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“I know,” he nodded, his expression pained, full of regret. “It was petty. I let things get ugly. People talked. And Rhea made sure the narrative favoured her. She painted herself as the neglected wife, the one abandoned by an emotionally absent husband who was too obsessed with work to notice his own marriage crumbling. She made sure no one saw her betrayal… only my failure. And I… I didn’t fight back. I couldn’t bring myself to expose her publicly. I couldn’t destroy the image of the woman I once loved, once dreamed of building a life with. I let it go. Eventually, I gave in and signed the divorce papers. I walked away from it all.”

His shoulders slumped as he added, “But yet the anger didn’t leave me.”

Nandini held her breath.

“Six months after the official divorce, I found out they got married and were planning to buy a villa in Serene Meadows. The last one on the block. That’s when I made my move. I bought it before they could.”

Nandini stared at him, wide-eyed. “Villa number 11?”

He nodded. “They had their eyes on it. But I made sure they didn’t get it.”

“Shaurya…” she breathed, her heart aching.

He gave a hollow, bitter smile. “It wasn’t about love anymore. It was about not letting her win. That’s how twisted I’d become.”

Nandini looked at him, not with pity, but with understanding, her heart thudding as Shaurya’s words sank in. Every brutal truth, every wound from his past was now laid bare in front of her. She had never imagined or realised the weight he had been carrying all this time. Rhea’s betrayal, the collapse of a marriage he once believed in, and the real reason he ended up in Villa Number 11.

It wasn’t just a home for him. This villa was his act of defiance. His open wound. His impenetrable wall.

Shaurya’s voice was steady now, but there was a heaviness in it that couldn’t be masked. “Me buying this villa... that’s what pushed her over the edge,” he said quietly. “That’s why she still tries to get under my skin. Like she’s desperate to remind me of my failure and that she was the one who moved on first.”

His eyes darkened. “On New Year’s Eve, during the party… she sent me a message. A photo of her and Anirudh on a yacht. She’d captioned it,‘Never been happier. Wholesome. Healing. Finally found peace.’”

He scoffed bitterly. “Peace. She burned a marriage to the ground by cheating on her husband and calls it peace?”

Nandini felt a sick twist in her stomach. She suddenly remembered the way he had been that night, cold and distant, and the way he’d fought with her grandpa before the entire community. It all made sense now.

“That photo… it screwed with my head,” he admitted. “And that was the exact moment your grandpa ran into me at the party and taunted me regarding my marriage. I lost it. I lashed out. Not because of him, not really. But because of everything boiling inside me. I took it out on the wrong person. Though I’ve already apologised to him for that, I still feel bad. That’s not who I am.”

He sighed, rubbing his palms over his face.

“But in all of this twisted mess, there’s one thing I don’t regret. One decision that feels like it’s the only right thing I ever did.”

He looked straight into her eyes.

“Buying this villa. Because if I hadn’t, you and I would’ve never crossed paths. And no matter what I’ve lost, meeting you was worth all of it.”

Nandini blinked back tears, caught off guard by the honesty in his words. But Shaurya wasn’t done.

“The night a week ago… when you said you wanted to have babies with me… it caught me unaware,” he reminisced, his voice cracking slightly. “In that moment, all I could think about was Rhea. About the dream I once had with her, and how everything fell apart. And I panicked, Nandini. I was terrified of making the same mistake again. Of failing my partner yet again. What if I couldn’t give you the life you deserve? What if I ruined this time too?”

His fists clenched slightly. “That is what scared me that day. I was a coward, Nandini. I let fear win.”

Nandini reached for his hand, her grip firm, steady. “Shaurya, listen to me. You weren’t wrong to feel afraid. Being scared doesn’t make you weak. It makes you human. You mademistakes, yes, but so did she. And what she did to you... that wasn’t just betrayal, it was cruelty. You tried once you realised your mistake. You bent over backwards for that marriage. Gave it your all, even when you knew it was falling apart. But she made a choice to walk away. You can’t keep punishing yourself for the failure of your marriage. She chose a different path. It’s not your burden to carry it forever.”

He looked at her, his eyes betraying his pain and disbelief at her words.

“Relationships…” she continued, “they don’t survive on perfection. They survive on effort. On trust. On the willingness to stay when things get messy. If one partner stumbles, the other helps them up. That’s how it’s supposed to work.”

Shaurya didn’t blink. His next words came with quiet intensity.

“I don’t care anymore who was right or wrong between Rhea and me. That chapter’s closed. Over. All that matters is what I want now. And it’syou, Nandini.”

His voice became more charged, his emotions no longer restrained.

“I wantyouas my girlfriend. As my wife. As the mother of my children. I want a future with you, along with the calm and the chaos.I want it all.”

The tears she had been holding back broke free, but this time, they weren’t from sorrow. She didn’t say a word; she just threw her arms around him, hugging him with everything she had.