Page 29 of Married in Vengeance

“That’s not even anatomically possible.” Ram argued, his blood pressure shooting up even higher.

Aadhya let off a muffled scream. “Oh My God! You are the most frustrating man in the universe.”

She turned away from him and picked up the mop lying on the ground. “Not anatomically possible,” she muttered to herself. “Who even fights like that? That’s not even –“

Ram took a deep breath, trying to will the vein pulsing in his forehead to calm down. “If you ever feel the need to come clean, I’ll be waiting.”

“You can wait until the end of this lifetime and the next,” Aadhya told him pleasantly. “Come clean my ass.”

“Fuck this shit,” Ram said wearily, grabbing his laptop bag and walking to the door.

“Yeah. Fuck this shit.” Aadhya shook her head, the mop clattering against the bucket as she swiveled away from him.

He glanced at her, his heart twisting rebelliously at the sight of her stooped shoulders and downbent head. He saw her hand come up and surreptitiously swipe at some tears.

He reached out, his instinct to hold and comfort her too strong to be controlled but before he could touch her, Aadhya pulled herself together and moved away from him.

“I’m not sharing a bedroom with you,” she told him, her back still to him.

His hand fisted in midair and dropped back to his side. “This is my bedroom,” he reminded her.

“I don’t care. There are like five hundred bedrooms in this house. Pick another one to use.”

“There are twelve bedrooms in this house. Regardless, this one is mine and this is where I’ll sleep.”

“Fine.” She turned abruptly to face him, her entire body tightly clenched against whatever emotions were battering her. “I’ll pick one then.”

“Like hell you will,” he snarled. “My parents live in this house, and I won’t have them wondering why we’re sleeping in separate bedrooms.”

“You slept somewhere else last night,” she reminded him, her arms going to wrap around her waist as if she was holding herself together physically.

“Consider that a one-off,” he bit out. “You’re my wife. We sleep in the same room, in the same bed. End of story.”

Aadhya’s hands fell away from her waist. She reached down and grabbed the bucket with the mop sticking out of it.

“I’ll give you this one, Ram Gadde. But only because I know what our families are like. But if this is the end of the story, you can be damned sure I’m writing the fucking epilogue.”

Sixteen

AADHYA

She wasn’t goingto ask him what she’d supposedly done again. She was done.

Aadhya strode into the lobby of Laxmi Builders, her mind churning from the unpleasantness of the previous night. Married for less than a week and she was already looking for any reason she could find not to be around her husband.

And work, blessed work, was the best possible reason. She raised a hand to a colleague who was waving at her and shouldered her way into her cabin. Dropping into her seat, she shrugged out of her suit jacket and draped it over the back of the chair. Powering up her laptop, she smiled as the office boy placed a mug of steaming hot black coffee in front of her.

“Thank you,” she murmured, as she opened her inbox and started wading through the unread emails.

She was frowning to herself and replying to a project manager with multiple questions when a curt knock on her door heralded her brother’s entry.

“Good morning,” she looked up and smiled. The smile faded at the expression on his face. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Who oversaw the BOQ and order placements on Nava?”

The villa gated community an hour from the heart of the city was one of Aadhya’s pet projects. She’d designed it with a Balinese facade and elevation in mind and she’d been ecstatic when it had been approved in one go.

“Well the QS team did their bit and –“

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