"Do you know what they'll say? That I slept my way to a distinction. That I couldn't handle critique so I sent my powerful husband to silence it." She looked up at him, glasses fogging from her tears. "I will always be the girl who wasn't good enough on her own. Who needed Vikram Khanna to fight her battles."
He reached for her. She stepped back.
"Don't." The word emerged sharp despite her tears. "Don't try to fix this. You can't fix what I am."
"And what are you?" His voice remained steady.
"A nobody. From nowhere. With nothing." Each word emerged like it had been ripped from somewhere deep and painful. "The opportunist who got lucky when scandal turned into marriage."
"That's not who you are."
"It's who everyone sees!" Her voice rose, cracking. "It's who my professor saw. It's who the media sees. It's who your industry sees when they look at me."
Her shoulders shook. Months of careful composure, of being exactly what everyone needed her to be, all of it collapsing in a single, devastating moment.
"Maybe we should end this sooner." The words emerged quieter but no less shattering. "The arrangement. All of it."
Vikram went completely still.
"No." A single word, filled with absolute certainty.
"It would be cleaner." She wiped at her tears with shaking hands. "Before more damage is done. Before…"
"No." He stepped forward, erasing the distance she'd tried to create. "That's not happening."
"You can't just decide that."
"I can and I am." He reached for her again, and this time she didn't back away, perhaps too exhausted to maintain distance. His hands settled on her shoulders, warm and solid. "I'm not letting you run from this. From us."
She looked up at him, eyes red behind fogged glasses, face blotchy from crying, stripped of everything except raw vulnerability.
"Why?" The question came out small. Broken. "Why hold onto something that brings nothing but problems?"
His hands tightened slightly on her shoulders. "Because you're not a problem to be solved, Divya. You're my wife."
Fresh tears welled in her eyes.
She pulled away. His hands dropped. She turned and walked toward the door, still wiping at her face.
Vikram didn't follow.
He watched her leave, watched her shoulders shake with silent sobs even as she tried to compose herself.
And he felt relief.
Not because she was crying. But because she was finally letting herself feel something instead of retreating behind professionaldistance. The tears meant the walls had cracked. The breakdown meant she cared too much to stay numb.
She'd spiraled. She'd cried. She'd let him see her vulnerable.
That was better than cold detachment. Better than the mechanical composure she'd shown last night. Her walls had climbed higher now. He knew that. But he also knew they were weaker than before.
And he would take it slow. Again. As many times as it took.
Chapter 31
The days after her breakdown settled into a quiet routine.
Divya moved through Khanna Sadan politely, efficiently, carefully. She smiled when needed. Answered questions. Managed schedules. But something had shifted back inside her. The walls were up again. Stronger this time.