CHAPTER 14! IT SHOULDT MATTER #2
Silence settled around them. Aadhira kept her eyes lowered stubbornly, her arms folded tightly across herself as though attempting to hold her cracking composure together physically.
Aryav rose slowly from the deep leather chair, his massive frame cutting off the light from the nearest chandelier.
"What happened?"
"Nothing."
"Look at me, Aadhira."
Her jaw tightened until it ached. She hated how easily his voice commanded compliance, but she obeyed anyway, forcing her eyes up to meet his.
The second his dark eyes locked onto hers, his jaw flexed.
Just once.
It was a minuscule movement, but for Aryav, it was the equivalent of another man tearing down a wall.
"You were fine three minutes ago," he reasoned evenly, his tone level. "Now your posture is defensive and you want to retreat. Why?"
Aadhira looked away first, unable to hold the intensity of his gaze. "I'm just tired. The rain is getting worse."
"No." His voice stayed calm, controlled, but there was an underlying weight to it now that made the air in the room feel heavy. "You're upset. And you don't tire that easily."
"I said I want to go home, Aryav."
"And I asked why."
The quiet authority in his tone wrapped around her frayed nerves like tightening steel wire.
But Aadhira stayed silent, her lips pressed into a thin line.
One second.
Two.
Three.
Then, Aryav turned his head slightly toward one of his personal bodyguards standing near the elevator doors.
"Bring me the digital CCTV audio and video footage from this floor for the last 30 minutes."
Aadhira's eyes widened, a wave of panic replacing her anger. "No. Aryav, please stop. Don't do that."
The bodyguard paused, waiting for the final verdict.
Aryav didn't look down at her. His eyes remained fixed on the far wall. "Now."
"Aryav, leave it alone, it's nothing-"
"You should have told me."
"Why?"
Aryav's jaw tightened.
"Because I don't tolerate people hurting what's mine."
The admission irritated him. Aryav noticed thousands of corporate details every day; the fact that he had isolated the exact microsecond her respiration pattern shifted was an operational anomaly he preferred not to examine.
The bodyguard disappeared into the security room.
The nearby styling staff had already begun looking nervous, exchanging rapid glances between themselves as the realization of what was happening began to dawn on them.
One stylist quietly started twisting her engagement ring around her finger, over and over, her breath catching.
Aryav didn't sit back down. He stood in the center of the luxury floor, his rolled shirt sleeves revealing the tense muscles of his forearms.
The physical presence of him standing there was enough to make the entire floor stiffen.
By the time the head of security returned, placing a sleek slate-black tablet containing the enhanced security footage into Aryav's hand, the atmospheric pressure on the floor had become suffocating.
Aadhira stepped closer quickly, her voice a hushed whisper. "Don't do this publicly."
Aryav finally looked at her directly, his eyes entirely devoid of warmth. "You should have told me."
Then, he pressed play.
The footage rolled across the high-resolution screen, but the directional microphones on the ceiling had captured every single syllable with precision.
The women laughing.
The mocking tones.
Gold digger.
Sugar daddy.
Cheap girl.
Aryav watched and listened to the entire video clip without a single change in his expression. No anger flared in his eyes.
No visible reaction touched his jawline.
Then, he went silent. Too silent.
The tablet creaked softly beneath his grip, the plastic straining under an intense pressure.
It was the only indication that something underneath the surface had moved at all.
"Repeat it," Aryav said. His voice was terrifyingly soft.
The head stylist froze, her face draining of color. "S-sir?"
"The part where you called her a gold digger. Repeat it to my face."
The room plunged into a freezing, breathless terror. Calm men becoming quieter was infinitely more horrifying than shouting.
When no one answered, Aryav handed the tablet back to the security chief calmly, his movements slow and deliberate.
Then, he adjusted the heavy platinum cuff of his watch.
The store director crept back into the space, swallowing nervously, his forehead beaded with sweat. "Sir... if there was an issue with the staff conduct, I can assure you-"
Aryav's voice came out smooth as silk, cutting the man off effortlessly.
"I need footwear for her."
The director blinked rapidly, caught completely off guard. "Of course, sir. We'll bring the exclusive bridal collection to the lounge immediately-"
"No." Aryav's gaze shifted slowly across the room, tracking until it locked onto the group of female stylists who had been whispering minutes ago. "I don't want your standard specialists. I want them to service her."
The blood drained from the women's faces instantly, leaving them a pasty, horrific white.
"You heard Mr. Shinghania," the director snapped immediately, trembling with the realization of whose wrath they had invoked. "Move! Now!"
Chaos moved across the luxury floor at once as the women scrambled toward the back vault.
And then, Aryav added calmly, his tone flat:
"Names."
The director swallowed hard. "Sir?"
Aryav looked at him once. "I want every name. If they have enough confidence to discuss my fiancée publicly, they can introduce themselves publicly, too."
Aryav walked right past them as if they were ghosts, completely ignoring their existence.
He didn't scream. He didn't issue loud threats. He simply decided what a person's total structural ruin of pride would look like and executed it flawlessly.
Their terror no longer required his attention; the outcome had already been decided.
Aadhira stood frozen beside the leather lounge chair while Aryav sat back down with unbothered calm.
Then, his large hand reached out, wrapping securely around her wrist.
He pulled her gently-but with an unyielding, non-negotiable firmness-into the seat directly beside him.
His hand covered hers before she could pull away. Not tight. Not painful. Just impossibly certain.
Every instinct told her to snatch her hand away. The problem was that Aryav never held her as though she had a choice.
For one horrifying second, Aadhira wasn't worried about the stylists. She was worried about Aryav-about what happened when a man who operated like a sovereign entity decided to weaponize his focus on her behalf.
"Sit still," he murmured near her ear, his breath brushing cold against her skin.
Within twenty minutes, the elite luxury floor felt like a federal courtroom before a sentencing. The offending women stood in a rigid line, pale and trembling under the harsh spotlights.
Behind them, security personnel quietly logged their personal profiles onto corporate slates. Nearby, a security guard deliberately looked away, fixing his eyes on the floor to avoid witnessing the execution.
Aadhira looked around the room. Nobody met her eyes.
Nobody looked at Aryav.
Nobody even breathed too loudly.
And for the first time, Aadhira understood something terrifying. These people weren't afraid of losing their jobs. They were afraid of him.
Truly afraid.
The realization settled heavily in her chest. She wasn't standing beside a powerful man. She was standing beside a man powerful enough to change the course of another person's life before finishing a sentence.
The stylists understood the silent lesson being taught. Realizing the gravity of the situation, the first stylist approached, carrying a pair of handcrafted Italian silk heels with visibly shaking hands.
Aryav never even looked at her. He remained perfectly detached, his posture a block of unyielding granite.
"You may begin," he murmured flatly.
The stylist dropped to her knees onto the cold marble floor directly in front of Aadhira, her head bowed in absolute submission, tears pricking her eyes from the raw weight of the silence.
Aadhira's pulse became entirely uneven, her heart hammering against her ribs. She tried to pull her foot back, but Aryav's hand tightened over her fingers on his lap, a silent, iron command to stay exactly where she was.
Aryav's heavy, obsidian attention remained entirely fixed on Aadhira's face.
Like this entire public execution of pride was simply another mundane business meeting happening around them.
The stylist's shaking fingers carefully removed Aadhira's simple shoe and slid the luxury Italian heel onto her foot.
The very same mouths that had mocked Aadhira as a cheap gold digger minutes ago were now trembling, their pride broken beneath the weight of her feet.
Aryav glanced at the shoe on her foot, his eyes lingering on the leather for a fraction of a second.
"Not that one," he said flatly.
The stylist immediately removed it, her hands scrambling for the replacement box.
Nobody in the room dared to breathe too loudly. The only sound on the entire floor was the violent hammering of the monsoon rain against the reinforced glass windows outside.
One of the kneeling women was openly crying now, her tears splashing silently onto the marble as she adjusted the strap of a diamond-encrusted alternative.
Aryav finally leaned back slightly into the leather cushions, his thumb brushing once, slowly, against Aadhira's knuckles in a possessive gesture.
He looked down at her foot, his voice dropping into a quiet, oddly observational register.