Page 27 of Entangled Vows (Destined Diaries #2)

The door clicked shut behind her, and silence swallowed the room. Heavy, suffocating silence.

Mahika stood still, her face burning with frustration. Why did he always get under her skin? No matter how prepared she thought she was, Vikram Khurana had a way of disarming her with his controlling behaviour.

She stormed over to the window and drew the sheer curtain aside. The valley glittered under the night sky. It was a view that should have calmed her. But it didn’t. It only made her feel like the world was moving on while she remained stuck here.

Mahika let out a deep breath and turned away.

She sat at the edge of the bed and gripped the mattress until her knuckles turned white.

She tried to slow her racing heart, but her thoughts kept on spiralling.

This was supposed to be temporary. Simple.

Not this messy silence of tension, old wounds, and unspoken words that left her exhausted.

Her eyes burned with tears of frustration and she blinked them back. The anger simmered under her skin, of course. But beneath that was something far more dangerous. Her pulse still reacted to him. Her body still remembered his scent, the rasp of his voice, the weight of his gaze.

What the hell was wrong with her?

She squeezed her eyes shut. No. She refused to be that girl again.

The one who waited, who hoped, who felt too much.

She would survive this arrangement without losing her mind or her heart.

And she was definitely not sleeping on that ridiculously inviting bed, no matter how fluffy it looked or how sinfully it seemed to call her name.

Bungee wriggled in his carrier, his little feet a bit restless, as if he’d caught some of her tension. Mahika crouched beside him and released a long breath she hadn’t even noticed she’d been holding.

“Don’t worry, Bun,” she whispered, scratching behind his ears. “We’re not sleeping on the bed.”

The rabbit blinked up at her, his ears twitching as if he understood her.

“I know, sweetie. He’s an idiot. And what’s he going to do? Throw another tantrum?”

She lifted the carrier and placed it beside the balcony doors, exactly where Vikram had pointed earlier, which irritated her even more. She arranged his bowls, and Bungee sniffed around before flopping down like he already owned the place.

Mahika looked around the room, her frown fading.

It was surprisingly beautiful. The walls were a muted beige, complemented by dim, recessed lights.

The polished wooden drawers, etched with delicate vintage patterns, added a timeless, cosy charm.

Somehow, she hadn’t pictured Vikram with this kind of quiet elegance.

She imagined black satin sheets and sterile white walls.

But this… this was completely different.

She stepped into the walk-in closet and scanned her area. Someone had already arranged her clothes. Colour-coordinated and sorted by style, exactly the way she would have done it. She paused, wondering who had gone out of their way to do this. She really needed to thank them.

Opening her tote, she removed her nighttime essentials. Lip balm, body lotion, phone charger, and her Kindle. She then carefully set them on the nightstand next to the touch lamp. A soft tap bathed the room in a warm, golden glow.

Inside the bathroom, she splashed some warm water on her face and caught her reflection. Her eyes looked tired, her hair a messy tangle, and there was a weariness clinging to her skin. This was a version of herself she rarely let the world see.

“You’ve got this,” she whispered, though a tiny part of her couldn’t help but scoff at the lie.

Donning her sleep shirt and shorts, she slipped into her fluffy slippers and settled on the bed to go through her usual nighttime routine.

She squeezed a generous amount of lotion onto her palms and rubbed the swirl of vanilla magnesium cream into her arms. The familiar, comforting scent filled the air, and for the first time in the day, a sense of calm settled over her, steadying her nerves.

After finishing it, her eyes drifted towards the couch, and she sighed, steeling her resolve.

She was going to sleep on it, no matter what.

Grabbing a soft throw blanket, she marched to the couch like a soldier heading to war, and flopped down with a huff.

Vikram’s voice echoed in her head, all clipped, bossy, and annoyed with something she couldn’t quite name.

And it made her even angrier. What was his problem?

She had always tried to be his friend, but his habit of snapping and treating her like an unruly child made her blood boil all over again.

Being seven years older didn’t give him the right to be so dictatorial.

Rolling onto her side, she faced the small enclosure near the balcony housing Bungee.

“My rude husband is such an annoying control freak, isn’t he?” she muttered.

Bungee tilted his head, and she narrowed her eyes. “Oh, you’re taking his side now?”

Mahika lay on her back, her eyes fixed on the ceiling. The couch wasn’t exactly comfortable, but she didn’t care. She was willing to endure a little discomfort rather than surrender. Her pride left her no choice.

For a while, everything felt okay, and a calm, peaceful sensation washed over her.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

But when she opened them, she groaned in frustration as a familiar scent hit her.

Musk, cedar… and him. Of course, the room smelled like him.

Because fate clearly had a cruel sense of humour.

To make matters worse, some unhinged part of her had liked his authoritative tone.

The heat beneath his controlled demeanour and the dominant glint in his eyes stirred something within her.

Dear Lord. She was going crazy.

It had to be her writer brain, constantly seeking inspiration in every little detail.

It was just an overactive imagination, brimming with fanciful thoughts and imagined scenarios.

It wasn’t attraction. Not in the slightest. That simply couldn’t be…

right? And yet, the shiver that ran down her spine said otherwise.

She groaned, burying her face in the pillow as she muttered out loud, “You’re not the boss of me.”

Bungee rustled quietly in his corner, his eyes following her every move in utter silence.

“He is not the boss of me. He is not the boss of me,” she chanted like a mantra, hugging a cushion tightly to her chest.

The words came out quieter than they felt in her head, but she held onto them like they were a warm layer of protection.

Let him be pissed. She didn’t care. If it bothered him, she’d happily sleep here every single night.

No way was she going to let him control her.

She snuggled deeper under the blanket, letting out a contented sigh.

Even though she tried to fight it, her thoughts were starting to soften.

And as she drifted off, her last thought wasn’t about the couch, or even the fight.

It was his name, echoing in the depths of her mind.

∞∞∞

The house was silent when Vikram returned from the gym.

Sweat clung to his skin, but it wasn’t just the workout that had him wired.

Mahika had a way of unsettling him and making him lose it.

Working out was his way of burning off that tension before he did something reckless, like pushing her onto the bed to make it perfectly clear she wasn’t meant to sleep anywhere but beside him.

He glanced at the time. Mahika must have dozed off by now.

Good. She needed the rest after the chaos of the past few weeks.

At least, that was the excuse he told himself.

However, the truth was, he hated the distance between them, the invisible walls that had always been there, ever since they were kids.

Reaching the bedroom door, he turned the knob and stepped inside.

Then he slipped off his shoes and wiped the sweat from his neck with his towel.

Without bothering to turn on the main lights, he made his way towards the bathroom.

A dim floor lamp in the corner cast a soft glow around him, and that’s when he saw her.

His wife. Asleep. On the goddamn couch.

He stood there for a second, thinking maybe she’d just dozed off while scrolling through her phone. But no, her breathing was even, and the throw pillow under her head flattened as if she’d made the couch her bed for the night.

His jaw ticked as his eyes fell on the infuriatingly stubborn woman curled up on it and occupying the one spot, he’d told her to avoid. He knew it wasn’t about comfort. It wasn’t even about space. It was about defiance. Plain and simple.

Mahika had made a sport out of pushing his buttons.

Always. This… this petty little act of rebellion was just the latest in her long list of ways to test his patience.

She’d slept on that couch with a barely-there blanket, not because she liked it, but because he had demanded her to make herself comfortable in his bed.

And God forbid she ever did anything he suggested without turning it into a battleground of wills.

She was stubborn enough to test a saint’s patience.

A memory from their childhood flashed in his mind, as vivid as if it had happened yesterday. It was the summer she’d decided to learn to ride a scooty. She was sixteen, and he was twenty-three.

He remembered it clearly. How could he not? How could he forget the day he realised she was born solely to send his blood pressure through the damn roof?

At the time, he’d been dating someone far too high-maintenance.

That season had been full of subtle shifts.

He’d catch himself thinking about Mahika more than he should, noticing things about her he hadn’t before.

And for the first time, he found himself resenting his own brother, because he was the one she laughed with, the one she trusted the most.