Chapter Eighteen The Matriarchs and the Devotion
The cavernous expanse of the Presidential Suite, typically a fortress of impeccable silence and controlled luxury, felt as though all the oxygen had been violently sucked from it.
Anshira stood frozen on the plush carpet, the silk of her sapphire gown brushing against Rovanth’s tuxedo trousers.
She stared at the woman on the velvet couch, genuinely shocked and quietly, profoundly saddened by the wreckage she was witnessing.
Ananya Singhania, the polished, untouchable queen of the KDG legal department, was emotionally unraveling before their eyes, a glass of amber scotch trembling dangerously in her manicured hand.
Rovanth felt much the same, though his sadness was instantly eclipsed by a fierce, protective instinct.
The moment Ananya’s voice cracked with bitter, drunken resentment, Rovanth’s arm tightened around Anshira’s waist. He pulled her slightly behind him, shielding her body with his own broad frame, refusing to let the toxicity of the room touch his wife.
With his free hand, Rovanth smoothly retrieved his encrypted phone from his breast pocket. He pressed a single button on speed dial.
“Vikram,” Rovanth said, his voice a low, commanding whip crack that cut through the air of the suite. “Get up to the Presidential Suite immediately. Bring Girish. And have Girish contact Kalyani from Legal. Tell her we have a medical emergency regarding her director.”
He ended the call, his dark eyes never leaving Ananya.
On the couch, Ananya swung wildly between extremes.
One moment, she was screaming, her voice raw and jagged as she hurled accusations into the empty space of the room, demanding to know why the universe had rewritten her destiny.
The next moment, the fury would collapse into a hollow, haunting laughter that echoed off the high, gilded ceilings.
“It’s funny, really,” Ananya slurred, staring at the bottom of her crystal glass, a fresh wave of tears ruining the flawless contouring on her cheeks.
“I memorized the stock portfolios. I learned how to charm the board of directors. I spent ten years making sure there was no vulnerability in our merger. And I lost to a girl who got dizzy at a party. It’s a comedy, Rovanth. It’s an absolute tragedy of a comedy.”
Standing safely behind Rovanth’s shoulder, Anshira felt no anger.
The malice Ananya might have intended was completely lost in the sheer, pathetic devastation of her state.
Anshira felt only a deep, hollow ache of sympathy.
She knew what it felt like to be trapped in this very room, unmoored, feeling as though the world had ended.
Looking at Ananya, Anshira didn't see a rival; she saw a woman mourning the only life she had ever been taught to value.
Within moments, the mahogany doors of the suite clicked open.
Vikram, the imposing head of KDG security, stepped swiftly into the room, followed closely by Girish, Rovanth’s impeccably dressed private secretary.
Behind them hurried Kalyani, a soft-spoken, incredibly competent woman in a simple cotton saree, who had served as Ananya’s personal secretary for five years.
“Sir,” Vikram acknowledged, his sharp eyes instantly assessing the threat level in the room and finding only a broken executive.
“Handle this with the utmost discretion, Vikram,” Rovanth ordered quietly, keeping Anshira pressed protectively to his side. “No one outside this room hears a word of this.”
Kalyani immediately rushed forward, her face filled with genuine, heartbreaking concern for her boss. She knelt beside the velvet couch, gently prying the crystal tumbler from Ananya’s loose grip.
“Ma'am, it’s Kalyani,” the soft-spoken secretary murmured, placing a comforting hand on Ananya’s trembling shoulder. “Let’s get you up. Let’s go home. The car is waiting downstairs in the private basement. No one will see us.”
Ananya looked at her secretary, the fight suddenly draining out of her completely. The hollow laughter died, replaced by a quiet, shuddering sob. “Kalyani... I did everything right. I swear, I did everything right.”
“I know you did, Ma'am,” Kalyani soothed, her voice a gentle, maternal anchor in the chaos. “Come on now. Lean on me.”
With Vikram and Girish forming a discreet, professional perimeter, Kalyani gently guided the weeping legal director to her feet.
Rovanth held his wife securely against his chest, turning Anshira slightly so her face was buried in his lapel, physically shielding her eyes and ears from the worst of the tragic scene.
They stood in silence as the secretaries and security chief guided Ananya out of the room.
The doors clicked shut.
The silence that rushed back into the Presidential Suite was deafening.
Rovanth let out a long, ragged breath, the tension slowly bleeding from his broad shoulders. He turned his attention to the woman in his arms, his hands coming up to gently frame her face.
“Are you alright?” he asked, his dark eyes scanning her features with a frantic, tender intensity.
Anshira offered a small, shaken nod. “I'm fine. I'm okay.”
Rovanth gently took her hand, leading her away from the entryway and toward the plush, oversized armchair near the window.
They sat down together, Anshira tucking her legs beneath her on the cushion while Rovanth sat on the edge of the matching ottoman directly in front of her, their knees touching.
Even in the warm, amber light of the lamps, Rovanth could see the worry and profound sadness still lingering in the depths of her dark eyes.
“It’s just... so sad,” Anshira admitted, her voice barely a whisper, looking at the empty spot on the couch where Ananya had just unraveled.
She looked back to Rovanth, her brow furrowed in genuine distress.
“I had no real idea, Rovanth. I knew she was upset about the change in plans, but I didn't know she harbored such deep, consuming feelings for you. I feel awful.”
Rovanth reached forward, taking both of her hands in his, his grip firm and infinitely reassuring.
“Anshira, look at me,” he commanded softly, waiting until her dark eyes met his. “You have nothing to feel guilty about. Do not carry a single ounce of her burden tonight.”
“But she is in so much pain,” Anshira countered gently.
“She is in pain,” Rovanth acknowledged, his voice steady and brutally honest, “but I need you to understand something. Ananya and I were never truly in love. Not in the way she is trying to rewrite it in her mind tonight.”
Anshira tilted her head, listening closely as Rovanth laid bare the reality of his past.
“Ours was an arrangement,” Rovanth explained, his thumbs tracing slow, calming circles over her knuckles.
“It was an understood, expected alignment between two powerful families. We were intellectually compatible. We both understood the demands of the KDG empire. It was a corporate merger dressed up as a courtship.”
He paused, ensuring his words were perfectly clear, refusing to lie to his wife to spare her feelings, but needing her to comprehend the vast, unbridgeable difference.
“I will admit that, at one point, I liked Ananya sincerely,” Rovanth continued, his voice dropping to a softer, more intimate timbre. “I respected her. I thought we would build a formidable life together. But Anshira... what I feel for you is in an entirely different category altogether.”
Anshira’s breath hitched, the sheer intensity of his gaze pinning her to the chair.
“What I feel for you,” Rovanth murmured, leaning closer until she could feel the warmth of his breath against her skin, “is a depth of desire, a love, and a consuming tenderness that I had simply never experienced before.
I didn't even know I was capable of feeling this way until you walked into my life. She was a plan. You are my soul.”
The profound, truth of his words washed over Anshira, bringing a fresh, warm rush of tears to her eyes.
“And you need to know,” Rovanth added, his voice thickening with a desperate, beautiful sincerity, “that I came to this realization long before Vikram ever brought me the security footage.”
Anshira froze, her eyes widening in sheer shock. “What?”
“Before the full truth came to light,” Rovanth confessed, laying his ultimate vulnerability bare.
“Before Sneha and Rhea were arrested, before everything unraveled... I was already thinking that what I felt with Ananya wasn’t love and it would have been a tame life had I married her – but the guilt of breaking that arrangement bled out of me even before the whole truth came out. ”
He brought her hands to his mouth, pressing a desperate, reverent kiss to her knuckles.
“Once the truth did emerge, and the footage cleared your name,” Rovanth revealed, “I spoke directly with Ananya. I made it unmistakably, brutally clear to her that I had no intention of losing my wife, and that I would never pursue a divorce. She was aware of my feelings from then on. Ananya may have already sensed my shifting feelings for you months before that conversation even took place.”
Hearing this, Anshira found herself genuinely marveling. Her highly analytical mind scrambled to construct the timeline.
“That conversation happened so long ago,” Anshira whispered, her mind racing. “That was... that was months before you ever even began properly courting me. Before you asked me on a date.”
“Because I knew I had to earn the right to court you,” Rovanth smiled softly, a mix of shame and pride in his eyes. “I had to prove I was safe before I could ask you to stay.”
Still, despite the breathtaking romance of his confession, Anshira’s inherent empathy refused to extinguish the lingering thread of guilt. She looked down at their joined hands, her voice quiet.