Kaira OS : Without You | YRKKH | Shivangi Joshi | Mohsin Khan | Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai

The top two buttons on his black fancy dress shirt tugged open at his fair slim throat, Kartik Goenka sat sprawled in his fancy modern chair behind his desk, with his feet propped up on the top and the fingers of one hand lightly clasping a short crystal glass half full of his favourite whisky.

It was late, and he was tired, so his eyes were shut, the grooves around his twenty-seven-year old, life-toughened mouth seeming more harshly etched than it once used to be. He should have gone straight home from the opening of a friend's new downtown gallery but instead he had come back here to the office. He was expecting a call from America and it seemed more sensible to wait for it here than at the hotel he was staying in since the office was closer. Then home. He hated being there because everything reminded him of Naira. Not that he had kept anything of hers, but he did not need that to remember her.

-Naira... The fingers around the whisky glass tightened instinctively. His tough mouth straightened into a line of such grim cynicism that if anyone had been there to see it happen, they would have been backing right off in alarm by now.

Because Kartik Goenka wasn't known for his good temper these days-hadn't been known for it for twenty-four long months now.

Not since Naira had walked out of his life never to be seen or heard from again.

Nowadays, only a fool would dare to say her name out loud in his presence and, since fools were not welcomed in the Goenka holdings, no one ever said it.

But he couldn't stop the cursed name from creeping into his own head now and then. And when it did, it was difficult to it to unravel the barrage of different emotions that came buzzing along with it. Pain was one of them, plus a dark, bloody anger aimed partially at himself for letting her get away from him.

Then there were the moments of real guilt-ridden anguish to contend with, or the bouts of gut-wrenching concern as to what had become of her. And, to top it all off, there was a hard-to-take sense of personal bitterness in knowing that she could leave him that made him wish he had never met her in the first place! But most of all there was an ache. An ache of such muscle-clenching proportions that sometimes he had to fight not to groan at the power of it.

Why-? Because he missed her. No matter what, no matter when, no matter why sometimes

he missed her so badly that he could barely cope with what missing her did to him.

Tonight, had been like that. One of those all-too-rare moments when he had caught himself laughing quite easily-actually managing to enjoy himself! Then some woman had mentioned how long it had been since she had seen Naira with him and his mood had flipped over. Light to dark. Warm to cold. Laughter to innate misery ...

After that, it had been better to escape here and brood where no one could see him doing it. But, God, he hated her for making him feel like this. Empty. The word was empty. The glass went to his mouth, hard lips parting so he could attack the whisky as if it was his enemy. Then, with a sigh that came from somewhere deep down inside of him, he leaned further back into the soft leather chair and waited for the whisky to attack him back by burning Naira's name right out of his system. It didn't happen for, being the beautiful damn woman that she was, she held her ground and simply paid him back for trying to get rid of her by imprinting her image on the back of his eyelids, then smiling at him with that damn beautiful smile that drove him crazy.

His gut wrenched. A familiar ache settled in his chest. That was so painful his eyes watered leaking of the sides and running down his cheeks...

AnyaRsingh