CHAPTER 6 ! UNDER HIS GAZE
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The mahogany door clicked shut, and with it, the rest of the world died.
Aadhira stood motionless against the polished wood, her palms pressed flat against the surface as if she could keep the Rai Shinghania world from entering with her.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Her chest rose and fell in ragged, uneven jerks. Her lungs felt filled with broken glass.
"Radha Rani..." she whispered hoarsely toward the vaulted ceiling.
Silence.
"Not even a microscopic bit of help?"
The house offered nothing but the distant, muffled sound of rain.
Aadhira slowly slid down the door until her knees hit her chest, her fingers burying themselves into her tangled, electrical-fire hair.
A low, agonizing groan escaped her-not the delicate, tragic sigh of a romance heroine, but the guttural sound of a woman who had just destroyed her dignity in front of the most dangerous family in the country.
"I danced with a broom," she muttered into her palms. "In front of the Rai Shinghanias. In front of him."
The realization carried a physical ache. She lifted her head, staring blankly at the opposite wall.
Five years. Five entire years of clawing her way out of the dirt in Milan. She had built a sanctuary of silk, charcoal, and absolute independence.
She was Aadhira-respected, feared by competitors, a woman who commanded runways.
And within twenty minutes of crossing the Indian border, she had managed to look clinically insane in front of the most lethal, cold-blooded billionaire in Asia.
A dry, bitter laugh bubbled up her throat, and she threw herself backward onto the plush carpet. "Maybe I should just fake my death."
Florence was nice.
She could buy a villa, adopt six cats, design linen dresses for tourists, and banish the entire concept of cleaning tools from her memory.
Then Aryav's face flashed behind her eyelids.
The warmth of the fantasy turned to ash.
He hadn't just aged; he had hardened.
When she was nineteen, there were fleeting, rare moments where Aryav still resembled something human.
Tonight? Tonight he looked like a monument carved from shadow and executive violence.
He possessed the quiet composure of a dictator who eliminated problems before they became wars.
She rolled onto her side, her eyes narrowing at the memory of those old family dinners.
The way high-society women looked at him-a sickening cocktail of raw obsession and absolute terror.
And Aryav? He never looked twice. Not out of respect, but because he viewed every human being through a lens of absolute, chilling paranoia.
To Aryav Rai Shinghania, people existed in three strict categories:
Useful.
Important.
Disposable.
And five years ago, she had been dropped somewhere between a nuisance and a security risk.
dazzled by the gold-plated armor of his empire. He had never tried to look past her chaos.
Three sharp, metallic raps.
Aadhira's entire body locked. Her heart stopped beating.
If Aryav was standing on the other side of that wood, she was going to open the window and jump.
"Aadhi?"
Shaurya.
Relief hit her so violently she nearly choked. She scrambled to her feet and yanked the door open.
Her brother leaned against the frame, his hands buried deep in his trousers. His eyes instantly swept over her face-fast, clinical, tracking her emotional vitals with the precision of a high-court prosecutor.
"Are you alive?" he asked, his tone flat.
"Unfortunately."
He stepped past her without an invitation.
Typical.
Aadhira slammed the door and glared at his back. "You smiled downstairs.
You're a traitor bhai."
Shaurya turned, a slow, dark smirk cutting across his face. "I was admiring you."
"I hate you."
"You don't."
Fair.
Shaurya walked deeper into her room, his gaze tracing the lines of her old space-the charcoal sketches pinned to the vanity, the rolls of raw Italian silk stacked in the corner.
For a fraction of a second, the corporate ice in his posture softened.
This room was a time capsule.
Frozen. Safe. Unlike the rest of their reality.
"You kept everything," he noted quietly.
Aadhira shrugged, pulling the oversized shirt up her shoulder. "It already smelled like home."
He stood like a loaded gun, alert even in his sister's bedroom.
Aadhira crossed her arms. "You didn't tell me they were coming, bhai."
"I didn't know."
"Liar."
"Ayaan demanded it at the final hour," Shaurya said, his voice dropping into a serious register. "And nobody overrides the boy."
Aadhira sat heavily on the edge of the mattress. Because that... that was the truth.
Ayaan was the only glitch in the Rai Shinghania machinery. The only variable that could force the king to move his court.
"He looked..." Aadhira started, her voice trailing off into the rain-streaked air.
Shaurya watched her intently. "Aryav."
She nodded once, her knuckles turning white. "He looked different."
A humorless, sharp smile touched Shaurya's lips. "He is."
"Worse?"
A long pause stretched between them, thick with the scent of wet earth from the window. Then-
"Yes."
No sugarcoating.
No brotherly reassurances.
Just raw, unadulterated reality.
Shaurya leaned against her mahogany desk. "The empire expanded after you left, Aadhi. Bigger territories. More blood on the floor. And with that came betrayal."
"Aryav doesn't inspire loyalty," Aadhira murmured, looking down at her bare feet. "He inspires submission. Fear always cracks eventually."
"It did," Shaurya agreed quietly. "And it hollowed out whatever was left of him. You remember the old version. The man downstairs tonight? He doesn't negotiate."
The words hung in the air like a death sentence.
"I don't understand him," she admitted, her voice cracking slightly. "He looked at me tonight like I had walked back into something he already owned."
"Like he thinks you've returned to claim the crown," Shaurya finished for her.
The silence became radioactive.
Aadhira looked away, a sharp, familiar ache twisting her chest. Of course he thought that. To a man who believed the world was an auction block, everything was a transaction.
"I never wanted his empire," she whispered.
"I know that," Shaurya said, his eyes drilling into her. "But he doesn't. He grew up in a household where affection was bought and sold. He thinks everyone has a price, Aadhi. He thinks you agreed to this arrangement for status."
"I agreed to it for Ayaan," she snapped, her eyes flashing with a sudden, defensive fire.
"Then keep your distance," Shaurya's voice turned deadly serious, the protective brother briefly overriding the ruthless lawyer. "Don't provoke him, Aadhi."
Aadhira let out a sharp, disbelief-filled laugh. "Provoke him? Me? Bhai, I actively treat that man like a nuclear reactor. I don't look him in the eye for survival purposes."
"You displayed your middle finger to his sibling in front of his grandparents."
"Reyansh deserved it!"
Shaurya pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling a slow breath. "You haven't changed a single bit. But he has. He's changed more than your mind can comprehend."
A cold shiver snaked down Aadhira's spine. "What does that mean?"
Before Shaurya could answer, a tiny, hesitant knock brushed against the bottom of the door.
Aadhira's face transformed instantly. The defensive armor melted away, leaving something raw and incredibly soft.
"Ayaan."
Shaurya opened the door, and there he stood.
The seven-year-old prince was clad in silk black pajamas, his dark hair slightly ruffled, his small face set in that regal, unreadable expression he copied from his father.
But the moment his eyes found Aadhira, the rigidity leaked out of his shoulders.
"Mama," he said softly.
Aadhira didn't care about her missing sock or her ruined hair.
She dropped to her knees, crossing the floor in a heartbeat to bring herself to his eye level. "Kya hua, meri jaan?"
Ayaan's eyes darted briefly to Shaurya, then locked onto her face with an intensity that felt far too heavy for a child. "Are you going to leave again?"
The question was different this time. Downstairs, it had been a plea.
Now?
Now it sounded like a calculation.
He was bracing himself for the impact of her disappearance.
He had trained his heart to expect abandonment.
The sheer cruelty of it made Aadhira's chest physically ache.
"Never," she said fiercely.
"You promised before."
The room went dead silent.
Shaurya looked away, his jaw tightening.
Guilt, heavy and suffocating, crashed over Aadhira.
Children didn't remember explanations; they remembered the empty chairs.
They remembered the front rows where people were supposed to be.
"Ayaan..." She reached out slowly, her trembling hands cupping his small, cool face.
"I was wrong.
I should never have stayed away so long. I am so sorry."
Ayaan searched her eyes, looking for a lie, studying her with the same cold concentration his father reserved for enemies.
Then, slowly, the little king let down his guard. He stepped into her arms.
Aadhira pulled him against her chest, wrapping herself around his small frame like a shield against the rest of this cursed house.
His tiny fingers dug into the fabric of her T-shirt, holding her with a crushing, desperate grip.
And for the first time since landing in Mumbai, the chaos in her head died. No performances.
No survival tactics.
Just warmth.
Ayaan buried his face into her neck, his voice a muffled whisper.
"Mama please don't leave again, I missed you."
"Never, but I missed you more," she murmured, kissing the top of his head.
"That's impossible."
A faint smile broke through her exhaustion. "Oh? You want a competition, Mr. Shinghania?"
"Yes."
"You're challenging your mama?"
Ayaan nodded against her shoulder. "I cried three times when you didn't call."
Aadhira gasped with mock outrage. "Only three? That's a weak performance from a Shinghania."
"I cried four," he corrected instantly, his grip tightening.
"Drama king."