Chapter 18
Two Days Into The Marriage
Divya, who’d been awake since five-thirty checking email, had agreed. Because she couldn’t tell her mother-in-law at six in the morning that she’d been working, right?
The past two days had been a blur of visitors.
Relatives arriving to bless the new bride.
A small gathering with extended family yesterday evening.
Kavita introducing her to friends, neighbours, people whose names Divya struggled to remember.
Every time she’d thought she might slip away to schedule Vikram’s week, someone else would arrive with sweets and expectations.
And now it was the day Vikram started shooting again, and she hadn’t organized a single day.
The walk had been pleasant. Kavita and Ishani had kept conversation light, the neighborhood, the best places to shop, stories about Vikram and Raghav as children. Divya had smiled and nodded and tried not to think about the chaos if she didn’t schedule his day.
She’d meant to do it before breakfast. Had planned to slip away after the walk, reply to production emails, coordinate with Farhan’s team, make sure everything was aligned before Vikram even finished his gym routine.
But Kavita had steered them directly to the dining room at 7:15, announcing breakfast was ready, and there was no polite way to say ‘actually, I need to go manage your son’s career first.’
So Divya had excused herself for exactly ninety seconds. Long enough to grab her notebook and pen.
Vikram was nowhere in sight. Still at the gym, probably. Which meant she had maybe ten minutes before he appeared, expecting his day to be organized.
She’d walked into the dining room with her notebook tucked under her arm, pen in hand, mind churning through logistics.
The reaction was immediate.
Conversation didn’t exactly stop. It paused. Faltered. Like someone had pressed a button that made everyone move in slow motion.
Kavita, halfway through pouring tea, looked up. Her hand stilled mid-pour.
Harshit lowered his newspaper by precisely two inches. His eyes tracked Divya over the top edge.
Raghav glanced up from his phone. Paused. His eyebrows rose slightly.
Ishani stopped buttering her toast, knife suspended in air.
Four pairs of eyes watched as Divya pulled out a chair and sat down, notebook already positioned beside her plate, pen clicking open.
“Good morning,” she said, the greeting formal and automatic. She offered a quick smile, polite, professional, then immediately looked down at her notebook.
The silence that followed wasn’t hostile. Just... watching. Waiting.
Divya didn’t notice. She was too busy scribbling notes.
A door opened somewhere in the house. Footsteps approached. Confident. Unhurried.
Everyone at the table turned.
Vikram appeared in the doorway, fresh from the gym. Black track pants, fitted t-shirt still damp at the collar, hair tousled from exertion. He was toweling his face as he walked in, not looking up.
“Morning,” he said generally, tossing the towel onto a side table.
A chorus of greetings answered him. But when he looked up, his eyes went directly to Divya.
And narrowed.
She was bent over her notebook, pen moving rapidly, lips pressed together in concentration. She’d pushed her glasses up with her knuckle and they’d already slipped back down her nose. She pushed them up again without looking away from her notes.
Vikram’s jaw tightened. He walked to the table slowly, deliberately, pulling out the chair directly across from her. Sat down. Poured himself juice with careful, controlled movements.
The family watched this in silence.
Kavita caught Harshit’s eye. He raised one eyebrow infinitesimally. She shook her head, equally subtle, and returned to her tea.
Raghav leaned back in his chair, phone forgotten, a small smile playing at his mouth.
Ishani bit her lip, eyes dancing between her brother-in-law and his new wife, clearly recognizing entertainment when she saw it.
Divya, oblivious, kept writing. “The photoshoot for Film Companion needs to move to Thursday,” she muttered, half to herself. “And I’ve adjusted the interview with Filmfare to accommodate Farhan’s new blocking schedule. That gives us the full day Monday for...”
“Divya.”
Vikram’s voice cut through her mental calculations like a blade through silk.
She looked up, blinking as if surfacing from underwater. “Hmm?”
“It’s seven-thirty in the morning.”
She glanced at her watch to confirm. “I know. You have that production meeting at nine, so I wanted to make sure everything was.” She gestured at her notebook, as if the rest of the sentence was self-evident.
Around the table, four people had gone very, very still. This was better than television.
“Stop working at the breakfast table.” Vikram’s tone was gentle but pointed. He set down his juice with deliberate care. “Breakfast is for family.”
Family.
The word landed like a stone dropped in still water.
Divya looked around the table as if seeing it properly for the first time.
Kavita watching her with patient amusement.
Harshit with his newspaper strategically positioned.
Raghav openly grinning now. Ishani practically vibrating with suppressed laughter.
A family having breakfast. And her, with her notebook and her pen and her crisis management, treating their dining room like a mobile office.
Her pen stilled mid-note.
“I.” She started, then stopped. “I’m sorry. I didn’t have time to schedule your day before breakfast, and you’re starting shooting today, and there’s the permit issue with location, and Farhan’s assistant sent three emails about...”
“Divya.” Vikram’s voice was softer now, but firm. “The world won’t end if I go to a production meeting without a color-coded schedule.”
She stared at him, her brain struggling to shift gears. But the call sheet. The permits. The scheduling conflicts. The three urgent emails. The...
“You’re not just my assistant anymore, Divya.” His eyes were steady on hers. “You’re allowed to just... eat breakfast.”
Not just his assistant. Right. His wife. His temporary-contract-arrangement wife who happened to also still be managing his entire professional life because what else was she supposed to do with herself in this house?
She closed her notebook slowly. Set down her pen.
“Okay, Boss.”
The words fell out of her mouth on pure reflex, the professional shorthand that meant ‘message received, will comply, moving on.’
The reaction was instantaneous and spectacular.
Kavita’s teacup paused halfway to her lips. She set it down very carefully, eyebrow climbing toward her hairline.
Harshit’s newspaper rustled violently, then slowly, very slowly, lowered to reveal eyes gone wide above reading glasses.
Raghav, who had just taken a sip of coffee, made a sound somewhere between a cough and a snort. Coffee went down the wrong pipe. He covered his mouth, shoulders shaking.
Ishani pressed her napkin to her mouth, but her eyes sparkled with barely contained glee.
And Vikram?
Vikram became intensely, profoundly interested in his piece of toast. He picked it up. Examined it from multiple angles. Turned it over as if the underside might reveal secrets of the universe. His ears, the very tips of his ears, turned pink.
The silence that followed could have been weaponized.
Divya’s brain finally caught up to her mouth. Her face heated so fast she was mildly concerned about spontaneous combustion. “I meant...” She swallowed. “I’m sorry. Habit.”
“Indeed,” Kavita said, drawing out the single word until it contained volumes. Her eyes danced with suppressed laughter. “A very professional habit.”
“Quite an interesting habit,” Harshit added from behind his newspaper, which he raised again with suspicious speed.
Raghav had given up all pretense of composure. His shoulders shook silently. Ishani elbowed him in the ribs, which only made it worse.
Divya stared at her plate, idli and sambar she hadn’t even started, wishing fervently that the polished marble floor would develop a sudden crack and swallow her whole.
She’d spent six months perfecting the art of professional invisibility. Six months where “Okay, Boss” was just efficient communication. And now, with five syllables and zero brain-to-mouth filtering, she’d managed to highlight exactly how strange their situation was to his entire family.
Wife who says “Okay, Boss” at the breakfast table.
Assistant who shares his bedroom.
The contradictions were suddenly, painfully visible.
“Eat something,” Vikram said, his voice gentler now. “Please. Everything else can wait twenty minutes.”
She picked up her fork. Put idli in her mouth. Chewed mechanically. Across the table, Raghav whispered something to Ishani. She grinned, shaking her head. Kavita had returned to her tea, but a small, knowing smile played at her lips.
And Harshit, Harshit had given up all pretense of reading. He was watching his younger son with an expression Divya couldn’t quite decode. Something between amusement and approval.
The breakfast continued. Conversation resumed, carefully, gently, around her. Normal family breakfast things.
She didn’t open her notebook again. Didn’t reach for her pen. She just sat at the Khanna family breakfast table and tried very, very hard to figure out how to be a wife instead of an assistant.
Old habits, she was learning, died incredibly, embarrassingly hard.
Five Days Into Marriage
The set of Dil Aur Desk had become a stage for a different kind of performance entirely.
Divya stood near the production coordinator’s station, finalizing Vikram’s schedule for the week. She was cross-referencing his commitments with location availability when she felt it, that particular warmth that meant Vikram had entered her orbit.
She didn’t look up. Didn’t need to. The man had been around her for twenty-four hours a day now. She’d developed a sixth sense for his presence.
“Here.”
His voice came from directly behind her, close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from his body. She turned to find him holding a glass of fresh juice in one hand and a sandwich in the other.
“I can get my own...”
“I know.” He set both down on the table beside her notebook, completely unbothered by her protest. “But you’ve been standing here for an hour coordinating with three different departments. You need to eat.”
Around them, the crew had gone conspicuously busy, everyone suddenly very focused on their equipment, their scripts, anything except the newlyweds having this very domestic exchange in the middle of a professional set.
She glanced at the plate. Veg Sandwich. Not grilled. One of the things she actually liked from craft services.
“Thank you,” she said, keeping her voice neutral. This was for show. He was being the attentive husband for the cameras, for the crew, for the narrative they were selling.
“Don’t thank me. Just eat.” His hand came to rest at the small of her back, warm, possessive, deliberate. “And drink the juice. You look dehydrated.”
“I’m fine, B...” She caught herself just in time. “I’m fine.”
His eyes narrowed at the almost-slip. “Divya.”
“Sorry. Habit.”
“Break it,” he said quietly, but there was heat beneath the words. Not anger. Something else. Something that made her skin prickle with awareness.
Then he was gone, moving back to where the crew was setting up the next shot, leaving her standing there with juice and sandwich and the phantom sensation of his hand still burning through the fabric of her kurta.
Later, when she was coordinating with another actor’s assistant about scheduling conflicts, Vikram materialized with a chair.
“Sit,” he’d said simply, positioning it behind her. “You’ve been on your feet long enough.”
He didn’t wait for acknowledgment. Just set the chair down and walked away, leaving her staring after him.
The other assistant, a woman who’d been in the industry for years, watched him go with raised eyebrows. “Wow. He really doesn’t let you overwork, does he?”
Divya sat slowly, unsure how to respond. Because Vikram had always been protective of his crew. Always made sure people took breaks, stayed hydrated, didn’t push past their limits.
This was just... more visible. More deliberate. More about her specifically.
Not long after, a junior crew member had spoken over Divya during a logistics discussion, Vikram’s voice had cut through: “Let her finish.”
Not loud. Not aggressive. But absolute.
The crew member had gone red, stammered an apology. Divya had finished her point in the sudden silence, acutely aware of Vikram’s presence at the edge of the conversation, listening, making space for her words.
By late afternoon, the makeup artist whispered to her colleague, loud enough for Divya to overhear. “He’s never been like this before. Not with any of his girlfriends. Not even with Riya.”
“That’s because this one’s real,” the colleague whispered back. “Look at how he looks at her.”
Divya kept her eyes on her notebook, pretending not to hear.
This one’s real.
Right.
As real as the agreement they’d made in her parents’ bedroom. As real as the expiration date they both knew existed.
She reminded herself of this. Told herself the attentiveness was performance. Good acting. Vikram Khanna, National Award nominee, selling a love story to save both their reputations.
It helped.
Mostly.