Page 79 of Scars and Crowns

It doesn't.

My irritation grows anyway. Not at Sara. She deserves evenings like this—curling up beside a grandmother who's already hopelessly in love with her, whispering five-year-old secrets long past bedtime.

No.

I'm irritated at everything else. At the fact that my overnight bag is somewhere on a different route because one of the vehicles took another road after the convoy split. At the fact that all I've been wearing since sunrise are these travel clothes, now carrying the faint scent of dust and a day spent in the car.

And, if I'm being completely honest . . . The missing bag isn't really the problem. Not entirely. The real problem is standing quietly underneath it, refusing to be ignored. For the first time since this marriage happened, Sara won't be asleep between us. No small body sprawled diagonally across the mattress. No sleepy interruptions. No tiny hand reaching for one of us in the middle of the night.

Just . . . Us.

Alone.

The thought sends a ridiculous flutter through my stomach. I immediately decide to pretend it doesn't exist. Yuvaan walks in a moment later, slipping his phone into his pocket, and finds me still standing exactly where he left me, arms folded, looking personally offended by a piece of furniture.

His gaze flicks once around the room before settling on me. "Your bag didn't arrive?"

I let out another sigh. "It's apparently still in the second car." He raises an eyebrow. "The one that took the scenic route for reasons no one seems capable of explaining." A corner of his mouth twitches. "I don't suppose," I continue hopefully, "this palace keeps emergency nightclothes for guests?"

Without a word, he turns and disappears into the dressing room. I blink after him. A minute later he returns holding out a neatly folded white cotton kurta. Plain. Soft. Obviously his.

"It's the best I can do," he says. I stare at it for a second before taking it from him.

"Thank you." For reasons I refuse to examine too closely, my voice comes out quieter than usual. I escape into the bathroom before he can notice. The moment I pull the kurta over my head, I know it's going to be a problem. It's enormous through the sleeves. Far too long. The shoulders slide halfway down my arms.

And yet . . . across my chest and stomach it fits much more closely than I'd like. The soft cotton skims every curve I'd spent years pretending not to notice. I catch my reflection in the mirror. The woman looking back at me isn't the girl who left Devgarh. Pregnancy changed me. Motherhood changed me. Years of survival changed me. There are softer edges now, fuller curves, a body that has carried a child and never quite returned to what it once was.

Some days I make peace with that. Some days I don't. Tonight appears to be one of the difficult days. I tug the kurta down unnecessarily. Pull it away from myself. Let it fall back again. It changes absolutely nothing. For one ridiculous moment, I genuinely consider sleeping in my clothes. The idea lasts all of five seconds before common sense reminds me I'd be miserable.

I let out a long breath. You're being silly. It's just a kurta. He's seen women before. He's certainly not going to stand there analysing every kilogram I've gained over the years.

Even if a small, cruel part of my mind insists otherwise. I square my shoulders, unlock the bathroom door and step back into the room. Yuvaan is sitting against the headboard, scrolling through something on his phone.

He looks up automatically when he hears me. Without meaning to, I brace myself. For surprise. For awkwardness. For the tiny flicker of disappointment I've become so accustomed to imagining on other people's faces that sometimes I see it even when it isn't there.

His gaze travels over me once. Slowly. Not lingering. Not avoiding. Simply . . . seeing.

Then it returns to my face. “You look beautiful." That's all he says. Like it’s a fact. Nothing more. He smiles—a small, easy smile—and looks back down at whatever he was reading. Just like that. No second glance. No awkward pause. No indication he'd noticed anything I'd spent ten minutes criticising in the mirror.

Something inside my chest loosens so suddenly it almost hurts. I hadn't realised how tightly I'd been holding myself together until that moment. I climb carefully onto the opposite side of the bed, smoothing the hem of the oversized kurta over my knees more from habit than necessity.

The room settles into silence. The kind that comes when two people aren't quite sure how this version of their relationship is supposed to work yet.

I look around for something to say. Anything. "You used to steal my things." He looks up immediately.

"I did?"

"You absolutely did." I point accusingly at him, his audacity to pretend to not remember it. "You have no moral ground to stand on. I distinctly remember you borrowing one of my ribbons and never returning it."

His expression becomes wonderfully thoughtful. "The blue one?"

"The yellow one."

"Oh."

He nods once. "That wasn't stealing." I stare at him. "It was evidence."

I blink. "What?"