Chapter 3
IRA
I stared at my phone, stunned, as Aryan’s words sank in. He said he couldn’t marry me. Just like that, he was calling off our wedding.
Why? Because he hit a woman on the road? And now that random woman was demanding to marry my fiancé, like this was some kind of twisted fairytale? What the hell was that?
How could she demand to marry a stranger? Maybe she heard how rich and royal the Rathores were. Maybe she was just a gold digger who saw her jackpot in Aryan. She had snatched my place. My place!
I was the one who was supposed to wear that damn dress, the one I had been trying to fit into for two months.
Yes, I had been stuck on duty most of the time, but I had planned that wedding.
Every little detail. Every flower, every guest, everything.
For what? So he could just cancel it all like it meant nothing? No. No, this couldn’t be real.
I had to talk to Aryan. I had to make him come to his senses. He couldn’t just abandon me like this. Not for a stranger. Was he really going to break my heart?
I laughed at the thought, harsh and bitter. Break my heart? If only he knew how many times I had broken his. If only he knew how many times I had cheated on him.
Maybe God did know. Maybe this was punishment. Maybe this was the universe’s way of reminding me that I didn’t deserve the only man I had ever truly cared about. But if I truly cared… would I have ever betrayed him?
Aryan. He never even looked at another woman in ten years. Ten years. He had been loyal to me, blind to everyone else, even when girls lined up for him. He rejected them for me. Only me. And now he was rejecting me? For some girl who just barged into his life and decided she wanted a wedding?
I gripped my hair, letting out a frustrated scream. My body trembled with rage and disbelief. I felt like crawling out of my own skin. Sometimes I hated being me. Sometimes I wanted to disappear, to escape the chaos in my mind.
My life had never been simple. It had always been a damn mess.
I looked around at my spacious room, decorated with expensive taste and the finest furniture money could buy. People would kill to live in my place. They had no idea how cursed it was to be rich, to be born a rich man’s daughter.
My parents never loved me. Not really. All they did was fight, scream, threaten divorce.
But my mother, she stayed. Not for love, but for status, for image.
And me? They just wanted me to be perfect.
They wanted me to score high, get a decent job, and avoid friends.
They always wanted me to look flawless and as perfect as a statue.
But what about me? What about what I wanted?
I cleared the CDS exam just to get close to Aryan, but instead, I ended up in someone else’s arms. A man who was poor, cruel, and completely wrong for me. But he was also the only one who saw through me. Who looked into my chaos and didn’t flinch. Who understood me, who felt my pain.
Prashant Pandey.
And maybe, in the moments when Aryan drifted away, Prashant was the only one who made me feel real. He was the only one who made me feel like I could be the main character of his story.
"Cold bitch." That was what they called me. And the worst part? I didn’t mind it. I liked being seen as the villain who was untouchable and intimidating. Because if I was the villain, no one dared ask why I built these walls in the first place.
But what they never guessed was this: Almost everyone in my life was a villain too.
It started when I was twelve. My father’s best friend, Mr. Patel, flew in from the US.
The moment his eyes landed on me, they didn’t leave.
He smiled at me like I was something to admire, not a child.
He said I had grown up so beautifully, and I smiled back, stupidly believing he meant it like a father figure would.
I had no idea what he really meant. He touched me, not once, not casually.
He touched me in places no one should. He ran his hands over my body like he had a right to it. He was a doctor.
One night, I fell sick, something like food poisoning.
My mother panicked and rushed me to him.
It was the middle of the night. He told her to leave me with him.
I remembered telling her I didn’t feel safe with him.
I said I didn’t want to be alone with him.
She laughed. She actually laughed and called me silly and theatrical.
That night, my mother became the first villain in my story.
Because she left me with a man who stripped me naked and ran his hands all over me.
But before he could do more, I screamed loudly. I screamed, terrified.
Just then, my father came rushing in. By then, I was dressed, which meant the evidence was gone. I told him everything, every disgusting detail that his bastard of a doctor did to me, and he slapped me. That was the day my father, too, became a villain.
Then came my brother. He didn’t ask if I was okay.
It seemed like he didn’t really care, as he was like my father’s pet.
Ivaan, my brother, just looked at me with disgust and said, "You’re such a fool.
How could you speak about Mr. Patel like that?
” He became another villain in my broken fairy tale.
But the one I never saw coming, the one I believed in, the one I thought I admired was Aryan. And he became the sharpest betrayal of them all.
I shook my head, as if that would shake him out of my thoughts. But his name kept echoing in my skull, like a wound that wouldn’t stop bleeding.
And then there was Prashant. He was a different kind of cruel. He tortured me without ever laying a hand. His silence was the sharpest knife, and his gaze was the fire.
Everything with him seemed fine until he vanished.
I knew what he had been through in those three months.
And I also knew he was broken so deeply, and so permanently fractured, that being near him felt like walking barefoot over glass.
Every shard of his soul pierced straight into me whenever I dared to get close.
He was drowning in a darkness I was too afraid to enter. Because what if I drowned with him?
He was perfect on the outside: charming, composed, and the golden boy. But I saw the version of him the world didn’t see. The version he only showed behind closed doors. It was the haunted version. And I still craved this version of him.
I blinked hard and glanced at my phone screen and realized I still had to call Aryan and ask for a better explanation. I pressed his number, but no answer.
I had to talk to him. He couldn’t leave me like this. Not like I was some disposable mistake.
I promised myself that I would stay loyal to him after marriage. I would prove that I could be his. That I could make it right. But God, he didn’t even give me that chance.
If I couldn’t prove myself I would stay a cheater forever in my own eyes. A sinner with no redemption arc. A sob choked out of me. My chest ached, my vision blurred. I curled my fingers into trembling fists.
“Why did you do this to me, Aryan?” I whispered, covering my face with my palms. How pathetic I must’ve looked, crying like this, falling apart when I had built a life on pretending I had it all together. But this time, I didn’t stop the tears. Not anymore. After so long, I finally let myself cry.
______
The door slammed open. I didn't even knock; I just stormed in, every nerve in my body screaming.
"What are you doing, Aryan?" My voice was a wildfire, the kind that used to blaze with love for him, but now it threatened to consume everything, especially me.
Rage pulsed through me, hot and suffocating, my chest heaving with each ragged breath.
His eyes, once reflecting my own devotion, were now just empty.
"You promised me," I choked out, my fists clenched so tight my nails dug into my palms. “You promised you would marry me, Aryan! You didn’t even have the decency to fight for us! You just threw me away to marry that crippled woman! Are you out of your fucking mind?”
He sat there, silent, his stillness a stark contrast to the storm inside me. I paced, a caged lioness, every step fueled by a desperate, burning disbelief.
"I’ve never seen you like this," I continued, the words tumbling out. “Not when you went on your first mission. Not even when you lost your best friend in the ambush. Not when you almost lost Rhea. But now? You’re just... lost. Hollow. Why the hell did you agree to this, Aryan? Who is she to you? Is she threatening you? Does she want money? We can pay her off. But not with your life. Not with our life.”
My legs gave out, and I dropped to my knees in front of him, the anger dissolving into a raw, aching pain. Tears streamed down my face, hot and stinging. I clutched his hands, pressing them against my wet cheeks, desperate for some warmth, some reassurance.
"I love you. Please don’t do this."
My heart felt like it was being ripped in two.
I had always been the strong one, stoic, unyielding.
But seeing him like this, knowing what he was about to do, shattered every last bit of my composure.
I was sobbing into his lap, a broken girl who had lost her entire world.
Because I had. And he, the one I loved, was the one who had torn it from me.
"I’m sorry, Ira," he murmured, rubbing his temple, a sharp pain radiating through my own head at his words. “She, Avni agreed to drop the charges only if I married her. You know how much I love my uniform. I can’t lose it.”
A broken, humorless laugh escaped me through my tears. "And what about me?"
"I should’ve never thrown that bachelorette party," I cried, the memories a fresh wound. "I should’ve never made you drink. I should’ve asked my brother to drop you home. If I had done just one thing differently, we would still be together."
"We will be together," he whispered, leaning back, his jaw clenched, a muscle jumping in his cheek. "Just give me a few months. Let me fix this."
"How?" I whispered, lifting my head, my eyes searching his, desperate for a glimmer of hope.
"If she’s coming into my life on her own terms," he said, his voice cold, a chilling resolve I hadn't heard before, "then she’ll leave on my terms. I’ll make her leave. Just believe in me."
He pulled me into his lap, cradling my face in his hands. His thumb gently wiped away my tears, a tender gesture that both soothed and tore at my heart.
"Do you trust me, Ira?"
"I believe you," I said, resting my forehead against his, clinging to his words, to the hope he offered. "I love you…"
Just then, the door opened again.
"You aren’t ready yet?" His mother's voice was sharp with exasperation.
I scrambled away from Aryan, my face burning with embarrassment.
Her eyes softened as she looked at me. "Ira, what are you doing here, darling?" She walked over and hugged me gently, her touch a small comfort. "I’m sorry. I wish I could help but I’m helpless."
"It’s okay," I said with a tight smile, the bitterness coating my tongue. "Anyway, this marriage won’t last. We’ll give her a taste of her own medicine. She doesn’t deserve our sympathy, right?”
She squeezed my hand and nodded with assurance.
I wished Aryan would break this marriage. I only just wished.
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