Page 17 of Married in Vengeance

“Shouldn’t you be at work?” he asked abruptly.

“No.” She walked around the large conference table and took a seat directly across from him. “I’m a normal person which means I take a few days off after my wedding. Unlike others I know.”

“Doesn’t explain why you’re here.” His heart picked up its pace as she stared at him, her eyes boring into him.

“Your new bride would like to see your office. Is that a crime?”

“I don’t have time to play games with you, Aadhya.” He got to his feet, gathering his phone and files. “I have work to do.”

“We have unfinished business, Gadde. I’m not leaving here until we put a pin in it.”

He froze on his way to the door. “You have some gall,” he said, anger leaking through his rigid control.

“Do I? I would think the man who got married to someone to ruin them would be the one with gall.”

So, they were doing this then. Ram turned the lock on his conference room door and then moved to face her. Aadhya roseto her feet in a languid motion, her grace as always looking like liquid silk in motion.

She came to a halt in front of him, their chests brushing against each others, every rushed breath bringing them in closer contact.

“You bastard,” she whispered. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

Ram arched one eyebrow. “Your husband, for starters. Or have you forgotten the interminable rituals we sat through yesterday?”

“Interminable?” Her eyes swam with a toxic cocktail of emotions, anger, hurt, betrayal.

“Yeah.” Ram drawled, shoving the knife in further. “I thought I was going to pass out from boredom.”

She smiled, a small, bitter twist of her lips. “Yeah. Boredom was top of my mind.”

Ram made a point of staring down at his phone and pretending to scroll through something, though he saw nothing on the screen.

“Are we done yet with this morning’s theatrics?”

“What did I do to deserve this? You told me our fling was just physical, nothing else. I accepted that. I respected the map of our equation that you specified. I stayed within the boundaries you drew. Then you redrew those boundaries by sending a fucking marriage proposal home. And now, you’re changing the lines on me again. This isn’t a map I even understand. This is a whole different planet.”

Ram stared at her, his emotions boiling beneath the cold façade he’d perfected over the years.

“You better get used to this planet, sweetheart. It’s the only one you’ll be living on in this lifetime.”

She stared at him, fury flashing over her face. “I want an annulment.”

“No.”

“We have not consummated this marriage,” she hissed. “I want the fucking annulment.”

“You want this consummated?” Ram took a step forward forcing her back a small step. “We can consummate it right now.”

“Fuck you, Ram.” She shoved him back.

“I believe that’s what I just said too.”

Aadhya made a strangled, shrieking sound, like a pressure cooker letting off steam.

“If you won’t agree to an annulment,” she ground out. “Then I’ll file for divorce.”

“You can try.” He smiled. “It will be a pleasure to meet you in court. I can drag this out for years, Aadhya. You can spend those years in Gadde Mansion or you can spend them in the filthy, crowded corridors of a courthouse. You take your pick!”

She stared at him, wild-eyed, breath heaving, temper churning.

---