2 2- Marriage is a business deal

As a result of being home-schooled, Archie held no close knowledge of what the outer world was like. What her father said was the final word. And that was the only way it seemed to be forever. Raj hardly conversed with the sisters as he was always busy about his business, arranging meetings and looking through important documents and they never intended on interfering either. For as long as they remember, studying was their only goal, and they did so for themselves, not for Raj.

The sisters were always closely monitored by Raj as he was afraid of something he never spoke of. This silence scared them but they became eager to know. Anyone who interacted with his daughters were filtered and only the very trustworthy were allowed to do so. As a result of this, romance and love was something they never heard of. If they were to be questioned on the topic, they would be clueless, although that would be the only thing Archie would be uneducated about.

She had sometimes heard her father discuss about marriage quite a few times but his concept of it was as of a business deal, to create partnership with companies and that was the only motive.

Archie didn't question this. From her early teenage years, Archie was fond of the law and legal justice, she even mentioned this to her father who reluctantly promoted her as he wanted her to follow in his footsteps along the business world as he felt law was too risky for her, but this assumption stood nowhere near her determination as Archie hardly exposed of her feelings. She always hid herself under a mask of carelessness. It was hard to know what was on her mind.

As a result of reading way too many books, Archie came upon a few based on romance. Not knowing of the topic, one day she walked to her father for more detail only to be faced with his shock and anger, burning all books in their backyard the very next day. This behaviour of his was rather odd to Archie as his rage always remained in his work and never interfered with their family life. Seeing his reaction, she came to the conclusion that whatever this love maybe was to stay far from her as Raj was so deeply infuriated by it. By why? It sounded rather pleasing, although deep in her mind, the very small curiosity was only getting larger and larger, little by little. When will it explode?