Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Good One
Maan returned to Khurana House in the early evening more irritated with himself than when he had left. Rohan had managed to put words around something Maan had been avoiding all week, and Maan disliked him slightly for it. He was still thinking about moved on when he heard Neil's voice before he saw him.
The voices carried through the open doorway of the room the family had temporarily surrendered to Tara's engagement preparations. The long table inside had disappeared beneath gift boxes, ribbon samples, handwritten labels, and stacks of cards waiting to be sorted. Someone had left the doors open to the corridor, probably because people had been moving in and out all afternoon.
Maan would have walked past. Then Geet said, very softly, "I don't know what you want me to say, Neil."
His step slowed. She sounded tired — not frightened, not cornered, not angry enough to need anyone. Just tired in that particular way Maan remembered from years ago, when Geet was trying very hard to find a kind way through something that did not seem to contain one. He remained around the bend of the corridor, not hidden so much as not yet visible.
Inside the room, Neil let the silence sit a moment before he answered. "You don't have to be careful with me."
"I'm not trying to be careful." Geet paused. "I'm trying to be honest."
Neil said nothing. It was a small thing, that silence, but it did its work. She filled it.
"At first you were Maan's cousin."
A beat. "Right."
"No, I mean — that was just how I knew you."
"I know."
"And then you were family."
"Family."
"Yes."
Neil waited. Geet exhaled. "And then you were just Neil."
A soft laugh. "Just Neil."
"That isn't what I meant."
"What did you mean?"
"I don't know." Weariness had entered her voice. "You were you. We talked. We became friends."
"Friends."
"Yes."
"Close friends?"
A pause. "Yes."
Neil went quiet. Geet added, almost helplessly, "You were there for me."
"I was." Something tightened in Maan's chest, out in the corridor, though no one could see it.
Inside, Neil waited before asking, "And after all of that, you never once thought about me differently?"
Her answer took a moment. "No." Then, softer, because apparently even that sounded cruel to her: "I didn't."
Neil said nothing. Geet exhaled. "I never thought about you like that."
The sentence sat there. "That's a very rehearsed sentence."
Maan's fingers tightened around his phone.
"It's not rehearsed."
"No?"
"It's true."
"Is it." Not quite a question. Neil let it hang anyway. "Because it doesn't sound like something you've just realized. It sounds like something you decided a long time ago." Geet did not answer. "Cousin. Family. Friend." He repeated the words slowly. "Very neat."
"I haven't—"
"Maybe I'm confused."
That stopped her. "About what?"
"I was there when you left," Neil said. "When everything happened here. When you went away. When New York was awful in the beginning." Geet was silent. "The days you called because you were overwhelmed and didn't want to worry anybody at home. When something went wrong and you needed someone familiar—"
A small sound came from her, protest more than speech. "Neil, that wasn't—"
"I know." He moved over the objection so gently it barely looked like interruption. "I picked up whenever I could. I was there." Geet said nothing. "And you kept calling."
"Because I trusted you."
"I know."
"You were my friend."
"I know." A faint laugh, without amusement. "I suppose I thought that meant something."
"Neil—"
"No. It's fine." He said it before she could get any further. "I'm used to it."
Something in Maan went cold. Inside the room, Geet had gone very still. Neil continued. "Being the person who's there. Being useful." Another small laugh. "Safe." Geet said nothing. "The one people reach for when things are falling apart."
"Neil…"
"And then when it comes to actually being chosen…" He let the sentence die. He did not have to finish it.
When Geet finally spoke, her voice had lost its earlier steadiness. "I didn't mean—"
"I know." Too quick. Too gentle. "I know you didn't."
"I would never—"
"Use me?" Geet stopped. "I never said you did." A beat. "I said that's what it feels like sometimes." Silence. "That's different."
Maan's eyes lifted. There it was. Geet could deny using him. She could not argue with what he claimed to feel.
"I'm sorry," she said.
Maan turned his head slightly toward the doorway. There. She had begun by telling him she had never wanted him that way. Now she was apologizing. "You have nothing to apologize for," Neil said softly. It did nothing to remove the apology from the room.
"I genuinely didn't know."
"I know."
"I never thought you were expecting something."
"I wasn't." A pause. "Not at first."
Geet went quiet. Neil continued before she could decide what to do with that. "I don't know when it changed." She said nothing. "I just thought maybe being the person you reached for meant something."
"It did." Her answer came immediately. Neil was silent. Geet rushed into it. "You mattered. You matter." Still nothing. "You're important to me."
"But not like that."
Geet stopped. Neil had not contradicted her. He had simply supplied the part she could no longer say without feeling cruel.
"Neil…"
"It's fine."
"Don't say that."
"Why?"
"Because…" She stopped. Neil waited. Geet's voice came smaller. "I don't want you thinking those years meant nothing."
"I don't."
"They didn't."
"I know."
"But that doesn't mean…" Again, she stopped.
Neil let the unfinished sentence sit between them. "I'm just trying to understand what I misunderstood."
"I never meant to make you think—"
"I know."
"I would never do that."
"I know." Each answer sounded like absolution. Each one somehow made her sound guiltier.
"I'm sorry," Geet whispered. Again.
Neil waited just long enough. "You don't have to apologize."
"I feel like I do."
Maan went still. "You didn't know."
That should have comforted her. Instead Geet said, very quietly, "I should have."
Neil did not answer. The silence was worse than agreement. "I should have realized," she said.
Only then: "No. Geet, no." Too late. "You shouldn't have had to. I should've been clearer." A pause. "That's on me." Geet was silent. Then Neil added, almost beneath his breath: "I just thought you knew."
Her breath left her. Maan's jaw tightened. Neil had taken the guilt from her and placed it straight back.
"I didn't."
"I believe you." She did not sound relieved.
"And I'm not asking you to feel guilty." Geet said nothing. "I don't want that." Still nothing. Neil's voice softened. "I only know what those five years meant to me."
Geet breathed out. Neil gave a small, tired laugh. "I was stupid enough to care about someone who didn't feel the same way."
"That doesn't make you stupid."
"Doesn't feel especially clever."
"Neil, don't."
"Why?"
"Because…" She stopped again. Maan could hear the exhaustion in her now. "I don't want to hurt you."
There it was. Neil's answer came softly. "I know."
"I never wanted to."
"I know."
Geet swallowed. "I'm sorry."
Neil remained quiet for a moment. Then: "Don't be." Geet said nothing. "And don't decide anything because you feel guilty." Maan's eyes sharpened. "You don't owe me a yes." Silence. "You don't owe me anything." Another pause. "But you don't owe yourself a no either."
Geet did not speak. Neil waited. Then, gently, "You don't have to know today." A pause, warmer than anything before it. "I'm not going anywhere." The room stayed silent. Geet did not correct him — did not say there was nothing left to know, that she had already answered. It was easier to let the silence stand than to say it a second time to someone who had already decided not to hear it the first.
Maan remained where he was for another second. Then he walked away. Not because there was nothing wrong. Not because he liked what he had heard. But Geet had not asked for rescue, and walking into that room now would turn her feelings into something between two men. He would not do that.
For nearly half an hour afterward, Maan did an excellent imitation of a man interested in other things. He answered two messages from Dubai, endured part of another family conversation and retained almost none of it.
Neil's words stayed with him. Useful. Safe. Chosen. And Geet's: I'm sorry.
Neil wanting her bothered him. Maan was jealous enough to know that jealousy made him unreliable where Neil was concerned. But Geet had begun the conversation certain. I never thought about you like that. By the end, she had been apologizing.
Maan did not know whether Neil had intended to turn the conversation that way. He knew only that it had turned.
By the time he went upstairs, he had decided twice that none of it gave him the right to say anything. Then he saw her.
The small terrace at the far end of the upper gallery was open to the evening. The estate below had begun to glow in scattered pockets as the engagement lighting came on among the trees. Geet stood by the stone balustrade with one hand resting against it, looking down toward the lawns. Alone.
Maan stopped before entering. She had not heard him. There had been a time when approaching Geet required no decision at all — he would have crossed a room because she was in it, sat beside her because the place beside her had once been his without negotiation. Five years had made three steps into territory.
"Geet."
Her fingers tightened against the stone. She had heard his voice all week, but almost always with other people nearby — other voices, other bodies, something to absorb the intimacy of direct address. Here there was only evening. Only him.
Geet turned. Maan stood at the terrace entrance — not close, never close anymore — and hesitated. That alone made her wary.
"I overheard your conversation with Neil."
Geet frowned. For a moment she looked as though the sentence had reached her but not arranged itself into meaning yet. Then it did. "What?"
"I was passing the room. I should have kept walking."
Her expression sharpened. "You overheard our private conversation and you—" The words caught as the sheer audacity of it settled. He had heard her — not some harmless exchange, but Neil saying things she had barely known how to answer, her own voice faltering into embarrassment and guilt — and then he had come to find her. To tell her.
For the first few days after his return, she had almost convinced herself he was different now. Quieter. More careful. Maybe she had mistaken restraint for change. Maybe this was the same Maan after all — worse, perhaps, because the old one had at least been obvious about his arrogance.
"Geet." His voice stayed low, controlled. "That is not the point. Let me explain." He lifted one hand slightly, palm toward her. Geet looked at it, then at him. Her anger rose so quickly it was almost dizzying. There it was — not even thirty seconds, and he listened to something that was none of his business, announced that he had listened, and now he was going to decide which part of the violation counted.
Her brows lifted. "You will tell me what the point is?" Maan's hand lowered, but it was too late. Something old and poisonous had already opened inside her. "You heard a private conversation between me and Neil, you came here to tell me that you heard it, and now you get to tell me what I'm supposed to be angry about?"
His mouth opened. "No."
She stepped toward him. "What exactly do you think of yourself?" Maan went still. Geet gave a short, disbelieving scoff. "For one minute I actually thought maybe you had changed." That reached him. She saw it and kept going. "Maybe I was wrong." Another step. "Maybe you're exactly the same." Her voice dropped. "Maybe you were worse than I understood."
Maan said nothing. Her hand moved between them. "You've explained enough things for people." There — the conversation changed. Maan felt it. Neil disappeared from it almost instantly. Geet came closer. "You've decided enough things for people too." Her eyes had begun to shine — not tears, anger. "You decide what people should know. You decide what they shouldn't know. You decide what matters. You decide when it matters." Maan stayed where he was. "And apparently now you decide the point of conversations you weren't even supposed to hear."
Still nothing. That silence infuriated her. "Nothing?" His gaze remained on her. Geet laughed once. "Of course." She shook her head. "Of course now you're quiet." His face changed slightly. She caught it. "What is this?" Her hand cut sharply between them. "This new thing you do? Stand there quietly and suddenly that makes you decent? Honest?"
Maan's back was only a few feet from the wall now. He knew it. She probably did not. Or did not care. "You've always been good at that." His brow tightened. "Making one thing look like another." Her voice had gone sharper. "A lie becomes protection." Something in his face changed. "Control becomes concern." Another step. "Greed becomes responsibility."
Maan yielded without seeming to — not retreating from her exactly, simply giving her the space she kept taking — until his shoulders met the wall. Geet stopped. For the first time she appeared to notice where her anger had brought them. They were far too close: Maan's back against the wall, Geet directly in front of him, her face tipped upward, his slightly down. The remaining distance belonged to a different kind of memory.
Neither moved. Geet's breathing had become uneven. Maan could hear it. She could hear his too now, although he was trying harder to hide his. That only angered her again. "You never lie directly, do you?" Maan's face went still. Her mouth twisted. "You just leave things out." His eyes closed for one second. Geet saw it. "Convenient." He opened them again. "You omit." Her finger lifted between them. "You decide." Another small, violent movement of her hand. "You manipulate." Maan swallowed. "You let people believe whatever works for you, and then afterward you can stand there and say you never actually said anything." His jaw locked. Geet's laugh was breathless now. "God."
"Even this. You listen to a conversation that has nothing to do with you and somehow come out of it with the right to intervene." His eyes shifted. "And Neil." Something harder moved through Maan's face. Geet caught it. "Of course. You've never been able to just leave him alone either. Everything has to become some stupid contest with you." His gaze sharpened. "And now you're listening outside doors?" "Why?" she demanded. "Why can't you just leave people in peace? Why does everything have to become something for you to interfere with?"
Maan's mouth had opened, half a second, before she cut back in — and now he said nothing at all. "No. Go on. Say whatever you were going to say." He didn't, and the contradiction enraged her. "Oh, now you won't? How clever." His eyes hardened slightly. "You let everybody else get emotional while you stand there calm. Controlled. Misunderstood." Her voice shook. "You think not answering makes you noble?" Maan's mouth tightened. "You're very good at making yourself look noble." Something moved through his expression — pain. She saw it and kept going. "You know what you are? A man who can convince himself of anything if he wants it badly enough." His eyes darkened. "That's what makes you dangerous. You hurt someone and still believe you're protecting them. You take away somebody's choice and call it love."
Maan shut his eyes for one second. Geet moved closer despite there being almost nowhere left to go. The fury had become almost physical. Her hand came up fast — for one wild second her fingers were headed straight for his shirt, to catch his collar, drag him down, shake that unbearable stillness out of him. She stopped a breath from the fabric. Maan did not move. Did not catch her wrist. Did not step away. Her fingers hovered near the open edge of his collar, close enough that either of them breathing differently might have erased the last fraction of space.
His gaze dropped to her hovering fingers, then rose slowly back to her face. Something old entered the space between them. Recognition. Her body knew this distance — his warmth, the dark roughness along his jaw, the mouth she had once known without looking. Five years had done nothing useful to that knowledge. Geet's breath caught. His did too, barely. His hands remained at his sides. That restraint felt more intimate than contact would have.
Geet curled her fingers into her palm and dropped her hand. "Don't." He had done nothing. She knew that. It made the word worse. "Don't look at me like that." She could not have said what like that meant without admitting she still recognized it. So she attacked instead. "You always knew how to do that. Make someone feel like they're the only thing in the room. Like nothing else exists." His expression changed. "And apparently there was always something else."
Maan's mouth opened. "Don't." He stopped.
Good — she wanted him to hear what she had spent five years saying only to herself. "You wanted everything." Maan went very still. "Didn't you?" Her voice dropped. "You wanted me." His eyes changed. "The land." His jaw tightened. "Your family getting what it wanted." Nothing. "And you still wanted to be the good man in your own head while you did it." His face had gone pale. Geet laughed. "You wanted everything." Her voice rose again. "And somehow it never occurred to you that one person standing in the middle of all that wanting might deserve to know what the hell was happening."
Maan said nothing. "You must have thought I was so stupid." His eyes snapped to hers.
"No." Immediate. Low. The first real crack in his silence.
Geet exploded. "Don't tell me no!" Her voice cracked across the terrace. "You don't get to correct me now." Maan went silent again. "You had your chance to tell me what was real." His face changed. "And you decided when I got to know that too."
Silence. Geet stared at him with open contempt. "Maybe I was just convenient." His jaw locked. "Maybe I was the girl you happened to want and the land happened to come with me." His chest rose sharply. "Maybe that was perfect." Maan's fingers flexed. "Pretty girl." Something changed in his face. "Easy wife." His eyes darkened. "Convenient inheritance." There — the cruelty of it reached even her. She felt it. Did not stop. "Why not?" Her voice dropped. "You got both."
Maan stared at her. The silence between them changed again. He was still against the wall; she had not backed away. His eyes looked almost black from here, and she knew those eyes from another distance — warmer, half-lidded, close enough that neither of them had once needed to think about crossing the space. Geet hated the memory enough to reach for something cruel. "You were very convincing." Maan's face went completely still. "The husband part." His breath stopped for a fraction. "You were good at it." His jaw clenched. "The looking." His gaze stayed on hers. "The wanting."
Something moved through him. The word sat between them, too intimate. Maan's gaze dropped for a fraction of a second — her mouth — then back to her eyes. That tiny failure of discipline hit her harder than a touch would have. Heat moved through her so abruptly that rage had to rise around it to contain it. There was almost no distance left now. Still no contact. They both knew exactly what this distance had once meant.
Geet's voice came quieter. "You can't even deny it." Maan's brow tightened. "That none of it was real."
Real alarm broke through his control. "No." The word came too quickly.
Geet froze. Maan did not take it back. "No." Lower now. Rougher. "That part was never—" He stopped.
Too late. Geet understood. His wanting had been real. The desire, the intimacy, the nights and mornings when there had been no land, no family, no witnesses between them. The knowledge did not comfort her. It hurt more.
Geet laughed, and the sound broke halfway through. "Of course." Maan stayed absolutely still. "Of course that part was real." Her mouth twisted. "Because you wanted me." He said nothing. "So what?" Nothing. "You wanted me and still did it." His face looked suddenly older. "You loved me and still did it."
She said it like fact. It was not fact — not to her, not really, not even now. Five years, and she had never once been sure which it had been. He could have had any woman in his world. A Khurana son did not have to reach as far as a bookseller's daughter for a wife, and no one — including him — had ever once explained to her why he had. Calling it love, out loud, like something she knew for certain, was the closest she had ever let herself come to asking him whether it was true.
Silence. That one reached him. Geet saw it. For a second she hated that she saw it — hated that even now she knew which words hurt him and which merely struck the surface, hated that some ugly, intimate part of knowing another person had survived everything else. Her breathing became ragged. "What wrong had I done to you that you had to—" The sentence broke. Maan froze. Geet heard herself. Something inside her recoiled instantly. "No." His hand moved, barely, stopped before it became anything. Geet shook her head hard. "No. No." She stepped back half an inch and then, absurdly, stepped forward again, as though she could not decide whether distance or proximity was more unbearable. "Nobody has to do anything." Maan said nothing. "That's the mistake." Her voice was cracking now, but the anger came back around it like armor. "Thinking there has to be some reason." She shook her head. "There doesn't." Maan stared at her. "You're just that kind of person."
Something emptied in his face. Geet saw it happen. She kept going. "Liar." His breath caught. "Selfish." His jaw tightened. "Greedy." His fingers curled. Her eyes burned. "Cruel." Nothing. The last word came lower. "Evil."
That did it. Maan did not flinch or tell her to stop, but something in his face went completely quiet. For one terrible second her rage faltered. She had wanted to wound him and had just discovered exactly where the blade went in. The knowledge made her furious with herself. "Yes," she said, voice shaking. "Maybe just evil. Because what else do you call someone who can hurt people and still think he gets to decide what is best for them?" Maan held her gaze. "You lie. You take. You decide. And everybody else gets to live inside the consequences."
Maan remained against the wall. His silence became unbearable again. "Say something." Nothing. "Say something!" His jaw flexed. Geet laughed bitterly. "Right. This is better. Let me shout. Let me look insane while you stand there calm, quiet, reasonable." His eyes closed briefly. "Another performance," she said. "You never have to lie if everybody else looks irrational beside you." The accusation cut. She saw it. He still did not defend himself.
Geet's breathing was hard enough that the small distance between them seemed to move with it. His hands stayed deliberately at his sides — he was making sure he did not reach for her. Five years ago, this distance between them would not have survived ten seconds. Now neither moved. His gaze flicked once to the pulse in her throat and returned to her eyes. Nothing happening. Everything remembered.
"You make everything about what you think is right." Maan swallowed. "Even leaving." His face changed. Geet saw it. Her voice broke. "Even that." The anger lost volume — not force, only volume. "You disappeared." Maan said nothing. "You stopped coming." His jaw tightened. "You stopped calling." Nothing. "You stopped existing anywhere I could accidentally find you." Something in his eyes broke. Geet's throat tightened at the sight. She hated that too. "And now what?" Her voice rose again. "That was for me too?" Maan did not answer. "Was it?" Silence. Geet scoffed. "Of course." She shook her head. "You decide everything." Maan's face went still. "You decided when I got the truth." A breath. "You decided what I could handle." Another. "And then afterward you decided what?" Her eyes burned. "How much of you I was allowed to have?" Maan's breathing changed. "When you come close." Nothing. "When you disappear." Nothing. "When silence is respect."
His face had gone pale. Geet stared at him. "You always decide." Maan looked at her. Too much was visible in his eyes now — pain, love, regret. Things she did not want. Things she had spent five years teaching herself not to need. "Stop looking at me like that." He could not. She saw that. It almost undid her. "Say something." Maan remained silent. Her voice rose. "Say something!"
His throat moved. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely more than breath. "I thought staying away was the one thing I could do that wasn't for me." Geet froze. That was all. No defense. No explanation after it. No request that she understand. One sentence. And because he did not try to make it beautiful, it reached her.
Her face changed. Then anger found it. "You thought." Maan's eyes closed. Geet laughed, breathless and furious. "There." He opened them. "You thought." Her head shook. "You always think." Maan said nothing. "And somehow everybody else gets to live inside the consequences."
The sentence landed. Hard. His face broke for one second. Geet saw it. The realization that she had finally hurt him enough did not feel like victory.
For several seconds neither spoke. The terrace seemed unnaturally quiet. Maan was still against the wall; Geet was still too close, her fingers half-curled from wanting to catch his collar and refusing herself. The anger had not killed the other thing. If anything, it had made it hotter. Maan's gaze dropped once to her mouth — barely. Geet saw. His eyes returned immediately to hers. Neither moved. One inch would have been catastrophic.
Geet stepped back. Maan did not follow. Of course he didn't. Something irrational inside her hurt anyway.
"You came here to tell me something." The original reason he had approached her felt absurdly small now. "What were you going to say?"
Maan hesitated, then chose his words carefully. "I don't think what Neil did for you was fake." Geet's expression shifted.
Maan continued. "I don't think he lied about caring about you." She said nothing. "And I don't know whether he understands what he was doing." Her brow tightened. That was not what she had expected. Maan's gaze remained steady. "You told him you had never thought of him that way." Geet's jaw tightened. "By the end, you were apologizing." Silence. "He is allowed to be hurt."
Her eyes flashed. "Yes."
The answer came immediately. Maan nodded once. "He is." Geet watched him. A pause. "He is not entitled to make your guilt answer the question for you."
That was it. Maan did not elaborate. Did not tell her Neil was dangerous. Did not tell her what to do. Did not tell her to stay away from him. Geet's anger had nowhere clean to go. She looked at Maan for several seconds. Then, very quietly:
"You're jealous."
His face changed. Only slightly. A beat passed. "Yes." No qualification. No defense. No but. The word moved through her like heat. Five years of never quite knowing, and this answer came without explanation, defence, or condition. Just yes. Geet looked at him. He still did not say more. Did not claim her. Did not say Neil did not deserve her. Did not say she belonged to him. Just stood against the wall with the truth between them.
Geet swallowed. The terrace had become too small. She picked up her phone. Her fingers were not entirely steady. "I need to go." Maan nodded and stepped aside. The movement irritated her instantly — of course, even now, moving out of her way before she had decided whether she wanted him there. She almost started again. Then she looked at his face and found she had nothing left to throw without breaking something inside herself too.
She walked toward the doorway. When she passed him, close enough to feel his heat, neither of them touched. At the threshold she stopped. "Maan."
Behind her, quietly, "Yes?" That voice again.
Anger was easier than everything beneath it. She looked back. "Don't talk to Neil."
"I won't."
"About this. Not unless I ask you."
Maan held her gaze. "I won't." No condition. No right quietly reserved for himself to decide otherwise later.
Geet left. Maan remained alone on the terrace. He did not follow.
For five years, the last version of Geet he had carried with him was the woman who had left barely able to speak to him. Tonight she had driven him against a wall without laying a hand on him, called him a liar, selfish, greedy, cruel, evil, and come within a breath of fisting his collar.
He had never been more relieved to hear her voice.
Jodha Akbar
Bollywood
5