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“I met Rhea through a common friend.”

Nandini froze mid-movement, her hand still resting on his bandaged one. She slowly raised her eyes to his face. He wasn’t looking at her. His gaze was fixed somewhere far beyond the walls of his villa, somewhere lost in a memory he hadn’t visited in a while.

“I was twenty-nine, already neck-deep in building my company. My parents divorced when I was five. Mom got my custody, but she passed away when I was twenty-five. And Dad… he had already lost touch with us, so I really had no one to look back to, no shoulder to lean on. Work kept me busy, and frankly, it was my only escape from the loneliness. I didn’t have the time or interest to chase relationships or love. But Rhea… shehad this spark. She was driven, independent, and smart as hell. I wasn’t instantly attracted to her. For a few months, we were just friends. She challenged me.” He let out a dry, almost bitter chuckle. “And I liked that.”

Nandini said nothing. Her breathing slowed down, as if afraid to interrupt the rhythm of his confession.

“Things just clicked between us then. We dated for a year, and everything felt right. Her family gave us their blessings, and we got married in a beautiful ceremony. The first few months... they were perfect. We were building something together. We talked about everything—our dreams, our careers, places we wanted to travel, kids.”

He paused for a moment.

“But if I’m being honest… back then, marriage wasn’t about love or partnership. At least not for me. It felt more like ticking off a checkbox. Just another milestone achieved. Like something I was supposed to do at that point in life. Get married… check. Settle down… check. That’s how I saw it. Another task completed. Another goal achieved. But I didn’t change. Never made space for her in my life. My priorities stayed the same. Work always came first. I told myself she’d understand. That she’d adjust.”

Nandini’s heart clenched on hearing his pain. She could hear the regret in his voice.

“Then came a golden business opportunity, a joint venture that could double my annual profits and kickstart the expansion I’d always envisioned. Seeing it as my big break, I threw myself into it. The initial setup required me to be abroad for six months. I’d barely been married three to four months when the offer came in. Rhea wasn’t thrilled, obviously. We were still newlyweds. But she understood. She saw how important this was for me... for the company. She let me go, even if she wasn’t happy about it. We managed our time somehow. Texts, late-night calls, video chats. We told ourselves it was just temporary. That once the initial groundwork was done, I’d come back and everything would be back to normal.”

“But?” Nandini asked softly, already sensing where the cracks had begun to show.

He paused as if reliving the exhaustion of those long flights, lonely hotel rooms, and the ache of separation.

“But it didn’t,” Shaurya said bitterly. “Even after I returned, the project demanded more. Every month, I was flying out again—sometimes for five days, sometimes for two weeks, sometimes for fifteen days straight. It became a routine. One I didn’t think twice about because I convinced myself I was doing this for us, for our future.”

He exhaled slowly.

“Rhea… she tried to hold on. She really did. She kept the house running and tried to stay patient. But somewhere along the line, the silences between us grew longer, and the conversations shorter. One day, she told me she felt invisible in our marriage. That she missed me. She wanted time and my presence. Something real. Something tangible. And I…” he shook his head, his voice quiet, “I dismissed it. Dismissed her. I thought she was being emotional. I told her to wait and hold on. That this phase would pass soon. That it would all be worth it at the end.”

Nandini watched him, silently absorbing each word. She could already see how love, when begins with compromise, quickly starts to feel like a sacrifice.

“I offered to take her with me, but she had her own career. And she was right. I should’ve realised that she couldn’t give up her life just to follow me around the world.”

He leaned back against the couch, as if the memories were too heavy to sit upright with. “We started arguing. At first, overthe little things. Then came the silences. Cold, long silences. Because by then... she’d already given up.”

Nandini swallowed hard, her hand still on his, anchoring him to the present.

“Almost a year passed with the same routine, travel, and deadlines. By then, she’d stopped calling when I was away. Stopped replying to my messages. And when I returned home, she would often come home late, citing she was busy at work. But soon, she began coming home later and later… sometimes slipping in well past midnight, offering nothing more than a tired nod and a closed door. My wife was not only distant; she was shutting me out completely. That… that was the turning point for me. The moment I realised just how far we had drifted. And that’s when I tried. Tried to finally mend the damage I’d done.”

He paused for a moment, the silence stretching between us.

“I began to understand then… maybe this was how she had felt when I wasn’t around. When I chose my work over dinners, emails over conversations, meetings over her. She never complained. Never interrupted my routines or questioned my choices back then. And now, I didn’t interrupt hers either. I couldn’t. I had no right to.”

He rubbed his eyes, trying to push away the guilt, the regret, and the memories. Nandini felt his pain, and tears welled in her eyes too.

“By then, I’d already stopped travelling. I had restructured my entire schedule and delegated all outstation responsibilities to my managers. I stayed in Delhi, choosing proximity over profit, desperate to reclaim what I was losing. But Rhea… she didn’t budge. We had been married for one and a half year by then. Yet, our life together became nothing more than a performance. At social events, we posed like a picture-perfect couple—smiling, engaging, presenting the illusion of maritalbliss. But behind closed doors, we were strangers. There was no warmth, no touch, no intimacy. Even when I reached for her, even when I tried, she would pull away, murmuring excuses that she was too tired or too overwhelmed or simply not in the mood. And I would step back, biting my frustration, trying not to resent her for reacting exactly the same way I had once.”

Shaurya held her hand tightly as if grounding himself.

“It continued like this for another six… maybe seven months. During that time, her work-related travel started. She was frequently gone for two weeks at a stretch, sometimes even longer. I missed her deeply, more than I thought I would. The silence in the house became unbearable. I’d pace the halls, listening for footsteps that never came. The guilt of watching her drift away from me like that was suffocating, Nandini.”

Nandini nodded, patting their handhold to give him strength.

“So I made a decision. No more excuses. No more waiting for things to magically fix themselves. I had to do something to win her back. Not with words, but with effort. I planned everything. The night she was returning from a week-long work trip, I transformed our house for our two-year anniversary. I had cooked her favourite meal even though I hadn’t stepped into the kitchen in years. Our bedroom was lit with scented candles and there were fresh flowers everywhere. Small gifts were laid out on the bed with notes… little memories I thought she’d forgotten. I wanted to remind her of what we once had, of what could still be salvaged. But the moment she stepped into the room, her reaction wasn’t that of joy. It was fear.”

Nandini’s heart clenched as she watched him.

“She looked shell-shocked, almost horrified. When I tried to touch her, she visibly flinched. That one moment shattered every ounce of confidence I had built up for that night. Still, I tried. I told her how I wanted to rebuild our life together. How I hadalready started making changes. I spoke about wanting a future with her, about starting a family when she was ready, about raising children together and becoming the kind of husband and father, I knew I could be. And that was when she pushed me away.”

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