TEACH ME
ANAMIKA
The invitation sits on the dresser for two whole days before I finally pick it up and force myself to read it properly.
I have looked at it enough times to know every detail without actually taking in the words. The thick ivory card. The gold border. The Devgarh Foundation crest pressed into the corner. And, beneath the date and venue, my name.
Maharani Anamika Jadeja.
I still have to read it twice every time.
There was a time when my name appeared nowhere in this palace unless someone was calling for my mother.
I grew up knowing exactly which doors I could walk through, which corridors I could use, which rooms I was supposed to disappear from before the important people arrived.
Now my name is printed beside Yuvaan's on an invitation that will go to council members, industrialists, royals, politicians and people whose families have been attending these events for generations.
And apparently, I'm expected to stand among them and look like I belong.
That is the part that scares me.
I've watched Yuvaan attend this gala before I left.
I remember seeing him leave for it in perfectly tailored suits, his expression already tired before he'd even stepped into the car.
He would return hours later, tie loosened, jacket draped over one arm, looking like he'd spent the entire evening being someone the room expected him to be.
This year, I'll be standing beside him. The thought makes my stomach twist.
I find him in his study that evening, bent over some papers at his desk, glasses sitting low on his nose. He looks up the moment I enter, and I immediately regret not rehearsing this conversation first.
"Yuvaan."
He sets his pen down. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing." His eyebrow lifts.
I sigh. "Okay. Something."
He waits.
I hate that he does that. He never rushes me when I'm trying to find words. Somehow that makes finding them harder. I hold up the invitation. "Do you actually want me to come to the gala?"
His expression changes immediately. "Of course I do."
"Are you sure?"
He pushes his chair back. "Anamika."
"I don't know how to do this." The words tumble out before I can stop them.
"I don't know what I'm supposed to say to half the people there.
I don't know which council members are important, which ones hate you, which ones pretend not to hate you, or which ones I'm supposed to smile at even if they've spent the last ten years saying horrible things about people like me. "
He is already walking toward me. "And what if I say something stupid?"
He keeps coming. "What if I use the wrong fork? What if I don't know who someone is? What if everyone looks at me and thinks—"
He reaches me. "What if they wonder how the housekeeper's daughter ended up standing beside the Maharaja?"
His hands come up around my face before I can finish. And then he kisses me. Not hurriedly. Not like he's trying to silence me. Like he's trying to remind me of something.
His palms are warm against my cheeks, his thumbs resting just beneath my eyes, and the kiss is slow enough that I feel the tension leave me in pieces.
My fingers curl instinctively into the front of his suit, and for those few seconds, there is no gala.
No ballroom. No council. No people waiting to decide whether I belong.
There is only him.
When he pulls back, he doesn't move far. His forehead rests against mine, and I can feel his breath against my lips. "You are not going to embarrass me."
I let out a shaky breath. "You don't know that."
"I do." His voice is so certain that I look up at him.
"I've watched you build an entire life with your own hands," he says.
"You built that bookshop when you had every reason to believe you weren't capable of building anything.
You raised Sara when you had no one standing beside you.
You walked back into this palace after everything that happened here and somehow managed to make it feel like home again.
" His thumb brushes beneath my eye. "Do you honestly think I'm going to stand in a ballroom and worry about whether you know which fork to use? "
A laugh escapes me despite myself. “You say that now."
"I'll say it there too." I look down at the invitation between us.
"They'll talk."
"Let them."
"Yuvaan—"
"I mean it."
There is something different in his face now.
Not anger. Something firmer. "I know exactly where you came from, Anamika. I know what you had to survive to get here. I have seen you since childhood, I have seen you study endlessly for that scholarship, I have seen you crying over how you didn’t deserve your mother because she had to work so hard for you, I know how hard you worked for every single thing you have. And I'm proud of you."
My eyes sting.
He notices immediately. "I am proud that you're my wife," he says quietly. "Not because your name is on an invitation. Because you're you." I swallow hard. He presses one last kiss to my forehead. "So stop worrying about whether you belong beside me."
I look at him. "You do."
That does it.
I blink rapidly and look away before the tears can actually fall. “Okay."
"Okay?"
"I believe you."
His mouth curves into the smallest smile. "Good."
I look down at the invitation again. Then an entirely different thought occurs to me. "Can you teach me?"
His brows draw together. "Teach you what?"
"The dancing." He stares at me. "You know. The royal salsa."
For a second, he just looks at me. Then he laughs. "Royal salsa?"
"You know what I mean."
"There is no such thing as royal salsa."
"Well, there should be."
He is still smiling. "I don't want to stand in front of everyone and look like I've never danced before."
"You've danced before."
"Not like this."
I put the invitation down. "Teach me."
"Now?"
"Now."
He studies me for a moment, and something soft appears in his expression. Then he holds out his hand. "All right." I stare at it. He gives me a little bow. "May I have this dance, my lady?"
I can't help smiling. "You may." I place my hand in his.
His fingers close around mine, and he draws me toward him. The speaker on his desk fills the room with slow music, soft strings spilling into the quiet. His other hand settles at my waist, warm and steady, and suddenly I'm aware of how close we are.
Much too aware.
"Relax," he murmurs.
"I'm relaxed."
"You've been holding your breath."
I exhale.
He smiles. "Better."
"You're enjoying this."
"Very much."
"Of course you are."
He steps forward. I follow.
"Don't look at your feet."
"I'm going to fall."
"You won't."
"How do you know?"
"Because I'm holding you." The answer is so simple that my feet stop worrying quite so much.
We move again. One step. Then another.
I stumble. His hand tightens around mine.
"Sorry."
"Stop apologizing."
"I nearly stepped on you."
"I told you. You can step on my feet."
"That sounds painful."
"I've survived worse."
I laugh. He guides me through the turn, patient when I get it wrong and quietly pleased when I get it right. I smile. The room feels smaller somehow. The music continues, soft beneath the sound of our breathing, and his hand remains at my waist as we move around the study.
After a while, my steps stop feeling like something I have to consciously calculate. I simply follow him. And then I realize I'm not looking at my feet anymore. I'm looking at him.
"You know," he says, "you used to hate dancing."
"I hated being watched."
His smile fades into something gentler. "I remember."
I look down at our joined hands. "You always wanted to dance."
"No." He gives me a look. "I wanted to dance with you." My eyes lift.
He keeps moving us slowly around the room. "When we were children, you used to say you'd never learn properly because you hated people watching you make mistakes."
"I was very wise."
"You were terrified."
I make a face. "Same thing."
He laughs softly. "I used to think I'd teach you one day."
My steps falter. He catches me easily, pulling me back into rhythm.
"You thought that?"
"All the time."
"Why?" He looks at me like the answer should be obvious.
"Because I wanted to be the person you felt safe making mistakes with."
Something warm spreads through my chest. "You really have been waiting a very long time, haven't you?"
His fingers tighten around mine. "Seven years was only the part where I had to wait without you."
I don't know what to say to that. So I lean into him instead. My cheek finds his shoulder, and his arm shifts around me automatically, drawing me closer without interrupting the rhythm. His heartbeat is steady beneath my palm.
The invitation is still sitting on his desk. The gala is still three weeks away. There will still be people who whisper. There will still be people who remember exactly where I came from and think that somehow makes me less deserving of where I am now.
But standing here in his arms, I suddenly don't feel quite as frightened of them. "You're going to stay beside me, right?" I ask quietly.
His cheek brushes my hair. "Every second."
"What if I mess up?"
"I'll be there."
"What if I forget someone's name?"
"I'll remind you."
"What if I use the wrong fork?"
"I'll use the wrong fork too."
I lift my head, laughing. "You would?"
"I'd use all of them just to make you feel better."
"That's ridiculous."
"I've been told I'm very devoted."
I smile. He looks down at me. "Anamika?"
"Hm?"
"You don't have to become someone else before you walk into that room." His thumb brushes over my knuckles. "Just walk in with me."
Something inside me settles. I nod. "Okay.
" He pulls me gently back into the dance.
And this time, I don't count my steps. I don't watch my feet.
I don't think about the ballroom. I just let him lead me, let the music carry us around the quiet study, and let myself believe, for the first time, that perhaps belonging was never something I needed to prove.
Perhaps it was simply something I could choose.
And if I have to walk into that ballroom with a hundred people watching, I'll do it with his hand in mine.
That, I think, I can manage.