Chapter 22
‘Siya!’ his voice echoed before Abhay rushed onto the roof.
Her grip tightened around the railing but she didn’t turn, keeping her eyes trained on the city lights flickering far below. She hoped he’d take the hint and go away. Flushed with adrenaline and rage that bordered on recklessness, she didn’t want to break down in front of him.
‘Siya,’ he called out again as he crossed the distance between them in long strides.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving? I got worried,’ he said, tugging at her elbow.
‘I need to be alone. Leave, please.’
His grip tightened and he took a step forward. ‘You’re being crazy if you think I’m going to leave you alone like this.’
The concern in his voice broke the fragile thread of her restraint, and Siya whipped around. The storm raging in the sky echoed the one within her.
She screamed, fighting the sting behind her eyes.
‘I am crazy! I was crazy to spend the night with you, a stranger who charmed me at a party. I was crazy to think my father had any redeeming qualities at all. And I was crazy to think that we can pull off this marriage because you refuse to keep your distance.’
He didn’t answer, just kept looking at her. His silence scraped at her nerves, baiting her into filling the void.
Her voice rose, words pouring out of her now that she was out of the public eye. ‘You don’t get to stand there like a selfless hero, like you didn’t just drop a ridiculous amount of money on a ring and make me feel like the ungrateful one.’
‘I’m not a hero. I’m a miserable man who lost the love of his life because of a dumb mistake I made, and I’ve only ever tried to make up for it.’
A sudden gust of wind rushed around them, and with it, came the first drops of rain, slowly drenching them.
‘I don’t want your pity. I don’t want you fighting for me because you feel sorry. And do you really believe a cheque can heal what was broken?’
‘No, but I believe protecting you with all that I am and all that I have is part of the healing we both deserve.’
‘I never asked for your protection!’ she snapped at him, fisting his collar in her hand. ‘And I sure as hell didn’t ask you to make grand gestures I can’t afford. This cost more than I can even begin to repay.’
The rain dampened her hair, turning the fabric of her dress into something heavy and clingy. She couldn’t feel the cold, though, only the heat crawling beneath her skin, burning at the edges of her composure.
‘Why would you have to repay anything? Everything that’s mine is yours, don’t you know that?’
A bitter laugh escaped from her throat. She tasted bitterness at the back of her tongue. ‘You saw me as a pawn in some game with my father but now I’m supposed to believe this version of you is real?’
‘Shut up!’ he said hoarsely, and gripped her hard by the shoulders, startling her. There was thunder in his eyes, lightning with fury and heartbreak.
She blinked up at him, stunned into silence, rain trailing down her face.
‘Enough is enough, Siya,’ he said, his voice cracked at the edges with pain. ‘Stop trying to make me the villain in this story just because it’s easier than admitting you might feel something real for me.’
His intense gaze sparked a fire in her body even under the rain. She wanted to pour all that molten anger on them until it burned out whatever held them together. But, in that moment, all she could do was look into the eyes of a man who had always watched her like he knew how to read her soul.
Abhay pushed her against the slick railing behind her. ‘You can hate me all you want but don’t you dare tell me I don’t love you just because you don’t know what to do with it.’
‘I’m not doing that!’ she yelled back. Her eyes burned, but she blinked furiously, refusing to let the tears fall.
‘Yes, you are! I know what your father did hurt you, but you don’t get to turn that into another reason to run from me and punish me for his sins. I’m not him, Siya.’
His expression caught her off guard. It was something closer to devastation.
She shook her head, tears finally burning their way to the surface. ‘You lied to me four years ago, and however painful, I accepted that as the end of us. Now, you don’t get to rewrite history just because you suddenly decided to be in love with me.’
‘You want to punish me? Fine. Blame me for every bad decision I’ve made, for lying, for loving you when I had no right and for trying to fix things now like an idiot who still believes you’re going to come back to me.
Just do it while staying with me. Do it where I can see you, hold you, protect you.
Because losing you all over again would rip my heart out, jaan. ’
Droplets dripped down the slope of his jawline, his shoulders tense with the force of restraint.
‘I never wanted to use you, Siya,’ he bit out, stepping closer now, the rain flattened the strands of hair to his forehead. His shirt was soaked, clinging to him. ‘I wanted to love you. I’ve only ever wanted to love you.’
She shook her head, holding up her anger as an armour. ‘Then why lie to me back then? Why not just tell me who you were from the beginning?’
‘Because I was terrified,’ he admitted, the confession ripped from him in a rush. ‘Because for the first time in my life, I held the woman of my dreams in my arms, who looked like hell and heaven all at once, and I didn’t want to scare you away.’
Her lips parted, and with anger still bubbling within her, she said, ‘Is that the excuse you give yourself to justify what you did?’
‘I lied, and I lost your trust. That’s on me. But can you honestly tell me if I’d told you I was Abhay Agrawal, son of the man your father hated, and I’ve been in love with you all my life, would you have trusted me with your heart?’
Her lips parted, but nothing came out, because his question had hit too deep, too true.
‘Could you have seen me beyond the hatred he sowed in your heart, beyond how he trained you to see me as a threat, and beyond the way he said my last name like a curse?’
Her mind wandered to that night. He’d looked at her with so much love then and she’d believed in the magic of the moment because he was a stranger who wasn’t asking for anything in return. She realised with a sharp, painful clarity that she couldn’t have seen any of that if she knew who he was.
No matter how fiercely and confidently she wanted to say yes, she wouldn’t lie to him. ‘I… I don’t think I could have,’ she whispered.
The anger etched in his features softened and he softly brushed away droplets from her cheek.
He was looking at her with such gentle understanding that she almost flinched.
‘I can’t turn back time, but I can ask you to see me now.
Beyond the name and legacy, I’m just a man who has treasured your name in my heart since the night we met. ’
The rain poured around them, but her body heated when he drew her so impossibly close that she could feel the wild and insistent rhythm of his heart against her palm.
‘All I ever wanted was one night to lay aside the name, the rivalry, the burden of legacy, and just be Abhay holding Siya. But when I lost you, and it nearly drove me mad, I only had myself to blame. There is no excuse for my lie, and I’m not shameless enough to justify it.’
His eyes burned into hers as he continued, ‘But, I didn’t lie to use you as a pawn.
I don’t give a damn about this silly rivalry that Kartik started.
Every move I’ve made, every battle I’ve fought, every word I’ve bitten back has been for you.
Because I see you, Siya. Only you. I always have, even when you were hellbent on proving to yourself that no one ever would. ’
‘Stop it!’ a scream tore out of her and she tried to move away but he tightened his arm around her waist. Siya couldn’t bear how he was looking into her soul, and tearing it apart with his affection.
‘Why not? If you can accept that I took advantage of you for rivalry’s sake, why can’t you believe that I did what I did because I love you with all my heart?’
‘Because whatever you feel for me, I didn’t earn it! People like me don’t get love for free. That’s not how this works. That’s not how anything in my life has ever worked.’
Abhay swallowed hard, and when he spoke again, there was a tremor in his voice that went straight to her wounded heart.
‘You see yourself as Siya Kashyap, daughter of Kartik Kashyap. The dutiful firstborn. The responsible teenager who had to raise her sister. The woman who was told she had to be perfect to be enough for her father. But to me, you’re so much more than I ever deserved. ’
He cradled her face gently in his hands and his eyes glistened with unshed tears.
He spoke softly but his words hit her like lightning.
‘I see the woman who sits through cheesy dramas she hates because it's Meera’s comfort genre. I see the woman who calls out every injustice for Kashvi. I see the woman who fights for everyone and forgets to fight for herself. I see you, Siya, and that’s the only person I’ve ever loved. ’
A sob clawed its way up her throat and she held on to him for dear life. Her heart, foolish as it was, pounded with something akin to hope.
The sincerity in his words shattered her rage and scattered the pieces at her feet. And now, staring at him, she wasn’t sure she had the strength to keep running. She felt heavy with exhaustion.
‘I know you’ve spent your whole life being told you had to earn love. Any scrap of affection came with conditions, expectations and sacrifices. But I love you unconditionally, jaan.’
He rested his forehead against hers as he confessed, ‘You don’t have to prove yourself to me, Siya. You just have to stay.’
She wanted to deny him, to push him back into the shadows where her rage could survive, but his thumb slowly stroked over her lower lip, and her breath caught on the edge of a whimper.
With a guttural sound of anguish and fury, Abhay clamped the back of her neck, and pulled her to him until their lips collided.