Page 84 of Married in Vengeance

Ram finally lost the daily battle he fought and reached for her, his hands cupping her cheeks and turning her face to his. Her tear drenched eyes, quivering lips and pale cheeks had his heart turning over in his chest. He dropped his forehead to hers, his eyes closing with pain.

“You are not a black stain, Aadhya. You are the brightest part of the sun. You are the light that makes life possible for me. You are everything. You have always been everything.”

He saw Aarush approach them from the other side of the road and dropped his hands and stepped back.

“You don’t have to believe anything else I say but please believe this. Just this. You’re the sun, Aadhya, Bright, fierce, and lifegiving. Don’t let anyone, not even me, take that from you.”

Forty-Six

AADHYA

“You’rethe brightest part of the sun.”

Two weeks later, Aadhya still couldn’t get the words out of her head. She wanted to. She couldn’t do this anymore. She couldn’t love a man who thought her capable of what she’d been accused of.

And yet, she did.

She loved him with a gut-wrenching ache that left her feeling constantly lost and off kilter. She went into work, she fought to stabilize her company along with her brother and father and she went home to cry herself asleep in her childhood bed. She reached for him in the middle of the night, while half asleep, her body refusing to accept what her mind told her. She woke every morning, her heart a throbbing bruise in her chest, hoping she’d bump into him at work or otherwise, just so she could see his face one more time.

Unable to bear the cacophony in her head, she went looking for her brother at the office. She found him in a huddle with the company’s finance team, poring over some papers.

“Aadhya?” His eyes sharpened as they caught sight of her standing by the door. “Is everything okay?”

She nodded, tilting her head towards the door in a silent question.

“Excuse me for a moment,” he told the other people in the room and followed her out of the conference room and to his office where they could have some privacy.

“I want you to file the divorce papers.” The words shot out of her before the door had even fully slammed shut behind her.

Aarush paused, seemingly computing the words she spewed at him. “Okay,” he agreed for a second. “Have you read the Memorandum of Understanding Ram gave you?”

“No.” She shook her head, anxiety rising in a tidal wave inside her, her body again fighting what her brain was telling her to do. “I don’t want to.”

“You need to.” Aarush walked over to his desk and pulled out the papers, holding it out to her.

Aadhya stared at it like it was a venomous snake. “You read it.”

“Aadhya.” Aarush’s tone brooked no argument. “If you want to take the hard calls, you can’t shy away from the path to them. Read the damn agreement.”

She pulled the papers out of his hand, almost ripping the corner of one sheet in her agitation. She flipped the sheets, her eye racing from one line of legal jargon to the other. And then she slowed, her mind catching up to the words she was speed reading.

“Why?” she whispered, looking up at her brother. “Why would he do this?”

Her brother smiled faintly. “I could take an educated guess but I think it’s a question you need to ask him.”

“I don’t need his money.” Her voice rose in agitation. “I don’t want it.”

“And yet, he’s giving you almost all of it.”

“Change it.” She held the papers out to Aarush. “Make him change it. Make him take it back.”

“You need to talk to him about that. Not me.”

Furious tears stung her eyes as she stared at her brother. “You think I can’t?”

“You can do anything, Chinna,” Aarush said gently. “But this is something you can’t put off forever. You want a divorce? Go, get one.”

“You think I don’t want one?” Aadhya’s temper flared in direct reaction to her brother’s calm. “You think I’m simply threatening it? That I’m crying wolf?”

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