Chapter 8
Abhinav woke to sunlight filtering through windows that felt off. Too wide. Too open.
He lay still for a moment.
Yesterday had been proximity. Situation. A long day. A new place. A body responding to stimulus.
Biology. Nothing more.
He rose and left it there. The morning took over. Shower. Shave. Clothes chosen with care. Beige trousers. Charcoal shirt. Not the armour of his usual suits, yet far from ease.
By the time he stepped out for breakfast, he felt centred, controlled, and himself again.
The dining room overlooked the main courtyard. Sunlight poured through the jharokhas, spreading across the floor in warm gold.
Sarita sat with her tea, her posture eased in a way it had not been in weeks. The place had begun to settle her.
Naina was wide awake. “I want to see everything today,” she announced, waving a piece of toast. “City Palace, Hawa Mahal, markets. All of it.”
“You go, beta.” Sarita smiled, touching Naina’s shoulder. “I’ll stay back.”
Meanwhile, Abhinav ate without tasting. His mind had already moved ahead. Find a new buyer. Set expectations. Kishore’s schedule for the next few weeks.
Devendra appeared at the doorway, supervising the morning service for the Anand family.
Abhinav caught his eye and gestured him closer.
“Chauhan ji.” He put his cup down. “Please arrange a car and a guide for my sister.”
“Of course, Hukum.”
Abhinav gave a short nod. “I need to speak with Meera. After breakfast. In your office.”
The room went still.
Only for a fraction of a second. But enough.
Devendra’s face remained composed, though his eyes gave him away. A man already measuring what the next hour might demand.
“Ji, Hukum.” He inclined his head. “I’ll take you there.”
◆◆◆
The administrative wing lay deeper inside the Haveli, away from the courtyards. The corridors narrowed, built for function. Doors opened into rooms lined with ledgers and files.
Devendra led him to his office at the end of the corridor. A wooden door. A simple room. The Haveli’s property map stretched across one wall, marked in different hands across decades.
“I’ll send for her, Hukum.”
“I want to speak with her alone.”
Devendra paused, then inclined his head and stepped out. A few low words passed to Rajan in the corridor.
Rajan nodded and left at once.
Devendra glanced back, concern clear now, then walked away.
Abhinav stood by the window, hands in his pockets, and waited.
Not long after, Meera approached the office.
She already knew why she had been called.
She had prepared for this sometime past midnight, when sleep had refused to come. She had gone over every version of this conversation and discarded most of them. What remained was simple.
Professional. Measured. No provocation. No reaction.
Nothing for him to push against.
By the time she reached the door, that version of herself was firmly in place.
She pushed it open.
The desk stood empty. Her gaze lifted.
He stood at the window, his hands in his pockets, half-turned to the room. Looking out into the courtyard as if it belonged to him.
Which, she reminded herself, it did.
It was irritating.
He was irritating.
She had already noticed him yesterday. Up close. Observed. Filed. Dismissed.
And yet, here she was, noticing him again.
The sharp line of his jaw. The breadth of his shoulders under the charcoal shirt, which fit across them in a way she was not going to think about.
The way he stood. At ease. As if rooms arranged themselves around him without being asked.
Her pulse, traitorous and operating entirely on it’s own, did something it had absolutely no reason to do.
‘Hormones,’ she thought, with great personal disapproval. ‘Completely useless. Terrible timing. Absolutely not helpful.’
Then he turned.
And the air altered.
His eyes found hers and stayed there.
Dark. Steady. Focused in a way that wasn’t intrusive, wasn’t careless, just deliberate. As if he had already begun assessing her the moment she walked in.
He said nothing. Just let the silence stretch, expecting her to fill it.
Her fingers curled at her sides.
She kept her face pleasant. “You wanted to see me?”
“I did.” He inclined his head toward the chair. “Sit.”
“I’m comfortable standing, thank you.”
A pause. Brief, but deliberate.
“Sit. Down.” His voice remained low.
She felt it.
She stayed standing anyway. “I have the morning counts after this. Standing is faster.”
She sounded completely cooperative. She meant to sound completely cooperative.
His jaw tightened. Just slightly.
She noticed. And, despite herself, felt a small, unprofessional flicker of satisfaction.
“The sale of this property will proceed. The next buyer gets full cooperation from this estate. Complete access. No complications. No interference.”
“Of course.” She nodded.
He watched her. “I mean that.”
“I understood you the first time.”
“Then why does it feel like you’re agreeing in a way that means the opposite?”
She offered her most practiced smile. The one used for difficult devotees, stubborn artisans, and contractors convinced they knew better. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
He stepped closer.
His cologne reached her first. Cedar, clean, controlled, distracting.
She registered it.
She resented that she did.
Her smile stayed in place. Her breathing didn’t.
“Three buyers. Four months.” He stopped close enough that she had to lift her chin to meet his eyes. “Ghost stories. A protest. Legal complications from records you sent. You set it all in motion.”
“I did my job.”
“Your job is not to decide what happens to this property.”
“My job is to manage this Haveli. Managing it means protecting it.”
“What it needs,” he said quietly, “is what I decide.”
“Respectfully.” She meant it to sound respectful. It came out respectful the way the edge of a blade is respectful. “You have been here one day.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Your father was born here. Your grandfather too. Generations before them. This Haveli held your family for four hundred years before Dubai ever did.” Her voice did not waver. “I won’t pretend a cheque carries the same claim simply because you want this done quickly.”
The room tightened.
He watched her differently now. Not just irritation. Not just control.
Measured.
“You are an employee of this estate. Not its guardian. Not its owner. Not its decision-maker.”
Heat rose in her chest before she could stop it.
She had prepared for this. But hearing it laid out so cleanly, as if generations of loyalty reduced to an entry in a ledger, slipped past every layer she had built.
She stepped closer. “You’re right.”
His expression changed.
She took another step. The distance between them was no longer professional.
She did not care.
“I am an employee.” Her voice was steady, but something deeper had begun to surface. It had been building for months and chose this moment to show itself. “And an employee is not required to agree with every decision an employer makes. An employee is required to do her job.”
His jaw tightened further. The tension in his arms was visible, controlled, contained. His hands stayed in his pockets.
“Helping you sell this Haveli is not my job.”
She held his gaze.
“So. No, Boss.”
The words fell into place.
He went still.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
They held each other’s gaze, neither yielding, the moment stretching into something sharper.
“Your family’s position here,” he said finally, “depends on your cooperation.”
“Then remove us.”
Silence answered her.
“You’ve had four months. You could have sent termination papers from Dubai. You didn’t. Because you can’t. Not without losing the community’s trust, the staff’s loyalty, everything my family has built here.”
A beat passed.
“Go ahead. Remove us.”
He stood without reply.
Then he stepped forward, closing the last bit of distance.
She did not move back.
His gaze fixed on her, anger visible now.
The Anand men, she thought with sharp irritation, were… formidable in person.
She held her ground.
“You’re right,” he nodded thoughtfully. “I won’t remove your family.”
She blinked.
“But let me tell you what I will do.”
He wasn’t loud. That was, somehow, worse.
“The temple.”
A breath.
“I own it. Every stone. Interfere with one more sale, and I shut it down. Permanently. No devotees. No families.”
Her composure slipped. “You can’t…”
“One call to the lawyers.”
“You wouldn’t do that to innocent people…”
“I would do what is required.”
“Those are families.” Her voice rose before she caught it. “Women who have climbed those steps for years. Children brought there before they could walk. You would take that from them to prove a point to me?”
“I would take it from them because you left me no other option.”
“There is always another option.” Her hands lifted in frustration. “Drop the sale.”
“That is not an option.”
“Then we have nothing left to discuss.” She straightened, chin lifting. “Kul Devi Maa will intervene for us.”
His eyebrow rose.
“She will.” Her belief stood firm. “She has protected her devotees for centuries. Long before your family built walls around her. Long before any document claimed ownership.”
Her voice thickened. “She will not let her people suffer because of one NRI owner who has never lit a diya at her feet.”
Something flickered across his expression. Brief. Gone before it could be named.
She saw it.
“Try her,” she challenged. “Go ahead.”
The room stilled.
He studied her face, measuring, containing.
Then, in a tone that gave nothing away. “Interesting.”
A single word.
She did not like the way he said that.
“Since you are so committed to this position…” He let the words settle. “Effective now, you will serve as my personal assistant. Along with your estate duties.”
Her eyes widened. “What?”
“Scheduling. Documentation. Correspondence. Notes for every meeting.” His gaze did not move. “You will work right under my nose when a new buyer arrives.”
“That is not my job.”
“It is now.”
“You cannot simply…”
“I own this property. You work for this property. I assign duties.” A slight tilt of his head. “Unless you prefer to resign. Or want me to close the temple.”
She stared at him.
He waited. Still. Patient in a way that left no space to push.
She opened her mouth.
Closed it.
Tried again.
Nothing came.
Every argument she reached for had already been accounted for. He had come prepared. Several steps ahead.
This was going very badly, and the trace of cedar, combined with his proximity, was not helping. She needed to leave before her composure slipped.
She stepped back, straightened, drew a breath.
“Fine.” The word came clipped. “Anything else, Boss?”
“That will do for now.”
She gave a single nod, turned, and walked out.
She did not slam the door.
She was a professional.
She very much wanted to slam the door.
Instead, she pulled it shut with a decisive click that somehow carried more weight.
Inside, Abhinav remained where he was.
His heartbeat was faster than it should have been after a conversation conducted entirely in controlled voices.
He had won.
Completely.
The threat had worked. The reassignment had cornered her. No argument remained.
He had won.
He picked up the estate file, and sat down.
Opened it.
No, Boss.
Read the same line three times.
She has protected her devotees for centuries.
A low exhale left him. He closed the file, then opened it again, forcing his attention back.
This time, he kept reading.
◆◆◆
Meera reached the sanctum before anything touched her face.
The inner space stood empty. The next line of devotees had not arrived. Lamps burned low, their glow brushing against the black stone of the goddess.
She sank to her knees on the cool marble, lowered her forehead to the floor, and stayed there, breathing.
When she lifted her head, her eyes went straight to Kul Devi.
“Tyrant.”
Flat. Precise.
“He is a complete and total tyrant, and I want you to know I am handling this extremely well.”
Her hand came up to her mouth, pressing against it.
The tears came anyway. Not many. Just enough to sting.
She wiped them away quick, almost rough.
“He threatened you, Maa. Said he would close this place. The devotees, the families, all of it. If I did not fall in line.” Her voice trembled. “And the worst part… I think he would do it. I think he would do it and feel nothing.”
Her gaze stayed on the goddess, then dropped to her hands in her lap.
“And then,” she went on, softer now, edged with irritation, “there is the other problem.”
Kul Devi, as always, remained unmoved.
“He was standing very close,” Meera muttered.
“And he is very tall. Which is not relevant information, but apparently my brain disagrees.” She pressed her fingers against her eyes.
“And when he looked at me, Maa. When he actually looked, not through me like I was just another problem to solve, but at me…”
She broke off.
A low groan slipped out. Her palms fell against her thighs.
“What is wrong with me.” The disbelief in her voice outweighed the question. “He threatens all of this, and I sit here thinking about…” Her hand cut through the air in a restless motion. “Things that do not matter.”
Her eyes snapped back to the goddess, sharp, urgent.
“Cleanse this. Whatever this is. Take it back. I do not want it. It serves no purpose, it has no place, and I have a Haveli to protect. I cannot be distracted by…” Another restless motion. “His face. His voice. The way the room felt when he stood too close.”
She leaned back on her heels.
“I mean it, Maa. Full cleanse. Right now.”
The lamps burned on, steady and indifferent. The goddess offered no reply, entirely untouched by Meera’s crisis.
Meera watched her for a few breaths.
Then her head dropped into her hands, and a short laugh escaped. Breathless, edged, the kind that comes when nothing else fits.
She straightened, wiped her face and folded her hands.
“Fine,” she said, to the goddess, to herself, to the chaos she had not invited and did not yet understand. “Fine. I notice him. I am furious about it. Moving on.”
She rose, adjusted her dupatta, lifted her chin.
He wanted a personal assistant.
Fine.
She would be the most relentlessly efficient, impeccably professional, deeply inconvenient assistant he had ever known. She would follow every instruction to the letter, and make him regret issuing them.
And she would find a way to make him see this Haveli for what it truly was.
One way or another.
She turned, shoulders squared, and stepped back into the morning.
Behind her, the lamps burned on. Steady, patient, waiting.