Chapter 11
The clock on her bedside table edged past two, sharpening her frustration with every tick.
Kashvi tossed and turned restlessly beneath the covers, unable to relax enough to sleep.
She exhaled slowly into the darkness, her gaze fixed on the ceiling as her thoughts dragged her back to the worry niggling at her mind.
In a few hours, she would have to sit across from her father as she tried to make her case to the trust liaison. The thought made her stomach knot, and she curled her fingers into the fluffy blanket, trying to ground herself.
Swayam would be there too.
She turned onto her side again, her hands tucked beneath her cheek. Her gaze fell on the file resting on her dressing table. Their marriage certificate was tucked safely inside, ready to be presented tomorrow.
Kashvi did not know how to reconcile the two parts of her life that would collide in that room. She didn’t want Swayam to see the version of her that existed in the shadow of her father’s control.
Would he look at her differently then? Would it make him regret the decision to marry her?
When they had returned home hours ago, he’d made sure she was okay. Then he had given her space. It should have eased her mind. Instead, it left her eerily aware of the silence.
Kashvi ran her fingertips over the small beads of the mangalsutra around her neck. In just a day, it had begun to feel like hers. With every passing second, it took root within her, and she knew she would never be able to take it off and go back to her old life.
She pressed her lips together. There was no point in being consumed by fears of tomorrow when there was nothing she could do about it tonight, and staying up like this would only leave her drained.
‘Fuck this,’ she muttered, pushing herself upright in bed. Her hair fell forward over her shoulder, and she dragged a hand through the tangles.
She swung her feet onto the floor, curling her toes against the cold surface as she let out a slow exhale.
The dark hallway greeted her when she stepped out of the room. A distant hum from the city drifted faintly through the balcony. She flicked on the dim light and noticed the hulking figure fast asleep.
Swayam was stretched out on the sofa, one arm bent beneath his head, the other resting over his chest.
Her heart began to race, though for a very different reason than surprise. She leaned against the doorway, her eyes fixed on him as she took in the way the dim light traced the line of his jaw, the thick disarray of his hair, and his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm.
It’s unfair how good he looks, even when he’s sleeping.
Shaking her head, she closed the door as quietly as possible, but the soft click was enough.
He woke up immediately, catching her standing at the edge of the room. ‘Kashvi?’ he asked, his voice rough with sleep.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you up,’ she said quickly.
‘It’s fine. I’m a light sleeper anyway,’ he replied, sitting up. ‘What’s up? Are you okay?’
‘Yeah.’ She hesitated, then gestured towards the sofa. ‘Why are you out here?’
‘I like it here.’
‘We can get you another bed if the one you have isn’t working out,’ she offered.
He gave a casual shrug and patted the cushion. ‘I find this comfortable.’
Looking at how he was twice the size of the two-seater sofa, she was unconvinced.
His gaze lingered on her. ‘Couldn’t sleep?’
Kashvi shook her head.
He tilted his head slightly. ‘Want some hot chocolate?’
Her spirits lifted at the thought, but she hesitated. ‘It’s really late. You should probably get some sleep.’
Swayam let out a soft laugh. ‘I won’t mind some hot chocolate myself. Maybe it’ll help me get some sweet dreams.’
Kashvi nodded with a chuckle. ‘Okay.’
She followed him into the kitchen. She flicked on the switch, and a soft amber glow spilled over the white marble counter. The hum of the refrigerator filled the room.
Swayam opened the cabinet and pulled out a jar of cocoa powder. Kashvi got the milk and placed it beside the saucepan.
She leaned against the counter next to him. ‘Thank you for making it.’
He glanced at her before switching on the gas. ‘You can save that. Abhay and Siya made it very clear that my life would be in danger if I didn’t take good care of you.’
Kashvi scoffed. ‘That sounds like them. Siya has always been the mother hen, and Abhay Jiju can be just as bad in his own fussy, big-bro way.’
A rich, warm scent wafted through the air as he stirred the chocolate.
Swayam chuckled. ‘I see that. It took me years to figure out how not to end up on Siya’s hit list as a friend, and now I get to discover all the creative ways she can threaten me as her brother-in-law.’
‘You’ve still got it easy because Siya is all bark and no bite. I’m more scared of mothers-in-law. I’ve heard too many horror stories,’ Kashvi said, tapping her fingers lightly against the marble counter.
His shoulder tensed for a moment before he resumed stirring. Swayam hummed softly, his attention fixed on the stove. ‘You don’t need to be. It’s been twenty-eight years since I last saw my mother, so you won’t have to deal with any such horror.’
Twenty-eight years?
‘Oh,’ was all she managed.
Her mind drifted to an old conversation she’d once had with her sister when she had asked about his family.
‘Swayam doesn’t like to talk about them, so we never bring it up,’ Siya had said.
It had become an unspoken rule after that, something everyone seemed to follow. Kashvi wasn’t sure if she had the right to cross that line either, so she skirted around it.
‘You don’t have to take Di and Jiju seriously. They may say things like that, but they don’t mean it. You don’t have to do all of this,’ she said, gesturing towards the saucepan.
Swayam lifted it off the flame and poured the hot chocolate into two cups.
He handed her a cup, his fingers lightly brushing against hers. ‘Actually, I don’t mind doing this. I love pampering my wife.’
It shouldn’t have affected her as it did, but the way he said it made her heart skip a beat.
As they walked back to the living room, she asked, ‘Since I’m so special to you, does that mean I get to ask you things no one else does?’
‘Of course,’ he said simply.
The ease in his answer softened her hesitation. ‘Has it really been nearly three decades since you last saw your mother?’
His gaze dropped briefly to the cup in his hand, his expression unreadable as they sat down on the sofa.
‘It’s okay,’ she said quickly. ‘You don’t have to answer that. I understand. It’s… not easy to talk about things like that.’
Swayam shook his head. ‘I meant what I said. I don’t mind doing things for my wife, even if it means talking about difficult things.’
She turned to look out at the open balcony behind them. A full moon glowed in the sky, scattered among the stars, while a faint breeze brushed against her skin. A niggling thought rose uninvited.
What would it feel like to tell him everything? To spill the secrets that still haunted her?
Kashvi crushed the thought, but it left behind a faint ache she couldn’t shake.
Swayam cleared his throat, taking a slow sip from his cup. ‘I was less than a year old when my parents got divorced. My maternal grandparents raised me.’
She heard the quiet edge of pain in his voice and slid closer, placing her hand over his in silent reassurance that she was listening. He turned his hand beneath hers, threading their fingers together.
‘From what my grandfather told me, my parents only dated briefly before getting married in a whirlwind. When reality hit and they began to struggle, they thought having a child might fix things. That’s when everything started going wrong.’
Kashvi drew light circles on the back of his hand. ‘What happened?’ she asked softly.
His gaze dropped to their joined hands as he said, ‘It only got worse after I was born. Or maybe they just realised nothing was ever going to change, so they separated soon after. I lived with my grandparents after that.’
‘That must have been difficult for them,’ Kashvi said.
‘They were more than happy to take me in. When they’d come to stay with my parents to help take care of me, they’d already seen the tension and hostility between them.
I think they even encouraged my mother to leave my father because that was no place to raise a child.
But I don’t think they expected her to cut more than one tie. ’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Just after she filed for divorce, she told them she’d be moving to Canada immediately for a promotion at her office HQ.’
Even Kashvi could tell that was a rash decision, and Swayam would have been the one most affected by it.
‘How did your grandparents take it?’
‘They tried to talk her out of it, tried to make her see that I was too young to move to another country. She told them they were crazy if they thought she would take the reason her life had fallen apart with her when she was trying to start over,’ Swayam said, his tone almost detached.
‘What? How could she just leave you?’ Kashvi asked, unable to comprehend the idea of a mother abandoning her newborn child.
His expression remained controlled, but his eyes betrayed the hurt and anger layered beneath. ‘She could, because she didn’t care about me.’
‘Still, your grandparents must have been getting older. How could she do that to them?’
There was a faint ring of bitterness in his voice. ‘Technically, she gave them the option to either keep me or give me away. So the fault lies with my grandparents for choosing unwanted and unnecessary stress in their old age by keeping me.’
‘Yeah? Says who?’ she shot back, the idea grating on her nerves.
‘My mother. She said that to Nani after Nanu passed away and Nani called her for help because she was struggling to take care of me alone.’
‘That’s…’ Kashvi stopped, unable to find the right words. She shifted closer, slipping her arm through his and resting her head on his shoulder. ‘I’m so sorry. You shouldn’t have had to go through that.’