CHAPTER 45
Rewa Palace settled into its afternoon quiet after the celebration.
The terrace caught the last of the warm light. The valley beyond stretched wide and still, the chinar trees moving faintly in the wind. No press. No officials. No staff hovering close.
Just four brothers.
They stood at a comfortable distance from one another, the way men do when they've known each other their whole lives and don't need to fill silences.
Samar stood with his hands clasped behind his back, still in work mode even now.
Viraj leaned against a pillar, looking relaxed but missing nothing.
Ram's gaze kept drifting to the far side of the terrace, where Sanjana sat with Yamini.
Bharat stood at the stone railing.
Across the garden, Yamini laughed.
He didn't turn immediately. He didn’t need to.
He could separate her voice from the layered conversation without effort.
He had always filtered rooms this way. Measuring tone, rhythm, shifts in breathing, the scrape of a chair, the flicker of flame.
The world did not blur for him. It arrived in sharp fragments. He assembled it.
Right then, the only thing he assembled was her.
He noticed her laugh the way he noticed most things, first as sound, then as meaning. It was clear and unguarded, easy to pick out from the rest of the noise on the terrace.
Then he looked.
The afternoon sunlight caught her dusky face and the emerald fish pendant at her chest. She sat close to Sanjana, relaxed, talking with her hands the way she did when she was comfortable.
She looked happy.
It struck him how different she was from the woman who had once stood in his office accusing him of orchestrating her entire life.
When she looked at him now, there was no fury or suspicion in her eyes.
Just trust.
Even when she was annoyed, defiant, or arguing with him — calling him an infuriating, controlling jerk—the trust didn't leave. He had noticed that. It was new.
“You're quiet,” Viraj said.
“I'm thinking,” Bharat said.
“About the Gulwama situation?” Samar asked.
“Among other things.”
Ram glanced at him. “Any updates from your security team?”
“They've narrowed it down to two names,” Bharat said. “Should have confirmation by next week.”
“Let me know if your eastern routes need checking,” Ram said. “Two of my shipping lines overlap there.”
“I'll send the files.”
Across the garden, Sanjana leaned toward Yamini and said something. Yamini's face shifted—surprise first, and then something softer. A warmth that spread through her whole expression.
Pregnancy.
Bharat had already noticed it earlier. The way Sanjana's hand rested briefly against her stomach when she thought no one was watching. The way Ram repositioned himself slightly every time she moved.
His mother had noticed too. He had seen her gaze rest on Sanjana's stomach during lunch, briefly, before she returned to her tea.
Yamini's gaze lingered on Sanjana's stomach. Her smile was soft. Unguarded.
He recognized the look.
Longing.
She was thinking about children.
He had been watching her closely enough, for long enough now, to recognize each of her looks.
The frozen lake—her boots stamping against the ice, the deep sound rolling out beneath them, her face lighting up with wonder when it echoed across the valley.
The apple orchard—sunlight catching in her hair as she laughed carefreely with the steel workers. She smiled when petals landed on his jacket, then brushed them off without thinking twice.
In the palace, her things had slowly moved into his rooms. A scarf left over the back of his chair remained for two weeks.
He didn’t move it. A photography book was left open on his office desk when she came two days ago, while he worked.
He didn’t move it either. Her hairbrush next to his razor.
A small case of lipstick on the bathroom counter, where before there had only been his things, arranged exactly the way he liked them.
She slept in his bed every night now. She curled toward him without thinking about it. Sometimes her hand found his even while she was asleep.
He had gotten used to her weight beside him. To the sound of her breathing. The way she looked at him in the mornings now was smiling and teasing.
He had started leaving work early, not because anything required it, but because she would be somewhere in the palace and some part of him wanted to be there too.
Even now, he had positioned himself in a way so he could look outside in the garden at her.
“You are thinking of bhabhi,” Samar said.
“Yes.”
Samar studied him for a moment. “I was wrong about her,” Samar said. “Five years ago. And after the wedding.”
Bharat didn't respond immediately.
“She's good for you,” Samar added.
Bharat didn’t say anything.
He and his brothers were raised not to display affection openly. Not to lean into each other casually. They were men shaped by legacy, empire, and responsibility.
But if any one of them was threatened, the others would not hesitate.
Samar had considered Yamini a threat. Now he didn’t.
Across the garden, Yamini glanced up.
Something tightened in his chest as her smile widened. Her smile held a whole range of emotions. Happiness. Attraction. Excitement. And underneath it all, trust.
His grip on the railing tightened slightly.
He knew he could keep her safe from almost anything. From threats, from politics, from the world outside.
But he knew he wouldn’t be able to protect her from himself.
From the truth.
She didn't know everything yet.
And once she did, he didn't know if she would look at him the way she looked at him right now.
She thought this was the beginning. She wasn't wrong about what they'd built. She just didn't know what was coming next.
As he watched her, lit up by the afternoon sun, for the first time in a long time, he wasn't thinking about how to come out ahead.
He was thinking about what it would cost him when she found out everything.