🖤 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝕱𝖔𝖚𝖗 🖤

Hriday's POV

She'd barely touched her paratha. Just poked at it like it had wronged her in another life.

I didn't say anything. I'd learned silence often got more answers than questions.

Then, somewhere between her third dismantled bite and the second sip of chai, she spoke.

"I don't really know anyone in Udaipur."

I glanced at her, but she wasn't looking at me-just the edge of her plate.

"I was only here for the wedding," she added. "Nothing permanent."

Her tone was casual, but the pause that followed felt like a cliff edge.

"Well," she said, "it wasn't supposed to be permanent."

I leaned back in my chair. "Not the worst city to lose yourself in. Pretty sunsets. Overpriced shawls. And the strangers are generous enough to offer backup salwar sets."

That earned a quiet laugh-barely there, but real.

She looked around the room, taking in the old wooden beams, the chandelier, the slow swirl of morning light.

"You're rich, aren't you?"

I raised a brow. "That obvious?"

She gave me a side glance. "Please. The villa has arches, Hriday. Plural. You probably have a bathroom bigger than my entire apartment back in Mumbai."

I shrugged. "Inherited some of it. The rest came the hard way."

"Drugs? Diamonds? Black money?"

I blinked. "Are you asking or just hoping I'm interesting enough to write a book about?"

She tilted her head, playful. "You do seem like the mysterious antihero sort."

"That sounds like slander."

"You did find an unconscious woman in the middle of the highway and decided to give her masala chai and new clothes instead of calling the cops."

"That's not mysterious. That's just polite."

"Polite's not supposed to come with a private villa."

I grinned, despite myself. "You done profiling me?"

"Not even close," she said, smiling faintly. Then the smile faded.

She reached into her dupatta and pulled out a small velvet pouch.

Set it on the table between us with quiet finality.

"Do you know the Khurranas?"

I didn't flinch. "Business-wise. Not personally."

Her shoulders loosened. "Good."

She pushed the pouch across the table. "Return this to them."

I didn't move for a second.

Then opened it slowly.

It was the necklace. My grandmother's heirloom.Emeralds, antique work, delicate but unmistakably expensive.

One of the only pieces she'd brought with her from the wedding.

"You know," I said, "you could sell this. Have enough money to vanish. Start fresh. Udaipur to anywhere in a single pawn ticket. Also enough money to not think about a job for a few months, maybe years depending how you spend moeny."

She looked at me then, not flinching. "I'm not trying to vanish. I'm trying to exist again."

That quiet, unshaken voice stopped me cold.

"I don't want to survive by selling what isn't really mine.."

She exhaled. "Some things aren't meant to be sold. Even if they come from people you never knew, doesn't mean you forget how to value things

Her words didn't come with theatrics or bitterness. Just truth. Simple and devastating.

I looked at the necklace again. It had once been given in the name of tradition. Now it was returned in defiance of it.

"Consider it returned," I said quietly, slipping it into my coat pocket.

She gave a small nod, then went silent again.

I didn't know what else to say. And weirdly-I didn't want to break the silence. It was heavy, but not suffocating. Weighted, not empty.

After a few moments, I asked, "So? What's next? You going to keep crashing at strangers' houses or...?"

She stared at her half-eaten plate. "I can't go back to Mumbai. Not yet."

"Family?"

"They'd find me in a day. I don't have enough lies left to play the dutiful daughter again."

A beat. Then she said, "I was thinking... Ujjain."

I tilted my head. "That's... oddly specific."

She nodded. "I worked there once. Volunteered during a college trip. Plus my mom used to fund it. It's quiet. Old. Kind of forgotten. But in a good way."

Her eyes drifted toward the window.

"There's peace in places that don't expect anything from you. And I still know a few people. Not many, but enough. Enough to get a roof over my head that isn't courtesy of a morally ambiguous stranger."

I smirked. "Ouch."

"You said it first," she reminded me, lips twitching.

"I said I wasn't that Hriday. Not that I was a good one."

She laughed again, brief and brittle, but it warmed the air a little.

"You'll be fine in Ujjain," I said after a pause. "It's quiet. And temple towns have long memories and short questions."

"That's the idea."

She stood then, brushing invisible crumbs from her hands, and reached for her shawl.

"Thanks. For the tea. And the clothes. And... not chaining me to a radiator."

"You're welcome," I said dryly. "Although the chains were on backorder."

She gave a small, crooked smile, then turned toward the door.

Paused. Looked over her shoulder.

"If you ever do talk to the Khurranas," she said, "maybe don't mention you had breakfast with their missing bride."

"No promises," I said.

But she was already walking away.

I stayed at the table, fingers brushing the velvet pouch in my coat pocket.

She hadn't asked for sympathy. Or help. Or pity.

She'd just asked to be allowed to leave with dignity intact.

And for reasons I didn't fully understand, I was letting her.

Because I could see it-see that small ember of resolve glowing beneath all the broken pieces. She had a plan now. A direction.

She wasn't running anymore.

She was choosing.

And if something twisted in my chest at the thought of her vanishing into temple streets and old memories-

But I ignored it.

She was better off in Ujjain. In temples and quiet lanes and lives untainted by men with reputations like mine.

And if something twisted in my chest at the thought of her leaving-

Well.

I ignored it.

Like I ignored everything else that ever softened me.