Chapter 28
The bedroom door shut with a thud, and fear shot through Kashvi before she turned sharply towards it.
Swayam carefully walked towards the bed and said gently, ‘Hey, it’s just me.’
The tension drained out of her body so fast it almost made her dizzy. She nodded quickly, patting the empty spot next to her.
He took one look at the mess around the room, and rage and grief crossed his expression so openly that Kashvi felt them too.
His heavy silence scraped at her nerves.
‘I know some college kids who help out with cleaning and organising at the foundation for a stipend. I’ll ask them to come tomorrow. Don’t worry, we can put it back the way it was,’ Kashvi said carefully.
His gaze stayed fixed on the wreckage. ‘I don’t think anything can go back to the way it was after something like this,’ he said, lowering himself onto the edge of the bed.
Her exhausted mind immediately twisted his meaning, and her throat tightened painfully. She straightened despite the sharp ache in her stomach. ‘Swayam, I know I have a lot to explain, and I know I hurt you, but if you let me—’
‘Shh,’ he interrupted softly, gathering her hand between his. ‘Right now, all I want to know is how you’re feeling.’
Kashvi hesitated, and he caught on immediately. ‘Kash, answer me honestly.’
‘It hurts,’ she admitted, looking away.
He gently held her chin, making her meet his gaze. ‘Where?’
Slowly, she showed him her bandaged hand. ‘And?’ he urged softly.
Kashvi lifted her tank top halfway, but once he saw the edge of the bruise, he pushed the fabric slightly higher, revealing it completely.
A terrifying, icy rage burned beneath his fractured restraint.
Swayam’s eyes stayed locked on the bruise, and the longer he looked at it, the harsher his breathing became.
His jaw clenched so hard she saw the muscle twitch violently at his temple.
His fists closed so tightly his knuckles turned white.
‘I’m going to kill someone,’ he said with lethal calm.
Kashvi quickly pulled the top back down. ‘I’m okay. It looks worse than it is, so please just relax a little.’
‘Relax?’ Swayam repeated sharply, disbelief and fury colliding in his voice. ‘You want me to relax right now?’
She swallowed.
‘I just meant… I’m fine,’ she tried again.
‘Oh. You’re fine?” His eyes never left hers. “That’s good, because I only planned to stay long enough to make sure of that.’
Kashvi’s stomach dropped.
As soon as Swayam started walking towards the bedroom door, she asked quickly, ‘Where are you going?’
His breathing had turned rough and uneven, and the veins in his forearms stood out sharply beneath his skin as his fists clenched at his sides. Slowly, he looked back at her.
‘Where do you think I’m going?’ Swayam asked, brimming with quiet anger.
‘Why don’t you relax a little before you do something reckless?’ Kashvi shot back.
His nostrils flared, and when he finally spoke, his voice sounded scraped raw. ‘Reckless?’ Swayam repeated.
The word dissolved into a disbelieving laugh, and his eyes burned savagely. ‘I came home and found you unconscious on the fucking floor. You’re sitting here with bruises and stitches, and you’re telling me to relax?’
His voice broke on her name, and she flinched at the terror in it.
Swayam raked both hands through his hair before pacing away from the door and back towards her bed like he couldn’t stay still inside his own skin.
Rage radiated off him in suffocating waves.
His chest rose and fell unevenly beneath his shirt as he admitted hoarsely, ‘I thought I was going to lose you forever.’
The confession punched straight through her chest. ‘Don’t go. Stay with me,’ she whispered, pleading.
Swayam crouched in front of her, his eyes wild and glassy, burning with fear and wrath so intense they barely looked human anymore. ‘You haven’t even looked at yourself once tonight, have you?’
Kashvi shook her head. She avoided looking too closely at anything, including herself. Because doing that would make this nightmare feel more real.
‘I knew it. Because if you had, you’d understand why I’m close to losing my mind. Do you have any idea what finding you in that state did to me? I walked in and saw blood pooling around your hand. You were barely conscious. I thought I was... too late.’
The anguish in his expression nearly destroyed her.
‘I kept thinking, what if I hadn’t come? What if you hadn’t called me when you did? What if something worse had happened before I got here?’
His hand came up gently to cup her jaw, and the tenderness in his voice nearly undid Kashvi.
‘I swear, I lost ten years off my life waiting outside just to hear you were okay. But now that I know you are, all I can think about is finding the man who hurt you and ripping him apart with my bare hands.’
Kashvi cried silently as she gathered her courage. ‘You might not feel that way if you knew who it was.’
His haunted gaze locked onto hers. ‘Do you really think that just because Viraj is my cousin, I would let him get away with hurting you?’
Kashvi gasped, her eyes widening in shock.
‘Are you wondering how I know?’ he asked, his voice rough with restrained fury.
She nodded, speechless.
‘Before I answer that, why don’t you tell me what happened here? He did all this, didn’t he?’ he asked, pointing to the room where everything still lay in ruins.
She nodded. ‘He’d already done that before I came over.’
He frowned. ‘I don’t understand. How did he even get in here?’
Kashvi hesitated before saying, ‘He made a copy of the key when he stayed over last time. Viraj was already waiting for me here. He was pissed because things didn’t go according to his plan, so he took out his anger on me.’
Molten rage blazed in his dark eyes, and she tried to distract him. ‘Now you tell me how you know,’ she urged softly.
Swayam sank to his knees and wrapped his arms around her waist. ‘Because for two days, Kashvi, all I’ve done is think. I hoped maybe you felt something more for me, but I believed you when you said you only saw me as a friend.’
‘Swayam, I…’
‘Just listen, please,’ he said softly. ‘That night, after the engagement party, I thought I’d messed up because until then everything had been great between us.
It didn’t make sense, though, so I started thinking maybe something happened at the party.
But it couldn’t be my maasi because you barely even spoke to her. ’
Kashvi stiffened in his hold because he was getting dangerously close to figuring it out.
‘Then I remembered. The only person you’d spent time alone with was Viraj. So I called him.’
She held her breath, scared of the lies he must have fed Swayam. Her hand trembled in his grasp, and he reached over to pick up the ointment Maithili had left behind.
He uncapped it and applied a thin layer of antiseptic over the tiny cuts on her fingers. It stung, and Kashvi bit her lip to hold back the whimper. She didn’t want to give him one more reason to worry.
‘Hey, don’t do that,’ Swayam urged softly as he eased her lower lip free from her teeth. ‘I’m asking you... no, I’m begging you, Kash. Stop hiding your pain, your problems, everything from me. Just don’t shut me out like I’m not a part of you.’
‘Okay,’ she whispered. There were a hundred things she wanted to ask him, but she settled on one. ‘What... what did he say?’
As he applied more ointment up her arm, he said, ‘He didn’t answer any of my calls, so I called Maasi.
She told me Viraj and Lavi had a fight and called off the engagement.
Then he left for some business trip right away.
And after that, Lavi lied to me with a completely different excuse for what happened. That’s when I knew something was off.’
‘Does she know anything? Did it seem like she suspects Viraj?’
Swayam thought for a moment. ‘She sounded nervous, but I think she’s clueless about all this.’
‘Yeah. She seems to love him a lot, and he’s made her believe all his lies.’
His throat bobbed hard. ‘Then today, you called me. For one second, I thought maybe you’d finally changed your mind about us. But all I heard was you scream as Viraj attacked you before the line went dead.’
The last words cracked apart helplessly.
He laughed once under his breath, but it sounded wrecked.
‘I have never felt fear like that in my life. I drove like a fucking madman because all I could think was that something terrible was happening to you. Just thinking that if I didn’t get here fast enough... ’
His eyes squeezed shut for a brief second, anguish flashing across his face.
‘Don’t do that to yourself, Swayam,’ she insisted, brushing her thumb tenderly over his cheekbone. ‘You came. That’s what matters.’
A tear slipped free from the corner of his eye, cutting through his fraying composure. ‘How could I not? I wasn’t here to protect my wife, to keep her safe when it was my own cousin hurting her. How am I supposed to live with that?’
Her tears spilled over before she could stop them when Swayam added, ‘I’m sorry, Kash. I’m so, so sorry, baby.’
His shoulders shook beneath her hand, and her guilt rose to meet his. ‘No. None of this is on you. I should have told you everything before things got so bad. I’m sorry.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he demanded, the question tearing out of him. ‘Did you really think I wouldn’t stand by you through this? Didn’t I earn your trust enough for you to tell me everything?’
The pain in his voice tore straight through her.
‘You did, but I was too much of a coward to open up,’ Kashvi admitted, looking down at their joined hands, shame burning beneath her skin. ‘I’ll tell you everything now, but will you please... hold me?’
Swayam chuckled softly as he wiped her tears away. ‘Baby, I thought you’d never ask.’
The mattress dipped under his weight, and his arms came around her in a possessive hold. ‘I’m here. Take your time. There’s no rush.’
She snuggled into him, and he anchored her so completely that her heartbeat slowly settled into a steady rhythm.