More than just your function.
As if she could be anything else. As if there was a version of her that belonged in that glittering hall not because she was useful but because she simply… was.
The door closed. Through the window, she watched him step back, waiting until her car began to move.
She pressed her hand against the spot on her back where his had been.
The heat remained. A phantom touch that followed her through Mumbai’s streets, past the bright shops and dark alleyways, all the way to Andheri West where fairy lights didn’t exist and silk kurtas would be carefully stored for the next special occasion that might never come.
Her throat tightened.
She understood now, with painful clarity, what had broken something inside her tonight.
It wasn’t the wealth. Wasn’t the celebrities. Wasn’t even the feeling of not belonging.
It was the five seconds when his hand had rested on her back and she’d felt, just for that brief, impossible moment, like she was someone he’d choose to walk beside. Someone worth the attention of every watching eye. Someone more than just her function.
And now, sitting in the back of this car with streetlights painting shadows across her lap, she had to return to being Divya Mathur.
The girl who managed everything and belonged nowhere.
Her eyes watered.
The first tear fell before she could stop it. Then another.
She pressed her palm harder against her back, trying to hold onto the warmth that was already fading.
Trying to remember what it felt like to be seen.
Just once.
Before she had to forget again tomorrow.
Chapter 9
Next Morning
The vibration wouldn’t stop.
Divya fumbled for her phone in the dark, half-asleep, mind still fogged from too little rest. 5:17 AM glowed at the top of the screen.
Then the images loaded.
Her breath left her body.
There she was. There he was.
His hand firm at the small of her back as he leaned toward her near the car. His face angled down. The frame cropped tight enough to erase the crowd, the reception, everything but the two of them.
Close. Too close.
The headline screamed: “Vikram Khanna’s Secret Romance? Superstar Caught in Intimate Moment with Assistant at Brother’s Wedding.”
Her stomach dropped.
“Divya?” Her mother’s voice, sharp with panic.
The curtain flew aside. She stood there, nightgown askew, phone clutched in her hand. The same photos glowed on her screen. Enlarged. Zoomed. Circulating.
