His arms closed around her, fully, his chin resting against her hair.
She stayed there, listening to his heartbeat, feeling its pace match her own.
After a while, she lifted her face. He was already looking at her.
The sky still carried his question.
Her answer came softer than breath.
“Yes.”
Everything in him changed. A smile broke through, wide, joyful, completely unguarded.
It undid her.
He lifted her off her feet, turning with her in that small space. Her hands flew to his neck, holding on. She squealed. His chuckle followed.
The sound rose into the open sky.
She let him spin her. Let the moment take over.
No Haveli. No future. No world waiting below.
Only this.
This man.
This moment.
This yes.
Chapter 26
Meera woke before the alarm.
She lay still, eyes open, feeling the difference. The same room. The same ceiling. The same pale dawn through the curtains.
And yet… nothing was the same.
She was learning how to sit with it.
The balloon. The open sky. His hands framing her face. Her yes. The lift as he spun her, their laughter spilling into the endless sky.
The drive home. His hand finding hers across the console, fingers intertwined with ease, as if there had never been a version of them that did not fit together this way.
The car had stopped at the gate.
He had turned toward her. His hand at her face, her chin lifting on instinct. His mouth on hers. Different this time. Slower. Deeper. Her hand had found his chest and stayed there.
And very clearly, in the middle of it, she had thought,‘oh.’
Now, in the silence of her room, she pressed her face into the pillow. Heat spread through her with no place to go.
Then memory shifted.
The gate. Everyone waited. It had caught her off guard. The sudden awareness of everything. Of him. Of herself. Of every glance. His hand at her back. Her own face refused to behave with any dignity.
Sarita stood composed, glowing. Naina on the edge of bursting. Her parents side by side, her mother’s hands pressed to her chest.
