My jaw tightened.
“And when I get back,” she continued, adjusting her bag on her shoulder, “I’ll decide whether or not I want to listen to you grovel.”
Grovel. The word echoed in my skull.
“If that’s what it takes,” I said quietly.
Something flickered across her face. Surprise? Maybe. But it disappeared just as quickly.
She stepped closer to me then, close enough that I could smell her perfume. Close enough that I had to fight the urge to pull her into my chest and refuse to let her leave until she heard me out. Instead, she reached up and straightened my collar like a dutiful wife seeing her husband off to work.
“You should practice,” she murmured. “I expect a very convincing apology.”
“Vani.”
She paused. I swallowed.
“Please.”
For a second, the sarcasm dropped. Her fingers stilled against my collar. But instead of softening, she withdrew her hand. “See, you're already on the right track. I expect a lot of begging.”
And just like that, she walked away like she owned the air between us.
For a second, my entire body reacted on instinct. My feet shifted. My hand flexed, as if it remembered the weight of herwrist in my palm. Like it remembered how easily I could reach her, how quickly I could pull her back, how close we’d been to… to anything that didn’t feel like this.
I had half a mind to chase after her.
To say her name, loud enough that she’d have to stop. To make her look at me without that expression that said she was done being hurt on my terms. To demand an explanation I wasn’t entitled to. To give one I hadn’t been brave enough to offer.
My chest tightened with it—an ugly, sharp sensation I didn’t have a word for, because if I named it, it would become real. And real meant I couldn’t pretend I was still in control.
She reached the doorway of the dining room and didn’t look back. Not once.
I forced myself to breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth, the way I did in boardrooms when someone tried to bait me.
Except this wasn’t business.
This was the woman I’d married on paper and somehow managed to make me feel like a stranger inside my own home.
I took a step forward.
Then another.
“Vani—”
My phone went off. The sound cut through the tension like a gunshot. I swore under my breath and reached for it immediately. I didn’t even check the caller ID before answering. “What is it?”
“Sir,” my assistant’s voice came through, tight and urgent. “There’s a problem at the office that needs your immediate attention.”
Of course, there was.
I closed my eyes briefly, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Define problem.”
“There’s an issue with the financial report sent to the board. The projections are incorrect, and one of the investors has already called demanding clarification.”
My posture straightened automatically. The personal frustration evaporated, replaced by cold, sharp focus. “How did that happen?”
“We’re still looking into it, sir. But they’re threatening to pull out of tomorrow’s meeting if it’s not addressed immediately.”
