Page 92 of Scars and Crowns

Some aches are too old for words. You simply learn to live around them. Looking at Sara now . . . I recognise that same quiet longing. She never demanded a father. Never cried for one. She simply found someone who made her feel safe . . . and loved him with her whole heart. Enough to fake a stomach ache. Enough to give her mother thirty uninterrupted minutes. Enough to quietly decide that maybe . . . Just maybe . . . The two people she loved most belonged together.

I hold her close again, feeling the silver chain resting against my chest between us. It presses lightly into both our hearts. "I love you," I whisper into her hair. "So much."

"I love you too." She yawns against my shoulder. "And . . . " She peeks up at me with a tiny smile. "I still think Mister would make a really good papa."

I laugh softly. Another tear slips free. This child has never known what a father is supposed to look like. And somehow . . . she recognised one the moment she found him.

I brush another kiss against her forehead and hold her a little tighter. For the first time since leaving the fair, I stop arguing with my own heart. Because sitting here with my daughter wrapped safely in my arms . . . I can't ignore the quiet truth settling inside me anymore.

Maybe she isn't wrong.

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ANAMIKA

For the past two days, I have become remarkably good at disappearing. Not literally. That would be impossible in a palace where everyone seems to know where everyone else is at all times. But I've learned the art of being just out of reach. Breakfast a little earlier than usual. Longer hours at the bookshop. Taking the long corridor instead of the central staircase because I know that's the route he usually takes after council meetings.

It's ridiculous. I know it is. The worst part is that I couldn't properly explain it even if someone asked me to. It's not that I don't want to see Yuvaan. That's exactly the problem. I want to see him far too much. I want to march straight into his study, close the door behind me, and demand answers.

What did you mean by soulmate?

Did you really mean it?

Have you always felt that way?

What exactly am I supposed to do with that now?

And while I'm at it, perhaps ask him what either of us is meant to do about a five-year-old who staged an entire stomach ache just to trick us into spending half an hour alone together. Every time I imagine that conversation, my courage disappears before I reach the first sentence. There are too many feelings inside me. None of them seem willing to stand in a neat line. If I opened my mouth around him now, I'm fairly certain every one of them would tumble out together.

So instead . . . I hide. The bookshop has become my safest excuse. No one questions extra work. No one questions longer hours. Books are wonderfully cooperative companions. They never demand explanations. I spend entire afternoons rearranging shelves that were already perfectly arranged the day before. Straightening displays. Dusting corners that don't actually need dusting. Finding jobs simply because my hands need something to do while my mind insists on wandering back to one noisy village fair. To an old leather wallet. To two faded photographs. To one impossible word.

Soulmate.

He'd said it so simply. As though it were the most obvious truth in the world. As though handing someone your entire heart could be done with the same ease as offering them a paper cone of chilli fritters.

I've been trying to find somewhere sensible to put that word ever since. There isn't anywhere. If he meant it the way people usually mean it . . . Then everything I've been telling myself about this marriage changes. This careful arrangement. This practical agreement. This life we've been slowly building because circumstances demanded it. It stops being practical. It becomes something frighteningly real. And if I allow myself to believe that's what he meant . . . If I let myself hope . . . And I turn out to be wrong . . . I don't know whether I could survive misunderstanding him twice in one lifetime.

Once was enough. Seven years ago I boarded a train believing I understood exactly where I stood in his life. I was wrong. Completely wrong. I'm not eager to repeat that lesson. Then there's Sara. My sweet, impossible child. Her little voice keeps finding me in quiet moments.

"I want a papa."

"I really like Mister."

"I want you to be happy."

How am I supposed to hold all of that alongside my own fear? How do I protect my daughter's hopeful heart when mine still isn't certain what it's allowed to believe?

So I continue hiding.

Or at least . . . I try.

Avoiding Yuvaan Jadeja has never been particularly successful. Apparently marriage hasn't improved my odds.

I'm crouched in the children's section of the bookshop, carefully adjusting a row of picture books that have already been alphabetised twice this week, when the bell above the door rings softly.

I don't look up. I don't need to. Somehow I simply know. His footsteps are unmistakable now. Slow. Unhurried. Never noisy.

I keep my attention fixed firmly on the shelves. If I don't look at him, perhaps my heart will behave itself.