Kaavi nodded again because she was lost for words, and left him standing on the sidewalk.
The divorce papers arrived two hours later.
eel collapsed on his bed. This was not him. He didn’t know what the hell was going on. He’d thought Kaavi was going to die. He loved this woman. He couldn’t turn that off, but he’d brought on a panic attack. Is that why she’d left him? He stressed her out?
His cellphone rang.
‘Hey.’
‘Hey. I have so many questions. Firstly, a youth empowerment programme? Sari told me about it. What do you have planned?’
‘It was just me being a selfish idiot,’ he replied to his sister.
‘Idiot, I agree with. Selfish? Never. You’re too selfless. That’s why you get yourself into these situations,’ she countered.
‘I sent the divorce papers to her,’ said Neel.
He heard his sister sigh on the other end of the line.
‘And she’ll sign them?’
‘Yes. She didn’t want me then and she doesn’t want me now,’ he said flatly.
‘Neel, you always knew this was going to happen and that you’d eventually have to divorce her. Don’t do this to yourself.She broke you once before. Don’t let her do it now. You deserve happiness,’ Natara said encouragingly. She sounded concerned.
Neel swallowed the lump in his throat.
‘It’s not that easy, Nats,’ he admitted.
‘I know, Neel. I feel it. I’m your twin, remember?’
‘And a pain in the butt,’ he said.
Natara chuckled.
‘So you’re coming back home then?’
‘As soon as she signs the papers, I’ll be on the next flight,’ he said wearily.
He spoke to Natara for a few more minutes.
After the call, he got into full work mode. The gruff CEO was back.
She didn’t sign them. The papers had sat on Sen’s hallway table for the last two days.
She didn’t know why she wasn’t signing them.
The instructions were to sign the papers and leave them at the hotel reception.
It was Friday afternoon and she was restless. She cleaned the apartment, scrolled social media, watched her soapie without paying any attention to it, and baked scones that came out hard as rocks.
She pretended that the whole thing with Neel wasn’t what was getting to her. But the more she pretended, the more restless she became. She was running out of baking ingredients so she couldn’t afford to try another recipe just to get her mind off the man she loved deeply, desired desperately and wanted out of her life at the same time. She had to tell someone!
But who? Shona was away on honeymoon and it wasn’t like she could actually tell her. She would never put Shona in theposition of keeping a secret from Sen. Kaavi’s shoulders dropped and she sighed heavily. Who was she kidding? She didn’t have any friends. She’d left her real friends behind when she fled Johannesburg at the age of 18.
After that, she hadn’t made any friends because her industry was cutthroat. Everyone was on a ladder to the top and no one gave a damn about shoving someone off to get ahead. Her first real lesson had come when she signed with the first modelling agency she came across after landing in London. Sen, who’d accompanied her, was completely against it, but he eventually gave in. The agency’s name, ‘Leggy Lasses’, should have put her off, but she was so desperate to be seen and self-sufficient that she’d looked beyond it.
There she met Misha. Misha was from Durban and, just like Kaavi, was looking for her big break in a new country. Kaavi thought that Misha was her friend. Her angelic face and syrupy sweet voice could sell any brand and convince even the most sceptical person that she was genuine.
