“On the first day I saw you. You were six years old. It was the day you helped me out of a cave near Rewa Palace.”
The air left her lungs in a slow, unsteady breath as fragments of memory formed in her mind. The fountain. The mud. And then, a faint memory of crawling into a narrow space between rocks, the smell of stone and water, a boy sitting with his back against a wall, hands over his ears, not screaming or talking.
She had reached for his hand because it seemed like the obvious thing to do.
She had forgotten it completely over the years.
“So all this time...” She turned to face him fully. “You have been painting me since I was six years old?”
“Yes.”
He offered no apology. He gave no denial.
The calm honesty unsettled her more than defensiveness ever could have.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “If I was important enough for this.” She gestured around the studio, at every version of herself over the years. “Why do you feel I’m not worthy to have your child?”
The room went still.
His expression didn't shift dramatically, but she saw the flicker in his golden-brown eyes.
“You are worthy of a child,” he said.
“But not yours?” she asked.
He held her gaze.
“You deserve a perfect child,” he added. “My genes are not perfect.”
Yamini frowned as confusion cut through the hurt.
“What do you mean by not perfect?” she asked. “You are the most impossibly perfect man I know. You are breathtakingly handsome. You run a business empire. You are a maharaja.”
He looked at her for a moment.
“My father,” he said calmly, “was known as the Mad Maharaja.”
She froze.
“He was unpredictable,” Bharat continued. “Most people called it brilliance. The media called it passion. It was none of those things.”
His tone didn't change.
“He died from an accidental fall from a snow cliff. That is the official record.”
Her pulse quickened.
“There were rumors,” he continued, still controlled, “that he jumped.”
She was stunned.
“I was called that as a child too by a few,” he added. “The mad maharaja.”
His face showed no visible pain. He spoke as though it was just the plain truth.
“I do not process the world the way others do,” he said. “I am precise. Structured. Controlled.”
His gaze held hers.
