Chapter 7 :

Anvaya's POV

The room went more silent than before, something darker and colder swirled within. The sky outside was as it was a while ago, but the room temperature wasn't the same anymore.

The intense feeling of someone's sharp stare on me had already given me waves of goosebumps. Now the stare felt more realistic, making me turn around subconsciously.

And there stood the owner of the grand estate, situated somewhere I didn't at all know about. Because I was brought here like a prisoner, or maybe worse than that?

Clad in black shirt loosely hanging over a pair of black joggers, he stood with his dark aura. His wet hair was scattered over his forehead, while his right hand remained tucked inside the pant pocket.

Reality struck me when I saw that ghostly smirk pulling up on his thin lips, making me bow, "Good morning, Mr Oberoi."

I looked up into his eyes, and in that instant, I forgot what I was thinking.

He was different.

Mysterious.

He had the power to make you forget what you were thinking or doing just a second ago.

He was the danger.

Stepping inside, he closed the door behind him, as he took a seat on the black leather couch placed on the other side of the room.

"Are you doing the check-up from there, Ms Anvaya?" he questioned, staring straight at me.

My name—just a word to be recognised in the crowd, felt like something different coming from his mouth. The pronunciation was as if deeply carved on his tongue, as if he knew me for longer than I knew him.

"No," I replied slowly, before walking near the sofa adjacent to him and took a seat.

The eye contact was the hardest part to maintain with him.

"Look at me when you talk," his deep voice echoed in the room, piercing the shrill silence.

I was supposed to be strong and bold, but inside the place he ruled, I knew nothing as such. I was behaving as if under some superficial control, as if my body knew how to react when.

I nodded, just when he spoke up again, "Words, Ms Anvaya, use words."

"Yes sir."

"Good."

"So, where are you starting today?" he questioned, leaning back on the sofa backrest, keeping his hands clasped on his legs, placed one on another.

I just eyed him for a fleeting glance before I looked down at the file in my hands, "I'll start with the basic questions. So, how have you been feeling lately?"

"And why does that matter to you?" he questioned back, making me close my eyes and grit my teeth, feeling their force hit my skull.

He was already getting on my nerves.

Looking back at him, I half smiled, "Because I've been appointed to know that, through the e-mail sent by your company. Otherwise I wouldn't have been sitting here with you, interrogating your health, Mr Oberoi."

My voice was clean, smooth and sharp.

Regardless of the coldness the room possessed.

His serpent gaze never wavered away from me, as if stuck like it was meant to be on me. His posture was relaxed, a stark contrast against my stiff, professional one.

"I've been feeling good."

I nodded slightly, "That's not the answer to my question. I asked how you've been feeling recently, since I believe you've been following what I said one month ago?" I asked, looking up into his eyes.

Those onyx orbs pierced right through my soul, as if looking at me like an open book. I dared to look into them for more than three seconds, and that was a bad decision.

I could never look at them for long.

But I had to stay put, so I didn't look away.

He remained silent.

I sighed, "So you've done absolutely nothing I told you to?"

"I was busy."

"Yeah sure, busy killing yourself, is it? I didn't know killing oneself was a profession," I replied calmly, flipping through the pages of the file.

"You're angry?" he dared to ask that, making me tilt up my head to look at him.

"Angry? For what? I'm exhausted—exhausted of telling a man to look after his health, running after him to look after his health whereas he treats his own body as disposable and hires me to care for it."

He remained silent. Staring at me.

Not a single hum was there between us, except for the shrillness his sharp gaze filled the silent room.

"You think you understand me?"

"As a doctor, I understand your heart. It's giving out and the only person who can save it is too damn arrogant to let anyone try. So no, I don't understand you. I diagnose people. I don't babysit the willingly broken," I replied straightforward, without a sense of hesitation.

I didn't know where the boldness came from but I knew, that my words couldn't be taken back.

His gaze flickered, something unexplainable swept across his orbs. But they disappeared even before I could understand what they were.

His hands went to the backrest, as he leaned back. None of us spoke.

"I'll take my leave now, then. When you want to live, let me know. Until then, you're just wasting my time. I don't offer a second chance to people who treat them like trash," I said, getting up from my seat, feeling frustrated.

He didn't care about his health then fine! Let him not. I don't care.

But the thing that I've been hired to look after his health where he was so reluctant to listen to me, it made me furiously frustrated. I was being treated like a joke, my profession, for which I worked so hard, was looking like a joke here.

And I tolerated no such things.

Turning around, I was about to leave when his deep voice vibrated in the cold air, freezing my moving feet.

"Stop."

A single word—more like a command.

"Sit back."

My body involuntarily turned around, but I didn't sit back.

I remained silent, staring down at him. My face was blank, but my heart was known to something I didn't. I couldn't understand why I didn't dare to defy his demand.

"Why are you silent, Ms Anvaya?" he asked, gazing at me intensely.

His face was blank, but darker. Something was there that he hid, something maybe I shouldn't know.

"I don't have the right to question back, according to the rules and regulations," I replied a few seconds later.

He nodded, "Impressive indeed."

Slightly shifting, he motioned at the spot beside him on the couch, continuing his words, "Sit here."

"May I know why?"

"Don't question back."

"I will, Mr Oberoi, when it's about my private zone."

Giving a long stare, he sat back straight, as his response came, "You can't stand there and check my heartbeats, can you?"

Without replying further, I went near the sofa he was seated on, prior to taking a seat near him. I kept my distance enough to just let me feel his heartbeats and stand away.

Taking the ear tubes in my hands, I put the ear pieces inside my ears and got a hold of the bell part of the chest piece.

"Just stay cool and calm," I said, before pressing the diaphragm on his chest.

Our proximity wasn't too much, given the length of the stethoscope wasn't favourable. Nevertheless, I pressed the diaphragm on another spot in his chest, listening to his heart.

His gaze was pinned down on me, sending slow shivers throughout my body but I had to least care about them. I'm here to look after his health and leave.

Examining his heart properly, I took off the stethoscope and put it around my neck before speaking to him, "Your heart is pumping blood slightly slower. I'll give you a medicine and the rest is same—walk, take deep breaths, take in fresh air and keep doing exercise."

"That's all?"

"That's all, for now."

He nodded, as I stood up to leave.

Turning around, I picked up my bag from the sofa, putting everything back into it when his voice crashed against the cold walls, making me freeze.

"Anvaya."

He called me by just my name?

Never heard my name sound so different.

Never.

I looked down at my hands, which were frozen, but still I turned around.

"Yes, Mr Oberoi?"

He didn't say anything as a reply.

Just stared—those onyx orbs fixed on me. The silence had swirled around us like a blanket, filling up the unspoken gaps between us. We knew each other no more than two human beings struggling in their own worlds.

Or maybe, he knew me.

The look he gave spoke something deeper about me.

Something I, myself, didn't know.

His gaze was hypnotising, bounding me to my place like an iron chain. The grip was invisibly unbreakable. I didn't know what it was but there existed something inside him, which maybe I wouldn't like to know and understand.

"You can leave," he rasped, still staring at me.

My gaze flickered across his face, as I silently stood on my place. My muscles had absorbed his words, but my limbs seemed to make no move.

He was eight years older than me, yet, his features nowhere told he was aging.

Smooth skin and sharp jawline, sharp eyes and everything sculpted so perfectly that it felt forbidden to stare like that. But I couldn't. I couldn't look away.

Those eyes.

"It's unhealthy to stare at your patient like that," he said, breaking my thoughts.

My face heated up in embarrassment.

Turning around, I picked up my bag and left the room in a hurry.

The place was suffocating me, but at the same time— I still looked back at the closed door, knowing that I was being watched.

I didn't know how, but I just knew that.

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