CHAPTER 22
Yamini stood in the middle of her set-up studio.
For the first time in years, the space around her felt entirely her own.
Sunlight poured in through the tall windows, catching on white walls and polished concrete floors.
Her equipment was laid out neatly—camera bodies aligned, lenses stored in padded cases, reflectors stacked against the wall.
Along one side, she had hung a careful selection of her award-winning photographs: children laughing in rural clinics, misty landscapes at dawn, a candid shot of a woman tying her hair before work. Pieces of her life, framed and steady.
She had hung them herself that morning, before Pooja arrived. It had taken longer than she expected. Not because of the hanging, but because of the looking.
Each one was a place she had been, a moment she had been present for. A record that she had existed and worked and seen things worth seeing even when everything else in her life was falling apart.
She stepped back and looked at them all together.
“This looks wonderful,” Pooja said, spinning slowly in the center of the room. “You realize this is the kind of studio photographers dream about and never actually get?”
Yamini nodded, knowing it was true.
Pooja walked up to one of the framed photographs and tilted her head. “This one won you the international award, right?”
“Yes,” Yamini said softly. “That was taken the year I left.”
Pooja glanced at her but didn’t press. Instead, she turned back to the room, visibly impressed. “You know, once the environmental project wraps up, I can line you up with at least three major assignments. Two NGOs and a luxury travel brand. Everyone wants your eye.”
Yamini felt a flicker of excitement. “That would be amazing.”
“And,” Pooja added with a grin, “it helps that your biggest client—the Jogra Maharaja himself—is also your very secret husband.”
Yamini groaned. “Pooja.”
“What?” Pooja laughed. “It’s so romantic.”
“He’s not my client or my boss,” Yamini corrected. “And he’s not a real husband. He’s a contract husband.”
Pooja raised an eyebrow. “Does this contract husband still maintain distance?”
Yamini’s cheeks warmed instantly. She turned toward her camera bag, pretending to adjust a strap. “Yes.”
Pooja narrowed her eyes. “That pause was suspicious.”
Yamini exhaled. “He’s distant during the day.”
“And at night?” Pooja prompted shamelessly.
“Pooja!” Yamini admonished, trying hard not to blush again.
Pooja grinned. “Sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry at all.
Yamini shook her head. “He… uh… hasn’t even kissed me.”
That much was true. Despite the heated nights, Bharat Jogra was yet to kiss her on her lips.
She didn't examine why that particular absence bothered her more than it should. More than the separate bedrooms or the formal distance or the fact that he spoke to her primarily in logistics.
It just did.
She moved on before Pooja could see it on her face.
“So let me get this straight,” Pooja said, dropping onto a stool. “Your contract husband gives you the best studio in the country, lets you keep a stray kitten in the palace, takes you to meet your estranged parents… but he hasn’t kissed you?”
Pooja made Bharat Jogra sound like a besotted, doting husband. Which he definitely wasn’t.
Yamini slowly nodded.
Pooja leaned forward, eyes gleaming. “Have you considered kissing him?”
Yamini nearly dropped her lens cap. “What? No.”
“Why not?”
“Because he would—” Yamini stopped herself, shaking her head. “He would not react well.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do,” Yamini said firmly. “I am not kissing a man who doesn’t want to kiss me.”
“Okay, okay,” Pooja said, holding up her hands. “Changing the topic before you combust.”
Thankful, Yamini nodded. “Good.”
Pooja’s disappointment lasted exactly two seconds before her face lit up again. “Did you know there’s an elite jewelry exhibition downstairs?”
Yamini blinked. “Jewelry?”
“Rare pieces. Royal collections. Apparently, some of them haven’t been displayed publicly in decades.”
Yamini wasn’t much for jewels. She preferred lenses to diamonds. But curiosity stirred, and so did the desire to redirect Pooja before she circled back to seduction strategies.
“Fine,” Yamini said. “Let’s go.”
Pooja grinned, already heading for the door. “You’re going to love this.”
As they stepped out of the studio and toward the elevator, Yamini glanced back once at the photographs on the wall. At the life she was rebuilding, piece by piece.
Whatever this marriage was—contractual, controlled, and confusing—it had brought her here.
And for now, that was enough.