She didn't slow down. She walked past them without a word, her shoes hitting the marble in hard, fast steps.
He didn't follow her or call her back.
This time, she didn't expect him to.
CHAPTER 48
Yamini sat in her small rented apartment, working at her laptop.
On the screen, molten steel glowed like captured fire. Workers in helmets stood shoulder to shoulder, proud and steady.
She adjusted the contrast, sharpened a frame, and balanced the highlights.
Her hands moved with professional calm. Her mind didn't.
She clicked to the next image.
Bharat stood in profile, sleeves rolled, speaking to a group of engineers. The light caught his eyes—golden-brown, steady, unreadable even in stillness.
Her fingers froze on the mouse.
She zoomed in despite her heart screaming at her not to.
The image magnified until she could see the line of his jaw. The faint tension at his temple. The authority in his posture.
She stared at it for a moment too long.
And then she minimized it.
This is just professional work,she told herself. This was the final phase of the PR project. The files were due by the end of the week. She would finish what she started.
It had been two weeks since she had walked out of Jogra Palace with a suitcase, her laptop, and Sheru wrapped in a pashmina shawl. Two weeks since the emerald pendant had skidded across the teak table and landed between them.
Now she lived in a small rented apartment above a pharmacy.
There were no marble floors or silent corridors or friendly staff who sensed her mood before she said anything. There werejust white walls, a narrow balcony, and a kitchen she had to clean herself.
Sheru didn’t seem to mind that from a palace, his space had been reduced to a small space.
At night, her bed felt too cold.
She told herself she preferred it.
But some nights, in the dark, her body remembered things she didn’t want to remember. His kisses. His passion. Then the weight of his arm across her waist. And the way he pulled her closer in his sleep.
She hated that she missed it.
The child you will be carrying won't be mine. It will be from another man.
The words came back without warning, the way they did several times a day.
She straightened in her chair and dragged the cursor across the screen, adjusting the exposure harder than she needed to.
He never loved you,she told herself.He planned to destroy you.
The apartment door creaked open.
“Yamini?”
