CHAPTER 4 The Circle Within a Circle #2
Mihika bit her lower lip, the internal war raging on her features.
She knew she shouldn’t. If Kanta found out she was even in the same zip code as Rudransh, the threat of the dossier being leaked to the press hung over her head like a gilded guillotine.
But she could feel Aryan’s tears soaking her collarbone.
She could feel his heart hammering against hers.
She couldn’t abandon him in a public park. Not again.
Slowly, agonizingly, without ever raising her eyes to meet his, Mihika gave a small, defeated nod.
Rudra’s chest tightened, a heavy ache radiating through his ribs. The fact that she couldn’t even look at him—that she felt she had no right to or was too terrified to—shattered the last remnants of his icy armor.
“My car is just outside the gate,” Rudra said softly, placing a protective, guiding hand against the small of her back. He didn’t push; he merely hovered, offering a solid wall of protection.
***
The drive to the coastal penthouse usually took an hour.
The Maybach was a custom-built, armored vehicle.
The glass was bulletproof, the doors heavily weighted, and the interior was a soundproof cocoon of butter-soft black leather and ambient lighting.
It was a mobile fortress, designed to keep the dangers of the world out.
But as the heavy door clicked shut, sealing them inside, the true danger was the suffocating, heavy silence between them.
The privacy screen separating them from the chauffeur was raised. Rudransh sat in the back seat next to Mihika. He did not sit facing forward. He had angled his large frame toward her, one arm resting along the back of the plush leather seat, just inches from her shoulder.
Mihika sat curled up against the opposite door, holding Aryan across her lap.
The little boy had exhausted himself from the adrenaline and the crying.
His thumb had found its way into his mouth—a self-soothing habit he hadn’t displayed since he was a toddler—and his eyes were drooping, though he fought sleep violently, terrified that he would wake up and find it was all a dream.
Mihika gently rocked her torso, humming a low, ancient lullaby that her grandmother, Nirmala, used to sing in the kitchens. She stared down at Aryan’s face, her fingers softly tracing the line of his eyebrows, the curve of his cheek.
Rudra sat perfectly still in the shadowed interior of the car, watching her.
He absorbed every detail he had been starved of for a year.
He saw how much thinner she was. The vibrant, healthy flush she used to carry was gone, replaced by a pale, translucent fragility.
The dark circles under her eyes spoke of a thousand sleepless nights.
She looked like a woman who had been walking through a desert, stripped of water and light.
And yet, as she looked down at Aryan, her face was illuminated by a love so devastatingly pure, that it took Rudra’s breath away.
She loves him more than her own life, Rudra thought, the realization settling into his bones with the weight of a dying star. She would never have left him. She would have broken her own heart, she would have torn her own soul to shreds, before she walked away from this boy.
And she had. She had broken her own heart.
Rudra’s jaw clenched, the muscles ticking dangerously.
The mystery of her departure was no longer a question of whether she betrayed them, but how she was forced.
What leverage did his aunt and uncle hold?
What venomous lies had they spun, what threats had they levied, to make a woman who loved this fiercely abandon her entire world?
He didn’t know the exact details yet. But as the tires of the armored vehicle hummed against the coastal highway, Rudransh Rathore-Chauhan made a silent, blood-sworn vow.
He was going to find out. He was going to pull the Chauhan estate apart brick by aristocratic brick.
He was going to expose the rot, and he was going to ruin the people who had put those dark shadows under Mihika’s eyes.
The low hum of the vehicle, the tinted darkness, and the steady rhythm of the highway finally won the battle against Aryan’s adrenaline. The boy’s breathing deepened, his small body going completely limp against Mihika’s chest. He was fast asleep.
Mihika let out a long, shaky exhale. She continued to stroke his hair for a few minutes. But the emotional toll of the day, combined with the physical exhaustion that had plagued her for a year, began to drag her under.
Her eyelids fluttered. She tried to fight it, wanting to remain hyper-vigilant, wanting to keep her walls up against the overwhelming presence of the man sitting next to her.
But the safety she subconsciously felt in Rudra’s presence—the knowledge that no harm could come to her or Aryan while this man was in the room—betrayed her defenses.
Mihika let her head fall back against the plush leather headrest. Within moments, the steady rise and fall of her chest matched Aryan’s. She was asleep.
Rudra waited for a few minutes, ensuring she was deeply under. Then, moving with the quiet, deliberate grace of a predator, he shifted closer.
He didn’t want to wake them, but he could not bear the physical distance a second longer. Reaching out with slow, calculated movements, Rudra gently slid his arm behind Mihika’s back. With infinite care, he guided her slight frame toward the center of the seat, pulling her against his side.
Mihika murmured softly in her sleep, a small sound of distress, but as the familiar scent of his cologne enveloped her, her body naturally, instinctively recognized its true north. She slumped sideways, her head coming to rest perfectly in the hollow of his shoulder.
Rudra wrapped his arms around them both. It was a circle within a circle. Aryan was held safely in Mihika’s arms, and Mihika was held utterly secured within Rudra’s massive, protective embrace.