said, pointing towards Isha, "And anyway, you are family", she added, which made Abhyansh nod, again surprising the Rajput siblings.
"You never respond to me this frequently...", Ranveer whined, which was again royally ignored by Abhyansh that irked Ranveer.
Abhyansh helped Isha settle on the couch followed by himself, Ragini sat on the opposite sofa followed by Ranveer, who stomped towards Ragini's couch and sat there.
"Shall I heat the food, Maharaj", Ragini asked, Isha was about to answer knowing her husband's unwillingness to converse but Abhyansh opened his mouth...
"No, I don't eat at odd times...", he responded.
"Oh! okay...", Ragini nodded...
"You can address me like a family does", Abhyansh said after a few minutes of silence, Ragini nodded with a happy smile, she called him 'bhai sa' earlier but it was just once, so he thought of making it clear that he didn't mind her calling him that.
"Okay, it's late, you guys take some rest, we'll come later", Ragini said standing up...
"What's so hurry ? Ishu won't sleep this early, and Ranawat doesn't sleep at all... This is why I don't want him to return this early, when he wasn't there, my sister and I used to have fun till late night", Ranveer complained
"Bhai...", Isha tried to stop him, as her husband would again lecture on it.
"We are going to Ranawat palace, first thing in the morning, tomorrow", Abhyansh declared.
"No... My sister will stay for a few more weeks...", Ranveer said
"Few more weeks? You are out of your mind", Abhyansh said and got up, helping Isha to stand up as well, and led her to the bed, and Ragini pulled Ranveer away.
"I have missed a lot, didn't I ?", Abhyansh asked Isha, softly rubbing her belly which has grown a lot in the last few weeks...
"No, you didn't miss even a single scan... We'll go tomorrow for the growth scan, I postponed it, I didn't want to go and see your children without you", Isha said and Abhyansh kissed her forehead. "Can we stay here for a few more days, bhai grew very attached to the kids, he would talk to our children daily at latenight, his talks to his nieces or nephews are my lullaby all these days...", Isha requested
"Rajput will never be ready to part away from you or his nieces/nephews, it's better we go tomorrow, or else it will become even harder for him", Abhyansh said
"You suddenly made your presence today, so he was taken by surprise... in a few more days, he will prepare himself, then we can go", she said and Abhyansh nodded after some time, not to upset his wife.
-----------------------------
After a few days, Isha and Abhyansh shifted back to Ranawat palace and as Abhyansh predicted, Ranveer did a lot of drama to make his sister stay back but Abhyansh failed all of it.
"Babies, I know your 'Baap' is very rude, but remember mamu's teachings, don't get irritated with his presence, because if you get cranky it will suffer mumma... You should be always good to mumma, okay ?",thiswas Ranveer's parting speech to Isha's baby bump, directed towards his nieces/nephews which irked Abhyansh.
Isha entered her 8th month and even taking a few steps became difficult for her, and Abhyansh completely worked from home now. He barely let her go out of sight, even if he had meetings he did it in study after she slept.
It was one such meeting that he scheduled at 2 AM when his wife finally fell asleep. He tried for hours to put her to sleep and after 3 hours of his attempts, finally, a position suited her, and she fell asleep. He left for his study after that. But she woke up just after an hour feeling the wetness on the bed. She felt disgusted realizing she peed on the bed. Due to the heavy weight of her babies, holding up her bladder became extremely difficultfor her, but she never wetted the bed to date, she was careful enough...
What happened was so embarrassing for Isha that she stood up from the bed and started sobbing... She pulled the bedsheets but the cot too got wet, she felt so angry that she wanted to set the bed on fire and that's when she found a tiny black mark on the bottom of the wall just behind the bed, and that scar on the wall triggered the first night of her marriage, but she wasn't upset by the fact of what happened on that night, she was past that phase, she forgave her husband for all that, but these days, what frustrated her is the suffering her husband subjects himself for troubling her, all these things messed up with her head and her own embarrassment mixed with her worry and pain for her husband's suffering prompted her to set their bed on fire and she did... Isha kept staring at the blazing fire without moving an inch, the fire alarms went off, and Abhyansh quickly rushed there followed by Bhairav... Abhyansh pulled Isha away protecting her from the heat, though she was at a safe distance, he was worried about the heat, and Bhairav quickly extinguished the fire.
"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS ?", Abhyansh asked his wife, screaming at her for her stupidity. But she didn't say a word, she kept staring at their now bed, that turned to ashes...