Chapter 12 : Shadows of the Parting

The heavy mahogany doors of the ballroom finally groaned shut behind the last of the dignitaries. Arnav stood in the foyer, his tie loosened, the mask of the charismatic host slipping to reveal the exhaustion beneath. His eyes instinctively scanned the thinning crowd, searching for a flash of black silk, but the corner where he had left Khushi was vacant. A strange, cold prickle of anxiety began to crawl up his spine. He brushed off the final pleasantries of the hotel manager and headed toward the elevators, his stride lengthening.

When he reached the suite, he found the door unlocked. He pushed it open, expecting to find the room bathed in the warm amber glow of the lamps, perhaps with Khushi sitting on the edge of the bed, waiting to trade barbs with him.

Instead, he stepped into a void.

The suite was plunged into darkness, save for the flickering, ghostly light of a dozen candles Khushi must have lit in his absence. The tall French windows were thrown wide open, allowing the biting, crystalline wind of the Shimla night to howl into the room. The sheer curtains whipped around like frantic spirits, and the temperature had dropped so low that Arnav could see his own breath misting in the air.

Then, he saw her.

She was standing by the open window, her silhouette framed by the jagged peaks of the moonlit Himalayas. As Arnav moved closer, his footsteps faltered. On the floor, discarded like a shed skin, lay the expensive black silk saree he had watched her drape with such care only hours ago. It sat in a dark, crumpled heap—a symbol of the "Mrs. Raizada" persona she had worn for the public.

Khushi turned slowly to face him. Arnav felt the air leave his lungs.

She was no longer his bride. She had stripped away every vestige of the woman he had claimed in front of the world. She stood before him clad in a simple, coarse white saree—the same lifeless garment she had worn for three years of mourning. The transformation was jarring, a violent regression that hit him harder than any physical blow.

Her face, which had been glowing with subtle makeup and a forced smile at the party, was now stark and pale. The ruby lip color was gone, leaving her mouth looking bruised and weary. But it was the missing details that truly screamed. The diamond studs he had seen in her ears were gone. The heavy, diamond-encrusted mangalsutra—the chain he had fastened around her neck with a silent vow of possession—was nowhere to be seen.

And then, his eyes traveled to her forehead.

The vibrant, defiant streak of red sindoor he had applied with his own thumb, the mark that shouted her belonging to him, had been wiped clean. Her maang was a pale, empty hollow. She looked exactly as she had when he first arrived from London: a widow, a ghost, a woman who belonged to no one.

"What is this, Khushi?" Arnav’s voice was a low, dangerous rumble, vibrating with a mix of shock and mounting fury. He took a step toward her, the candlelight casting long, predatory shadows on the walls. "Close the windows. You’re going to freeze to death."

Khushi didn't move. Her eyes, honey-brown and brimming with a terrifying clarity, fixed on his. "The cold feels honest, Arnav. This saree feels honest. The black silk... the diamonds... they were just lies we told the people downstairs."

"I told you to stay at the party," he gritted out, ignoring her words as he reached out to grab her arm. "I turned around and you were gone. Do you have any idea how it looked? My wife vanishing in the middle of her own introduction?"

"I am not your wife," she said, her voice unnervingly calm. "I saw you, Arnav. I saw you with Simran."

Arnav froze, his hand inches from her sleeve. The name acted like a cooling agent on his rage, replacing it with a sharp, uncomfortable guilt.

"I saw the way you laughed with her," Khushi continued, a single tear tracking down her pale cheek, cutting a path through the silence. "I saw the way you held her. You weren't the man who glares at me across the dinner table. You weren't the man who drinks himself into a stupor to forget my face. You were happy. You were free."

"Khushi, that has nothing to do with—"

"It has everything to do with this!" she gestured wildly to her white saree and the empty space on her forehead. "I met her mother. She told me the truth. You were supposed to marry her. You wanted to marry her. Everything was fixed until you threw your life away to save mine in that garden. You traded your happiness for my 'honor,' and I won't let you do it anymore."

Arnav’s jaw tightened so hard he felt a muscle pulse in his cheek. He stepped into her personal space, his towering frame casting her into shadow. The scent of the cold wind and the dying candles swirled between them.

"You think you’re doing me a favor?" he hissed, his voice trembling with suppressed emotion. "You think putting on this white shroud and wiping off my name makes you a martyr? It makes you a coward, Khushi. You’re running back to the darkness because you’re afraid of the light I’m trying to give you."

"The light is a lie!" she screamed back, the sound echoing off the high ceilings. "Every time you look at me, you see the brother you lost! Every time you touch me, you remember a betrayal that never happened! You are tied to a woman you hate while the woman you like is right there, waiting for you. I am setting you free, Arnav. Look at me. I am back to being the 'manhus' widow your Dadi wants me to be. Go back to Simran. Go back to your life."

Arnav didn't speak. He reached out and gripped her shoulders, his fingers digging into the thin cotton of the white saree. He shook her once, a desperate, silent plea for her to stop. The hatred he had nursed for three years was suddenly warring with a terrifying realization: he didn't want to be free. Not if it meant she returned to the shadows.

"You don't get to decide what I regret," he whispered, his face inches from hers. "You don't get to wipe off the sindoor and pretend I didn't claim you.

"You looked happy with her." she sobbed, her strength finally breaking. "you looked like the Arnav I used to know only when I wasn't there?"

"Because for ten minutes, I allowed myself to pretend the last three years didn't happen!" he roared, his voice breaking. "I pretended there was no accident, no death, and no broken bangles! But then I looked for you, and the moment I couldn't find you, the world went black again. You are the pain and the blood.

He looked down at her bare neck, at the absence of the diamond mangalsutra. Without a word, he turned and swept the candles off the bedside table in a fit of rage, the room plunging into near-total darkness, illuminated only by the pale moonlight.

"Put it back on," he commanded, his voice trembling.

"No," she whispered.

"Put. It. Back. On."

He reached for the mangalsutra that lay on the table beside her. His hands were shaking as he stepped toward her. The wind howled through the window, whipping Khushi’s white saree around his legs. In the shadows, they looked like two ghosts haunting a life that had ended long ago.

The darkness of the room was absolute now, save for the jagged silver of the moon cutting across the floor. Arnav moved toward her, the diamond mangalsutra swaying in his hand like a pendulum of fate. He didn't care about the cold, the wind, or the bitter irony of the white cotton she had retreated into. He only cared about the defiance in her eyes.

"I won't be a burden you carry out of guilt," Khushi choked out, backing away until her heels hit the edge of the stone balcony. "Give yourself the chance to be the man I saw tonight. Give yourself Simran. Just let me go!"

"Shut up, Khushi! Just shut up!" Arnav roared, the sound raw and jagged. He lunged forward, his large hands catching her by the waist and hauling her flush against his chest. The contrast was startling—his expensive wool suit against her coarse, mourning cotton.

He didn't wait for her to protest. With a forceful, trembling hand, he reached behind her neck and snapped the gold chain back into place. The diamond pendant landed heavily against her collarbone, a cold mark of his territory.

"You are not going anywhere," he hissed, his breath hot against her freezing skin.

He turned then, his eyes searching the shadows of the vanity until they landed on a small, ornate box. He grabbed it, flipping the lid to reveal the deep crimson powder—the sindoor he had insisted she bring.

"Arnav, no..."

"Yes," he countered, his voice vibrating with a terrifying resolve. He dipped his thumb into the red dust. He didn't just take a pinch; he coated his thumb in the color of blood and fire.

He stepped back into her space, his towering frame cutting off the moonlight. He gripped her chin with one hand, forcing her to look up at him, while his thumb hovered over her forehead.

"You think you can just wipe me away?" he whispered, his voice cracking with a mixture of rage and desperation. "You think you can go back to being a widow because it’s easier than being mine? Look at me, Khushi!"

With a brutal, sweeping motion, he dragged his thumb up her maang. He didn't stop at a small streak; he smeared the red powder with such force that it stained her skin down to the bridge of her nose. It was an act of possession, a violent reclamation of a woman he wasn't ready to lose.

"There," he panted, his face inches from hers. "You are marked. You are mine. And you will wipe this off only when I am dead. Do you hear me? Only when I am a corpse will you put on that white shroud again!"

The cruelty of his words, born from a heart that didn't know how to handle its own love, pierced the silence. Khushi’s eyes went wide, horrified by the darkness of his vow. The thought of him dead, of him leaving this world just so she could have her silence, was more than she could bear.

Before he could utter another hateful syllable, Khushi’s hand flew up. She pressed her small, trembling palm firmly against his mouth, her fingers splayed across his jaw.

"Don't," she whispered, a broken, visceral sound. "Don't you dare say that. Don't ever speak of your death to me."

Her palm was cold, but the heat of his breath beneath it was the only thing that felt real. Arnav froze. The fire in his eyes flickered, the rage momentarily eclipsed by the touch of her skin. In the silence of the Shimla night, with the white saree whipping around them and the red sindoor staining her face, the masks finally fell.

He wasn't a tycoon, and she wasn't a widow. They were just two broken pieces of a childhood promise, bleeding into each other in the dark.