“Don’t be a hero. This isn’t a script. You have brands, contracts, a legacy. You shouldn’t have to break your life to fix mine.”
Vikram took a step forward. He didn’t use the polished tone of a leading man. His voice was raw, stripped. “You think I’m doing this out of charity? Look at me, Divya.”
He waited until her eyes met his.
“I am the reason your name is being dragged through the mud. I am the reason your father is hiding in his own home. Every headline they write about you is a debt I can’t pay back with a check or a publicist’s apology. I don’t give a damn about the ‘Khanna Brand’ if it’s built on the wreckage of your dignity.”
He stepped closer, shadow falling over her.
“The world is hungry, Divya. They want to tear you apart because you’re ‘just an assistant.’ But as my wife? You’re untouchable. I’m not asking you to love me. I’m asking you to let me be the wall between you and the people who think they can touch what is mine. If I have to burn my career to give you your life back, I’ll strike the match myself.”
He paused, voice dropping. “Tell me you can find a better shield than that, and I’ll leave.”
Divya stared at him, breath hitching.
She began to think. Not as a girl in trouble, but as the assistant who had spent months managing his crises. Her mind shifted into professional gear, calculating fallout, timelines, optics.
“If we do this. The marriage.” She paused, fingers twisting the hem of her kurta. “I don’t want you tied to me for the rest of your life because of a mistake.”
He inhaled sharply.
Mistake.
The word burned.
He opened his mouth to respond, to tell her the sindoor wasn’t a mistake, that what he’d felt that day had been real, but she raised her hand slightly. A small, weary gesture asking for silence.
He gave it to her.
“Two years,” she said, words coming faster now. “A contract marriage for two years. Long enough to be convincing. Long enough for the story to die. Long enough for my father to walk in peace again.”
Her glasses slipped. She pushed them back up with that familiar knuckle.
The small, practical gesture almost undid him.
“After two years, we file for divorce. Quietly. Amicably. You’ll be free. Back to your life. Back to...” she swallowed hard, eyes finally meeting his, “whoever you actually want to be with. Without the scandal.”
Vikram felt the words hit like a physical blow.
His hands curled into fists at his sides, knuckles going white. His jaw clenched so hard a muscle jumped in his cheek. He exhaled slowly through his nose, one controlled breath to keep from saying what he wanted to say.
Two years. She’s giving me two years before she walks away.
The air left his lungs like he’d been punched.
She wasn’t protecting herself. She was protectinghim.
He looked at her properly then. The dark circles. The exhaustion. The way she stood, like bracing for impact.
If he refused this condition, she might refuse the marriage entirely. She would think he was sacrificing out of guilt. She would step back to save him.
And he would lose her before it even began.
“Okay,” he said.
The word cost him everything.
His voice came out rougher than he intended, scraped raw.