02-09-2025, 07:11 PM
Scene 14 – The Dinner That Ends in Silence
The Oberoi’s rooftop restaurant shimmered with candlelight, its glass walls opening to the Mumbai skyline, a sweep of light that glittered like spilled diamonds across a sea of velvet night. The air carried the faint perfume of jasmine from the terrace, mingling with the rich aroma of saffron and slow-cooked spices, an atmosphere of indulgence crafted for only the city’s elite.
And then, she arrived.
Rhea walked in wearing a deep emerald gown that moved like liquid silk, clinging and releasing with each step as though it had been poured directly onto her skin. A diamond cuff graced her wrist, catching the light with every subtle movement, and her hair, gathered in soft waves, framed her face like a crown of shadow and flame.
Conversations halted. Glasses paused midway to lips. Heads turned. There was no announcement, no herald, yet her presence commanded the room with the inevitability of dawn. She was not simply beautiful; she was radiant, untouchable, a vision sculpted from grace and command.
The men in the restaurant stole glances, some openly, others beneath lowered lashes, their companions catching the faint shift in their gaze. Women looked too, not with envy alone, but with the quiet awe reserved for rare things. Every eye held her, yet none could contain her.
Rhea felt the weight of it, though she carried it lightly, as she always did. Admiration was her shadow, familiar, expected. Yet tonight, the air around her felt charged, sharpened, as though her presence had not just drawn attention but disrupted the balance of the room.
“Miss Rhea, this way,” the maître d’ said softly, bowing with a deference that was almost reverent. He guided her to a corner table, half-hidden by sheer curtains, a vantage that allowed her both privacy and visibility.
Seated there already was Raghav Malhotra, industrialist, magnate, a man whose empire stretched from steel and oil to newsrooms and movie screens. He was power in human form, accustomed to the world bending at his nod. Yet, as he rose to greet her, his eyes softened, his voice lowered.
He inclined his head slightly, a gesture more profound than it seemed.
“Rhea-ji, you make the evening brighter just by being here.”
She smiled, measured but warm, her expression the perfect balance between intimacy and distance. “Thank you, Malhotra-saab. The pleasure is mine.”
The table was dressed in extravagance: silver domes lifted to reveal Kashmiri lamb, Iranian caviar, saffron pilaf glistening like molten gold. Yet neither reached for the food. Conversation flowed instead, cinema, politics, the dizzying ascent of new media, the permanence of old empires. Raghav spoke with the measured confidence of a man unaccustomed to contradiction, his sentences edged with steel.
Then, his tone shifted, deliberate.
“You know, people like you, Rhea-ji, are not just stars. You are gateways. To influence. To power. Men of my stature… we respect that. And we also protect it.”
The candle between them flickered, casting tall shadows across the silk dbangry.
The Oberoi’s rooftop restaurant shimmered with candlelight, its glass walls opening to the Mumbai skyline, a sweep of light that glittered like spilled diamonds across a sea of velvet night. The air carried the faint perfume of jasmine from the terrace, mingling with the rich aroma of saffron and slow-cooked spices, an atmosphere of indulgence crafted for only the city’s elite.
And then, she arrived.
Rhea walked in wearing a deep emerald gown that moved like liquid silk, clinging and releasing with each step as though it had been poured directly onto her skin. A diamond cuff graced her wrist, catching the light with every subtle movement, and her hair, gathered in soft waves, framed her face like a crown of shadow and flame.
Conversations halted. Glasses paused midway to lips. Heads turned. There was no announcement, no herald, yet her presence commanded the room with the inevitability of dawn. She was not simply beautiful; she was radiant, untouchable, a vision sculpted from grace and command.
The men in the restaurant stole glances, some openly, others beneath lowered lashes, their companions catching the faint shift in their gaze. Women looked too, not with envy alone, but with the quiet awe reserved for rare things. Every eye held her, yet none could contain her.
Rhea felt the weight of it, though she carried it lightly, as she always did. Admiration was her shadow, familiar, expected. Yet tonight, the air around her felt charged, sharpened, as though her presence had not just drawn attention but disrupted the balance of the room.
“Miss Rhea, this way,” the maître d’ said softly, bowing with a deference that was almost reverent. He guided her to a corner table, half-hidden by sheer curtains, a vantage that allowed her both privacy and visibility.
Seated there already was Raghav Malhotra, industrialist, magnate, a man whose empire stretched from steel and oil to newsrooms and movie screens. He was power in human form, accustomed to the world bending at his nod. Yet, as he rose to greet her, his eyes softened, his voice lowered.
He inclined his head slightly, a gesture more profound than it seemed.
“Rhea-ji, you make the evening brighter just by being here.”
She smiled, measured but warm, her expression the perfect balance between intimacy and distance. “Thank you, Malhotra-saab. The pleasure is mine.”
The table was dressed in extravagance: silver domes lifted to reveal Kashmiri lamb, Iranian caviar, saffron pilaf glistening like molten gold. Yet neither reached for the food. Conversation flowed instead, cinema, politics, the dizzying ascent of new media, the permanence of old empires. Raghav spoke with the measured confidence of a man unaccustomed to contradiction, his sentences edged with steel.
Then, his tone shifted, deliberate.
“You know, people like you, Rhea-ji, are not just stars. You are gateways. To influence. To power. Men of my stature… we respect that. And we also protect it.”
The candle between them flickered, casting tall shadows across the silk dbangry.
.
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