Then, Sarita turned to the staff, her voice firm as she set the Haveli back into motion. “Food for everyone first. Inform the guards the search is over. Call the family doctor.”
Work resumed at once. Cooks rushed toward the kitchens. Guards bowed their heads and returned to their posts. Rajan dragged both hands across his face before folding them toward the goddess in thanks.
Devendra walked toward the family quarters. Gauri kept an arm around Meera. Naina stayed close on her other side, her eyes moving between Meera and Abhinav with questions she could not yet bring herself to ask aloud.
Meera walked with her eyes lowered.
One step. Another.
Halfway across, her steps slowed. Then stopped. Guilt rose too fast for her to move again.
She could still hear the fear in his voice. She could still feel the tremor in his hands when he held her. The devastation he had not hidden when he thought he had lost her.
Love could survive fear. Trust did not mend the same way. Tonight, she had torn his trust apart.
“Meera?” Gauri touched her arm, concern filling her voice.
Meera turned.
Abhinav had not moved.
He stood composed, every line of him pulled back into place. To anyone watching, he looked in control again. The Thakur, unshaken after crisis.
She saw past it at once.
Pain sat deep inside his eyes. She noticed. God, she did. The realization cut through her again, because she had put it there.
Her vision blurred.
She could not leave him with that. Could not walk away while that look remained between them, unfinished, and unresolved.
No.
She pulled free from Gauri and ran. She crossed to him desperately, tears blurring her vision as the distance between them disappeared.
Her arms wrapped around his waist. Her face pressed into his chest. Her fingers gripped the back of his shirt, tight, as if loosening her hold even slightly might widen the distance between them.
Dust. Sweat. Cedar. Him.
Home.
He froze, shock crossing his face. Then his arms closed around her with crushing force.
A rough breath left him as he pulled her closer, one hand spread across her back, the other at the back of her head. He held her as if his body still remembered the terror of not having her there.
“I’m sorry,” the words came broken against him. “I didn’t think. I didn’t know. I’m so sorry.”
She couldn’t stop. Tears soaked through his shirt. Her shoulders shook with each breath.
He lowered his mouth to her temple and kept it there. “It’s alright,” he murmured against her skin. “You’re here.”
His hand moved to her face, thumb brushing away her tears before he raised her head. “I have you.”
She looked at him through wet lashes, guilt tearing through her. “I shouldn’t have left. I shouldn’t have assumed. I should have come to you first.” Her voice cracked again. “I should have trusted you.”
“Meera.”
Her breath caught.