CHAPTER 38
It was past midnight.
Bharat remained in the office.
The room had settled back into silence after she left. But her words were still there, precise and repeating.
You engineered my divorce. You planned everything. You married me for revenge.
He didn't flinch from them. He examined them the way he examined risk reports.
The divorce. The photographs. The legal process. The environmental summit. The PR contract. The marriage.
Each event had a sequence. A cause and a response.
Her marriage had been unstable long before he intervened. That was a fact. Her husband had humiliated her repeatedly. That was a fact. The photographs had accelerated what was already inevitable.
He stood and slowly moved around the desk.
Revenge.
He considered the word.
Revenge implied wounded pride. Reaction. Impulse. He did not operate from impulse. He operated from correction.
Five years ago, she had walked away. He had not stopped her. He had not pursued her.
Timing had always mattered.
He crossed to the wall safe, entered the code, and opened it.
Inside was a sealed copy of the marriage contract. He removed it and laid it flat on the desk.
He ran his thumb once over her signature at the bottom of the final page.
Firm. Confident.
She had signed willingly.
She had not read the contract. He had known she wouldn't.
He returned the contract to the safe and closed it.
No coercion. No deception. Terms agreed. Enforceable.
He turned off the office light and stepped into the adjoining studio.
Moonlight came through the high windows and lay in pale strips across the canvases along the walls. He switched on a single overhead lamp. The light pooled softly in the center of the room.
He rolled his sleeves back. Selected a brush. Prepared the palette.
Then he began to paint.
The strokes were controlled at first. Measured. Deliberate.
But as the hour stretched, they deepened and darkened, layered over each other with less precision than he usually allowed.
Midnight settled over the palace.
He did not go to his room.
The connecting door would be blocked.
He painted until the first pale light came over the mountains and the darkness began to thin at the edges.