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“What are you doing here?” she asked angrily.

Shaurya hesitated before replying. “Grandpa invited me for lunch... to check out Rohit. The guy who’s here to see you.”

Her expression turned stormy in an instant.

Of course he did. Why wouldn’t he? These days, Grandpa was full of praises for Shaurya, and completely oblivious to the tension between them. Naturally, he would have invited her emotionally unavailable ex to size up the guy who might want to marry her. Made perfect sense.

Shaurya had rehearsed this moment endlessly in his head, every word, every apology. But now that she was here, in front of him, he felt completely unprepared.

“You look... nice,” he said softly.

She gave him a sarcastic smile, one that didn’t touch her eyes. “I’m about to meet my potential husband. Of course I look nice.”

The jab hit exactly where she’d aimed it. He inhaled sharply, but didn’t flinch. He deserved it. But the moment he’d heard about Rohit, something inside him had come undone. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Not until he found himself standing at her door.

“I’m not going to let that happen,” he said, his voice low and gravelly.

“You don’t get to decide that anymore,” she snapped. “Did you seriously think you have any right to be here for this? After what you did? You had your chance until last week, remember? The one where I said I wanted to have your babies? Ring any bells, Mr. Ahuja?”

He winced. It wasn’t just her words. It was the way her voice cracked at the end, like she was holding herself together by a thread.

“Nandini, I know I was wrong—”

“Wrong?” she cut him off, stepping closer and grabbing the lapels of his jacket in anger. “Do you even realise how I felt that night? One moment, we were so closely entwined, so intimate with each other, and the next, God knows what snapped in your head, and you decided we were over? I gave you my heart, Shaurya, despite knowingnothingabout your past. I didn’t ever pry into your first marriage because it has nothing to do with us... our future… or so I thought. I only saw the man my heart beat for. I only saw his present, the way he respected my grandpa, the way he cared for us, the way he looked at me like I was the only woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.”

She held his jacket tighter, the pain evident on her face. “I saw love in your eyes, Shaurya. But I was wrong. So damn wrong.”

“No, you weren’t wrong. What you saw… it was all real, Nandini. Every bit of it. And that night was supposed to the next step for us in our relationship. But then you suddenly talked about babies, and I panicked,” he admitted, clutching her shoulders. “It scared me. It reminded me of the exact same promises I once made to her. My ex-wife. And the way that ended…” His voice trailed off, rough and vulnerable.

She turned to him now, her eyes flashing. “So someone else hurt you, and you decided to punish me for it? You broke my heart, Shaurya. You didn’t just back off that night… you ran. You didn’t trust me, or us, or the love we shared. So why are you even here now? Just because Grandpa asked you to get a read on my future husband? And you still have the audacity—”

“I’m here because I couldn’t stay away any longer. Because I made a mistake,” Shaurya interrupted her. He drew in a deep breath and stepped closer, his eyes locked on hers. “And if I let you walk away without saying what I should’ve said a week ago, I’d regret it for the rest of my life.”

“I don’t want your explanations, Shaurya. Or your regrets. I cried for days. And you know what’s worse? I blamed myself. I kept thinking it was my fault. That I pushed too hard, said too much. That I ruined something that could’ve been beautiful.”

He took another step closer, afraid she’d bolt. “I told you it wasn’t your fault. It was mine. Entirely mine. I let my past fears ruin what could’ve been my future. And I’ve regretted it every second since.”

Her heart thudded painfully in her chest.

“It was Grandpa I confided in about my fears,” he continued.

Nandini blinked, shocked. He spoke to Grandpa? When?

“He was the one I could talk to. One who made me realise I was letting grief hold me back. He helped me see that maybe… I deserved a second chance at love too.”

Nandini panicked.

“Although he didn’t know the woman I was talking about was you, he was the one who knocked sense into me. And then, when he told me about Rohit,” he swallowed nervously, “it scared the hell out of me. Not because he might be perfect. But because it made me realise I couldn’t stand the thought of you with someone else. I don’t want to just be your past, Nandini. I wantto be your future, the man you build your forever with. If you’ll still have me.”

She looked at him long and hard, searching for cracks in his sincerity, but all she saw was a man stripped of his ego and weighed down by remorse. And somewhere deep within her, beneath the pain, beneath the logic, everything Nandini had tried to bury slowly began to rise again.

“Don’t do this,” she whispered in anguish. “Not now. Not when I’m trying so damn hard to forget you.”

“You can hate me. You probably should. But I’m not here to ask for forgiveness,” he said. “I’m here because I’m in love with you.”

Silence crashed between them.

“I love you, Nandini,” he confessed, clutching her arms like he was barely holding himself together. “After my bitter divorce, I’d sworn off relationships and love. Sworn that I’d never marry again. But then, you came into my life and sparked those feelings in me again. You made me crave love again. Made me want to believe in happily ever after again. It’s you I want to see my present and future with. It’s you I want to marry again, not to repeat the mistakes of my past, but to start afresh from scratch and create new, endless memories for us…”