Page 76 of Married in Vengeance

“Aadhya,” he said both in greeting and in acknowledgement of her waiting for him like a stalker with an agenda. She wasn’t a stalker but she sure had an agenda.

“Ram,” she replied, mimicking his tone with perfect intonation.

He pushed his hands into his pockets, waiting for her to speak but it seemed all the women in his life had decided to kill him with silence tonight.

“What can I help you with?” he asked, finally giving up the fight.

Aadhya got to her feet, smoothing her palms over the front of her tunic. “The whole story.”

Ram shrugged out of his suit jacket, rolling his sleeves up and unbuttoning the top button of his shirt. Was it hot in here? The little red numbers blinking on the air conditioner stayed steady at eighteen degrees. So, it wasn’t hot. He was the only one sweating.

“Where would you like me to start?” he asked her, fighting the urge to put his arms around her and pull her close. She’d probably chop his arms off and then beat him senseless with them.

“From the beginning.” She crossed her legs, looking calm and very much in control. Until you noticed the tremor in the fingers she clenched in her lap.

“Virat intercepted an email to me with the video attached. He tracked it back through the anonymous shadow address to you.”

She didn’t flinch, just watched him with those tired eyes.

“I-“ he paused and then added, “Lost my mind. I jumped to conclusions and-“

“No.”

The single word brought his rambling explanation to a halt.

“Don’t do that,” she said, each word a cold, hard sound in the horrible quiet. “Not anymore. I only want the facts.”

“I thought you were blackmailing me with the video. The betrayal,” he took a deep breath and stopped. “I know you don’t want to hear it but it’s the truth. It is a fact. I lost my fucking mind.”

Not a muscle moved in her face as she watched him.

“I didn’t know what you wanted and I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder. I thought tying you to me, tying your fate to mine, meant checkmating you. You couldn’t take me down without going down with me.”

She got to her feet, slowly, like every joint in her body ached from the movement. “And look at us now. Going down together.”

His heart ached as he watched her, the debris of their short time together lying at their feet.

“I let you into my life,” she whispered. “I trusted you to be careful with it. But you ruined it instead. You ruined me.”

He wanted to protest, to drop to his knees and beg for her forgiveness, to offer penance, to ask her to demand her vengeance. He would do it all. Anything she asked, he would give. He would shred the skin from his body to atone for his sins if it would make a difference. But it wouldn’t matter. Because there was no hell deep enough for him to throw himself into.

Aadhya wouldn’t forgive him. And even if she did, he wouldn’t forgive himself.

This was the end of their road. An end he’d written into their story the day he’d tied a thaali around her neck.

“I know it doesn’t count for much,” he said hoarsely. “But I’m sorry.”

Her hand whipped out, slapping him across the face. He didn’t flinch, although his cheek reddened and stung with the impact.

“You’re right,” she told him, her own cheeks flushing with anger. “It means nothing. NOTHING!” The last word was screamed in his face.

“You’re right,” he agreed. “I was wrong. On every front.”

“And how is that supposed to help me?” Angry tears shone in her eyes before slipping down her cheeks as she gazed at him, each drop a streak of acid on his heart and soul.

“It doesn’t. There is nothing that makes it right. Nothing. I can only tell you my truth, Aadhya. I can’t make it right.”

“You married me to punish me,” she said, parroting his words from the day of the interview.

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