Chapter 26: chapter 26

All the guests had their lunch and left Neelesh, Jamuni, Jogya and Sumit all alone in the room to clear their misunderstandings and forget and forgive each other's misgivings.Neelesh continued his story with a heavy heart,"I was madly in love with Maya.She was my entire world....Whenever she was there in front of me, I felt like the luckiest person on this earth!We had kept our affair hidden under the wraps when one day she saw Jamuni in Sumit's office.She asked Sumit about her and he told her that he also likes her. Sumit knew about his wife's affair and thought that Maya will take it lightly but she didn't like it and asked Sumit to send Jamuni to a foreign country.Then she asked me about Jamuni and I told her that I wanted to marry her as she is a perfect partner for marriage. I was happy with Maya but needed a wife so that I could travel with Jamuni and Sumit alongwith Maya and nobody would guess that I loved Maya more than any other woman on this earth.Maya became angry after listening to my plan but she asked me to have a child with Jamuni so that she could adopt it as her own child. She wanted to become a mother.I proposed to Jamuni and was almost falling in love with her when she found out about my affair with Maya.She left the house and asked Niharika to invite her to a famous party in which she was noticed by a shrewd man called Jiten.I hated him because he dated my crush Megha.Megha was the supermodel who was truly beautiful.I was crazy about her and Maya and Sumit knew about it.One day Megha participated in a modelling hunt competition and got selected by a supermodel agency.When she met the owner of the firm, it was none ther than Jiten, himself.Jiten impressed her with a diamond ring and an expensive Swarovski diamond studded watch.He fell in love with her.Megha forgot about me but Maya consoled me by saying that she will always be with me and will never betray me like Megha.I pinned all my hopes on Maya as I planned our family, sweet children and a beautiful house on top of a mountain.I was almost happy when one day Megha came back to meet me alone inside a hotel room. She asked me to order the best food as she was going to be the richest person on this earth.When I asked her about her new salary package then she laughed like a crazy person as she told me, 'Don't ask me about my salary as I have found a permanent source of infinite wealth and happiness!'I was shocked as I could not understand the meaning of her words, so I asked her inquisitively, 'Have you hit a jackpot or you have you won a lottery?' I thought may be she had inherited her ancestral property or had a windfall gain!She shrugged her shoulders like a teenager as if trying to find the right words to justify her wrong choice of leading a comfortable life without working too hard for it.After trying to distract me with her sweet honey like words, she finally revealed her source as the owner of a modelling agency and other ventures, someone called, Jiten.I hated that name as if it was the harbinger of the bad news for me.She was excited to be his girlfriend as he was ready to incur huge expenses for her.I tried to make her aware of the reality that such men are never loyal to one person as they keep changing their partners like a pair of clothes. They never marry or enter into a committed relationship till someone smarter than them could outwit them with their brain and muscle power or even outshine them with their wealth.She didn't listen to me and went away with Jiten forever.Maya became my close friend at that time as she shared her thoughts and feelings about life and love with me quite frankly and displayed her maturity on numerous occasion.She was in love with Sumit, but he used to bully her around as he was a spoilt brat but when she used to spend time with me, she could freely express herself as I was always courteous and respectful towards her.One day, she came to me crying after having a nasty fight with Sumit.He had accused her of having an affair with me behind his back.I was angry at him but controlled my emotions as I knew that Maya loved him and respected him for helping her, whenever she needs anything in life.She told me that Sumit had asked her to prove her love for him by breaking up with me!I started crying and she hugged me passionately as she told me that she want to be my lifelong girlfriend as she could not break her engagement with Sumit due to her promise to remain his partner for life as his legal wife.We decided to challenge the norms of friendship as we betrayed Sumit by accepting each other's half love mixed with half loyalty as the other half was already claimed by him.One day, after getting married to Maya, Sumit found the love letters written by me in her drawer and told her that he will never give her divorce as he wanted her relationship to be a forbidden one forever and he will date women like Jamuni who were prettier and smarter than her.Maya was furious with his open declaration of an open relationship and asked me to date Jamuni so that after marriage she could adopt our child as she desparately wanted to be a mother!It was a blow to her strategic and shrewd mind when Jamuni discovered her love letters in my file and decided to leave me forever.".