Devendra led him to his office at the end of the corridor. A wooden door. A simple room. The Haveli’s property map stretched across one wall, marked in different hands across decades.
“I’ll send for her, Hukum.”
“I want to speak with her alone.”
Devendra paused, then inclined his head and stepped out. A few low words passed to Rajan in the corridor.
Rajan nodded and left at once.
Devendra glanced back, concern clear now, then walked away.
Abhinav stood by the window, hands in his pockets, and waited.
Not long after, Meera approached the office.
She already knew why she had been called.
She had prepared for this sometime past midnight, when sleep had refused to come. She had gone over every version of this conversation and discarded most of them. What remained was simple.
Professional. Measured. No provocation. No reaction.
Nothing for him to push against.
By the time she reached the door, that version of herself was firmly in place.
She pushed it open.
The desk stood empty. Her gaze lifted.
He stood at the window, his hands in his pockets, half-turned to the room. Looking out into the courtyard as if it belonged to him.
Which, she reminded herself, it did.
It was irritating.
He was irritating.
She had already noticed him yesterday. Up close. Observed. Filed. Dismissed.
And yet, here she was, noticing him again.
The sharp line of his jaw. The breadth of his shoulders under the charcoal shirt, which fit across them in a way she was not going to think about.
The way he stood. At ease. As if rooms arranged themselves around him without being asked.
Her pulse, traitorous and operating entirely on it’s own, did something it had absolutely no reason to do.
‘Hormones,’she thought, with great personal disapproval.‘Completely useless. Terrible timing. Absolutely not helpful.’
Then he turned.
And the air altered.
His eyes found hers and stayed there.
Dark. Steady. Focused in a way that wasn’t intrusive, wasn’t careless, just deliberate. As if he had already begun assessing her the moment she walked in.
He said nothing. Just let the silence stretch, expecting her to fill it.
