Page 21 of The Defiant Wife

Veeraj returns his attention to the reports. As though he hasn't just insulted my entire operational system.As though he hasn't single-handedly raised my blood pressure.

I glare at him.

He ignores me.

Outside the office, children's laughter drifts through the building. Inside, Prince Veeraj Singh Shekhawat calmly reviews financial reports like he's been doing it his entire life. Which, to be fair, he probably has.

I should be annoyed. And I am.Veryannoyed. Yet as I watch him mark corrections in the margins, I find myself thinking something dangerous.

Maybe. Just maybe.

The prince isn't exactly who I thought he was.

And for some reason, that realization unsettles me more than if he'd been awful.

6. THE PROBLEM WITH DIYA GOYAL

VEERAJ

If someone had told me two weeks ago that I would be sitting cross-legged on a classroom floor supervising an art session filled with twenty-seven children, I would've assumed they'd lost their mind.

Yet here I am. Holding a box of crayons.

A box of crayons.

I stare at it for a moment before placing it on the floor beside me.

This is my life now. I have accepted it.

The classroom buzzes with activity around me.

Children sit in groups spread across colorful mats, completely focused on their drawings. Some are paintings. Some are coloring. Some appear to be using glue in ways that should probably be illegal.

One child has somehow gotten blue paint on his forehead.

Another has paint on her nose.

I'm choosing not to ask questions.

Some things are better left unexplained.

The afternoon sun filters through the windows, filling the room with warm golden light. Children's laughter drifts through the space, mixing with the scratching of crayons against paper.

It's loud. Not overwhelmingly loud. Just alive.

I never realized there was a difference until coming here.

My office is always quiet. Boardrooms are quiet. The palace is usually quiet. Even when people are speaking, there's a restraint to it. An expectation. A certain level of control.

Children don't possess that. Their emotions arrive exactly as they feel them. No filters. No masks. No hidden agendas.

It's strangely refreshing.

A small movement beside me pulls me from my thoughts.

Rani.

I glance down as she quietly scoots her mat closer. Then closer. Then somehow even closer.