CHAPTER 27
The late afternoon sunlight filled the studio.
Yamini had been working since morning. She had skipped lunch and was surviving mostly on tea. Which usually meant one of two things—she was happy, or she was trying very hard not to think.
At half past five, the studio door buzzed before opening.
Pooja stepped inside, carrying a paper bag.
“I don’t think the Jogra security appreciates me coming here this often,” she announced.
Yamini had already informed security to allow Pooja unlimited access.
“They don’t mind,” Yamini said without looking up from the monitor.
“I brought hot samosas and fresh chai, and if you tell me you've skipped lunch again, I swear—”
Pooja stopped. “Oh my God.”
Yamini finally looked up. She had spent most of the day editing, printing, and mounting framed photographs from the steel plant visits.
These weren’t the official PR photographs. These were the ones taken in quiet moments between inspections, safety briefings, and Tina Mehta's clipboard instructions.
Pooja set the paper bags down slowly without looking away from the wall.
She didn't speak for almost a full minute.
It was a portrait of Meena, one of the senior welders. Meena stood in full protective gear with her visor lifted, sparks frozen behind her like fragments of fire. Her skin glowed bronze beneath industrial lights while her eyes met the camera directly.
“She looks like a goddess,” Pooja whispered.
“She does.”
Pooja moved slowly. The next photograph showed a young woman in grease-streaked overalls sitting on an overturned steel drum breastfeeding her infant during a break while the blast furnace blurred behind her.
Pooja inhaled sharply. “This isn’t just factory photography.”
Yamini didn’t say anything.
The next frame was black-and-white, showing only hands. Hands shaped by years of skilled work. Callouses earned through handling tools and machinery every day.
A thin gold ring. And a faded thread bracelet.
Behind the hands, blurred softly, sat a child’s drawing taped to steel.
Pooja stared, looking speechless.
Yamini took it as a compliment because it really did take a huge effort to make someone like Pooja speechless.
Pooja then walked toward the final photograph, standing alone near the window.
Female workers stood together after shift change with helmets tucked beneath their arms. Sweat dripped down their faces as they laughed. They looked unapologetically alive.
“Yamini,” Pooja said slowly. “Do you know what you did?”
“They're documentary photographs,” Yamini said.
“No.” Pooja turned. “These make people feel something.”
Pooja turned to look at her. “These deserve an exhibition.”
Pooja pointed at the laughing woman. “This one alone. The light, the expression, the furnace behind her. I have seen award-winning work that does less than this photograph does.” She moved along the wall slowly. “This is your best work. You know it is.”
Yamini looked at the photographs.
She did know. She had known when she was taking them that particular feeling of the camera becoming an extension of something rather than a tool, of seeing something real and catching it before it disappeared. She hadn't felt that way about work in a long time.
“Tell me you’ll think about it,” Pooja insisted.
Yamini wasn’t sure right then. But looking at Pooja’s determined look, she nodded. “I’ll think about it.”
“Good! Now let’s eat. I know you must have skipped lunch, just like you always do when you get into your work mode and lose track of time.”
Yamini smiled faintly and sat across from Pooja on the tall table.
Pooja narrowed her eyes immediately. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Yamini replied.
“That is not a nothing face. You have been staring at the samosa and haven’t even taken a bite.”
Yamini looked away. “I’m not hungry.”
She was too angry to eat.
She had spent most of the day furious at Bharat Jogra. And at herself.
Bharat Jogra had forced emergency contraception, blood tests, contract rules, and heir timelines onto her as though she were discussing project milestones instead of children.
And yet, despite all that, when midnight came again, she had not locked the connecting door.
She had not told him to get out.
Because she didn’t want him to think her feelings got hurt. Or that she considered their marriage more than just a contract. She had allowed him to touch her.
“I’m with you only because it’s my duty and part of the contract I signed,” she had told him angrily. “Not because I enjoy this or want you!”
She had thought her anger would keep her from responding.
But the cold bastard knew exactly how to touch her.
“You are wet,” he had murmured, his breath hot against her ear. His thumb had brushed against her wrists, where he had them pinned on top of her head. “Your heart rate is elevated, and your pupils are dilated. You can lie to yourself, but not to me.”
He had taken her then. He broke through her defenses using strategy and low commands, watching her face until her resistance broke and she was gasping in pleasure under him.
She had come thrice.
I hate him.
Yamini glared into her teacup. “I'm fine.”
“You are definitely not fine.” Pooja crossed her arms. “Something is bothering you. What is it? Has Tina Mehta bothered you again?”
Yamini shook her head. “No. She has been sent away.”
After the office incident in the steel factory, Tina Mehta was nowhere to be found.
Yamini briefly told Pooja about the last interaction with Tina and the following office incident.
“What!” Pooja shrieked. “That’s so damn romantic.”
“No, it isn’t,” Yamini said.
“Yes, it is! He fired the Chief Minister's daughter for you! Do you know how much political fallout that could cause? And he still did it.” Pooja pressed both hands to her chest. “That is insanely romantic.”
“He fired Tina because she disrupted his project and harassed his workers, not because he was protecting me.”
Pooja grinned. “You really sat on his lap?” she said.
“Only to provoke Tina.”
“And yet, he allowed it and threw out the Chief Minister's daughter without any discussion.” Pooja tilted her head. “If that isn’t romantic, I don’t know what else is.”
Yamini ate a samosa to avoid responding.
It was good. She hadn't realized how hungry she was until she started eating. She took another one and stared at the Dalview lake through the studio windows, silver in the late afternoon light.
“He is controlling,” she said.
Pooja looked skeptical. “How?”
Yamini set down the samosa.
She had not told Pooja about the midnight visits. And she didn’t want to talk about the morning after pill.
“There is a clause in the marriage contract,” she said instead. “Bharat Jogra gets to decide when I conceive.”
Pooja went still. “What?”
“He controls the timeline. When we have a child.” Yamini's jaw tightened. “I found out recently. It's in the contract I signed. Which I should have read more carefully, but I didn't, because I didn't think the contract was real.”
Pooja stared at her. “That's...”
“Controlling,” Yamini said. “That's what this marriage is about.”
“Okay,” Pooja said slowly. “That is—I understand why you're upset. But why would he put that clause in?”
“Because this marriage is based on revenge,” Yamini said, letting out her long-held suspicion. “He married me to punish me for humiliating him five years ago.”
Pooja was quiet for a moment.
Then she said, “If Bharat Jogra wanted revenge on you, he would not have gifted your great-grandmother's necklace.”
Yamini’s hand automatically lifted to her chest.
She was wearing the pendant. She had put it back on that morning.
She wore it because it belonged to her family. Not because he gifted it to her.
“He would not have given you the best commercial studio in the country,” Pooja continued. “He would not have gone with you to your parents’ home. He would not have allowed a stray kitten to live in his palace.” Pooja paused. “A man planning revenge doesn't do any of those things.”
“All those things are his way to control me,” Yamini said. “To keep me in check.”
Pooja didn’t look too convinced.
“Or maybe—” Pooja said. “Is it possible that he put that clause in because he wanted time?”
Yamini looked at her.
“You barely knew each other,” Pooja continued. “You met only once five years ago during your engagement. Maybe he wanted time to actually know his wife before children complicated everything.”
That sounded absurd.
Nothing about Bharat Jogra suggested he was interested in building a marriage with her.
He didn’t even kiss me.
She had felt his warm breath on her lips, but his mouth never touched hers.
He didn’t want intimacy. He only wanted control.
Pooja suddenly sat up straighter. “You know what you should do?”
“What?”
“Seduce your husband.”
Yamini nearly dropped her tea. “What?”
Pooja’s eyes gleamed with excitement. “Lower his walls. Seduce him. Show him you want him. Earn his trust. Make him fall in love.”
Yamini shook her head. “Absolutely not.”
Seduce Bharat Jogra?
It was a ridiculous suggestion.
She didn’t want his trust. Definitely not his love.
She only wanted a child.
She wanted to fulfil the contract sooner because it would mean she could walk away sooner.
That’s all there was to it. Nothing more.
She picked up her chai and looked at the photographs on the wall.
Meena the welder. The breastfeeding mother. The hands with the child's drawing.
Women who weren’t born into privilege like her, yet made the best of their circumstances.
She looked back at Pooja.
“I need a strategy.”
Pooja tilted her head.
“Bharat Jogra responds to logic,” Yamini continued, thinking aloud. “Facts. Efficiency. If I can show him that fulfilling the heir clause sooner rather than later is the more efficient outcome for both parties—”
“You want to out-logic the Jogra maharaja into giving you a baby?” Pooja looked simultaneously horrified and impressed.
“I want to fulfill the contract terms and leave with my inheritance and my dignity intact,” Yamini said.
And even her heart.
Because, despite being controlling, the cold-hearted maharaja made her heart race with just his presence.