Chapter 21
Gasps rippled through the room as Abhay placed his bid three times the current amount. Siya jerked around in his direction and her lips parted in shock. His jaw ticked, rage pulsing beneath his exterior calm and his other hand tightly curled into a fist.
‘What are you doing?’ Siya hissed at him, too stunned to lower her voice but Kartik didn’t give him a chance to answer.
He pinned him with a glare and lightly scolded him. ‘Abhay, son, must I remind you we belong to the same family? We can’t bid on our own items.’
Abhay smiled coldly and responded, ‘Father-in-law, must I remind you that my last name is Agrawal and not Kashyap?’
Kartik narrowed his eyes in anger, and Siya saw the first crack in his control. ‘Last names aside, as long as my daughter is your wife, we are one family.’
‘In that case, with all due respect, you must not know your daughter’s full last name. It’s Siya Kashyap. She is a Kashyap first and always will be. Getting married doesn’t erase her identity.’
Just then, Mihit leaned forward in his seat and said, ‘I believe Abhay is well within his rights to bid. Unless you’re suggesting marriage gives you ownership over people, in which case I think we should be having a different conversation altogether.’
‘Of course not, I wouldn’t dream of such a thing,’ Kartik easily agreed. ‘Go ahead and place your bids, Abhay. I wish you luck.’ His reply was composed and devoid of anger, but the tremor in his hands betrayed him.
Siya couldn’t believe he’d agreed but the cameras were rolling, and he wouldn’t risk looking like the villain in a room full of important people. She caught the slight glance Kartik cast at Shyamlal, who suddenly joined the bidding. ‘Twelve crores.’
Her nails bit into her palm as Abhay matched the bid with his own. When she tried to stop him, he only gave her a light squeeze in response. ‘Fourteen.’
Shyamlal raised his bid. ‘Twenty crore.’
She saw his paddle go up again as he said, ‘Twenty-five.’
She tried to yank his arm, her voice sharp with panic. ‘Abhay stop! Why are you doing this? This is insane.’
‘Love isn’t always reasonable, jaan. I’ll always fight for you, even if it costs me everything.’
‘Thirty.’
Immediately, Abhay said, ‘Forty.’
Her voice rose as helplessness prickled her throat. ‘You’re setting fire to crores like it’s nothing. Do you even realise what you’re doing?’
‘I know exactly what I’m doing,’ Abhay said, as the bids rang out around them, so calmly that it only worsened the chaos in her.
Shyamlal smirked. ‘Forty-five.’
‘Fifty,’ Abhay announced without missing a beat.
Siya whispered sharply. ‘It’s just a ring. It won’t bring her back.’ She forced the words out, trying to convince herself more than him.
‘Don’t lie to me. I saw you wipe away a tear when the bidding started, so don’t tell me it doesn’t matter to you.’
She shook her head, turning away as if distance could shield her from his penetrating gaze but he leaned closer, his eyes fierce with sorrow. ‘You can pretend all you want, but I know what it feels like to lose someone and still want to hold on to the pieces they left behind.’
The words landed with soft violence in her chest. The anklet around her foot felt heavier at his reminder. She felt unsteady, as though the ground beneath her was tilting.
‘Sixty,’ Shyamlal announced after stealing a glance at Kartik. His eyes kept shifting between Kartik and Abhay before every bid, and she caught that he was artificially inflating the bids.
All around her, the room felt like a furnace. Her fingers dug deeper into her thigh as she said, ‘Abhay, I’m begging you. Stop! Just stop.’
He didn’t even look at her when he raised his paddle and declared, ‘Seventy.’
She snapped at him. ‘You’re being ridiculous!’
Finally, he turned to her, and the fury in her was mirrored in his eyes.
‘You can tell me to stop a thousand times, Siya, but I know this ring means something to you, which is why he is using it against you. I’m not going to sit here and watch you lose another piece of your mother just because Kartik wants to prove his dominance. ’
‘Abhay, no please. This is too much, way too much for me,’ she said, desperation making her bones shiver.
Neena, who had been quiet until now, her gaze locked on Shyamlal as he raised the bid to eighty crores, leaned closer to Abhay.
Fury burned in her eyes and seeing that Siya thought, this is it. Finally, her mother-in-law had had enough and would stop him from indulging in this madness.
Instead, her heart nearly stopped when Neena whispered, ‘Raise it to one fifty crores.’
Abhay announced it immediately. There was an audible gasp somewhere in the back of the room. Shyamlal faltered, and looked back at Kartik, whose jaw was so tense she could see the muscle throb in his cheek.
Shyamlal didn’t raise his paddle again, refusing to look at Kartik who was staring daggers at him.
The auctioneer’s voice rang out, cracking the fragile silence. ‘One fifty crore going once. One fifty crore going twice. One fifty crore going thrice. Sold to Mr Abhay Agrawal for one fifty crores. Congratulations!’
The gavel banged loudly as the auction came to an end. Siya was still stuck on Neena. Why had her mother-in-law, the woman who’d looked at her with thinly veiled contempt the first time they’d met, supported Abhay to win the ring for her?
Siya tried to build walls of anger and indifference, but each bid had torn at them until her heart bled through.
She desperately tried to glue shut the gaps with anger. ‘You’ve gone insane,’ she threw at him.
‘I know,’ Abhay said, the light from the chandelier catching his eyes, making them shine with raw vulnerability. ‘And I’d do it again in a heartbeat. I may be a flawed man, but I do learn from my mistakes, and letting you go without a fight is my biggest. I will not repeat it.’
Her throat constricted the instant a representative placed the cheque before Abhay. The numbers on that cheque glinted obscenely, and was ten times more than she had ever saved in her account. She looked away.
She wanted to snatch the cheque from him, sign it herself, but she knew in the pit of her stomach that it was impossible. Kartik had taken every penny of her massive inheritance, and only gave her a modest salary that she spent majorly on Kashvi’s studies.
Her heart splintered deeply and she looked away, not wanting to see him sign his name on the cheque.
She’d spent years believing Abhay never truly cared about her, that he saw her only as a pawn to be used in this rivalry war, and that the love he portrayed was a performance and a calculated choice. But she had no excuse for this gesture.
The auction stage lights dimmed as the last applause died, and guests began gathering away. Laughter and conversation fading as they moved on to the dining room. Mihit and Neena stepped away to chat with a few guests.
Siya decided to leave immediately, feeling quite at the edge. As soon as they got up, the PR head motioned at them to stay for pictures. Abhay wound his arm around her waist as he stepped to stand half behind her. She forced a smile, acting on autopilot.
Kartik cleared his throat and spoke in a hushed tone. ‘Siya, you’ve crossed every limit of disrespecting your family. I’m so ashamed of you that I can barely look at you.’
Anger burned like hot iron in her chest and her blood ran cold. He wanted to talk about family after he had used her mother’s memory to punish her? It was a difficult feat to maintain her smile. She refused to take his bait and make a public spectacle of herself.
Abhay stiffened, then shifted closer and despite how his actions had scrambled her mind, she was grateful to have his looming, steady presence behind her.
‘I should’ve known better than to expect you to be anything other than the naive, hysterical woman that you are,’ Kartik taunted.
She felt cold sweat on her back, every camera flash a pinprick in her eyes. Dhruv caught her gaze, and she saw sympathy reflected in them. She hated that more than anything.
She gave Kartik a sharp, fierce look, but kept her smile firmly in place. ‘If you are auctioning off my mother’s gift to me, then don’t you dare use words like family to try to justify your cruelty.’
Abhay scoffed in agreement. Anger blazed in Kartik’s eyes when he turned to answer her. ‘Before you demand respect, you should learn what it means to be a good daughter and wife, who bends and honours the men’s needs, not her own whims.’
Abhay couldn’t hold back anymore. He softly said, ‘You do not get to dictate Siya’s role as my wife. It’s up to her to decide. Besides, if you judge respect by obedience, then you do not understand love at all.’
Kartik turned to look at Abhay and when the world saw his warm smile and pat on Abhay’s shoulder, Siya heard the rage in his words. ‘You’re going about this the wrong way, son. You must honour the code of marriage and teach your wife some manners and gratitude, not rebellion.’
Abhay did not recoil. There was a quiet force in his voice, every syllable a proud declaration.
‘If you’re asking me to respect the code of marriage, I choose to protect my wife first, because she is my family.
I refuse to be the man who teaches my woman that by being a good partner to me, she has to lose her voice and autonomy. ’
‘Then you are no man at all,’ Kartik passed his verdict, and Siya nearly lost her cool.
Everything in her screamed to lash back, to defend her man. She sweetly said, ‘This coming from the man who couldn’t stay faithful to his wife, had multiple affairs, and nearly ran the business into the ground? You have no right to make a remark on my husband, and I won’t allow it.’
Abhay sighed, and his warm breath fanned her cheek. He possessively curled an arm around her front, and drew her closer.
Kartik flushed red with anger, colour climbing in his cheeks. Dhruv shifted beside him, and Siya expected him to argue back, but confusion rammed through her as he nodded once at the media personnel and stepped away from the glare of the spotlight.
Dhruv turned around once as he walked away and Siya could swear she saw something akin to respect in his gaze. But before she could linger on the moment, a reporter stepped forward, asking for a few comments.
They swarmed closer when Kartik gestured yes. Mihit and Neena joined them too, posing together.
‘How are you feeling after the success of tonight’s soft launch?’ he asked Siya and Abhay.
‘We’re thrilled,’ Siya managed. ‘It feels incredible to witness our efforts make a difference.’
‘Abhay, how do you feel about winning the bid on one of the most famous rings in the world?’
‘I won something much more precious, my wife’s smile so it feels worth it,’ Abhay answered, sincerely.
Kartik chimed in. ‘Men like Abhay are certainly setting new standards for husbands these days.’
Abhay softly smiled at him. The whirs of the camera caught every moment.
‘Thank you sasurji,’ he said, graciously. ‘I’m learning a lot from you about strength, respect, and what it means to be a husband not just in name but in action. That’s why I signed the auction check to Siya Kashyap, you know, to honour my wife.’
Kartik barely remained poised, studying Abhay, and it finally registered in his mind that tonight, for once, his control was not absolute.
‘Good job, son,’ Kartik praised, his voice too smooth as he placed a hand on his shoulder. Abhay gave him a pleased smile, wide enough for the cameras to catch it.
Someone finally waved the media personnel away and Kartik furiously turned around and walked out of the room. Siya had the same idea. She wanted to run, to escape the suffocating glamour that felt like prison. Every part of her felt raw and exposed under the spotlight.
The event coordinator came up to Abhay and pulled him away. Abhay squeezed his hand once and told her he would be right back.
Neena and Mihit prepared to follow a few guests to the dining room, but before she moved away, Neena met Siya’s gaze and gave her a small, sympathetic nod. She didn’t know what to do with that offer of comfort, or the strange emptiness it carved through her, so she turned away.
The room swelled around her with too many voices and too much light. She had to get away. She was tired of feeling like a pawn in everyone’s game.
Siya hurried out of the room before anyone could stop her. Outside the grand doors, she paused long enough to wave at a few people she recognised. Her heels clicked sharply against the floor as she made her way to the elevators down the wide hall.
She pressed the button for the roof and caught her reflection in the elevator mirror. Her eyes were red-rimmed and her skin looked pale. She wondered briefly just how much longer she could hold onto the last piece of her sanity.
Inside her mind, her thoughts spiralled, crashing into each other with the force of pent-up emotions. Why did Abhay do this, after everything?
Why the public declarations, the cheque in her name, the confrontation with her father in front of the entire city? Why did he look at her like she mattered when he was the one who had lied to her?
And beneath it all was the truth that terrified her the most, that love wasn’t enough, not when trust lay shattered at her feet, not when his every gesture and every word made her wonder if there would be a price to be paid later.
She pushed open the steel doors of the roof and exhaled, shaky and uneven. There was a scent of rain in the air. When she finally caught her breath, a thought hit her with finality.
This needs to end.
Tonight, Abhay had shattered everything she’d believed about him, and she couldn’t keep fighting these feelings anymore.
Now, it was time to confront the truth, even if it meant baring her heart to the man who had broken it.