Secrets Hidden In Time (Time #1)

72 | A Hug, Some Comfort, A Few Signatures & A Whetted Hairpin

"Vijay Bhai has already left for some emergency at the hospital." She trailed as they got down the last step, one after the other, "You go have breakfast. I'll just go and visit Manoramaa for a minute. Anirudh is with her."

"What about your breakfast then?" He asked, placing his hand on her upper arm while checking the time on his watch.

"I'll have something in the office cafeteria." She smiled reassuringly, "Don't worry."

He nodded, "Please do."

Nodding her head for once, she directly advanced towards the east wing of the manor, passing through the great hall. Five minutes down the line as she entered a vestibule, the sound of a familiar children's rhyme about 'elephants' fell on her ears.

She chortled knowing who it must be, watching the rhymes—her little boy.

Seeing the door wide open, she vaulted over the threshold of the chamber allotted to the third-in-command of the Dogra Security force and the current patriarchal assistant, in case she ever decided to stay back at the manor at night.

The moment she stepped inside to check on her son, she found him exactly how she had expected him to be, sitting on the medium-sized baby mattress spread over a portion of the queen-sized bed, eating and watching rhymes and blabbering some random gibberish tuning to the rhythm of the rhymes.

But what caught her attention was another medium-height feminine figure in the room, standing close to the bed. From her looks, she definitely seemed like an adolescent, of maybe 16 or 17. Her dark brown hair was neatly tied into a ponytail, with black hairclips fastened on the sides.

She was dressed in a pair of straight blue jeans and a loose oversized t-shirt which had a quirky write-up on it. The words 'D-I-E-T: Did I Eat That?' printed in bold white letters on her dark red t-shirt matched well with the red Converse shoes covering her feet. She was wheatish in complexion, with big eyes that were fixated on the chubby toddler sitting on the bed with wonder while a big and silly grin marred her youthful and plump phizog.

Maybe she sensed someone entering inside, which caused her to avert her gaze from Anirudh to the chamber entrance.

Normally when people see someone new, they turn quiet and hesitant but the girl in front of the Dogra Matriarch, on the other hand, approached her unabashedly without any shillyshallying at all. "Hi, Didi!"

The young girl grinned wider, her big and sparkling doe eyes crinkling at their corners. "I am Asiya."

Then she pointed at the cherubic toddler munching on a piece of cookie, completely captivated by the rhymes playing on the television screen. "Can I please play with him?"

Hinduja stood dumbstruck, witnessing the teenager's confidence.

What was more shocking was that this goofy teen was Karim Khan's daughter.

Because the grin on this girl's visage was directly proportional to the frown that constantly graced Karim Khan's visage. Other than the similarities in their facial features, the father-daughter pair were a complete antithesis of each other.

"Hello, didi?" Asiya waved her hands before Hinduja's eyes to bring her out of her stupor, "Which world did you enter? I asked if I could play with him."

"Yes." The Dogra Matriarch replied faintly, still awestruck.

"Oh! So fat!" The teen giggled, taking off her shoes and directly jumping on the bed, "So cute!"

The toddler meanwhile scowled at the teen as she picked him up in her lap, pulling his wobbly ruddy cheeks. He continued to blabber some random words as she pressed her face against his rotund belly, blowing air, creating fart sounds. "Hehehehehehehe! Such a fluffy potato!"