TO EARN YOU
ANAMIKA
Sara is asleep by the time the house finally quiets down.
After insisting she deserved three extra bedtime stories because surviving what she's already proudly calling her "big adventure" clearly earned her special treatment, she'd fought sleep with every ounce of determination she possessed.
In the end, exhaustion won anyway. The last story had barely reached the middle before her words blurred into sleepy murmurs, her tiny hand still wrapped around mine as she drifted off.
Now the palace feels different.
Still.
The sort of silence that only arrives after everyone has finally exhaled following a frightening day.
I've changed into fresh clothes, washed the smell of lake water from my skin, and dried my hair only enough that the damp ends still cling coolly to the back of my neck.
I curl up in one corner of the sofa near the window, pulling my legs underneath me, letting myself simply breathe for the first time since the afternoon.
I hear the door open softly.
Yuvaan walks in without saying anything, fresh from his own shower, sleeves rolled to his forearms, his hair still slightly damp. He doesn't reach for paperwork. Doesn't look at his phone.
Instead, he comes straight to me.
He lowers himself beside me until our shoulders brush lightly, and for a long moment he doesn't speak. I glance sideways. He's already looking at me. Not intensely. Not searching for anything. Just . . . looking. As though reassuring himself I'm actually here.
"Daisy." The nickname is soft enough that it almost disappears into the quiet room.
"Hm?"
"I want to ask you something." Something in his voice makes me sit up a little straighter. Not because it sounds serious exactly . . . but because it sounds careful. The way he speaks when he's been carrying a thought around for hours and has finally decided to let someone else see it.
"Of course."
He rubs absentmindedly at his thumb for a second before looking back at me. "If we weren't already married . . . " A tiny smile appears at the corner of his mouth. " . . . how would you like me to ask you out?"
I stare at him. "What?"
He laughs quietly under his breath. "I've been thinking about it all evening."
His gaze drops briefly to our joined shoulders before returning to mine. "I've loved you for so long." He says it so simply now. As naturally as breathing. And somehow those words still find entirely new places inside me every single time.
"But I never got to court you." His voice grows quieter. "There was never a chance."
"We were children..."
"...then there was that train platform..."
"...then seven years where I only knew you through memories..."
"...and after that..."
His smile turns faintly crooked.
"...a marriage I arranged because I was too coward to share my true feelings with you."
His fingers are loosely clasped together, but every now and then one thumb brushes nervously across the other. It's such a small thing. Anyone else would probably miss it.
I don't. I've known this man too long. He only fidgets when something matters. "Yuvaan..."
"I want to ask properly." He doesn't let me interrupt. "I know it's late." He looks a bit shy, "I know it's backwards. I know we're already husband and wife."
A quiet laugh escapes him.
"I know your daughter has adopted my mother."
"And we share a bedroom."
"And none of this makes any practical sense."
He looks at me with such quiet honesty that my chest aches. "But I still want to earn it." My breath catches. He reaches over and gently takes my hand into both of his. His palms are warm. Mine are suddenly not.
"I don't want the best parts of loving you to be things circumstance decided for us." His thumb traces slowly across my knuckles.
"You deserved flowers because I wanted to give them."
"You deserved nervous invitations."
"Awkward first dates."
"You deserved someone wondering all day whether you'd say yes."
A tiny smile tugs at his mouth.
"You deserved the chance to reject me."
I laugh before I can stop myself. "We're married."
"I know."
"We sleep in the same bed."
"I know."
"My daughter practically lives in your lap."
"I've noticed."
"And she calls your mother Dadi."
"I've definitely noticed that one."
I shake my head, smiling helplessly. "I don't think there's much left for you to earn, Pretty Boy."
His eyes soften. "I know." He lifts my hand a little higher. "I don't want to earn your love because I think I don't already have it."
"I want to earn the memories we never got." The words settle quietly between us. No dramatic declaration. No grand gesture. Just honesty.
Simple.
Steady.
"I spent so many years loving you from a distance," he says softly.
"I don't want the years we actually have together to begin with all the moments we missed.
" Something inside me melts completely. I never let myself imagine this.
Not once. When I thought about him all those years in Mumbai, I imagined impossible things.
Meeting again. Talking. Maybe loving each other if life somehow became kinder. But this . . . Being courted by my own husband. Being asked on a first date after already falling in love. After already marrying. After already building a family. It's ridiculous. It's completely backwards.
And somehow . . . it's the most romantic thing anyone has ever offered me.
"Okay." The word comes out quieter than I intended. He looks up immediately. I smile. "Ask me." For the first time since I've known him . . . I watch Yuvaan Jadeja become genuinely nervous.
Not diplomatic. Not careful. Not composed. Nervous.
His shoulders straighten instinctively. He clears his throat once.
His fingers tighten around mine almost imperceptibly.
This man can negotiate billion-rupee agreements without blinking.
Can address thousands of people without notes.
Can stare down an entire council chamber without so much as shifting in his chair.
And right now . . . asking his own wife on a date has made him visibly anxious.
It's so unexpectedly sweet that I have to bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from smiling too soon.
He takes one slow breath. Then another. Finally, he looks straight into my eyes.
"Daisy . . . " His voice is quiet. "So .
. . " Another tiny breath. "May I . . . " The corners of his mouth lift nervously.
" . . . take my wife on our first date tomorrow? "
For one impossible moment . . . everything else disappears. All of it fades until there's only this man sitting in front of me, asking me a question he should have asked years ago, with the same nervous hope any ordinary boy might have carried.
My vision blurs.
Not from sadness.
From something so overwhelmingly gentle that I don't know where to put it. Nobody has ever looked at me the way he's looking at me now. Like my answer could genuinely change his entire day. Like after everything we've already survived together . . . he still wants permission.
I squeeze his hand. "I'd love that." It's barely louder than a whisper.
His shoulders loosen so visibly that I actually see the relief leave his body.
He smiles. Not politely. Not the measured smile the world knows.
This one starts in his eyes before it reaches his mouth.
Warm. Bright. Almost boyish. Without taking his eyes off mine, he lifts my hand slowly toward his lips.
His gaze flickers to me one last time—as though silently asking again.
I nod. Barely.
He presses a kiss against my knuckles. Unhurried. Gentle. So careful it almost hurts. His lips linger there for just a heartbeat longer than necessary before he lowers my hand again, still holding it as though letting go isn't currently an option.
"Tomorrow," he says softly. The certainty in those two syllables makes me smile.
"Tomorrow," I echo.
We don't say much after that. We don't need to. We simply sit together beneath the warm glow of the bedside lamp, fingers loosely entwined between us. And somewhere between the quiet and the comfort, a thought slips into my heart so gently that I almost miss it.
After everything life stole from us . . . After every year spent loving each other from opposite sides of silence . . . I'm somehow about to go on my very first date . . . with the man I've loved almost my entire life.