Chapter 13
Day Two
For eleven years, same time, same white kurta, same route. Through fever and rain, he’d never missed his morning walk.
This morning, the door didn’t open.
She found him in the living room, newspaper folded, unread. “Aren’t you going for your walk?”
“I’m tired.”
Tiredness had never stopped him before.
Later, reaching for a glass, she noticed a prescription bottle tucked behind tea tins. Blood pressure medicine. Dosage doubled. Date: yesterday.
She put it back exactly where she found it.
By afternoon, her father napped, another broken routine. From the kitchen came quiet crying. Divya didn’t go in.
Aditya stormed through the door, anger barely contained. “Anshul and Vikrant’s parents told them to keep distance. Until this is clarified.”
Clarified. As if their family were a stain.
“My project partner asked for reassignment. Said he’s uncomfortable.”
Divya had no solutions. Just the same thin reassurance. “It will pass.”
“That’s not good enough,” he snapped, then looked away, ashamed of the crack in his voice.
By evening, dinner passed in strained normalcy. Electricity bills. The neighbor’s baby. Anything but headlines.
Afterward, her father called her to the balcony. “Three men approached me in the park yesterday.” His voice was quiet. Careful. “Asked if I was Divya Mathur’s father.”
Her throat tightened.
“They wanted details. About you. About… arrangements. I walked away. They followed for two blocks, taking photos.”
The air left her lungs. “That’s why you didn’t go today.”
He nodded. “Better to avoid attention.”
Her father. , who hadn’t missed a morning walk in eleven years. Who measured his days by that routine. Who’d walked through illness and monsoons without fail.
Now afraid to leave his own building.
“I’ll fix this,” she whispered.
He turned to her, eyes tired but steady. “Some things cannot be fixed, beta. They can only be endured.”
Below, neighbors glanced up and quickly looked away.
Inside, her mother’s phone buzzed again.
Blood pressure pills hidden behind tea tins. Abandoned lunch on the kitchen counter. Friends stepping back. Morning walks stolen by strangers with cameras.
The scandal was no longer about headlines. It was about the quiet pieces of their ordinary life breaking, one by one. And no amount of PR strategy could put them back together.
Day Three
Vikram’s thumb pressed refresh for the forty-seventh time. No new messages. No schedule. No “Okay, Boss” text.
Six AM. The time Divya usually appeared, laying out his day in perfect color-coded blocks.
His finger hovered over her contact. He pressed call.
“The number you are trying to reach is currently switched off.”
Sixty-five hours since he’d seen her. Since he’d drawn that red line and changed both their worlds. He scrolled through headlines instead.
“Middle-Class Girl Trapped in Khanna Scandal”
“Neighborhood Watch: Reporters Swarm Mathur Residence”
The last included a photo of her apartment building. Reporters clustered at the entrance. Neighbors gawking from windows. Her family trapped inside.
Before he could stop himself, he dialed Mrs. Menon.
“Vikram.” Her voice was cool, professional, edged with something he’d never heard before. “I was wondering when you’d call.”
“Have you spoken to her?”
“Her phone is off. Her mother said she wasn’t available.”
“I need to reach her. To fix this.”
“Fix this?” Mrs. Menon’s tone sharpened. “For you, this is a headline. An inconvenience. A PR challenge. For her, it’s her reputation. Her family’s standing. Her future employment. Everything.”
His fingers curled into his palm.
“You’re Vikram Khanna. In two weeks, you’ll be on another film set.
The press will move on.” Her voice softened slightly.
“But Divya is a middle-class girl whose name is now tied to yours forever. Her neighbors are watching. Her relatives are calling. Her father can’t walk down the street without being followed. ”
The image hit with physical force.
“For her, this is a social death sentence.”
The call ended.
Vikram stared at his reflection on the black screen, Mrs. Menon’s words echoing in the silence.
Day Four
The promotional event for Dil Aur Desk blazed with light. Vikram’s smile felt stretched across his face, a mask held by habit.
Behind him, the film’s poster loomed, his character applying sindoor. The bitter irony wasn’t lost on the press.
Questions flew. He caught them and threw back rehearsed answers. Until a male voice cut through from the back.
“There are rumors that you enjoy certain... perks... of working with star-struck assistants. Would you care to comment?”
The room temperature dropped.
The moderator’s hand shot up. “That question is not...”
“It’s alright.” Vikram’s voice emerged softer than before. Quieter.
The silence that followed felt physical.
Then he smiled. Not the warm Bollywood-hero smile. This smile showed teeth. The smile of something that hunts.
“I respect every member of my team. Especially those who work tirelessly behind the scenes without recognition.” His eyes locked on the journalist, unblinking. “Their names should never be used for cheap headlines.”
The journalist’s mouth opened, then closed. His hand lowered. He glanced around, suddenly unsure.
The rest of the press conference continued in mechanical politeness, questions rigidly focused on the film.
Back in the vanity van, Rahul paced like a caged animal.
“That cold stare is already trending. Every time you defend her, you’re confirming she matters. Act like she’s just another intern and this dies tomorrow.”
Vikram’s thumb scrolled through Twitter threads. Reddit speculation. Instagram comments under #KhannaSindoorScandal.
Words like “opportunistic,” “gold-digger,” “social climber” attached to her name.
A photo of her building with a comment about “humble beginnings before hitting the Khanna jackpot.”
The rage crystallized into something hard and sharp.
“The Khanna brand is taking a hit,” Rahul said. “Stock price dropped three points this morning. Your father called.”
“I don’t care,” Vikram snapped.
Rahul stepped back, realization dawning. “This isn’t about damage control for you. This is about her. Actually about her.”
Vikram looked up. His eyes were dark. Intent. “I know what to do.”
◆◆◆
Later that afternoon, a tripod stood in his vanity van, camera pointed at the sofa. No professional lighting. No makeup artist. Just him, a camera, and a decision his entire team opposed.
“This is a mistake,” Rahul said. “Let it die down naturally.”
“Reporters are camped outside her building. Her name is being trampled.” Vikram adjusted the camera. “Die down naturally is too long.”
“What exactly are you planning to say?”
“The truth.”
Vikram pressed record. The red light blinked on.
He held up the production schedule, explained the blocking rehearsal, called Farhan for confirmation. Professional. Calm. Exactly as scripted.
Then his hands came together in his lap. They weren’t quite steady.
“What’s happening to Divya and her family is not right. She is a professional doing her job. A hardworking assistant who deserves respect, not gossip. And definitely not the bullying her family is facing.”
The tremor worsened. He gripped his hands together tighter.
“I take full responsibility for the confusion. And I apologize sincerely to Divya for the distress this has brought to her and her family. She deserves better.”
He reached forward. The camera stopped.
“That last part was too raw,” Rahul said quietly. “It doesn’t read as a boss concerned for an employee. At least let me edit it.”
“Too late.” Vikram’s finger tapped his phone three times. “It’s uploaded.”
By evening, the video had three million views. It backfired completely.
“Nobody gets this upset about an intern,” declared a popular influencer. “This is a man in love!”
Fans spliced his words with the sindoor photo. Added sad songs. Dug up old interviews where he’d talked about wanting “someone real.”
#VikramLovesDivya topped Twitter.
One video stopped his breath: his mansion on one side, Divya’s building with reporters swarming on the other.
Caption: “Different worlds. Same sindoor.”
He’d tried to protect her. He’d made everything worse.
His thumb hovered over her contact. Still switched off. Still unreachable. Still drowning in a storm he’d created.
That Evening - Khanna Sadan
The dining table shone in soft light. Five crystal glasses stood empty next to five plates of untouched food.
No one spoke.
Vikram’s finger ran along the edge of his plate, small, nervous motion betraying turmoil inside.
Across from him, Raghav sat straight-backed, sharp eyes weighing solutions.
Harshit held the head of the table, fingers pressed together like he was leading a meeting instead of facing a family crisis.
Kavita observed her younger son, noticing the slightest twitch in his jaw when his phone buzzed.
Ishani sat beside Raghav, still and quiet.
“The clarifications have failed.” Raghav broke the silence, voice carrying the same tone he used for quarterly reports. “They won’t work. Not now, not tomorrow, not next week.”
No one disagreed.
“The image was too good. Too convincing. The public has decided what they saw, and no statement will change their minds.”
Vikram’s finger stopped. “My video.”
“Made it worse,” Raghav cut in. “Your... intensity when speaking about her only confirmed what people already suspected.”
Ishani leaned forward. “Her family is suffering. They can’t handle this kind of attention. This is invasion.”
The words landed like a physical blow. Vikram’s mind flashed to Mrs. Menon’s voice. A middle-class girl. Her father can’t walk down the street. A social death sentence.
“The media will lose interest eventually,” he said, the words hollow.
“Eventually isn’t good enough.” Harshit’s voice entered like a gavel falling. He set down his fork with steady finality, the small sound somehow heavier than if he’d slammed his hand.
Silence. No one interrupted Harshit Khanna when he used that tone.
“Marriage is the solution. The only narrative that definitively ends this one.”
Vikram’s head jerked up, eyes locking with his father’s. Not in shock. The thought had already formed in the darkest corners of his mind. But in surprise at hearing it spoken aloud so clinically.
“Marriage?”
“A clear, unambiguous response. The sindoor was rehearsal. Now it becomes real. The story changes from scandal to romance. From invasion to celebration.”
Raghav nodded, CEO affirming the chairman’s strategy. “It’s clean. Decisive. It shifts the narrative immediately.”
“You make it sound like a business transaction.”
“Isn’t that how you’ve treated relationships in the past?” Raghav’s question was pointed but not accusatory. Simple fact.
Before Vikram could respond, Kavita’s voice cut through. “For families like hers, filling the maang with sindoor is not acting. It is not publicity. It is sacred.”
The table fell silent.
“That girl is caught in a storm she never asked for,” Kavita continued. “Her reputation. Her family’s standing. They won’t recover for a long time, Vikram.”
His mother’s words echoed Mrs. Menon’s with such precision that Vikram’s skin prickled.
Kavita leaned forward, bangles clinking softly. “You did this. The moment you drew that line with your own hand, you made a choice. Whether you knew it or not.”
The accusation hit harder coming from his mother. Not because it was cruel, but because it was true.
“She doesn’t want this. She never asked for any of it.”
“No,” Kavita agreed. “She didn’t. Which is why you should go to her. This instant. And handle it.”
The word “handle” contained multitudes. Fix. Solve. Protect. Claim.
Vikram’s gaze moved to Raghav, seeking something, support, perhaps, or understanding. His brother met his eyes steadily, silent conversation passing between them.
“I won’t push it if she says no,” Vikram said finally, words emerging rough and low.
His father’s nod carried unexpected approval. “But we go. We give her the choice.”
We. Not you. The stress wasn’t lost on Vikram. This wasn’t just about him and Divya anymore. It was about the Khanna name. The family legacy. The proper way to address a situation that had spun beyond control.
An hour later, Vikram sat in the back seat of the family’s least conspicuous car, still luxury, but black, understated, tinted windows.
Beside him, his father stared straight ahead, hands resting on his knees, still as a statue.
Mumbai’s streets blurred outside the windows, neon signs and street vendors melting into streaks of color and light.
The car moved smoothly through traffic, heading toward Andheri West.
Toward Divya.