She should have gone towards the bed or worked on her laptop. But instead, she went towards the connecting door once again.
She waited, and when she didn’t hear anything, she tried the handle.
It was still locked.
With her face burning, she stepped away, went to her bed, and sat down. She inhaled slowly, forcing herself to steady.
The locked door confirmed what she had been thinking all day.
Bharat Jogra didn’t desire her. He only came to her on their wedding night because he wanted their marriage consummated. He wanted to ensure she didn’t annul their marriage and find another man to father a child to fulfill the terms of her grandmother’s trust fund.
Cold bastard.
Even as she cursed him, a small part of her mind wasn’t entirely convinced. Because, despite his indifference towards her, his touch wasn’t cold.
His touch burned her.
???
The grandfather clock struck somewhere deep in the palace.
Yamini jerked awake.
The laptop slid sideways on her lap, and she grabbed it before it could fall, her heart already hammering before she was fully conscious. She blinked at the screen of a half-edited photograph of the steel plant, the contrast slider pulled too far left, everything grey and washed out.
The digital clock on the nightstand read 12:00.
Midnight.
The lamp on the nightstand was still on. She exhaled slowly and pushed her hair back from her face. She had meant to edit three more photographs and then sleep properly. Her neck ached from the angle at which she had dozed off.
She was about to close the laptop when she heard a familiar sound.
She froze.
The connecting door was opening, the thin line of light appearing beneath it exactly as it had the night before.
Her heart slammed hard.
He came.
She had been so certain he wouldn't.
The door opened fully, and he stepped inside, and this time she didn't think he was a dream. She was upright against the headboard, the laptop still open on her lap, fully awake and hyper-aware of every detail. The way he filled the doorway. The way he moved without hesitation, as though her room were simply an extension of his own space.
He walked towards the bed.
He came closer until she could smell that clean citrus-and-pine scent again. Her body remembered it immediately, and heat pooled low in her stomach.
She hated herself for the reaction.
His eyes dropped briefly to the laptop screen, and then, without a word, he picked it up and placed it on the nightstand with the screen facing away.
She stared at him.
She waited for him to say something or look at her. But he didn’t.
He was already reaching for her.
