Her steps faltered slightly as she recognized them.
She had seen them at the Jogra steel plant.
Royal security.
He is here.
Her heart jerked hard.
Before she could decide what to do with that realization, one of the guards nodded respectfully, reached for the handle, and opened the door.
She saw two lawyers seated along one side of the long table, files open, pens aligned, their attention towards the head of the table.
Then the door opened wider.
And she saw him.
Maharaja Bharat Singh Jogra sat at the head of the table. He wasn’t leaning back or sitting relaxed. He sat completely still in a way that felt authoritative and intimidating. His hand rested on the table near the open file, the heavy gold signet ring catching the light for a moment.
Taking a deep breath, she stepped inside.
He did not rise or greet her or even look at her. His attention remained on the file in front of him.
Anger flared in her chest.
Yamini took the seat opposite the lawyers and slightly to the left of Bharat. The table was long, gleaming, and spotless. Two advocates sat across from her with folders arranged in neat stacks, glasses of water placed with exact symmetry, pens aligned parallel to the edges of their notepads. The whole room felt like it had been prepared according to the wishes of the maharaja who owned the entire law office.
“Princess Yamini Gaur,” the older of the two lawyers said with a professional smile. “I am Advocate Meera Khanna, and this is Advocate Rhea Malhotra. We’ll walk you through the highlighted terms before we proceed to signing.”
“The marriage is structured as a three-year contract,” Advocate Khanna continued. “All other clauses operate within that window.”
Of course Bharat Jogra would have known about her grandmother's trust deadline. The three-year clause in the contract was too convenient.
Yamini didn’t show any reaction.
She could feel Bharat’s presence without looking at him directly, the same way she could feel heat near a flame even when she wasn’t facing it. He sat in complete stillness, one hand resting near the file, the other on the arm of the chair, dressed in a dark suit.
Advocate Khanna began.
At first, Yamini pretended to listen politely. Marriage terms. Public protocol. Residency expectations. Media restrictions. Financial independence. Professional autonomy. Confidentiality. Her eyes moved over the pages in front of her while the lawyer’s voice continued in smooth, practiced tones, but after the first several minutes, the words began to blur around the edges as her anger grew.
I can’t believe he had ordered a team of people to sit through this farce just to intimidate me.
Advocate Malhotra slid a page toward her. “This section deals with financial settlement, independent assets, and ongoing professional rights,” she said.
The lawyer read them aloud. A personal account structure protected from marital interference. Independent control over her professional income. Separate financial management. A settlement figure so large that, for a second, she thought she had read it wrong. It made her grandmother’s inheritance seem like a paltry sum.
Her brows drew together.
This is ridiculous.
No, it was worse than ridiculous.
It was deliberate.
The generous clauses only made her angrier because she could suddenly see exactly what he was doing.
He thought a fat financial settlement and carefully worded protections would make her greedy. He thought she would get her hopes up, only to be humiliated when the whole thing collapsed.
