Chapter 21
Reeva
I shift restlessly beneath the sheets as another cramp seizes my calf, the muscle tightening painfully beneath my skin. My gaze falls on the phone resting beside my pillow. It is almost eleven at night.
Meena Aunty must be asleep by now, and I refuse to wake her.
Bhai is still in Singapore. His business trip was extended after unexpected complications arose during the negotiations.
If I call him, he will abandon everything and take the first flight home, and I cannot allow him to do that before he finishes what he went there to accomplish.
My thoughts turn instinctively to Shaurya.
It has been ten days since our conversation in the park, and something between us has quietly shifted.
He hasn’t pressured me about our marriage or mentioned the mangalsutra again.
Instead, his care and attention have only intensified.
He leaves ginger tea beside my laptop when the nausea worsens, keeps the kitchen stocked with whatever I happen to crave, and rearranges his schedule so he can accompany me to every appointment.
Against my better judgement, he is slowly becoming the person I instinctively think of whenever I need someone.
And right now, he is the only person I want beside me.
The realisation frightens me almost as much as the pain. Yet before pride can stop me, I pick up my phone and press the call button.
He answers before the first ring has fully sounded.
“Reeva?” His voice is rough with sleep, but concern sharpens it instantly. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m just… feeling a little uncomfortable,” I admit. “I keep getting this painful cramp in my calf. It’s probably nothing, but—”
“I’m coming.”
The line goes dead before I can tell him not to panic.
Mere seconds later, my bedroom door opens, and he strides inside, his hair dishevelled and concern etched into every line of his face.
I push myself upright against the headboard as he lowers himself onto the edge of the bed, his gaze immediately dropping to the hand pressed protectively over my stomach.
“Do you want me to call the doctor and ask her to come here,” he asks urgently, “or are you well enough for me to drive you to the hospital?”
“No, I don’t need a doctor.” I shake my head quickly. “It’s only a leg cramp. The doctor said muscle cramps can happen during pregnancy, especially at night. Every time I start drifting off, my calf tightens again.”
His expression remains tense. “Are you certain that’s all? We should still see the doctor, just to be safe.”
“Trust me, it isn’t an emergency. I’m only uncomfortable.” I hesitate, suddenly feeling exposed. “I didn’t want to be alone, and I didn’t know who else to call.”
Something in his expression softens. He closes his eyes briefly, relief loosening some of the tension in his face. “I’m glad I was the one you called.” His gaze returns to mine. “I’m sorry you’re hurting.”
My brows draw together. “It’s hardly your fault. Like I said, leg cramps are fairly common during pregnancy.”
He lets out an irritated huff. “I was foolish to let you continue working such long hours. I should have made sure you followed the doctor’s orders and remained in bed, even if it meant bringing you every glass of water myself.”
“Let me?” I arch an eyebrow. “The doctor advised me to rest, Shaurya, not surrender every trace of independence. And I am perfectly capable of deciding when to work or fetching my own glass of water.”
“Poor choice of words,” he concedes, raising his hands in surrender. “I know you’re capable. I should have said I was foolish not to notice how exhausted you had become.”
“Better,” I concede, though my eyes remain narrowed. “But my exhaustion still isn’t yours to blame.”
“I want the doctor to examine you in the morning so we can be certain everything is fine.” His expression softens. “But for tonight, will you let me help?”
“How exactly do you plan to do that?”
“Let me massage your calf. It might help ease the cramp.”
“It will pass. I don’t need a massage,” I protest, even as my aching muscles argue otherwise. It isn’t his ability to ease the pain that I doubt, it is my ability to endure the intimacy of his hands on me without allowing my defences to slip.
One corner of his mouth lifts. “What is it, wifey? Are you refusing because you don’t need my help, or because you’re afraid of what you might feel when I touch you?”
I shrug, irritated by how easily he sees through me. “Neither. You’re just not as irresistible as you think you are.”
“Then accepting my help should be easy.” He winks, but before I can argue further, his teasing expression softens. “Relax, Reeva. I won’t do anything that makes you uncomfortable. I promise. I only want to ease your pain.”
I swallow past the lump in my throat. Over the past few days, avoiding every unnecessary touch has become its own form of exquisite torture, and the kiss we shared only made everything worse.
It awakened every feeling I had fought so desperately to bury.
Now I am terrified that a single touch will shatter the control I have clung to, and I no longer trust myself not to beg him for more.
“Lie down, please,” he says gently.
“You really don’t have to do this,” I try once more, even as I slide lower against the pillows and stretch out my aching leg.
“Of course I do. You’re carrying our baby, and taking care of you is my responsibility.” His gaze holds mine. “And before you argue, this isn’t an obligation, Reeva. It’s what I want to do.”
The quiet sincerity in his voice strips away my final protest. I give him a hesitant nod. “Okay.”
He rises to his feet and moves to the end of the bed before sitting beside my feet. With deliberate care, he slips one hand beneath my ankle and the other under my calf, gently lifting my leg and settling it across his thigh.
“May I push your pyjama leg up a little?” he asks, his voice low and rough.
“Yes,” I whisper.
He eases the fabric higher, exposing only a few inches of my leg, just enough to massage my calf.
Yet the moment his warm palm settles against my bare skin, a tremor runs through me.
His touch is innocent, intended only to ease my pain, but the skin-to-skin contact awakens every sensation I have been struggling to suppress.
I bite down on my lower lip and close my eyes, surrendering to the relief spreading through the cramped muscle even as a far more dangerous heat begins to unfurl inside me.
“Feeling better?” he asks, his fingertips gliding gently over my skin.
“Yes,” I murmur, sinking deeper into the pillows. “That feels good.”
“Good,” he whispers, his touch growing even gentler.
I bite back a soft moan. His hands are magic.
The painful knot in my calf has already begun to loosen, but I refuse to tell him how much better I feel.
He would become unbearably smug, and worse, he might stop.
So I remain silent and allow his warm palms to continue their slow, soothing movements over my bare skin.
“Would you still be here if there were no baby?” The question escapes before I can stop it.
His hands go still against my leg, and his gaze lifts to meet mine. I swallow hard, but now that the fear has been given a voice, I cannot take it back.
“If I weren’t carrying your child, would you still have fought this hard to remain in my life?” My voice grows painfully quiet. “Or is our baby the only reason you came back?”
“I know you’re not ready to believe my answer,” he says after a long silence.
“But even when I convinced myself that letting you go was the punishment I deserved, I knew I would find some way to be there whenever you needed me, even if I had to do it from a distance.” His gaze holds mine.
“Our child gave me a reason to force my way back into your life, but the baby didn’t make me love you, Reeva.
I loved you before I knew you were carrying our child, and I would have continued loving you from whatever distance you demanded.
” His voice turns rough. “And I am grateful for this second chance to be near you, to prove that loving you was the one part of our marriage that was never a lie. I was simply too consumed by revenge to acknowledge it until I had already lost you.”
“I wish I could believe you,” I whisper, my throat tightening. “But I don’t believe in fairy tales anymore, Shaurya. Not after discovering that the one I was living was built on a lie.”
“Then don’t believe in fairy tales,” he says quietly, his hands resuming their gentle movements. “And don’t believe my words. Not yet. Watch my actions. Let me prove myself one day at a time, until trusting me no longer feels like believing in something impossible.”
I don’t answer. His words settle somewhere too deep, brushing against the fragile part of me that still wants to believe him.
Before that dangerous hope can take root, I gently lift my leg from his thigh and slide it beneath the sheets.
His hands fall away, leaving my skin cold where his warmth had been, but his intense gaze remains fixed on me.
“I feel better now. I think I can sleep,” I say, though the unsteady beating of my heart suggests otherwise.
“That’s good to hear.” He rises slowly, but instead of walking towards the door, he lingers beside the bed. His gaze moves over my face as though searching for something I’m not prepared to give him. Then he asks, “Can I stay?”
My heart stumbles. “What do you mean?”
“Can I sleep beside you tonight?” His voice is quiet, stripped of its usual authority. “I don’t feel comfortable leaving you alone in case the cramp returns or you need something.”
Every instinct tells me to refuse. Sharing a bed with him is dangerous in a way his massage wasn’t. It would be too familiar, too intimate, and far too easy to pretend that nothing between us had ever broken.
“I can call you if I need anything,” I say.
“I know.” He glances towards the phone on my bedside table before looking back at me. “But I would rather already be here when you need me.”
I search his face and find worry, exhaustion, and a vulnerability that makes refusing him far more difficult than it should be.
“Stay on your side,” I warn, my voice barely steady. “And nothing else.”
“Nothing else,” he promises.
After a long hesitation, I release a resigned huff. “Fine. You can stay.”
The beginning of a grin curves his mouth, but he wisely conceals any sign of triumph.
He walks around the bed and slips beneath the sheets beside me, leaving a careful distance between us.
Yet when I switch off the light and turn my back to him, every nerve in my body becomes painfully aware of his presence, the warmth radiating from him, the quiet rhythm of his breathing, and the slight dip his weight creates in the mattress.
For several minutes, I lie with my back to him in silence. He doesn’t reach for me. Eventually, I surrender to the need I have been fighting and turn towards him. Faint moonlight slipping through a gap in the curtains outlines his features, revealing that he is already facing me.
“What is it?” he asks quietly.
I stare at his face, half-shadowed in the faint moonlight, and pray the dimness is enough to conceal everything I am not ready for him to see.
“Can you… hold me?” The request emerges in a fragile whisper. “I think I might sleep better.”
Damn my hormones, my emotions, or whatever it is that makes me crave his arms around me when I’m trying so hard to keep my distance.
He remains motionless for a heartbeat before carefully shifting closer.
When he opens his arms, I move into them and rest my head against his chest. One arm settles securely around my waist while his other hand cradles the back of my head.
He holds me close as I listen to the strong, steady rhythm of his heart.
“Is this all right?” he asks, his voice so tender that another piece of the wall around my heart begins to crumble.
“Yes,” I whisper, pretending his closeness isn’t unravelling me from the inside.
He releases a long, unsteady breath into my hair and tightens his arms around me by the smallest degree.
“Goodnight, sweetheart,” he murmurs.
“Goodnight.”
I close my eyes and surrender to his warmth.
Just for tonight, I remind myself. Yet as sleep draws me under, lulled by the steady rhythm of his heart, a treacherous part of me begins wishing morning would never come.
That we could remain like this, wrapped around each other and untouched by everything waiting for us in the daylight.