"No! Don't even speak of death! You will get to show your love both for our child and me yourself. Don't let your hope waver," whispered Adhrit, pressing assuring gentle kisses on the back of her palm, which were more potent than any tranquilizer or aphrodisiac for the woman whose eyes never left his trail.
Shipra, one of the members of the team guiding her delivery, was shocked to see the change in Adhrit and the affection he showered on her. She had never imagined even in her wildest dreams that Adhrit would look away from Mohini and Neysa would get any kind of response from her love. She did not know if she were to feel happy for the same or listen to the gut instinct of hers that Neysa was being led on, but duty came first before her questions and she gladly drowned herself in it.
"Shipra, I think we should give her an injection of oxytocin, now that Adhrit is here," wondered Geeta, looking at the couple in front of her.
"I guess it is time now," replied Shipra, picking up the syringe and the vial from the tray beside her and injecting the concoction inside the vial into Neysa's body.
A new, stronger and more painful wave of contractions took over Neysa's body instantaneously as she clutched Adhrit's hand in a vice-like grip. Her nails left half-moon marks on his skin through which blood gushed out, but he cared more about the pain she was in, feeling the waves of myriads of emotions tingling the base of spine to the point of saturation.
Her screams resonated in his heart and pushed him to the emotion he was most acquainted with over the years - love. It took a person deeply in love to understand that it was the same feeling which reverberated in her to undergo such turmoil to ensure his peace and sanity, and he felt his very soul shift and etch her name onto the canvas of his heart.
Her screams stopped suddenly, and it was the cries of a newly born infant which reverberated in the room, but instead of happiness at his wish being finally fulfilled, he felt shock and fear knock at his mind.
"Shipra! What happened to Neysa? Why did she stop suddenly?" he questioned, rubbing her palm like an obsessed man who had lost the very source of water he had found after eons of wait and penance.
"She just fainted out of fatigue, Adhrit. Her vitals are stable, there is no reason to worry. Especially since you have been blessed with a girl. Congratulations," wished Shipra, pointing towards the infant which was being cleaned and weighed by the head nurse.
Adhrit wiped the sweat which had poured from her temples and patted her forehead affectionately as tears made their way out of his eyes. He freed his hand from Neysa's already loosened grip and walked towards the baby being forwarded towards him by Shipra.
"She is born with perfect weight and height, Adhrit. Looks like you have taken good care of Neysa after all," mused Shipra, pressing a feathery kiss on the child's fingers affectionately.
"How would I not? It is impossible to not care for someone so admirable like her," replied Adhrit, losing his heart for the second time in the past five minutes but this time for his infant daughter whose innocent hazel orbs like that of her mother's managed to enchant him and incite love at first sight.
The feeling of taking the life which one had created into one's arms was too heavenly for words to express. The ecstatic burst of emotions which began at the heart and spread out to every cell eliciting the fleeting and flattering bliss which only intensifies at the first time that life holds the fingers and the very soul awakes from its dormant state to welcome a part of it.
He walked out of the labor room to show his bundle of joy to the mother-figure in his life - Swati.
"Look at her, Aunty! Isn't she beautiful?" he wondered, bending around the corner to reach the waiting area of the specific room.
"She looks so divine! I will go have a look at Neysa," excused Swati, knowing well that Mohini would surely have something to say to him.
"Congratulations, Adhrit. I am so happy that your wish finally got fulfilled and you got a beautiful daughter in her form," wished Mohini, caressing the head of the infant lovingly and as she bent to place a kiss on her forehead she felt Adhrit moving away from her.
Her wish acted like a fuel to the madness he found himself in when his dream merged into reality after a wait of fourteen years.
"What did you say that night? I can find myself a surrogate mother if I want but you won't become the mother, didn't you? You loved cheating me, right? How would you feel if I tell you that this child is conceived by the natural way and is a symbol of Neysa's love for me, something which you never had? How do you feel right now? Broken, shattered, cheated?" he questioned, tears rolling down her cheeks at the ruthlessness and heartlessness of the man who won her heart.
"Looks like the answer is yes! This is a moment of double happiness because I finally get to see you broken and find my revenge," he spat, clutching the child close to his heart as a maniac smile played on his lips.
It was a moment of shock when a slap sound resounded in the lobby and Adhrit was nothing less than shocked. Mohini was never the one for violence and she had slapped him?
"You wanted revenge? Understandable, Adhrit, but you used Neysa for that? Someone so pristine and selfless like her does not deserve to be exploited like you had," lashed Mohini, spitting fire from her eyes in the way Adhrit had never witnessed.
"You are the one to speak..." he began, only to be stopped by the palm stopping him.
"Yes, Mr. Adhrit Solanki, I am the one to speak and since you hold such a low view of mine it should mean much more to you that I am berating you. You had no right to play with her life and you drafted a contract subjecting it to our divorce. Let me take the responsibility of being your wife for one last time and correct your error, rather your sin," she rebuked, pulling the divorce papers signed by him from her handbag.
She placed the papers against the wall and signed above the dotted line where her sign was required.
"At least now she will get to be a part of her child's life and her belief in her love would not be shaken like you had broken my belief," exclaimed Mohini, thrusting the papers in his hands and staging a walkout, leaving him in the turbulence of his own thoughts.
"Please forgive him, Beta, he is under the influence of raging emotions," apologized Swati with folded hands to Neysa who was lying on the stretcher to be moved to the private room when the confrontation of Adhrit with Mohini began and every sign of happiness erased itself from her.
"I had taken a decision a long time back, Aunty, and your son just reinforced that my decision was correct in every way and erased whatever little guilt I was experiencing. Did you see that, Shipra and Geeta? Still question my decision? Because this was the reason why I had taken that decision."