Aryan.
"Don't," he said quietly, his grip firm enough to stop my momentum. "Not here. Not now. Look around you."
I forced myself to look. To really look at the room around us.
Board members. Investors. Senior management from both companies. Half the corporate elite of Rajmer.
If I caused a scene now, if I publicly claimed Viya as my wife when everyone thought I was involved with someone elseentirely, the scandal would be enormous. The gossip would spread like wildfire. It would overshadow the entire joint venture announcement. It would raise questions about the secret marriage. About why it was secret. About Avija.
It would hurt Viya's reputation. Would make her the subject of office gossip and speculation.
I could not do that to her.
But watching her in another man's arms was killing me.
"I need to get out of here," I said through clenched teeth.
Aryan nodded, understanding written in his expression.
"Go. I will handle things here."
I did not wait for him to say anything else. I turned and strode toward the bar, grabbing an unopened bottle of whiskey from the startled bartender.
"Mr. Khanna, that is not opened yet—"
"Bill it to me."
I walked out of the ballroom, down the hallway, and out a side door that led to a private terrace. The cool night air hit my face, but it did nothing to cool the rage and jealousy burning through my veins.
I unscrewed the cap on the whiskey bottle and took a long drink directly from it. The alcohol burned going down, harsh and punishing. Good. I deserved the punishment for being so spectacularly stupid.
For agreeing to this secret marriage in the first place. For not telling everyone from the beginning that Viya was mine. For letting circumstances force us into this impossible situation where I had to watch my wife dance with another man while I stood by and did nothing.
I took another drink, then another, trying to drown the image burned into my brain. Puneet's hand on her waist. Her smile directed at him instead of me. The way she moved in his arms like they had done this a thousand times before.
How comfortable she was with him. How easy and natural. While with me, she was stiff and distant and silent.
The thought was agony.
I leaned against the terrace railing and stared out at the city lights spread below. Cars moving through streets. People living their uncomplicated lives. While I stood here, drowning in my own possessive rage.
She was mine. My wife. Mine.
Every fiber of my being screamed to claim her. To walk back in there, pull her away from Puneet, and announce to everyone that she belonged to me.
But I could not.
Not yet.
So instead, I stood on this terrace alone, drinking whiskey straight from the bottle, while my wife danced with another man just meters away.
And I hated it.
I hated every single second of it.
I took another long drink and closed my eyes, trying to block out the image of her smile directed at someone who was not me.
Mine, my mind insisted, the word repeating like a mantra. Mine, mine, mine.
