“I wasn’t thinking about it like that.”
“Then how were you thinking about it?”
He hesitates. Just for a second. “I just wanted to be near you.” The honesty in his voice makes something in my chest twist painfully. “I thought I’d lost that.”
My fingers loosen slightly around the file. “You didn’t,” I say, softer now.
“It felt like I did.” Silence settles again. He takes another step closer. Close enough that I can see the faint tension still in his jaw. “I know it was stupid,” he says quietly. “I know it wasn’t the right way to handle it.”
“Then why did you do it?”
“Because I panicked.”
That catches me off guard.
“You?” I ask before I can stop myself.
He huffs out something that almost resembles a laugh. “Yeah,” he says. “Me.”
I don’t respond immediately. Because I can see it now. Not the action. But the emotion behind it. The same fear. The same…desperation I’ve felt before. Just expressed differently. “Ishika,” he says, softer now, his voice losing that edge completely, “I thought I ruined it before it even had a chance to become something.”
My chest tightens. “And I didn’t know how to fix it without pushing you further away.”
The room feels smaller now. “I’m not saying it was right,” he adds quickly. “I know it wasn’t.”
I take a step forward before I can think about it. The file slips from my hand onto the table behind me, forgotten. He watches me carefully. Like he’s not sure what I’m going to do next. Honestly, neither am I. “You scared me.” The words come out barely above a whisper. I see it in the way his expression shifts. The way something softens immediately.
“I didn’t mean to.”
“But it did,” I huff, “And I am upset with you and I won't talk to you for a while because if I do…If I see you I may punch you for being such a caring Idiot.”
I kiss his cheek gently so he doesn’t feel I am pulling away and end up doing something…stupid but I need him to learn that this isn’t right and shouldn’t ever happen again.
CHAPTER 45
ISHIKA
I’m not expecting anyone. Three steady taps that cut through the quiet of my apartment like something deliberate. For a second, I just sit there. Staring at the door.
I push myself off the sofa slowly, brushing my hands down the sides of my kurta as I walk toward the door. My steps are careful, measured in that unconscious way they always are when I’m unsure.
I reach the door and hesitate for a fraction of a second before opening it. And there he is. Aryan. Standing in the corridor like he belongs there. Like he’s been here a hundred times before. He’s not dressed for work anymore—no blazer, wearing a sweatshirt, hair slightly messy like he’s run his hands through it too many times. And he’s smiling, a sheepish one.
But something inside me—something that has been wound tight since earlier today—loosens the second I see him.
“Hi,” he says. Like he didn’t set his office on fire. Like he didn’t scare me out of my mind. Like he didn’t show up here unannounced and ruin whatever resolve I had left.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, trying to keep my voice neutral.
Instead of answering like a normal person, he does something that makes my eyes widen instantly. He kneels. Right there. In the middle of the corridor. “Aryan—” I whisper sharply, glancing around on instinct. “What are you doing? Someone will see you.”
He frowns up at me, completely unbothered. “I’m just giving flowers to my own girlfriend.”
My brain still short circuits when he calls me that. My breath hitches and I feel a flush travel up my neck. He’s so huge that I couldn’t see the bouquet he was hiding behind his back. I have never received flowers and I always thought I would be someone who wouldn’t care about such theatrics but…it feels good. Even kneeling he still reaches almost till my chest. Wow. I blink and silently accept the flowers, all the arguments vanishing in my brain. He beams, as if he has won some lottery and that makes me smile.
“You have some weird…kneeling kink, don’t you?” I mutter, trying to recover some control over this situation.
His expression shifts. His smirk deepens, and something darker flickers in his eyes—something that makes my stomach do a very inconvenient flip. “Didn’t know you thought so much about my kinks, Sunshine.”
