Page 75 of Addiction

From next to her, Ananya choked on her drink. She gave Navya a thunderous look. Shit. This wasn’t the way Navya had wanted to announce her situation with Armaan.

“Armaan couldn’t make it. I think your boyfriend is calling you,” Navya quickly told the model.

Rehana left them with a cheerful goodbye and more air kisses. The second she was gone, Ananya dragged her to a side corridor near the washrooms. The sound of the music was relatively muted here.

“I knew it,” Ananya fumed. “I knew that something was up when you kept insisting on going out. Is he coming tonight? Are you using me as an excuse to meet him?”

“Wait, why will I need to do that? I can meet him whenever I want to.”

“I don’t know what you’re thinking, Navya,” Ananya scolded.

Navya wiped her suddenly clammy hands on the folds of her dress. “I have to tell you something, and you have to promise not to freak out because I’m freaking out already as it is.”

Ananya pursed her lips. “My mind is conjuring up various scenarios. None of them nice. So, talk fast.”

“I kind of slept with Armaan.”

Ananya’s eyes narrowed. “Kind of? What the hell is kind of? Can you be more specific?”

Navya exhaled. “I slept with Armaan, and it wasn’t just once.”

Ananya’s eyes rounded. “What?” She shook her head. “Bloody fucking hell. What is wrong with you? Have you lost your mind?”

“I told you not to freak out.”

“And I told you to stay away from him. Yet, here we are.”

“I couldn’t stay away from him. I tried, but…”

“…but you couldn’t resist his bad boy charm. How long has this been going on?”

“A couple of weeks, no a month maybe,” Navya said.

“Why?”

“What do you mean why?”

“Why are you dating him?” Ananya asked. “Why are you sleeping with him? It couldn’t have been on a whim.”

“I think I like him, kind of.”

“Again, kind of? I hate it when you’re vague like this. It’s misleading and annoying.”

Navya threw her hands up. “I’m confused, Ananya. That’s why I brought you here, to talk to you. To seek help from you on what I ought to do next.”

Ananya studied her. “Navya, what are you saying exactly? Are you in love with him? Is that why you are confused?”

Her heart twisted.

“I don’t know what is happening to me. I don’t know what I feel.” She shook her head. “I can’t be in love with him. He’s everything I don’t want in a man. He’s too fucking rich, too damn arrogant, and too damn stubborn. But he’s also so damn gorgeous, and his body… uff, when he touches me, I totally lose my mind. But…”

Ananya cut her off. “You forgot to add that he’s a known womanizer, and you’re what, his current lover? Do you really believe he will give you a forever? That he won’t betray you with another woman? Do you really believe that he won’t be like your birth father? Do you trust him not to hurt you? Do you trust him to let you go if you don’t want to be with him? You know he’s dangerous.”

But he was also thoughtful, tender, and caring. He was actually perfect, so Goddamn perfect that it made her worry if he was too good to be true. Shit, what if he was presenting her a façade? What if the façade disappeared and, like her birth father, he showed his true colors once she’d fallen completely in histrap? Her chest hurt even thinking about that. She didn’t want to be a victim like her birth mother had been.

A stone dropped in her stomach. She didn’t want to live with the bitter trauma of being hurt by the person she loved the most in the world. It would destroy her, just like it had destroyed the woman who had birthed her.

Her heart stumbled. Her fears swamped her, taking over her mind. Memories of her traumatic childhood overwhelmed her so much that she couldn’t breathe.

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