Page 112 of Game on, Love
“Didn’t expect to see you here,” His voice was low and cold.
“Believe me, neither did I,” I shot back, even though my pulse was racing.
His gaze narrowed. “Watch your tone.”
I straightened up, my heartbeat ringing in my ears. “No. You have no right over me. Not anymore.”
“You are still my child, and you will speak to me with respect.”
I scoffed, the bitterness in my own voice taking me aback. “It’s just DNA, I’m no child of yours. I have seen how you arewith yourchildren,and you don’t get to call the person I am an extension of you.”
“That’s enough,” His voice was sharp. “You’ve stayed away too long and lost all sense of how to speak to your father.”
“And who’s choice was that? Don’t tell me you’ve suddenly had guilt over abandoning me?”
“What?” Dev asked, his voice sharp.
“Oh, that’s right, he didn’t tell you guys,” I pointed out harshly, my gaze still fixed on the man in front of us. “Don’t you get tired of keeping track of the things you’ve lied to yourchildrenabout?”
I looked at Dev before speaking again. “What do you want to know? The fact that he had the choice to bring me back but decided that I was too much of a headache? Or maybe he had thought that I was better left back because I knew he was cheating on Ma, and maybe the act of him choosing to leave me right after Ma died would upset me so much he was sure I wouldn’t be able to put it together and tell my brothers exactly the kind of man they were living with!”
The balloon finally popped, and the silence in the room was deafening.
“What?” This time when Dev spoke, his voice was colder than the arctic. “Look. At. Me.”
When Dad looked at him, it was the first time I’d seen an expression on his face, and still, he couldn’t even bring himself to show an ounce of guilt.
“I am sorry.” I hadn’t expected him to say it, much less to me, but the genuine tone of his words reached me, and it felt like a bullet piercing through my chest.
“I was eleven,” I whispered, surprising myself. My heart was betraying me after not being able to hold it in anymore, and I couldn’t even find the strength to somehow warn Dev. “It was the first and only time I had joined you and Rihaan at the nets.You asked me to sit with her as you took both boys out and coached them. I remember she was so nice to me, but she kept on looking at me in a certain way. I couldn’t understand it, but at the time, I don’t think I cared much. I do remember something she said to you.”
I took a shaky breath, pressing my fingers to my palm. “‘She’s got Diya’s eyes.’You looked at me then, and I saw it. I saw the moment you stopped loving me.”
I knew I was telling the truth, but seeing the look on his face… that was the moment I felt the pain spread over me again.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Then, explain it to me.”
He gave me a nod, knowing he had nowhere else to hide. Not anymore.
“My marriage to Diya was a business deal. Young cricketers don’t get paid much, and I already came from a small family. Both my parents had taken ill at the same time and needed immediate help. I’d gone to Rohan as I used to consider him my confidant. He was the one who helped me climb up the ranks after he became my first sponsor. He said he would give me whatever I needed if I could do one thing for him, and of course, I said yes. He was a business mogul, and I’d made a deal with him to help my career and my parents. I walked out of his office feeling like I won my first god damn world cup.
“The paperwork was vague, and it just said he’d call back on the favour in a couple of years’ time. Again, my only priority was saving my parents at that time and that is all that mattered to me. It was two years before I’d heard from him again. But in the two years a lot had changed. I was an international success, I was respected in the sport, and I was in love.”
The ground beneath me shook as he spoke further.
“I met Anchal during one of my tours to the UK. She was a law student at that time, a couple of years younger than me, butI fell for her the first time I saw her. She insisted on not telling anyone that we were together until after she graduated. She had promised her parents that she would only focus on her school. Turns out, if we had been open about it, my deal with Rohan wouldn’t have mattered,” He sighed, and I could see the regret was still there.
“In exchange for the money, he had contracted that once his daughter was of age, and it was clear I hadn’t been involved with anyone else in the past year, Diya and I were set to marry in a month. I tried to tell him Iwaswith someone, but he asked me for proof but Anchal and I only hung out in her flat because we didn’t want to be caught.
“I tried everything, I had all the money in the world, he said, he had more. I tried negotiating, and I hired lawyers, but there was nothing I could do. Instead, I only got told that there were more stipulations in the contract that tied to me like an anchor. Not only did I have to marry his daughter, I had to provide him with a grandson to ensure that his business would be run by his bloodline.”
My gaze averted to Dev, his face hard as a stone. It felt like the world was moving too fast to keep up, but even though I knew there was more, I couldn’t look at him.
“By the time I came back to the UK, Anchal had vanished into thin air. I wanted to blame her, but How could I? To her, I had gone home to check up on my family but three days later, every newspaper had published my engagement,” He paused, taking a deep breath. “After Diya and I got married, everything about her was just a memory. I had gone on tours and dedicated all my life to my game. My parents were already apprehensive about me going into cricket, and marrying someone outside our culture was the last thing they needed before they cut me out of their lives. And Cricket was the only thing I had left that I truly loved anymore.”
He took a breath before he continued.