CHAPTER 8 The Echoes of Ruin
The Belvedere Ladies’ Club, perched high on the lush, manicured slopes of Malabar Hill, was an institution built entirely on inherited wealth, designer silk, and the ruthless exchange of high-society gossip.
For decades, Kanta Rathore-Chauhan had held court in its sun-drenched verandas, wielding her authority like a freshly sharpened guillotine blade.
Her snobbish attitude, her thinly veiled insults disguised as constructive advice, and her certainty of her own superior pedigree had ruffled more than a few heavily bejeweled feathers.
So, when the social fallout of the Chauhan family’s spectacular ruin finally hit the rumor mill, it did not arrive as a tragedy. It arrived as a feast.
“I heard it from my husband’s broker,” Mrs. Singhania whispered, leaning across the wrought-iron table, her diamond earrings catching the afternoon sun.
She lowered her voice to a theatrical hush, though the three other women at the table were already leaning in, practically vibrating with anticipation.
“Rudransh has entirely severed the trust. Frozen the operational accounts. Stripped Birendra of his board seat.”
“No!” Mrs. Birla gasped, pressing a manicured hand to her chest, her eyes wide with a gleeful, malicious shock. “But they are his family! They raised him!”
“Raised him, perhaps,” an older matriarch scoffed, stirring her Earl Grey tea. “But clearly, they forgot who actually held the keys to the kingdom. Rudransh built the empire. Birendra merely benefited from it. But that isn’t even the most scandalous part.”
The women leaned in closer.
“He didn’t just cut them off for business reasons,” Mrs. Singhania smiled, her eyes glittering with the thrill of the kill. “He did it because of the ward. That quiet little orphan girl they used to keep hidden away in the estate. Mihika.”
A collective gasp echoed around the table. They all knew of Mihika—or rather, they knew the carefully constructed lie Kanta had spun about her. Kanta had always referred to Mihika as a tragic charity case, a burden the Chauhans bore out of the goodness of their aristocratic hearts.
“The word is,” Mrs. Singhania continued, savoring every syllable, “Rudransh threw his aunt and uncle out of the corporate empire because they insulted her. He walked away from the entire family legacy for the cook’s granddaughter.
Oh, to be a fly on the wall in Kanta’s drawing-room today!
The mighty Kanta, brought to her knees by an orphan! ”
The ladies broke into a chorus of soft, musical laughter. Kanta had spent her entire life terrified of scandal, and now, she was the epicenter of the most delicious one the city had seen in a decade.
***
Miles away from the venomous whispers of the Belvedere Club, insulated within the impenetrable glass walls of the coastal penthouse, Mihika was oblivious to the social earthquake happening outside.
Three months after the park reunion, the penthouse had become a sanctuary of undisturbed peace.
With the threat of Kanta’s blackmail completely eradicated by Rudra’s ruthless financial severing, Mihika finally felt safe to exhale.
For the first time in over a year, she wasn’t looking over her shoulder. She wasn’t bracing for a blow.
The morning sun poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the private study, casting a warm, golden glow over the sleek mahogany desk. Mihika sat in a plush leather chair, a pair of blue-light glasses perched on her nose, her eyes scanning a complex spreadsheet on her laptop.
During her agonizing year in exile, Mihika had refused to be helpless.
To survive, and to ensure she never had to rely on the precarious charity of the elite again, she had taught herself data analytics.
She had landed a remote job as an analyst for a mid-tier logistics firm.
It wasn’t a glamorous position, but she was brilliant at it, and more importantly, it was hers.
Even now, living in the lap of unimaginable billionaire luxury, Mihika insisted on keeping her job. She worked diligently while Aryan was at school, finding comfort in the predictable logic of numbers and data sets.
“You are frowning at the screen again.”
The deep, rumbling baritone sent a familiar, delightful shiver down Mihika’s spine.
She didn’t even have time to turn her head before Rudransh was there.
He had been working from his own home office down the hall—having delegated all non-essential corporate meetings to his executives just to be near her—but he seemed physically incapable of staying away from her for more than an hour at a time.
Rudra leaned over the back of her chair, his broad, muscular chest pressing warmly against her shoulders.
He was dressed casually in a dark grey Henley that stretched taut over his biceps, his dark hair slightly disheveled from running his hands through it.
He pressed a soft, lingering kiss to the sensitive skin just beneath her ear.
Mihika let out a soft, breathy laugh, her hands dropping from the keyboard. The sound of her laughter—bright, unburdened, and genuine—was a melody Rudra felt he could never hear enough.
“I am frowning because the quarterly projections for the western sector are entirely skewed,” Mihika explained, leaning her head back against his shoulder, looking up at him upside down. “Someone completely miscalculated the freight costs.”
Rudra’s dark eyes shifted from the laptop screen to her face. He didn’t care about the western sector. He cared about the way her dark eyes sparkled, the way the tension had permanently left her jaw, the way her skin glowed with renewed vitality.
“Leave the freight costs,” Rudra murmured, his voice dropping an octave, becoming a low, gravelly purr that made the air in the room suddenly feel heavy and charged. “You have been staring at that screen for two hours. It is time for a break.”
Mihika smiled, a slow, teasing curve of her lips. “Mr. Rathore-Chauhan, are you encouraging me to abandon my professional responsibilities?”
“I am encouraging you to attend to your other responsibilities,” Rudra replied smoothly.
Before Mihika could formulate a response, Rudra’s large hands gripped the armrests of her chair, and with a swift, effortless motion, he spun her around to face him. He bent down, capturing her lips in a kiss that instantly short-circuited her brain.
There was no hesitation, no holding back.
During the day, whenever Aryan was safely at school, Rudra could not stop touching her.
He was a man starved, making up for a year of agonizing famine.
Every touch, every kiss, was an affirmation of her reality, a desperate, beautiful need to physically anchor himself to her presence.
Mihika gasped into his mouth as his hands slid from the armrests to her waist, lifting her entirely out of the chair. He walked backward, pulling her with him until the back of his knees hit the edge of the leather sofa on the far side of the study.
They collapsed onto the cushions together, a tangle of limbs and escalating heat.
Rudra bracketed her body with his arms, hovering over her, his dark eyes burning with an intense, all-consuming fire.
He kissed the line of her jaw, his lips trailing down to the hollow of her throat, eliciting a soft moan from her lips.
“Rudra,” Mihika breathed, her fingers tangling in his dark hair, pulling him closer.
He made love to her with a devastating mixture of reverence and raw, primal possessiveness.
In the quiet solitude of the sunlit study, the world outside ceased to exist. There were no spreadsheets, no family empires, no painful memories.
There was only the slide of skin against skin, the heavy, ragged sound of their shared breathing, and the overwhelming connection of two souls that had finally found their way back to each other.
When it was over, Mihika lay with her head resting on his bare chest, listening to the steady, powerful thumping of his heart. She traced lazy, invisible patterns on his skin with her fingertip.
Rudra wrapped a strong arm around her, pressing his lips to the crown of her head. He had felt the shift in her over those quiet months. The fear had completely evaporated. The laughter had returned. She was whole again.
“Mihika,” Rudra said softly, his voice vibrating through his chest and into hers.
“Mmm?”
“Marry me.”
Mihika’s hand stopped its tracing. She tilted her head up, resting her chin on his chest to look at him. His face was serious, the severe, handsome lines of his features set with fierce determination.
“We are already a family, Rudra,” she whispered gently. “You know I belong to you. I don’t need a piece of paper to prove it.”
“I need it,” Rudra said, his dark eyes locking onto hers with a fierce, uncompromising vulnerability.
“I need the world to know that you are untouchable. I need to give you my name, so that no one can ever question your place, or Aryan’s place, ever again.
I want to be your husband, Mihika. I wanted it when I was twenty-five, I wanted it the day before you left, and I want it now. ”
Mihika felt a hot tear of pure joy prick her eyes. She loved him so fiercely it defied logic. “I want to be your wife. But Rudra... I don’t want a spectacle. I don’t want a massive society wedding. I don’t want the press, or the cameras, or the hundreds of people staring at us.”
She had spent her entire life in the Chauhan estate watching Kanta orchestrate lavish, soulless events designed for public consumption. She wanted no part of that world.
Rudra’s expression softened into a look of clear understanding. “We will not invite a single soul. No press. No society. Just us.”
Mihika smiled, a brilliant, radiant expression of pure love. “Then yes. Yes, Rudransh. I will marry you.”
Rudra let out a long, ragged exhale, a sound of bone-deep relief. He pulled her up for a deep, sealing kiss.
***
That very weekend, they did not hire a wedding planner. They did not book a palace in Rajasthan.