Chapter 2: Addicted to the Chase

After that, I completely lost myself. Every chance I got, I found a way to be with Neha.

It was like my senses had woken up after years of sleepwalking. Even the musty staff pantry, with its leaky tap and faded Godrej fridge, felt like a secret den. Just a brush of our hands over an Excel sheet in the meeting room was enough to send my heart racing. Outside, the watchman grumbled, the canteen’s burnt popcorn smell drifted in, but I only noticed Neha. I was hooked on the thrill of stolen moments.

Soon, even when there wasn’t an excuse, I created one—just to be near her again.

I started making up reasons to stay late at work—fake Zoom calls, imaginary HR complaints. Sometimes, when it rained, I’d offer to drop her home, just to sit together in the back of a rickshaw, our thighs brushing, Mumbai’s neon lights dancing in her eyes lined with kohl. The city’s sticky humidity clung to my shirt, but I barely noticed.

Neha had something magnetic about her.

She was wild, her laugh loud and careless, her words edged with Mumbai street sharpness. No fussing with makeup—just a messy braid and a look that turned heads in the cafeteria. Her confidence was raw, the kind that made me forget about rules. She accepted what we were doing, as if morality was only for those with the luxury to care.

Everything Priya shied away from, Neha welcomed without hesitation.

With her, I felt young again, almost like a hero. Priya’s careful routines and gentle refusals seemed from another world. With Neha, there were no boundaries, only the rush of being wanted.

But it was Neha’s straightforwardness I liked most.

She was direct—sometimes a bit too much. She’d tease me about my thinning hair, call me ‘uncle’ to see me sulk, then look at me with one eyebrow raised, head tilted, making my heart pound like the dhol at Ganpati visarjan.

After the third time we slept together, she told me everything.

We sat on her cramped bed, the ceiling fan clicking above, Mumbai’s horns and barking dogs leaking through the window. She explained, her voice flat, no drama. She said she’d seduced me because I was her department manager—her attendance, performance, and benefits were in my hands.

And she’d heard from others that I wasn’t just a regular manager—I was the company chairman’s nephew, just passing through the branch for experience. She thought getting close to me would help her rise, too.

Oddly, I felt like I’d found a treasure.

No Bollywood-style tears or love speeches—just plain logic, like a seasoned Mumbaikar squeezing into a crowded train. I respected her honesty, or at least convinced myself I did.

The truth was, I was thirty-two and my belly was starting to show.

I’d see my paunch stretching my shirt in the lift’s reflection, my mother’s worried looks at dinner, the tailor sighing as he loosened my pants. Priya would nudge me about morning walks. The signs were everywhere.

If a girl in her twenties said, “Uncle, I like you for you, not your money or position”—how stupid would I be to believe her?

My father’s old advice echoed: "Beta, if something’s too good to be true, it usually is." No city-smart girl likes a married man with a paunch for his smile alone. At least Neha told the truth.

Her bluntness was almost a relief. No silly love letters, no secret parks. Just an understanding. I could admire her—the way she measured her world, her odds, and me.

A girl like this would never want to fight for the main wife’s place.

So as long as I was careful, Priya would never know.

It was the perfect Mumbai setup: what happened behind closed doors, stayed there. As long as no one saw us together near the Irani café, life could go on.

But that good feeling faded. Soon, emptiness crept in.