A day had slipped by since Ruhani’s roka with the heir of the Roy Chowdhury.
Everyone was happy. Except the man who had looked more composed on the outside and never felt more suffocated on the inside. Rudra stood near the windows of the study, hands tucked into his pockets, eyes fixed on the gardens below though he wasn’t really looking. The ongoing talks of his marriage—Kanak picking names, families, pictures—had settled on his chest like a weight he couldn’t shake off. Kanak kept insisting him to atleast meet the girls she had shortlisted for him, but he didn’t. Every time she brought it up, he shut the topic down quietly, almost politely, yet the refusal was firm. And somewhere, the whole thing was pressing heavy on his chest — not because he feared marriage, but because he knew he didn’t love Niyati and even if he agreed to marry someone else, he also knew with absolute clarity that he won’t be able to keep Niyati close. Wanting Niyati while being someone else’s life partner, it would be extremely wrong. Not to the girl he’d marry and not to Niyati. That single thought made the entire idea of marriage feel suffocating.
At the same time, he had been silently digging into Niyati’s past for days. There were questions he was desperate to ask her, things tied to Anvay that he couldn’t ignore anymore. But he knew she would never talk about it, not if he asked directly.