MEET UP
ANAMIKA
A week has passed since Yuvaan asked me to marry him.
Seven days.
It still doesn't feel real.
Some mornings I wake up convinced I imagined the entire conversation.
That I'd been so exhausted my mind stitched together a fantasy from memories I should've buried years ago.
Then reality catches up with me, slow and unrelenting, and I remember standing in his study while he looked at me with impossible certainty and calmly asked me to become his wife.
And then I remember my answer. Or rather . . . the lack of one.
Because it isn't really my answer anymore.
It's Sara's.
The future of my life has somehow come to rest in the tiny hands of a five-year-old who still thinks eating chocolate before dinner is a perfectly reasonable life choice.
If someone had told the nineteen-year-old version of me that one day I'd be standing here, weighing a marriage proposal from the Maharaja of Devgarh against the opinion of my daughter, I would've laughed in their face.
Life has a strange sense of humour. What I never saw coming, though, wasn't the proposal. It was everything that followed. Every single day since then, he's found a reason to ask me about Sara.
Small questions. Ordinary questions. Questions that would've sounded meaningless coming from anyone else.
"Does she like ripe mangoes, or only the raw ones with salt?"
"What's her favourite bedtime story?"
"Does she sleep with the lights on?"
"What makes her laugh the hardest?"
"What scares her?"
"Does she like animals?"
The questions never feel rehearsed or rushed.
He listens to every answer as though he's quietly storing each one away somewhere important.
I know exactly why he's asking. Or at least I should.
He's trying to know the little girl whose opinion now matters more than anyone else's.
He's trying to make sure she feels comfortable around him. He's trying to earn her trust.
It's practical.
Logical.
Strategic.
It should feel like a strategy. Instead .
. . It feels painfully close to care. And that's dangerous.
Because I already know what it feels like to love Yuvaan.
I don't know if I'll survive discovering he still has the power to make me feel loved too.
By the time lunch arrives, my thoughts have tied themselves into knots so complicated I don't even try untangling them anymore.
I smooth down Sara's little frock for what must be the fifth time. She sighs dramatically. "Mumma."
"Hm?"
"It was straight the first time."
"I know."
"So why are you fixing it again?"
Because I'm nervous. Because I don't know what will change today. Because my heart has forgotten how to behave ever since that conversation in the study.
Instead, I simply smile. "I like making sure." She rolls her eyes with the exaggerated patience only children possess. We begin walking toward the east wing together. Her tiny hand slips comfortably into mine. Normally, Sara spends every second walk talking.
About butterflies. Clouds. The shape of leaves. Stories she invents halfway through telling them.
Today . . . She's unusually quiet. I glance down. She's chewing thoughtfully on her bottom lip. The way she always does when something is bothering her but she hasn't yet decided whether she wants to say it aloud. "Nervous?" I ask gently.
She shrugs. "A little."
I squeeze her hand. "So am I."
That surprises a tiny smile out of her. We reach the private dining room a few moments later. I push the door open. The room is flooded with soft afternoon light spilling through tall windows overlooking the palace gardens.
He's already there. Waiting. The moment Sara spots him . . . Everything changes. The nervousness disappears from her face as though someone has simply wiped it away. Her eyes brighten. A shy smile appears first. Then, within seconds, it blooms into the biggest grin I've seen on her face in days.
Yuvaan notices it too. And smiles back immediately. He's holding something behind his back. As Sara walks closer, he bends down until they're almost the same height. Only then does he bring his hand forward. A single white daisy rests between his fingers.
Fresh.
Simple.
Perfect.
He offers it to her with both hands. Like it's something precious. The sight steals the air from my lungs. For one impossible second, time folds in on itself. Because that flower . . . it belongs to us. Me handing everyone daises but no one ever thought to give one back.
Except him.
Always him.
Without realizing it, my fingers tighten around the strap of my handbag. Sara accepts the flower carefully, holding it as though she's afraid the petals might fall off if she's too rough. She looks at it for a long moment before her face lights up. "Mumma loves daisies!"
She says it with complete excitement, proudly showing him the flower. The words hit somewhere unexpectedly tender inside me. I have to look away. Just for a second. Blinking quickly before either of them notices.
Of course she knows. My little girl is very observant. Every week, no matter how little money I have left, I somehow manage to buy a few daisies for the tiny vase beside our window. The room may be no bigger than a cupboard. But flowers still make it feel like home. She must have noticed long ago.
Yuvaan looks briefly in my direction. Just briefly. Then his attention returns to Sara. A soft smile settles across his face. Not the polite smile the newspapers photograph. Not the reserved smile he gives dignitaries. The real one.
The one I haven't seen in years.
"And what about you, my lady?" he asks, his voice warm as he crouches fully in front of her. "Which flower is your favourite?"
Sara presses one finger dramatically against her chin. She considers the question with complete seriousness. I have to bite back a smile. After nearly half a minute of intense thought, she finally announces her decision. "I want all the flowers."
The answer is so perfectly . . . Sara . .
. that I almost laugh. Yuvaan doesn't. Not because he isn't amused.
Because he answers her as though she's made the most reasonable request in the world.
"Then that's exactly what you'll have." He gently taps the top of her head.
"All the flowers in the world for you, little princess. "
Sara gasps. A delighted, breathless little sound escapes her before she hugs the daisy against her chest. The smile on her face is so bright it almost hurts to look at.
She gazes up at him with complete trust. As though he has just promised her something magical.
And standing a few feet away . . . Watching the two people I love most in this world smile at each other so effortlessly .
. . I feel my heart do something I hadn't allowed it to do in a very long time.
Hope. Quiet. Fragile. Terrifying hope.
We sit down to eat, and within minutes it becomes very clear who's actually running this lunch.
Sara scoots her chair a little closer to Yuvaan, her elbows planted on the table as she studies him with complete seriousness. "So . . . " she says, narrowing her eyes. "Are you really a king?"
He nods once. "I am."
She gasps dramatically, "Like . . . a real one?"
"I think so."
She looks at me for confirmation. "Mumma?"
I bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from smiling. "He is."
Her mouth falls open. "So . . . " She turns back to him immediately. "Do you wear a crown every day?"
He shakes his head. "Only on very special occasions."
She looks genuinely disappointed. "I thought kings wake up, brush their teeth and then wear a crown."
A laugh escapes me before I can stop it. Yuvaan smiles, resting his chin on his hand. "That would be very uncomfortable."
Sara considers that carefully. " . . . Can I wear it once?"
“Of course, you can.”
Sara squeals with joy and I sneak a glance at Yuvaan only to find him smiling widely. Gosh, I have missed that smile. There’s only a beat of silence before Sara manages to ask another question, "Do kings have to eat vegetables?"
He glances down at the bowl of vegetables sitting between us before looking back at her. "They do."
She gasps in horror. "Even if they don't like them?"
"They still have to."
She leans closer and whispers loudly enough for both of us to hear, "I think that's unfair."
"So do I."
She nods solemnly. "I'm glad you understand."
I shake my head, trying not to laugh. "So . . . " Sara says, pointing her spoon at him. "Do you like cake or laddoos more?"
He hums thoughtfully. "Cake."
She slams her tiny palm against the table. "I knew it!"
"You did?"
"Mumma likes cake too."
I blink. "I do?"
"You always eat my chocolate cake."
" . . . Because you never finish it."
She grins mischievously. "So you still eat it."
Yuvaan chuckles beside me. "I think she won that argument."
I narrow my eyes at both of them. "You've known each other for twenty minutes."
"Twenty-seven," Sara corrects.
He looks at his watch. "Twenty-eight now."
She points at him triumphantly. "See? Mister knows."
"I stand corrected."
She giggles so hard her shoulders start bouncing. After calming down, she suddenly tilts her head. "Mister?"
"Hm?"
"Do you get scared?"
He blinks. "Sometimes."
"Of monsters?"
He smiles. "No."
"Ghosts?"
"No."
She leans even closer. "What then?"
He looks at her for a second before answering honestly. "People I care about getting hurt."
Her little face softens. "Oh." She thinks for a long moment before reaching across the table and patting his hand with her tiny one. "It's okay." His entire expression melts. "I'll protect you."
"I know you will." He clears his throat eventually, and something in his posture shifts, straightens, the way it does before he says something that matters to him.
"Princess," he says, and I feel that word land somewhere warm in my chest—he's taken to it so quickly, so naturally, like he's been calling her that her whole life instead of one week. "I wanted to ask your permission for something."
Sara's small face scrunches in genuine confusion. "Do Kings also need permission?"
I slump slightly in my seat, mortified, because this child has absolutely no filter between her brain and her mouth, and Yuvaan laughs—an actual, unguarded laugh, the kind I remember from years ago and haven't heard nearly enough of since I came back.
"Yes," he tells her. "You're a very important person, after all.
" His eyes flick to mine for just a second, twinkling, warm, and something in my stomach turns over slowly at the sight of it.
Sara giggles, pleased with her new status. "Okay. What is it?"
"I wanted to ask," he says, and there's the smallest hesitation in his voice now, the first sign of nerves I've seen from him all week, "if I could marry your mother."
Sara's face goes completely still. All the playfulness drains out of it in an instant, replaced by something far more solemn, and I realize, with a small jolt, that she understands exactly what's being asked of her—that whatever answer she gives next carries real weight, that her fate and mine are both sitting in her small hands right now, and some part of her knows it.
"Why?" she asks quietly, all traces of her earlier cheer gone.
"Because I need it," he says simply, no performance in it at all, no grand speech, just the plain truth the way he's always given it to me. "And because I want to always protect you two."
Something in me cracks open at that. Not because it's dramatic—it isn't, he says it the way he says everything, short and unadorned—but because I know, all the way down, that he means every word of it exactly as it sounds.
"Will you always keep Mumma happy?" Sara asks, her small voice very serious.
"Always," he says, without a single second of hesitation, and then he looks at me, just briefly, something so steady in his expression that I have to look down at my plate for a moment to keep myself together.
"Then will you be my father?"
The table goes silent. I look up sharply, my heart lodging somewhere in my throat, and watch him absorb the question with a stillness that tells me it's landed somewhere very deep in him. "If that's what you want," he says finally, gently.
"Okay." Sara considers this for one more long beat, weighing it the way she weighs everything, and then she nods, decisive, final. "You can marry Mumma."
The playfulness comes rushing back between them instantly—he says something about needing her signature on an official document, she demands to know if that means she gets a crown too, he promises solemnly that she will absolutely get a crown—and I sit there watching the two of them, my eyes stinging in a way I can't blame entirely on the spices in the food.
I swore, a long time ago, in a hospital room with a newborn and no one beside me, that Sara would never have to look for a father figure, because I decided men weren't safe enough to let near her, not after everything one man had already taken from us both.
I built an entire life around that decision without ever once questioning it.
And now here she is, five years old, negotiating the terms of a crown with the one man in this world I have ever felt completely safe with, laughing in a way I haven't heard from her in longer than I can remember.
Am I allowed to be this greedy? Am I actually allowed to have this—the man I've loved since before I knew what the word meant, sitting across from my daughter and making her laugh like this is the easiest thing in the world.
"Yes," I say, when he finally turns to look at me properly, and my voice comes out steadier than I feel. "But I'll continue to work. I don't want to owe you anything."
Something flickers across his face—not surprise, more like recognition, like he expected exactly this from me and is quietly pleased to have been right. "I knew you'd say something like that." A small smile. "Is it alright if you work for me, then?"
I nod, and he holds my gaze a moment longer than the conversation strictly requires. "Thank you," he says.
The way he looks at me when he says it—steady, grateful, something else underneath both of those things that I don't let myself name—makes it very hard to remember all the reasons I spent the last week telling myself this couldn't possibly end well for my heart.