Karan noticed it from where he stood, even though they were several feet apart. His gaze shifted briefly, almost alert, but he said nothing and continued listening to the project head.
“Enjoy the attention while it lasts,” Kanika said. “People like you tend to forget their place once they taste a little success. Just remember, no matter what you do, you will never be as good as me.”
Mishti looked up at her. There was no anger in her eyes. She knew Kanika was just being Kanika right now. Always trying to let her down.
“I am not trying to be you,” she replied calmly. “And I do not measure myself by your standards.”
Kanika scoffed and walked out of the conference room.
The moment she left, Mishti’s Mangalsutra’s string cracked open. She managed to catch the sliding chain just in time, pressing it against her chest before it could fall to the floor. Her fingers trembled as she looked down at it. The thin black and gold bead chain had come apart near the clasp, the beads now almost hanging loose and fragile in her palm.
Her eyes filled instantly. How had it snapped so suddenly?
Not a single day had passed since her wedding when she had not worn it. No matter how strained things had been between her and Karan, the mangalsutra had always remained where it belonged, resting against her skin, a symbol of her marriage. And now, for the first time since the day it had been tied around her neck, it had broken like this.
Her throat tightened as a tear slipped down her cheek. Breaking of a Mangalsutra wasn’t considered as a good sign either.
Across the room, Karan saw everything.
He noticed the sudden stillness in her body, the way her hand flew to her chest, the way her face drained of colour. He cut his conversation short immediately.
“We will discuss this later,” he told the project head curtly.
The man nodded and left without question.
Karan walked toward Mishti, who stood there, staring down at the broken mangalsutra, trying unsuccessfully to fix the clasp with trembling fingers. The hook had come loose completely. No matter how she tried, it would not hold.
Another tear slipped free.
Karan had not intended to step in. In fact, his first instinct was to stay detached, to let the moment pass without pulling himself into it. But something always happened to him when he saw her helpless and in tears. So, before he could stop himself, the words left his mouth.
“It is just a chain.”
Mishti lifted her chin slowly.
“It is my marital chain,” she said softly, her fingers tightening around the broken thread. “You tied it to me on our wedding day with all those rituals, in front of the fire, the mantras, and the gods.”
He rolled his eyes, trying to dismiss it.
“So what? You can buy a new one,” he said flatly.
She shook her head at once. “That will not fix this. A mangalsutra breaking like this is not normal, Karan. It is a bad omen. It means something is going to go wrong. Something bad is going to happen in our marriage. Between us.”
He studied her for a moment. This was the Mishti he had known from the beginning. The woman who believed in faith, insigns, in things that could not be explained away with logic. She was too spiritual, and such things always affected her.
He let out a tired breath.
“What else can go wrong?” he mocked. “You are talking as if everything between us is perfect already.”
Her eyes flashed with hurt again. She knew he was right, and that only made it sting more. Still, she was not ready to let it go.
“Stop overthinking this,” he said, wanting to shut this conversation down. “Go home. Your work is done for today.”
Mishti stood there for a few seconds longer, knowing he wouldn’t understand. She wiped her tears with the back of her hand, clutched the broken mangalsutra carefully in her palm, and walked out of the conference room without another word.
Karan followed her out, watching the way her shoulders sagged, the way her steps slowed. That single moment had drained her of all energy. By the time she reached her cabin, she looked smaller somehow, subdued, nothing like the confident woman who had chaired the meeting barely an hour ago.
He lingered a moment longer in the corridor, wondering how something so simple, something so completely out of her control, could affect her this deeply. It was only a chain. A chain that could be replaced. And yet, to her, it was clearly far more than that.
