After she left, the studio felt too quiet.
Nights were the hardest.
The chair stayed braced against the connecting door. Some evenings, Yamini stood in front of it longer than she meant to. One night, she rested her hand on the carved backrest, just to see.
The wood was heavy but not impossible to move. She knew that.
Her fingers tightened around it.
And then her mind did what it had been doing every night.
She recalled his mouth, the hunger in his kiss. Then the feel of his palm, warm and steady at her waist, while the courtyard full of guests watched them.
Her body remembered all of it clearly.
Her pride remembered everything else.
He destroyed your marriage. He dismantled your life piece by piece. He married you for revenge.
She stepped back from the chair.
“He planned all of it,” she reminded herself.
The thought didn't steady her the way it used to.
Some nights, she brought Sheru up to her room because the quiet felt too heavy. The kitten would pad across the floor and scratch at the base of the connecting door, sniffing at the gap.
She picked him up and held him against her chest.
“You are the only uncomplicated male in this entire palace,” she told him.
He purred.
The connecting door stayed silent.
Bharat never tried the handle. Never knocked. Never pushed against the chair.
He never tried at all.
She had expected him to push back. To enforce something. To do what he always did.
There was nothing.
She had wanted distance.
She had gotten it.
And yet every night she lay in the dark and listened for footsteps that never came.
CHAPTER 40
The air inside the factory was thick with heat and the smell of iron and oil.
Yamini stepped through the security gates behind Bharat and his executive team. The metallic clang of the gate shutting behind her echoed through the space. The smell hit the back of her throat. Hot steel, something sulfurous, industrial, and heavy.
They were all dressed for it. Protective helmets. Fire-resistant jackets. Industrial gloves. Safety goggles.
Yamini adjusted her helmet strap and settled her goggles into place. The camera hung against her chest, its strap crossing over the flame-retardant jacket.
