“Get ready at 7 p.m.,” he says, standing as if it’s already decided. “We’re going on a date. Okay?”
“What?” I gasp, staring up at him like he’s lost his mind. “A date? Vihaan, I just told you—”
“Trust me, Poorvi.” He leans down, presses a quick kiss to my forehead, and then—just like that—he’s gone.
I sit frozen, my mouth wide open, words stuck somewhere between outrage and disbelief.
Did… did I say something to suggest that? I told him I needed the library, and somehow that translated to a date in his brain?
My heart is still thudding when I glance back at my laptop. The assignment glares up at me, unfinished, forgotten, while my thoughts spiral in entirely new directions.
How do I dress? Where is he even taking me? Why didn’t he give me a chance to argue?
“Oh no,” I groan, dropping my forehead onto the desk. “Now I won’t be able to focus at all.”
The cursor keeps blinking, smug as ever. And for once, I can’t even argue because it’s right. My mind is already elsewhere—at 7 p.m., on Vihaan, on the way his eyes looked when he asked me to trust him.
And no matter how hard I try, I know there’s no coming back to the assignment today.
CHAPTER 43
The Sundress and the Two Chits
POORVI
The mirror gives back a version of me I don’t always recognize.
My hair tumbles in loose waves over my shoulders, dark and glossy where the light catches it. The sundress Sitara insisted I wear—pale, soft cotton with tiny blue flowers—makes my collarbones look fragile in a way that makes my stomach flip. There’s a faint dusting of kohl at my eyes, a touch of color on my lips, something I painted on because Sitara said I had to “step out of princess mode” for a night. Sitara has opinions about everything; tonight, hers involved me looking like a girl who might laugh in sunlit courtyards instead of someone who camouflages herself in the palace shadows.
I’m sitting on the edge of the bed, one leg tucked under me, the other hanging off, and there’s an odd newness to the way the fabric brushes my knees. The dress feels airy and too intimate at once, like a borrowed identity. I like the way it makes me look—softer, perhaps—but like most parts of this life, softness brings vulnerability. It’s one thing to be kind, to smile, to be pleasant in a gathering where there’s noise and distance and the anonymityof public faces. It’s another to be small and unarmored in front of someone I know will see all the pieces I usually hide.
Sitara had been merciless. “You have been living in lehengas or kurtis forever. Tonight, you’re experimenting. No one is forcing you to wear a fourteen-yard garment.” She had pinned a tiny paper flower to my hair like a conspirator and dragged me to Meher’s room for a quick pep talk. Meher had been calm and practical as always—“A sundress is fine. Wear what makes you breathe easier, Poorvi.”—and the two of them had sealed the deal with a shared look that made me feel both ridiculous and loved.
I should be able to shrug this off. I should be able to walk out the door and not turn into a spinning top.
But there is a nervous coil in my belly that tightens every time I imagine the evening ahead. He hasn’t said where we’re going. He hasn’t given any hint, not even a tiny one. Part of me liked that unpredictability—it meant he had planned something—and part of me wanted the safety of knowing. The pond, a small café by the palace gardens… or some restaurant with too-bright chandeliers and too-much attention. I picture all of them and then crumple the images like paper boats.
I am lost in this half-worry when the gate clicks and the room seems to arrive late to reality. The door opens; a sliver of corridor light slips in.
He fills the doorway without ceremony. Vihaan stands like he always does—composed, a little deliberately casual, a tailored kurta that fits him like it was stitched to the exact lines of his bones. My breath stumbles. It always does, even after weeks of sharing a bed and a life where whispers of “I love you” have beensaid and received. There is something about him that rearranges the air.
He pauses at the threshold and his whole face changes—like someone tuned a soft light and it landed exactly where he needed it. He looks at me the way someone might admire a painting they didn’t know they needed. He closes the distance in three effortless steps. I am suddenly aware of every thread of fabric between us, as if clothing were the last reluctant barrier.
I’m aware of myself even more when he doesn’t say anything, I fumble around with my sleeves. I laugh—a short, embarrassed sound. “I… Sitara…”
Before I can finish with any dignified rebuttal, his hand is at my face. He takes my spectacles, which are on the table, lifts them gently, and there is tenderness in the motion that makes the world narrow to two hands and one face. He kisses the bridge of my nose —a soft, proprietary kiss—then, with a small theatrical smile, he puts the glasses back on me. His fingers linger at the temple. “There. Beautiful,” he says, and the word is so easy and so sure that my heart doffs a miniature salute.
I want to protest. I want to tell him he’s ridiculous to fuss over something so small. I want to say that it’s just a dress. But instead, I feel heat rise in my cheeks and I find myself fumbling with the hem, unable to find the right words that aren’t all ridiculous and human.
He moves to stand behind me and the world tilts. For a brief, private beat he presses his forehead to the back of my head, hums something like a laugh I feel more than hear, and murmurs, “You look like spring.”
“Spring?” I frown.
He smiles gently. “Yeah. Spring.” He strokes my cheek with the back of his hand, “Spring… not just because of the dress. It’s the way you walk in and suddenly everything feels lighter. Like the air gets softer, like I can breathe easier just by looking at you. You know how the first day of spring makes you believe maybe the world isn’t as cruel as winter made it seem? That’s what you do to me. You make me feel like life still has warmth in it… like I don’t have to carry the cold alone.”
Spring. Of all the metaphors. It is honest and bright and quietly devastating. I let myself be cheered by it despite the protest in my chest that tells me to be practical, to keep my heart armored.
He draws two small chits from his pocket, folded slips of paper so ordinary they’re almost silly. He holds each one delicately, one in each hand, like a magician about to reveal a trick. “Pick one,” he says, soft and pleased at his own mischief.
