Chapter 5
FIVE
Advik
I stare hard at the offending appendage.
I... couldn’t do it. It’s almost laughable.
I made sure Rohi got off—that she got her release. But me? I couldn’t even pretend. Couldn’t finish. It’s like my dick is broken.
Which, honestly, would make sense.
Because every time I’ve come in the last two years, it’s been with her face in my mind. Greesha.
Always Greesha.
I could never—ever—let another woman replace that image. Not even for a moment.
And especially not while I was... inside someone else.
God. I’m pathetic.
I wasn’t even present for any of it. My body was there, sure. But my mind? My soul?
Somewhere else. With someone else.
Someone who no longer even exists.
I pull off the empty condom and shove my now limp dick back into my boxers.
Rohi’s quietly fixing her lehenga and choli beside me. I noticed her hesitation earlier—how she never fully removed her clothes. Neither did she ask me to.
She’s always struggled with how she sees her body. Too thin, too small, too fragile. I’ve seen the way people talk to her—about her—like her body is something to be corrected. Even her own mother.
So I let her lead. I tried to be careful.
But now? She looks like she’s on the verge of tears.
Fuck.
Did I mess this up?
Did she notice how checked out I was?
I tried. I really tried to seem involved. But maybe I failed at that too.
“Are you okay?” I ask carefully, trying not to spook her.
“Yeah...” Her voice trembles. “I’m... I’m not sure we should do this again, though.”
There it is.
Relief floods me. Sharp and immediate.
But I hide it. She doesn’t deserve to see that.
“Why?” I ask, but the second the question leaves my lips, I see it—
The look in her eyes. The ache. The heartbreak.
Shit. I made her feel unwanted.
“I mean—I’m fine either way,” I add quickly, words scraping my throat—an acidic lie. “But... what’s in your head?”
She sighs. Deep and tired. “I guess I thought that maybe... doing this would fix something. That my brain would just stop screaming all those ugly things at me. It didn’t.”
And suddenly, it all makes sense.
Of course. Of course this wasn’t about me. It was about her. About her body. About ownership.
“Shit,” I mutter. “Listen, I’m all for you trying to reclaim sex on your terms. I get it’s hard—especially after everything people have said. And I don’t know what that... Lucian did. But—and please don’t take this the wrong way—I think you’re confusing sex with intimacy.”
She looks almost offended. And yeah—I expected that. But I have to say it anyway.
“Listen... sex requires trust and attraction. Intimacy? Well, I think that requires both of those—and feelings.”
And that’s the part that haunts me.
Because I haven’t felt anything real for anyone else in two years.
I’m still in love with a woman who’s gone.
A woman whose ghost seems more vivid than any living body I’ve seen since.
Even tonight—especially tonight—I felt her absence like a presence. Felt it pounding through me like a second heartbeat.
This was the first time I tried to force it away.
And now?
Now the guilt is clawing back tenfold.
I shouldn’t have let this happen. I should’ve shut it down. I should’ve told Vikram and Ishika that their matchmaking fantasies needed to stop.
That I wasn’t an available man. Not for Rohi. Not for anyone.
I should’ve never let Rohi believe I could be anything more than what I was: a shell of a man, with half a heart and a memory that won’t leave me the fuck alone.
Rohi lets out a disbelieving laugh. “Are you a therapist now?”
No. But I probably need one.
Because I can’t breathe through this panic.
“I’ve known you for years, Rohi. Our attraction? It’s always been there.” I shrug.
Yeah. That stupid attraction... it used to confuse me. Felt important.
Now I see it for what it was—me playing hero. Me trying to catch her every time she fell.
But attraction isn’t love.
Not when even the memory of someone else is enough to keep me emotionally tethered for a lifetime.
Not when the ghost of Greesha still has more power over me than Rohi ever could in the flesh.
So I can’t leave this door cracked open.
I need to slam it shut.
So I do what I know best. I push her away. Toward him. Toward someone who actually gives a shit. Because the man that I am—will never be able to give himself to anyone else but her ghost.
“But I don’t think that’s what you’re really looking for. I think... you’re trying to find out if he still wants you. Not just someone. Him. After whatever happened.”
That seems to reach her. Once she’s calmer, I gently tell her to head back to the bride’s side of the mansion.
I can’t have her here anymore. Not in this space. Not after what just happened.
But the second we step outside—
I see him.
Lucian.
Standing there like a statue. His gaze locked onto Rohi with a hollowness that punches the breath from my lungs.
Because I recognize it.
That look.
That vacant, aching stare.
It mirrors mine.
He’s my torment, made flesh.
I see the moment it hits him—that awful realization that he’s probably lost her.
And something inside him... crumples.
I want to tell him he hasn’t. That he still has a chance.
That the woman he loves is standing right in front of him. Still breathing. Still reachable.
Mine isn’t.
Lucian drops his gaze almost instantly. Doesn’t fight. Doesn’t plead. Just takes a few unsteady steps toward us, clutching the paper bag I recognize—the sherwani I lent him earlier.
His hands are trembling.
God.
He looks broken in the same way I feel. In the way only men who’ve loved wrong—too late, too blindly—can ever be broken.
I glance at Rohi. She’s frozen. Just... staring at him.
This moment wasn’t meant for me.
None of it was.
I shouldn’t be in this scene. I shouldn’t be here. I never should’ve been in the middle of this.
Guilt blooms sharp and fast when Lucian speaks.
“The sherwani,” he whispers, voice barely holding itself together.
I snap out of it. Step forward to take the bag from his hands.
Our fingers brush.
I want him to look up. To see that I get it. That I understand the pain sitting just beneath his skin. That he’s not alone in it. That he still has a chance to make it right. That I haven’t taken it from him. I won’t.
Maybe even see that in Rohi’s eyes too.
He just has to look up.
But he doesn’t.
His gaze never lifts.
And maybe that’s the worst part—
That two men could be grieving the same kind of loss… but only one of them still has a chance to fix it.
And it isn’t me.
He hands another paper bag to Rohi. She takes it mechanically, her fingers barely closing around it, and then turns and walks away.
Lucian’s shoulders are stiff as he disappears down the corridor, like every step is costing him something.
Rohi doesn’t move.
Not for a long time.
She just stands there, eyes locked on the space where he once was. Frozen. Like she’s waiting for him to come back. Like she can’t believe he left.
Eventually, I have to nudge her out of it.
“What’s in it?” I nod toward the paper bag in her hands.
No response.
“Rohi?”
She flinches, like I touched a live wire.
“I... I don’t know,” she murmurs.
She leans against the wall and opens it. And in the span of a breath, she slides down to the floor—sobs ripping through her chest.
What the fuck?
I drop down beside her and catch her before she completely crumples.
“Shit. Are you okay? What the fuck is even inside this?”
I reach into the bag—and pull out a pair of the fluffiest, whitest slippers I’ve ever seen.
And that’s when it clicks.
I vaguely remember she’d been limping all night. Hours of dancing in those heels. No complaints. No drama.
He saw it.
And he brought her comfort. Without asking. Without needing praise. Just... because.
Fuck.
I manage a small smile. One I hope she doesn’t misread.
Because this? This isn’t pity.
It’s relief.
Relief that maybe—just maybe—someone in this fucked-up circle might actually get a happy ending.
I sit with her as she cries. I don’t say much—just wipe her tears. Just stay beside her, quietly reminding her with every breath: It’s okay to feel.
We head back to the bride’s side of the farmhouse, and I walk Rohi to her door.
Before I leave, I find Kashvi, Rohi’s best friend, and tell her Rohi might need her.
Then I walk away.
And for the first time in a long, long time—I feel completely, utterly lost.
Because somewhere between the last few hours and now, I’ve realized something terrifying.
I might be okay living for a ghost.
Worse—I might be okay becoming one.
I’ve never thought that way about myself before.
Not even at my lowest.
I... need Vikram.
But it feels selfish—dragging him into this days before his wedding.
Still I find him.
He’s sitting with Ishika in the main hall. It’s nearly 4 a.m., and the entire place is empty except for the two of them, curled up together in the quiet.
I’m about to slip away when Vikram spots me.
“Oye! Viko!”
Shit.
I force myself to walk over and drop onto the couch across from them. Ishika’s eyes light up with mischief.
She wiggles her brows. “So...? Were you with Rohi?”
“Let him off, Ishi,” Vikram mutters. “That Lucian guy might hear you.”
I almost laugh.
Too late for that level of concern.
But what’s about to leave my mouth isn’t what they’re expecting. It’s time.
I can feel it building, rising, threatening to spill over.
So I let it.
I lean forward, elbows on my knees, and for the first time in two years—I let them see it.
The pain. The weight. The truth.
Vikram’s smile fades. Ishika’s grin slips clean off her face.
“Viko—”
“I need you both to stop orchestrating circumstances that push Rohi and me together.” The words tumble out, fast, sharp. “I... I don’t want her. And she definitely doesn’t want me.”
Ishika bites her lip. She always does that when she’s nervous. Or guilty.
“I wasn’t... we weren’t doing that because...” she trails off, sighing heavily.
Vikram jumps in. “I thought you did want her. I mean, at some point you did, right? And she is single—”
Ishika groans. “This Lucian guy showing up is messing with her head—”
“I assure you it’s not. They both want each other. They love each other.” I take a breath. “And as I said—I don’t want her. I... I haven’t told you this but... I’m in love with someone else.”
Vikram frowns. “Who? That executive assistant who—”
I shake my head.
Then force the name out.
The name I haven’t said out loud in years. At least not to these two.
“Greesha.”
God.
Just saying it out loud—her name—is like exhaling after holding my breath underwater for two years.
It feels... cathartic.
And brutal.
Ishika’s face drains of color. “Oh god. Is she the one who broke up with you because of—”
“Yes.”
“Well... you haven’t fixed anything with her in the last two years. What—”
Vikram stops.
Because he sees it now.
The tears filling my eyes.
The way my chest starts to shudder, breath hitching painfully.
“She...” I try. My voice cracks.
I’ve never said this before. I’d never possessed the strength to actually say these three words in the same sentence. I feel bile rise up my throat at the thought of finally uttering the devastating sentence.
Say it.
Just say it, Advik.
“Greesha is dead.”
The silence after is deafening.
I don’t remember much of what happens next.
Just fragments. Blurred sobs. The muffled sound of their voices behind the roar in my ears. Their arms around my shoulders squeezing me tight.
But something inside me has cracked open.
And I don’t think it’s ever going to close again.