A rueful smile tugged at the edge of his mouth. ‘You might think I’m most close with Raghav, but it was her. She was the only one who knew about you, about us. I told her everything after you left. Being a true Delhi girl, she didn’t sugarcoat as she ripped into me for making such a dumb mistake.’
‘I can imagine,’ Siya chuckled.
‘She ordered me to find you, no matter what it took. She said if I really meant it, I’d go after you and fix what I ruined.’
‘Then why didn’t you?’ she challenged him. Siya would never confess but a small part of her thought maybe he’d show up.
Abhay took a deep breath. ‘Because the next day, Nica passed away in a car accident. I stayed with Raag because he was heartbroken. By the time the fog of grief began to clear, I thought it was too late. When I tried to get in touch with you, I found you’d blocked me on every social media platform. I understood the hint that you wanted me to leave you alone, and after what I did, I figured the least I could do was respect that.’
His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. For days after their night together, all of her time was spent dealing with her bruised heart, but he’d been dealing with far worse.
He continued. ‘But then I saw you again at that first group dinner with Meera and Raghav, and you looked at me with so much hate that my heart actually felt hope again.’
Her eyebrows drew together, confusion flashing across her face. ‘Hope?’
‘Yes, because if I’d seen cold, detached indifference in your eyes, I would’ve known that there was nothing left to fight for. Through all that anger and resentment, you still cared enough to hate me, and I began to hope for my poor heart,’ he said.
That claim made her breath catch. For a fleeting, terrifying second, she didn’t know whether she wanted to push him away or close the gap between them.
‘You feel that way because you got caught lying,’ she accused, but her words no longer burned as hot as they used to.
Abhay shook his head. ‘Do you remember I left that night after we got back to the ballroom? It was torturing me to know that our first kiss happened before you even knew my name. To me, it was surreal because I was kissing the girl of my dreams and I hated that it wasn’t the same for you. But then you began your speech and your voice pulled me back to you. I couldn’t take one step away from you then, and if it comes to that, I won’t be able to do it tomorrow either.’
‘And what happens when this… when this arrangement ends?’ she asked, her gaze flicking to the sand lodged between her toes.
Abhay hesitated. ‘Then it will have to be you who walks away.’
She had braced herself for his anger or silence, not an admission so stark it felt like raw wound.
‘And what if I do?’ she asked softly.
Abhay smiled, faint and full of pain. ‘Then I’ll hate myself for it, but I’ll let you go. If you stay with me, it should be because you choose to, not because you feel trapped or obligated. But I’mnot letting go without a fight. I’d do whatever it took to earn my way back to you.’
She studied him, and found no trace of deceit. ‘Will you answer me honestly if I ask you something?’
Abhay nodded, waiting for her to go on.
‘During our engagement brunch, did you lie when you said you liked me since childhood because it sounded good for the PR narrative?’
He shook his head, slowly and certainly. ‘No, not even a word. I was eight the first time I saw you. We were in Delhi for the summer and my parents dragged me to some birthday party. I sulked the entire ride there. Then I saw you. You were wearing this yellow frock with a daisy headband which kept slipping off because it couldn’t hold your wild curls.’
A startled laugh escaped her. ‘Oh my god, I hated that headband.’
‘I know,’ he said with a grin. ‘In the end, you pulled it off and threw it under a cupboard.’
‘You were watching me?’ she tilted her head.
‘You were hard not to watch. Instead of playing like the rest of us, you were busy helping the birthday girl pass out cake and later, you scolded a boy twice your size for pushing a toddler. I remember thinking how does a kid look like she already knows how to run the world?’
‘So that’s what made you curious?’
Abhay chuckled. ‘I didn’t even know what that feeling was back then, but after that party, I dragged my parents to everyother birthday that summer, hoping to see you again but you weren’t there.’
‘It’s so weird that I didn’t even know you existed at the time,’ she mused, wondering what could have been if they’d met as innocent and carefree kids, away from the spotlight of legacy.
‘That’s the irony. You have no idea how long you’ve been a part of my life, even from a distance. I think I had a crush on you before I even knew what that word meant.’
Her throat prickled with an emotion she couldn’t decipher. ‘That’s a long time to hold on to a crush.’
