Chapter 4
Shaurya
With the file in my hand, I step into our room, and my gaze immediately finds Reeva.
She stands before the floor-to-ceiling glass doors leading to the balcony, her back to me as she stares into the darkness.
The soft amber glow of the bedside lamp spills across the polished marble floor, bathing her white kurta in warm light.
Her long brown hair cascades down her back in loose waves, but the tension in her posture tells me something is wrong.
She doesn’t turn at the sound of my footsteps. She doesn’t greet me with the smile I’ve come to crave or rush into my arms as she always does… the familiar ritual that has unknowingly become the best part of my day.
“Sweetheart, are you okay?” I ask, closing the bedroom door behind me. I walk farther into the room and place the folder on the centre table, my gaze never leaving her.
She draws in a slow breath before turning to face me, and that’s when I notice it. Her eyes are red-rimmed and swollen, as though she has been crying, and the sight sends a sharp wave of unease through me. Before I can ask what happened, she speaks.
“I know.”
“What do you know?” I ask cautiously, even as every instinct in me demands that I cross the room, cup her face in my hands, and find out who or what made her cry.
Her lips tremble before she presses them into a thin line.
“I know everything.” She closes her eyes. “My father. Your father. Rajmahal.” Her throat moves as she struggles to swallow. “The entire ugly history.”
My fingers curl into my palms. “How did you find out?”
Her eyes snap open, and she takes a slow step towards me, her gaze fixed on mine. “Is that what bothers you? That you can’t deceive me anymore? Or that your perfect little plan has fallen apart?”
She stops inches away from me, leaving us toe to toe. “Were you actually hoping I would never discover the truth so you could continue making a fool out of me?” She tilts her head when I remain silent. “What happened? Cat got your tongue?”
This time, she doesn’t wait for an answer. “It has always been about Rajmahal, hasn’t it? The palace my father took from yours. The place you’ve spent years trying to reclaim.”
My jaw tightens as I push the words past the knot in my throat. “Yes. Rajmahal has always been a part of this.”
Reeva stares at me in silence before giving a slow, almost imperceptible nod.
“Of course it was.” A bitter laugh escapes her trembling lips.
“What better way to reclaim a palace than to marry the woman who owns it?” She shakes her head, tears shimmering in her eyes.
“God… I made it so easy for you, didn’t I?
I fell so hopelessly, so completely in love with you that I placed every piece of my heart in your hands without realising I was only making your revenge easier. ”
Her words strike me like a blow to the chest because I have no defence against them. My throat tightens, but I make myself hold her gaze.
“I know I hurt you, but—”
“Hurt me?” she cuts in, her voice shaking with fury.
“You didn’t just hurt me, Shaurya. You destroyed everything I believed was real.
” A broken smile flickers across her lips.
“For eight months, I woke up beside you believing I was the luckiest woman alive. I believed I had married a man who loved me, a man I could trust with every part of myself.” Her arms fold tightly across her chest as though she is physically holding herself together.
“And all that time, you looked into my eyes, held me in your arms, and lied to me. Every. Single. Day.”
“Yes, I lied to you, Reeva,” I grit out, each word dragged from somewhere deep inside me.
“But I won’t apologise for wanting justice.
Your father didn’t merely take a property.
He exploited a lifetime of friendship and drove a knife into my father’s back.
He stole my family’s home and left Dad mourning its loss until the day he died.
” My jaw clenches until it aches. “And through all of it, your father never showed a single ounce of remorse. Not once. He never cared that he had destroyed the man who once called him his closest friend.”
A single tear slips down her cheek, tearing something open inside me.
I should hold on to my anger. I should remember my father’s pain and everything Rajmahal’s loss did to him.
Instead, I find myself trapped between the ghost of the father I couldn’t save and the wife I am destroying.
Every instinct screams at me to close the distance between us, pull her into my arms, and wipe away the tears I caused.
The need to comfort her is so fierce that every muscle in my body strains towards her.
But I force myself to remain exactly where I am.
I no longer have the right to touch her, not when I am the reason she is breaking.
“So… you decided to punish me,” she whispers.
“No.” I shake my head. “It was never about punishing you.”
“Then what was it?” Her voice cracks for the first time. “Punishing my father… even in his grave?”
The question cuts straight through me.
Yes. I wanted Arvind Singhania to pay for what he did to my family. When death stole that chance from me, I convinced myself that making his daughter bear the consequences was the only justice left.
But standing here, facing my wife, I cannot bring myself to confess the ugly truth. The words rise in my throat only to die there. Saying them aloud would mean acknowledging that I didn’t merely betray her trust, I deliberately targeted an innocent woman for a crime she never committed.
No matter how many excuses I hide behind, I cannot bear to watch the last trace of love in her eyes disappear because of me.
“I cannot answer for his sins,” she says, as though reading my thoughts. “But you made me pay for them anyway.”
“We don’t need to keep going in circles.” I pick up the file from the centre table and hold it out to her. “Just sign the papers, Reeva.” My voice is calm, almost detached. “Then we’ll go out for dinner tonight. We’ll talk, and I’ll make this up to you.”
I hear how cruel I sound, how easily I reduce her devastation to something a dinner and an apology can repair.
But I need to get this over with. Some foolish, desperate part of me still believes that once the papers are signed, we can continue our marriage as though this truth hasn’t shattered it beyond recognition.
“Dinner?” she whispers in disbelief. “You deceived me into marrying you, Shaurya.” She shakes her head as tears spill freely down her cheeks. “And you actually believe you can make that up to me over dinner?”
“I never forced you into this marriage, Reeva. You chose to marry me because you loved me.”
“You’re right.” She nods slowly, tears still shimmering in her eyes.
“You never forced me to marry you.” A trembling hand presses against her chest. “I chose you because I loved you. Because I trusted you. Because I believed every word you said.” Her gaze locks onto mine.
“But you already knew that, didn’t you? You knew exactly how I felt, and you turned my love into a weapon against me.
” She points an accusing finger at me. “So don’t stand there and tell me I had a choice, Shaurya.
I chose a man who never existed.” Her voice breaks.
“I married a lie wearing the face of the man I loved.”
“Stop making this harder than it already is and sign the papers.”
Damn it. She was never supposed to be anything more than a strategy, a means of bringing Rajmahal home. So why does every cruel word I hurl at her feel as though I am the one bleeding?
She glares at me. “I am not signing the damn papers.”
“Reeva, don’t be difficult.” My fingers close around her wrist as frustration overwhelms my better judgement.
She tears her hand free as though my touch burns her. “Don’t you dare touch me.”
“I wasn’t trying to hurt you.” My hands fall uselessly to my sides. “I only wanted you to listen.”
Even as the words leave my mouth, I hear how hollow they sound. Because hurt doesn’t even begin to describe what I have done to her.
“I am done listening, Shaurya. I am done being a pawn in your game.” She releases a shaky breath, anguish burning in her tear-filled eyes.
“You must have enjoyed it, didn’t you? Knowing you had finally gotten your revenge on my father.
” Her lips quiver as she forces out the next words.
“You did the one thing he would have hated the most. You married his daughter, made her fall in love with you… and then broke her heart.”
Her words strike where my guilt already festers, but I cling to the anger I’ve carried for years, unwilling to face what I’ve done to her.
“Did I want him to pay? Yes, Reeva. I am only human.” A muscle ticks in my jaw as I force myself to meet her devastated gaze.
“But if you’re looking for someone to blame, don’t look at me.
Look at your father.” My voice turns cold, every word sharpened by years of bitterness.
“He betrayed my father’s trust. He stole Rajmahal.
He is the man I have hated for years.” I refuse to look away.
“If you want to curse the fact that we ended up here, then curse the choices he made. We are standing in the ruins he created.”
She inhales sharply. “I hate you.”
I hold her gaze, refusing to reveal how deeply the words cut. “No. You hate what I did.”
“I hate you.” Each word is slow and deliberate, as though she is carving it into my skin.
“I hate you, Shaurya.” Her voice trembles, but her gaze never wavers.
“And don’t you dare tell me I only hate what you did.
” She draws in a ragged breath as tears stream unchecked down her cheeks.
“With every shattered piece of my heart… I hate you.”
I am not foolish enough to believe I can salvage our marriage. Yet hearing her say she hates me sends panic surging through my veins, clamping around my ribs until I can barely breathe.
“If hating me is what it takes for you to survive what I’ve done to you…” My voice is rough but steady. “Then hate me. Hate me all you want.”
She closes her eyes as though merely looking at me has become too painful. When she opens them again, every trace of emotion has vanished, leaving behind a hollow emptiness that terrifies me more than her anger ever could.
“I can’t do this anymore. I need space, Shaurya.” She takes an unsteady step back, widening the distance between us. “I can’t bear to be in the same room as you for another second.” A tear slips down her cheek, but she doesn’t bother wiping it away. “Right now, the very sight of you hurts.”
Without waiting for a response, she brushes past me.
I turn as she heads towards the door. My hand twitches at my side, every instinct screaming at me to stop her, pull her into my arms, and beg her not to leave. But I remain frozen in place.
She reaches the bedroom door, her trembling fingers curling around the handle. For one brief moment, her shoulders sag before she speaks without looking back.
“You didn’t just break my trust, Shaurya.” Her voice is barely above a whisper. “You made me question myself. How I could have loved and trusted someone who never truly loved me?”
Then she opens the door and leaves.
I stand there staring at the closed door, unable to tell what is consuming me the most. The guilt, the anger, or the unbearable realisation that I may have just lost my wife forever.