Page 15 of Mrs. Rathore

I pressed my knees tightly to my chest, watching the priest chant mantras and circle the sacred fire. Every word echoed around me, but I couldn't focus. Aryan sat beside me. He was rigid, unreadable, his posture perfect and cold. He had mastered the art of stillness. There was no flicker in his eyes, no twitch in his lips, nothing to give away what he was feeling.

It was as if he didn’t even know who he was marrying.

Only I felt the crack in the moment when he applied vermillion to my hairline. That fleeting second my breath caught, and my heart stuttered not out of joy, but because I saw it in his eyes: the fracture. He was breaking inside, and for some reason, it made me feel triumph.

Pain throbbed in my legs, sharp and persistent. I’d forgotten my medicine in all the chaos, and now the dull ache had grown into something excruciating. When the priest asked us to stand, I nearly gasped. The pain shot through my legs like lightning. My father helped me to sit on my chair while my brother stood next to him.

My eyes caught the knot. It was our knot. The one tying the edge of my saree to his stole. It felt less like a sacred thread and more like a chain. Binding. Suffocating.

Being this close to Aryan was unbearable. I could feel his presence, his heat but it wasn’t warmth. It was rage. He wasburning beneath that perfect face. A walking wildfire, controlled only by willpower and that damn handsome jawline.

Handsome. Really? Ugh. Noor and Kavya could write poems about how “gorgeous” he was. To them, Aryan Rathore was a living, breathing fantasy.

To me, he was just a villain in an expensive sherwani.

If I were a witch, I would’ve cursed him already. Hell, I would’ve chewed him alive and sucked his blood dry. That’s how vile he made me feel.

God, I had never felt this awful.

I wished just once that he would show something. Anger. Disgust. Anything. But he just stood there, composed and silent, making me question everything.

What if this didn’t matter to him at all? What if he wasn’t even hurt? What if… what if he wanted to sleep with me to punish me?

No. No. I forced the thought away before it could take root. But then I looked at him.

And he looked back.

For a breathless moment, our eyes met.

And I forgot how to breathe.

I looked down instantly, heart pounding. That glance, did he think what I was thinking? Did he see how broken I was too?

“Now you are husband and wife,” the priest announced.

Applause erupted. Cheers. Whispers. Claps.

I stilled in my wheelchair as the crowd gathered, people stepped forward to bless us, smile at us… and judge us.

Their eyes lingered too long on my chair, then darted to Aryan. I could see the question in their faces: Why her? Why not Ira?

I didn’t blame them. I asked myself the same thing. Why him? Why not my dreams?

I was taken aback when Aryan gripped the handles of my wheelchair and began to wheel me through the crowd. Effortless. Silent. Efficient.

He didn’t look at me once, but I could see the tension in his jaw, the tightness in his throat. He was angry. Maybe furious.

I smiled to myself. Good.

I wanted him to feel a fraction of what I felt the moment I lost my dream.

“Hey, bhabhi…” A stunning girl approached us, her smile wider than Aryan’s shoulders. Her voice was warm, teasing. “You’re really so beautiful.”

Aryan let out a small, dry snicker, like she’d just made a hilarious joke at my expense.

She glared at him and rolled her eyes. “Ignore him,” she said as she took control of my wheelchair and rolled me away from him.

And for the first time that day I could breathe. I could breathe the same air he was not breathing.

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