Page 41 of Addiction

See you at 7:30 am. Get the gloves and dress in gym wear.

Her breath caught. Again, he’d managed to surprise her. Most men would have tried to woo with dinner at a fancy restaurant, a night out partying, or a movie plan for their first date. But Armaan, instead, wanted to teach her self-defence!

As always, he didn’t follow any rules and did what was least expected. She liked that he kept her guessing. Ananya’s warning flashed in her mind, and her entire mood soured. She hadn’t realized how much she enjoyed bantering with him and how alive he made her feel, until this moment when she’d have to tell him to leave her alone.

That was the right thing to do. Chest clenching, she typed a message and then deleted it and then typed and deleted it again. God, she was fumbling.

Her phone pinged with a text. It washim.

What’s on your mind, moya tigritsa?

Her breath caught. How did he read her mind every single time? She wrote her reply.

Ananya’s asked me to end things with you.

And what do you want to do?

I think she’s right.

That’s not what I asked. What I asked was what do you want to do?

She ran both her hands through her hair. She had to end this. She couldn’t go against her sister. Tonight, Ananya had given her a speaking look at the dinner table as well. She was right. Armaan Oshnov was wrong for her.

She had to do this. One message, and he’d be out of her life forever. Simple. Then why was her heart protesting? Why did it feel like something poked at her ribs?

Her fingers felt stiff as she typed.

Armaan, I need you to leave me alone. I never want to see you again and I want nothing to do with you.

She waited hours for his reply, but it never came. He’d clearly listened to her like he’d promised he would.

Well, she’d done what was best for her, right?

10

Armaan hit the punching bag again and again. He’d been at it for the last half an hour. His whole body was sore and drenched in sweat as he pounded his frustration onto the bag. He couldn’t believe Navya had asked him to let her be. After the previous afternoon, he’d truly thought she, too, felt and recognized the passion between them. Apparently, that wasn’t the case. Apparently, all these emotions were only one-sided—his. That was the only reason why she’d ended things with him so easily, all because her sister had insisted on it. Bloody fucking hell.

And now he had to convince his mind and body that he had to keep his word to let her be and not go after her. That he wouldn’t even cross her path again. His chest clenched. Fuck. How was he going to do that when each time he closed his eyes, he could see her beautiful face, and each time he took a breath, he could smell her soft perfume? His fingers itched to touch her; his skin tingled to have her hands on him.

He’d thought what he felt for Navya was just physical. Only now that he’d lost her, he wondered if it could have become more. Yes, he was convinced that she and him could have beensomething special. But now he’d never know. He punched the bag harder. Fate had put her in his way and given him a cruel glimpse of something beautiful, only to steal it away.

He looked up and saw Mihir watching him.

“Have some mercy on the punching bag, brother,” Mihir said. “Come, train with me instead.”

Mihir donned some flat boxing pads and moved onto the mats in the center of their home gym. Armaan followed him. Like him, Mihir, too, was wearing gym shorts and a tee shirt. Armaan took his stance and threw out a vicious jab on Mihir’s pads, followed by a cross and then an upper cut. He went at it, jabbing right, then left, then in an upward motion.

“Feeling particularly aggressive today, brother?” Mihir chided a few minutes later.

Armaan knew he was hitting harder than he ought to, but he was too mind fucked to ease himself up.

“Want to talk about it?” Mihir asked.

“No.”

All three of them knew how to fight. They’d first learned in the corridors of their orphanage. After Alexander had adopted them, he’d insisted on each of them learning and excelling at different fighting techniques. Boxing, taekwondo, karate, Krav Maga—they knew it all, and they helped train each other as often as they could.

“Is this about her?” Mihir asked.

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