Page 18 of Drunk On Love

And as if that weren’t enough, let me fill you in on the latest update in my life: I ran off the night before my wedding.

Yeah… I know.

I've never been able to understand one thing in my whole life. First, in any gathering of billionaires, no one cancels as if they were dying to see each other's faces. And second, why is it that at every party, they just want to marry their children off to each other?

My family had surprisingly decided on my groom without any arguments. For them, the marriage was nothing more than a business deal, and the new partnership with the Singhanias turned out to be more successful than they ever could have imagined.

A few months ago, I was engaged to Vihaan Singhania—yes,thatVihaan Singhania, CEO of Singhania Industries. The man whose family buys ships with the same ease as most people order their fifth coffee of the week.

The truth is, I barely knew him. Just a string of formal conversations, the kind you’d have with a stranger on a delayed flight. I tried—really tried—tobridge the gap. We were supposed to get married, after all. And yet, I didn’t even know how he took his coffee or when his birthday was.

Not that I ever got the chance to find out.

Every attempt I made to connect—to talk, to meet, to feel something—was met with silence or last-minute cancellations.

Some urgent board meeting. Some unspoken excuse.

He rarely answered my calls. And when he did, it felt like I was intruding on his time rather than being a part of it.

The night we got engaged, Roy pulled me aside and asked if Ireallywanted this marriage. I still remember what I told him—clear as crystal, or maybe just champagne-soaked bravado:

“One day, I have to marry someone. If this deal makes the family happy, I’m in."

What was I thinking? Drunk on fate? Family duty? Or just the champagne bubbles?

Looking back now, I wonder if I was ever truly present in that moment—or if I was just performing a part I’d rehearsed my whole life. Marrying Vihaan felt like the logical move.

The safe, strategic step. A way to become the daughter Dad could finally be proud of. And for the first time ever, my father didn’t look through me. He stood beside me. Proud. Smiling.

But when I walked away and finally chose myself over a contract, I didn’t just break an engagement. I broke his expectations. Dad lost a merger. A valuable business partnership.

And I… I lost him. Again.

Not in some metaphorical, estranged sort of way. He cut ties. Neatly. Coldly. As if love had always come with a clause I failed to read.

Sometimes I wonder if something inside me broke that day. Not loudly. Not all at once. But quietly—like a hairline crack in glass you don’t notice until it’s already shattered.

I told myself walking away was brave. That this—this pain—was freedom. But the truth? It just feels like abandonment wearing a prettier dress.

I walked away from a contract, not a man. Vihaan wasn’t marrying me—he was merging businesses. And I signed up for it… until I didn’t.

Still, a part of me wanted the illusion. Wanted to believe that maybe, if I played the role well enough, love would grow out of convenience.

Out of politeness. Out of showing up in matching outfits for a magazine spread.

What a joke.

Love, whatever it is, doesn’t come for people like me. Not the messy, bruised ones who ask for too much and smile too little.

I’ve stopped waiting for it. Stopped writing about it. Stopped believing it exists outside fiction—and even there, it feels like a lie we sell to desperate hearts.

Maybe I’m bitter. Or maybe I’m just done.

Done hoping. Done pretending. Done offering pieces of myself to people who never look close enough to see the cracks.

Oh crap.

No. No, no, no… not now. Not tears.