Chapter Three
Chapter
Three
Naina rubbed her eyes beneath her glasses and stared blearily at her laptop screen.
It was past ten p.m., and she was, like on most days, one of the last people still at the office.
Tejas had left around six-thirty. He’d spent most of his time getting to know his colleagues and catching up with his dear former neighbor Iqbal.
Naina had emailed him a long, detailed list of their current pending cases so she wouldn’t have to talk to him in person.
Thankfully he hadn’t approached her again.
As for Anil, he always left at six p.m. sharp, chided Naina for “working too much,” and often suggested she “get a life—and maybe get laid, hmm?”
Pssh. Naina scoffed at the thought. She had a life, thank you very much.
It just involved planning for her future as senior associate, then partner, and she couldn’t do that without hustling and taking time off from dating.
She brought her coffee mug to her lips, but it was empty.
Sighing, she leaned back in her chair and checked WhatsApp, deciding a short break was in order.
She hissed at all the unread messages from her father.
Appa (8:03 pm)
Putta when are u coming home? Have dinner at home pls
Appa (9:17 pm)
U work too much…don’t make the mistakes ur mother made.
The last message was from three minutes ago.
Appa (10:09 pm)
If u are not home by 11 then I’m telling all ur aunties that u are ready to be set up with someone. It’s ur call…
Naina jolted upright and cursed under her breath.
She didn’t need a whole troupe of desi aunties ganging up on her and shoving matrimony profiles of so-called compatible matches in her face.
With Bangalore traffic as bad as it was, she’d take at least forty minutes to get home even at this hour. She’d be cutting it close.
Naina typed out a message: Be home soon, order Subway for me please, the usual! And NO AUNTIES!!!!! As she hit send, her least favorite person at work spoke up. “Still here, huh?”
She turned in her seat to wince at her rival, Dhanush Kumble, who was frowning at her, briefcase in hand.
He had always been one step ahead of her at work.
They’d both joined AKC five years ago as entry-level lawyers, but his promotions often preceded hers.
He became junior associate three months before her—three!
And Naina knew he was vying for the promotion too.
Considering he was a man, not to mention Ramesh Kumble’s nephew, he’d probably be their top choice.
Nepotism ran rampant at law firms.
“About to leave,” Naina said, her lips thinning. She turned off her laptop and got up. “Good night.”
“See you tomorrow.” Dhanush started away from her desk, then paused and said, “You know that new guy? Tejas?”
Her back went rigid, and her eyes widened. Thankfully, she wasn’t facing Dhanush. “Yeah, what about him?” she replied calmly, grabbing her bag and putting her things inside.
“He was asking about you.”
She finally turned to him. Slinging her bag over her shoulder, she asked, “Um, what do you mean?”
Dhanush smirked. His sharp, small teeth glinted in the semi-dark office lit only by Naina’s desk lamp and the dim bulbs in the hallway outside.
“He was asking how long you’ve been here, and what you’re like.
Oh, and he told me you caught him up on our caseload by email, and if it’s normal for you to be this unapproachable. ”
Naina’s jaw clenched. “And what did you say?”
“So I told him I wasn’t surprised at all.” With a snort, he added, “You’re not going to get promoted with that personality.”
“Excuse me?” she snarled.
“If you don’t know how to schmooze and make people like you, no one’s going to be on your side. And right now? I think apart from Anil, nobody is. Least of all my uncle.” He sneered up at her from his shorter frame as he walked away, that smirk still on his face.
Naina balled her hands into fists, holding back the tears that had sprung to the corners of her eyes. She waited in the dark office for a few minutes to compose herself, then booked an Uber, hoping there would be a juicy turkey and chicken marinara sandwich waiting for her at home.
After the day she’d had, she deserved a good meal.
When Naina unlocked her front door and greeted her father with “Good evening,” Appa glared at her from his rocking chair and hit the pause button on the TV remote.
“It’s well past evening and my bedtime,” he said thickly.
Naina kicked off her shoes and noticed he was watching Suits. She groaned. “Appa, you know that show is wildly inaccurate, right? That’s not how corporate law works.”
“It’s fun,” he grumbled, but he turned off the TV and stood up to crack his back. “Your sandwich is in the kitchen. I’m going to bed now. God help me, it’s nearly midnight.”
“It’s five past eleven,” Naina corrected him. She walked up to him and tapped her finger on his nose. “You don’t have to stay up every night, you know.”
Appa nudged her finger away but chuckled. “I worry about you. I bet you’d live at that office if I weren’t around to remind you to leave.”
Naina grinned, knowing he was probably right.
She made enough money to move out and get her own place, but it was nice knowing she could come home to someone.
Even if that someone was her frustratingly nosy father.
Honestly, he annoyed her to death fifty percent of the time, but he was also the only man in her life she could blindly trust with anything.
Not to mention, he made the best dosas for breakfast every morning.
Naina shrugged, returning to the conversation. “If living at work would make me partner, then why not, right?” She turned to go into the kitchen, but Appa gripped her arm and gently pulled her back. His eyes were grim.
Dread pooled in Naina’s stomach. Appa joked around a lot about her workaholic tendencies, which she’d definitely inherited from her mother, but something else seemed to be on his mind tonight.
She swallowed and asked, “Appa, is everything okay?” Was it his blood pressure?
An unexpected bill? Or did this have something to do with Amma?
He sank back into the rocking chair, evidently unable to meet her gaze. As he leaned his head back against the thin gray fabric covering the wooden chair, he said, “I was speaking to Kapil Bhosle today, my client from when I was still working at the bank. Do you remember him?”
“I do.” Naina crossed her arms across her chest. Kapil Bhosle, the industrialist, whose company was represented by her ex’s dad.
“Well, he was invited to Santhosh’s wedding.” Appa exhaled. “To, um, the girl he…” His voice trailed off, and he tugged on his mustache instead of saying the words. The girl he cheated on you with.
Naina sucked in a breath. She hadn’t even known they were engaged.
“Oh.” She blinked back tears. She’d met Santhosh while interning at a law firm her senior year, and though their relationship wasn’t perfect, he’d loved her.
He was consistent, he showed up to their dates on time, and he was as ambitious as she was.
He was—on paper—perfect for her. Despite the fights about Naina’s long hours and his insecurities about not being a junior associate like her, she had vowed she’d make the relationship work.
Until he cheated on her, because—in his words, “I can’t see you as the mother of my children, Naina. Especially when you’re not willing to make compromises for our marriage.” The compromise in question? Quitting her job and becoming a stay-at-home wife so she could take care of their future family.
Moving on from her first and only relationship had been easier than Naina had thought, which likely proved that they had been the wrong match despite dating for six years, but moving on from the certainty that her future had held?
It still weighed her down, low in the pit of her belly like a tight coil she couldn’t unwind, a heaviness in her shoulders that persisted despite countless spa massages.
Now some other girl was living the life she’d thought was going to be hers.
Naina swallowed. She wiped her shaky, clammy hands on her skirt and stepped away from the rocking chair. “That’s fine. He’s getting married. So what? I have my career, and that’s all I need—”
“Naina, putta.” Appa stood and let out a ragged breath. “Don’t you think there’s more to life than just your career? Do you really want to sacrifice so much for your job?”
Not this again. Naina’s father wasn’t as traditional or patriarchal as some other Indian dads she knew.
After all, he hadn’t suggested a quick arranged marriage to “save face” after her broken engagement, and except for being nosy about any and all men in her life (except for Anil, for obvious reasons), he’d left her relationship status alone.
And yet he seemed fixated on this silly notion that Naina was going to miss out on life because of her career pursuits.
Appa and Anil ought to start a club, honestly.
“I’m not ‘sacrificing’ anything,” she corrected him. “I’m prioritizing my career over a romantic relationship, and that’s okay.”
“Do I need to remind you how that turned out for our family, after your mother left both of us?” Appa’s eyes shone.
Seven years since the divorce, and he hadn’t gotten over it.
Not that Naina thought it was either his or her mother’s fault.
Yes, Amma had walked out on them, putting a career opportunity before her marriage, but she now worked as a backing vocalist for an American pop star, and it was all she’d ever wanted.
For all Naina knew, Amma was happier now than she’d ever been as a mother or wife—and that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
“Well, it gave her the life she’d always dreamed of.” The answer left a bitter taste in her mouth, because she knew it wasn’t what Appa wanted to hear. “It wasn’t the right marriage for either of you,” she went on.
Appa tugged at his sparse hair, evidently frustrated.
“She could have asked me to come with her. You were already in law school anyway. But she didn’t even give me the option.
She just chose to leave, like our marriage meant nothing compared to her career.
” He sat back down in the rocking chair with a huff and added, “You’re thirty years old, Naina, and you were so excited to be a wife.
I just don’t want you to numb your loneliness, simply because you think your mom’s happier single.
We don’t know if she is. God knows she doesn’t tell us. ”
Her eyes stung, but she forced herself to smile instead. “But I’m not alone, Appa.” She pulled him up from the chair and into a hug. “I promise, if I ever decide I want a relationship again, you’ll be the first one I tell.”
“I’ll hold you to that promise.” Appa hugged her back, his shoulders finally loosening, then turned the TV back on to his show.
“As you should,” she replied. Then she jerked her head toward Harvey Specter’s smug, frozen face on the screen. “Now, shall we get back to watching this ridiculous show you’re obsessed with?”
He beamed at her. “Yes, please.”
Naina grabbed her Subway sandwich from the kitchen, and once they settled onto the couch, Appa pressed play.
His eyes focused on the screen, his lip curling at the heated exchange between two of the lawyers, but Naina quietly tore into her turkey-and-chicken sandwich, ignoring the voice in her head—a cross between Appa’s and Anil’s—telling her to admit that maybe, just maybe, she was lonelier than she let on.
After all, most of her colleagues’ lives didn’t just revolve around work and their parents.
Ramesh Kumble had been married for decades; he even had grandchildren.
Iqbal doted on his wife at every office party.
Anil lived with his aging grandmother, but he spent most nights with whichever guy he was casually seeing.
As for Tejas…
Who did he live with?
Naina crumpled up the sandwich wrapper and threw it into the trash. Then she said good night to her dad, who only mumbled out a grunt, too occupied with the salacious plotlines of unrealistic legal dramas.
Sighing, Naina went into her room and face-planted right onto her bed, ruminating on the roller coaster of emotions she’d felt all day. Naina Shetty didn’t like emotions. But it was hard to keep them in sometimes.
She rubbed away her tears and swiped through her phone gallery until she got to May 2025.
Goa. Multiple photos of beaches, fruity drinks in cocktail glasses, and dark neon-lit clubs filled her screen.
And there it was, the only picture she’d taken of him: at the beach club, early on in the trip.
He was dressed in a sleeveless T-shirt and grinning with his little dimple out as he told her about his cat and her antics.
Naina wasn’t a cat person, but she’d loved every word he’d said.
It might have been more about the sound of his voice and less about the cat.
Naina tossed her phone aside and changed into her pajamas.
She hadn’t looked at that photo since she’d come back from Goa; she’d forced herself to forget every single minute of the trip, especially after the way it had ended.
And it worked. She’d almost forgotten that Tejas’s picture was still in her phone gallery.
It brought up beautiful memories of sun-kissed beaches at dusk, wild evenings spent partying and having adventures, and steamy nights cradled in his arms.
But that was all they were—memories. And unlike what Appa and Anil believed, Naina didn’t need to re-create them. Not when her whole career was at stake.