Chapter 14
The lobby of Shanti Niwas froze when they entered.
Three women by the mailboxes stopped mid-sentence, eyes widening with confusion, recognition, then shock.
Vikram didn’t look their way. After years of fame, these reactions meant nothing to him. But here, in Divya’s building, the silence felt personal. These weren’t fans. They were her neighbors. People who might have been gossiping about her for days.
The elevator felt cramped. Vikram’s shoulders too wide, the walls too close. Or maybe it was just the weight of what he’d come to do.
As they rose to the third floor, the sounds began. Ping. Ping-ping. Ping.
WhatsApp notifications spread through the building like wildfire, echoing through thin walls.
By the time they reached the third floor, the digital whispers had followed their every step.
Vikram stared at door 306.
A camera shutter clicked from a cracked door across the hall. He kept his eyes forward. This short walk felt longer than any red carpet.
His father stepped ahead. Vikram fell back, letting him take over while his heart hammered against his ribs. It was just a conversation, a solution. Yet his mouth went dry. His hands kept clenching and unclenching at his sides.
Harshit knocked three times. The silence stretched. Ten seconds. Twenty. Thirty. Then footsteps approached. The door opened.
Divya stood in the doorway, hand still wrapped around the knob.
The sight of her hit Vikram with physical force.
Four days. Ninety-six hours that felt like years.
She looked nothing like his assistant, steady, precise, composed. She looked like someone who had been dragged through a storm and left standing only because there was nowhere to fall.
Her skin was dull, dark circles spreading beneath her eyes like bruises.
Her wire-rimmed glasses sat slightly askew, lenses smudged with fingerprints.
Her hair, usually in a neat braid, hung limp in a messy ponytail.
The simple cotton kurta had wrinkles set deeply into the fabric, as if she’d slept in it. Or not slept at all.
She looked broken. Beaten down.
A casualty of his unthinking moment.
And yet, something inside him tightened at the sight of her.
Even now, especially now, the feeling that washed over him had nothing to do with guilt or obligation.
It was something deeper, more primal. The simple fact of her existence, her breathing, her standing there alive and real after four days of silence.
He could breathe properly for the first time since the photo went viral.
Her eyes met his for a fraction of a second before sliding away, fixing somewhere around his shoulder. The quick glance held no warmth. No recognition of even their professional relationship.
Just wariness. Fear, even.
“Divya,” his father said gently. “We apologize for coming unannounced. May we speak with your parents?”
Her throat moved as she swallowed. Her grip tightened on the door.
“They’re inside,” she answered, voice rough, as though words had scraped her on the way out.
She stepped back.
Vikram entered, acutely aware of how large he felt in the narrow apartment. The air carried the scent of spices and something recently cleaned. A wall clock ticked with sharp insistence.
Divya closed the door behind them with a soft click. The sound felt like a seal being broken. Two worlds colliding.
She moved past them, steps so light they barely registered. “This way.”
Vikram followed, conscious of every step. Of how his shoes sounded louder than they should.
He caught the tension in her shoulders, the slight dampness at the corner of her eye. Something primal tightened in his chest. Something possessive.
Mine to protect. Mine to fix.
◆◆◆
The living room seemed to shrink the moment they stepped inside.
Suresh rose at once. So did Asha.
The surprise on their faces was naked. Not anger. Not welcome. Shock. The kind that comes when something from television suddenly stands in your doorway.
For a second, no one spoke.
Then Suresh found his manners. “Please... sit.”
Chairs were adjusted. The good straight-backed one pulled forward. Asha disappeared briefly and returned with glasses of water no one touched.
Divya stayed near the dining table. Away from them.
Harshit sat first. Vikram followed. Suresh remained standing a moment longer, as if choosing whether to face them as host or father.
Finally, he sat.
Harshit inclined his head slightly. “Mr. Mathur... Mrs. Mathur... we are deeply sorry for coming without notice. And we are deeply sorry for what your family is going through.”
The words were formal but not hollow.
Suresh’s jaw tightened.
“Sorry?” he repeated quietly. “For four days my daughter’s name has been dragged through every channel. And this is not the first time. People I have known for twenty years are calling to ask what arrangement we have made. Arrangement.”
The word cracked in his mouth.
Asha lowered her eyes.
“I walked in the park two days ago,” Suresh continued, voice thick.
“Three men approached me, asking if I was ‘that girl’s father.’ They took photographs when I refused to answer.
I’ve spent decades building a name that commanded respect.
Now neighbors whisper behind closed doors.
Aditya’s friends have been told to steer clear until this ‘matter’ is resolved. ”
He paused, swallowing hard. “My daughter studied. She earned everything she has. She went into your world to work, not to be discussed like this.”
When Suresh stopped, it was not because he was finished. It was because he had run out of air.
Harshit spoke carefully. “You are right to be angry. If this were my daughter, I would be the same.”
Suresh gave a short, humorless laugh. “Would you? With respect, sir, you live in a different world. For you, headlines are business. For us, they are humiliation.”
Harshit absorbed that. “This is not business to me. It is my son’s life. And your daughter’s life.”
Silence.
“The statements are not working,” Harshit continued. “Every denial creates new suspicion. Every clarification gives the media another angle. We have tried the usual methods. They have failed.”
Suresh looked at Vikram then. “And what does your son say?”
Vikram met his gaze. “I did not plan this. But I will not walk away from it.”
The words were not dramatic. They were flat. Certain.
Harshit leaned forward. “There is only one thing that will end this immediately. A real marriage. Legal. Registered. Publicly acknowledged.”
The word landed heavy.
Asha’s hand flew to her mouth. Suresh stared as if he had misheard.
“Marriage?”
“Yes. Not for publicity. For Divya’s protection.
” Harshit’s voice was steady, measured. “We will recover from this. In a month or two, the headlines will find a new target. But we are here because we realize what this has cost your daughter. If they marry, the narrative changes overnight. The story ends because it becomes a romance, not a scandal. Your daughter becomes a Khanna. That name becomes her shield.”
Suresh’s breathing grew uneven. “And after? After the cameras move on? My daughter cannot be a temporary fix for this scandal, only to be discarded when the air clears.”
“She will not be discarded,” Harshit said firmly. “If this happens, it happens with my family’s name standing beside hers. Legally. Securely.”
“You speak of security,” Suresh’s voice rose, sharp and pained. “But you’ve spent three days telling the world she is just an assistant. That the photo was a rehearsal. If she marries him now, won’t they just call her a gold-digger who won? How does that protect her name?”
The room went deathly still.
It was the logical wall they had all been hitting.
Harshit leaned in, his gaze hardening. “Because a denial is a plea for mercy. And the world has none.”
His voice dropped to a gravelly register.
“For three days, we’ve played by their rules, and they’ve used your daughter for sport. If we keep denying, she remains a ‘situation’ to be debated. But a Khanna wife? That is a status they cannot touch.”
He paused, letting the words settle.
“We don’t tell them we lied about the rehearsal. We tell them we were protecting a private truth. We turn the scandal into a secret romance. A gold-digger ‘wins’ a prize. A wife inherits a fortress.”
Harshit’s tone sharpened with absolute certainty.
“I will put the entire weight of my legal empire behind her. By tomorrow, the first person to use that word will be looking at a defamation suit that will ruin them. We aren’t just changing the story, we are ending the conversation.
They don’t attack what they fear. And right now, they don’t fear an intern. They will fear a Khanna.”
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Suresh looked at Divya, but she remained frozen, eyes fixed on the floor. She didn’t offer a nod or a tear. She was simply gone, retreated somewhere unreachable.
Vikram watched her, his chest tightening. The longer they debated her fate as if she weren’t in the room, the further away she drifted.
“I’d like to talk to her,” Vikram said, cutting through the heavy air. He didn’t look at Harshit or Suresh. He looked only at Divya. “Alone.”
Suresh hesitated, protective instincts warring with exhaustion. He looked at Vikram, really looked at him, searching for the predator and finding only a man who looked ready to burn the world down to fix his own mistake.
He stood slowly, movements heavy. “The bedroom,” he muttered, gesturing. “Privacy. Talk to her there.”
◆◆◆
Divya’s steps were mechanical, spine rigid. Vikram followed her into her parent's bedroom. Heavy wooden almirah, double bed with faded floral bedspread, faint scent of incense and mothballs.
The door clicked shut.
The silence was absolute.
“You can say no,” Vikram said immediately. He stood by the small dressing table, giving her the width of the room. “I’m not here to trap you. If you tell me to leave, I walk out that door right now.”