Page 55 of Since You Stole My Heart

‘It’s okay,’ she said quickly. ‘You don’t have to answer that. I understand. It’s… not easy to talk about things like that.’

Swayam shook his head. ‘I meant what I said. I don’t mind doing things for my wife, even if it means talking about difficult things.’

She turned to look out at the open balcony behind them. A full moon glowed in the sky, scattered among the stars, while a faint breeze brushed against her skin. A niggling thought rose uninvited.

What would it feel like to tell him everything? To spill the secrets that still haunted her?

Kashvi crushed the thought, but it left behind a faint ache she couldn’t shake.

Swayam cleared his throat, taking a slow sip from his cup. ‘I was less than a year old when my parents got divorced. My maternal grandparents raised me.’

She heard the quiet edge of pain in his voice and slid closer, placing her hand over his in silent reassurance that she waslistening. He turned his hand beneath hers, threading their fingers together.

‘From what my grandfather told me, my parents only dated briefly before getting married in a whirlwind. When reality hit and they began to struggle, they thought having a child might fix things. That’s when everything started going wrong.’

Kashvi drew light circles on the back of his hand. ‘What happened?’ she asked softly.

His gaze dropped to their joined hands as he said, ‘It only got worse after I was born. Or maybe they just realised nothing was ever going to change, so they separated soon after. I lived with my grandparents after that.’

‘That must have been difficult for them,’ Kashvi said.

‘They were more than happy to take me in. When they’d come to stay with my parents to help take care of me, they’d already seen the tension and hostility between them. I think they even encouraged my mother to leave my father because that was no place to raise a child. But I don’t think they expected her to cut more than one tie.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Just after she filed for divorce, she told them she’d be moving to Canada immediately for a promotion at her office HQ.’

Even Kashvi could tell that was a rash decision, and Swayam would have been the one most affected by it.

‘How did your grandparents take it?’

‘They tried to talk her out of it, tried to make her see that I was too young to move to another country. She told them they were crazy if they thought she would take the reason her life had fallen apart with her when she was trying to start over,’ Swayam said, his tone almost detached.

‘What? How could she just leave you?’ Kashvi asked, unable to comprehend the idea of a mother abandoning her newborn child.

His expression remained controlled, but his eyes betrayed the hurt and anger layered beneath. ‘She could, because she didn’t care about me.’

‘Still, your grandparents must have been getting older. How could she do that to them?’

There was a faint ring of bitterness in his voice. ‘Technically, she gave them the option to either keep me or give me away. So the fault lies with my grandparents for choosing unwanted and unnecessary stress in their old age by keeping me.’

‘Yeah? Says who?’ she shot back, the idea grating on her nerves.

‘My mother. She said that to Nani after Nanu passed away and Nani called her for help because she was struggling to take care of me alone.’

‘That’s…’ Kashvi stopped, unable to find the right words. She shifted closer, slipping her arm through his and resting her head on his shoulder. ‘I’m so sorry. You shouldn’t have had to go through that.’

‘Nanu and Nani didn’t tell me that part until much later, when I was old enough to understand what she’d done. But honestly, I didn’t know what I was missing because they gave me a good, happy life. My Malini Maasi and Rishi Mausa helped whenever they could too.’

Kashvi nestled in the crook of his neck, listening.

Swayam added, his eyes fixed on the distant city lights flickering against the dark sky, ‘I don’t understand why or how she could do it, and I don’t think I ever will. But it took me a long time to realise it would have been worse if she had stayed and made both our lives miserable.’

‘What about your father? Wait, that’s a stupid question. I can guess that you haven’t spoken to him either. I mean, I don’t even know his name.’

Swayam exhaled, leaning back into the sofa and pulling her slightly closer. ‘At least my mother had the decency to say she was never coming back. But I suppose Lalit Sharma didn’t believe in goodbyes. He signed the divorce papers and then… disappeared.’

‘How is that possible?’ Her brows drew together. ‘No one tried to find him?’