Chapter 32
The television screen filled with Vikram's face.
Divya sat frozen on the living room couch, Pista's head resting on her lap, as her husband looked directly into the camera. Directly at her.
"Divya. You're watching right now because I made you promise."
Her hand flew to her mouth.
"I've been in love with you since the fourth week of your internship."
The ring box appeared on screen. Simple. Beautiful. Impossibly real.
"I'm asking you, in front of millions of people, to stop thinking of this as temporary."
Tears blurred her vision. She couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. Could only watch as he said everything she'd been too terrified to hope for.
"I never intended to let you go at all."
Then he walked off stage.
The host's flustered voice filled the speakers, trying to salvage the ceremony's momentum, but Divya wasn't listening anymore. The world had narrowed to the impossible reality of what had just happened.
He'd told millions of people he loved her.
He'd shown them the ring.
He'd walked away from his moment of triumph, the award, the applause, the recognition, and declared that she mattered more.
Her hands trembled violently. Her heart hammered so hard it hurt. The walls she'd built so carefully, so deliberately, stone by defensive stone, didn't just crack. They shattered. Exploded. Turned to dust under the weight of what he'd just done.
She stood abruptly, startling Pista. The puppy whined softly, confused by her sudden movement. But she couldn't sit still.
Her feet carried her toward the stairs without conscious thought. Up the steps. Down the hallway. Into their bedroom.
Their bedroom.
The space they'd shared since their marriage while she'd maintained careful distance, built invisible walls, counted down to an expiration date that he'd just publicly declared meaningless.
She sank onto the edge of the bed. Her hands twisted in her lap. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps. She couldn't stop shaking.
The tears came then. Hot and fast and completely beyond her control. Relief. Terror. Joy. Overwhelming, consuming emotion that she'd held back for months, years, if she was honest.
She heard the front door open downstairs.
Heard his footsteps on the marble.
Heard them coming closer. Climbing the stairs. Moving down the hallway towards her.
She looked up as the bedroom door swung open.
Vikram stood in the doorway.
Still in his tuxedo, the bow tie hanging loose around his neck. His hair slightly disheveled. Looking at her like she was the only thing in the world that mattered. The award, the ceremony, the entire industry, none of it existed.
Only her.
"Millions of people." Her voice came out shaking, barely above a whisper. "You just told millions of people."
He didn't answer. He just crossed the room and dropped to his knees in front of her.
His hands rose to her face, holding it gently but firmly, as if afraid she might disappear if he loosened his grip. The heat in his eyes clashed with the softness of his touch. His thumbs moved slowly across her cheeks, wiping away tears with a care that felt almost reverent.
His fingers slipped into her hair, spreading at the back of her head. He held her like something fragile and fierce at the same time, like something he had wanted for a long time but had only just been allowed to claim.
"You needed millions of people," he said, voice low, rough, unshakably sure. "You needed witnesses so you couldn't reduce it to a contract. Couldn't label it temporary. Couldn't convince yourself it was just Vikram Khanna being generous."
"You're an actor," she whispered, clinging to logic. "You know how to make people believe..."
"Look at me."
His voice was absolute. His hands steadied her face, so she could keep looking at him.
"Look at me and tell me that was acting."
She did look at him.
Past the polished smile the world knew. Past the camera-trained expressions. Into eyes stripped bare of performance.
It was just the truth.
"I tried quiet," he continued, each word deliberate. "I tried showing you."
His thumb brushed her cheek again, slower now.
"The chai I learned to make because you loved it. The documentary tickets I booked because I saw you checking that site. Going to your parents because I knew it mattered we go together, that you missed them. The way I watched you during that photoshoot and forgot there were cameras."
Her breath faltered.
"The forehead kisses. Carrying you back to this bed every night you tried to escape to the couch."
Frustration roughened his voice.
"I tried patience. I tried space. I waited for you to see what was right there."
He pressed his forehead to hers, the contact intimate and steady.
"But after that professor humiliated you, I saw it. You were already leaving. You were planning your exit. Counting down to a future where I wasn't in it."
His fingers tightened slightly in her hair.
"I was never planning to let that happen."
She couldn't deny it. Couldn't speak. Could only stare at him through tears that wouldn't stop falling.
"So I had to make you hear it. Had to say it where you couldn't dismiss it as performance or duty or pity." His hands tightened slightly on her face. "Had to make it so public, so undeniable, so witnessed that your brilliant mind couldn't logic it away."
"I'm not..." Her voice broke completely. "I'm not the kind of girl who gets this. Who deserves you."
Something fierce flashed in his eyes.
"Then let me tell you who you are."
His voice softened, but it did not lose its force.
"You're the girl who falls asleep over her books with her glasses still on. Who wakes up with paper marks on her cheek because she is dedicated to what she does."
His thumb brushed slowly along her jaw.
"You push your glasses up with your knuckles, always knuckles. You hum old songs. Off-key. Always off-key. You light up when you talk about documentaries. About real stories. Truth. Your whole face changes."
Her breath trembled.
"You drink chai exactly forty-three minutes after waking. I timed it. You fold napkins into neat triangles when your mind is racing."
His other hand slid to the back of her neck too, warm and steady.
"You manage the most impossible situations because you think out of the box. Always. You stayed till three a.m. fixing notes because you couldn't stand something being done carelessly."
His voice lowered.
"You cry quietly. You think no one sees. You make yourself small when you're hurt. You tried to convince yourself you were temporary in my life."
His throat tightened.
"You read your thesis when you can't sleep. You thank every staff member by name. You sit on the floor with Pista and smile like the weight on your shoulders disappears for a minute."
He leaned closer.
"I didn't fall in love with an arrangement. I didn't fall in love with convenience."
His fingers tightened gently against her nape.
"I fell in love with you. Because you're extraordinary in ways you refuse to see. In ways no one else sees because they're not looking. But I'm looking, Divya. I'm always looking."
His hands framed her face again, thumbs brushing away the constant stream of tears.
"I don't miss details. Not when they matter. Not when they're about you. Not ever."
"Why?" The question tore from somewhere deep, from the scared sixteen-year-old who'd never believed she'd be enough, from the assistant who'd kept professional distance like armor, from the wife who'd counted down to her own expiration date.
"Why me? When you could have anyone... when you have had everyone wanting you... "
"Because you're you." Simple. Absolute. Devastating in its conviction.
"Because you see me, not the star. Because you're not impressed by the things that impress everyone else.
Because you make me want to be better, not better at acting or more successful or more famous. Better as a person. Better as a man."
His forehead pressed harder against hers, like he was trying to transfer his certainty directly into her.
"Because when I look around after a scene I’ve performed, I'm not looking for applause or adoration or someone to tell me I'm brilliant. I'm looking for you. For the way you exist in my space and make it feel like home."
"I've been in love with you since I was sixteen," she confessed, the words spilling out like a dam breaking.
"I watched your Film Companion interview eleven times.
Eleven times. I couldn't stop. You talked about storytelling with such honesty, such passion, such reverence for the craft.
Not like a star performing. Like an artist worshipping his passion. "
Her hands slid from her lap to his chest, fingers curling into his tuxedo lapels like she could anchor herself to him.
"When I got the internship and met you in person, I tried so hard to be professional.
To keep distance. To be the competent assistant, not the star-struck fan.
To remember that you were Vikram Khanna and I was nobody from nowhere with nothing but student loans and dreams that felt too big for someone like me. "
Her voice broke.
"And then the photo happened and suddenly I was your wife. But still your employee. Still temporary. Still not really yours. Just convenient. Just a solution to a problem. Just…"
His mouth caught hers mid-sentence.
Not gently. Not tentatively. Not with the careful restraint that had defined every brush of skin, every almost-kiss, every charged second they had forced themselves to survive without crossing the line.
His lips claimed hers with hunger that had built during every night they'd slept inches apart without touching.
With frustration at watching her retreat behind walls.
With possessiveness that said she'd never been temporary, never been convenient, never been anything but his from the moment he'd realized what she was behind that simplicity.