Page 110 of One Hellish Wedlock
CHAPTER 20
Back in the present...
“Remembered?” Reyansh asked, his deep voice no longer echoing through the phone but resounding from directly behind her.
Aanya spun around, startled. Her husband stood there with his smug expression. Sothatwas why he had called her to this exact place. To remind her of how they’d first met? How he had remembered everything while she had no recollection at all. She really didn’t recall whom she had kissed that night, until now, and the revelation left her cheeks burning. Damn. What must have Reyansh thought of her? She kissing a stranger? But again, if he already had a poor opinion of her, why did he still marry her?
“Yes,” she murmured, her voice faltering. “I… I remember it now.” Her gaze fell to the floor, shame crawling over her skin. “But that was in the past. And I truly regret it. Drinking that much, blacking out like that… if that’s what alcohol makes me do, then I agree, I shouldn’t touch it. Not just for the sake of this deal we have, but for my own sake. It was a different phase of my life, Reyansh. One I’m not proud of.”
Reyansh said nothing, just kept watching her closely, intensely. He was glad she finally remembered.
“Do you realize how worse that night could have gone?” he asked. “If it hadn’t beenme… if it had been some other man, drunk or worse—do you understand what could’ve happened?”
Aanya’s shoulders dropped, guilt pooling in her chest.
“I know,” she said quietly. “You don’t have to rub it in. I already feel it. So is that why you dragged me to Cape Town? To throw that one mistake back in my face?”
He studied her in silence as she continued.
“I didn’t even remember your face, Reyansh,” she continued, eyes flashing. “Not that night. Not the moment. But you did. You remembered it all. So why the hell would you agree to marry me? You knew I wasn’t your type.”
Reyansh raised a brow. Now she was finally asking the right questions.
“And I don’t think you’re the kind of man who’d wreck his entire life just to avenge a kiss,” she added, her voice softening as confusion crept in. “So why, Reyansh? Why marry me?”
Her heart stammered as she saw his eyes darken. Reyansh exhaled slowly before breaking his silence.
“Because no one ever left a mark on me the wayyoudid,” he said. “Not before. Not after. I don’t know how or why, but that night...it never left me.Younever left me. I was smitten, Aanya. By you. In every damn way.”
Her knees weakened. Was he serious? That drunken night when she’d stumbled into his life uninvited, was what had struck him? What was that supposed to mean? Some twisted form of love at first sight?
“You were smitten?” she asked, uncertain whether to laugh or cry. “By me?”
His nod was faint, but it was real. “Hopelessly.”
She stared at him in disbelief. Reyansh stepped closer, pulling her gently into his arms.
“Why do you think I asked your father for your hand in marriage?” he said quietly.
Aanya swallowed hard unable to process his words. One kiss from her and he’d decided he wanted her? As his wife? Pride or panic? She couldn’t tell which she felt more.
She jerked out of his hold, suddenly alarmed. “That night meantnothingto me,” she said sharply.
His brow arched. “Maybe not back then,” he murmured. “But now? Now that you know what really happened, and who it was with… don’t tell me it still meansnothing.”
He reached out and brushed a bead of sweat from her brow, and her body betrayed her with a visible shiver.
“Why didn’t you tell me all this before?” she snapped, dodging his question, trying to steady herself.
“When was I supposed to?” he retorted. “The next day of our marriage you just packed your bags and disappeared.
“You should’ve told me before the wedding!” she shouted. “You went to my father, pitched some deal, and suddenly I was just part of the package. You didn’t bother meeting me, talking to me, nothing. All you cared about was that one kiss in this damned bar!”
Regret flickered in his eyes.
“I was busy, Aanya,” he replied tightly. “I had a company to run. I kept telling myself there would be time later, on our wedding night, maybe. But then you gave me that performance—”
“Performance?” she nearly yelled. “I was drunk! That was myonlyfault. But you? You judged me. You walked out of that hotel room like I was trash.”
