Page 145 of Entangled Vows

Vikram kissed her forehead softly and whispered, “You’re the bravest woman I’ve ever met.”

Mahika exhaled shakily, brushing her thumb along his jaw. “And you’re the most stubborn man I’ve ever loved.” Her hand pressed over his chest, directly above his heart. “I love you, Vikram Khurana. Stupidly. Fiercely. Completely. And I know I’ll keep loving you until the end of time.”

“I love you too, Momo,” he whispered.

Then Vikram reached into the inner pocket of his blazer and pulled out a folded piece of paper. It was creased at the edges, and the ink was slightly smudged. Mahika frowned.

“What’s that?” she asked.

Vikram looked at the paper, then back at her. His jaw tightened, and his eyes burned with emotion. “It’s the clause. The contract that forced us to marry.”

And without another word, he tore the paper in half.

Mahika gasped as the sound of paper ripping echoed in the silence of the room.

“I don’t care about this anymore,” he said. “Or anything that comes with conditions of us being together. We are legally married, and that’s the only reality that matters. I’m done letting anything come between us. Not a contract, not our past, not our pride, and definitely not a piece of fucking paper.”

“But what about your life in Mumbai? I don’t want you to regret anything because of me.”

Vikram sat back slightly, still holding her hand. “I won’t. Mohit will be shouldering the responsibility of the JK Group as he’s the Co-CEO.”

Her brows furrowed. “And you?”

“I’ll work remotely… for all the businesses. JK Group, the Khurana empire, and the one with Arjun. I’ve made the arrangements already,” he said with a small smile. “Because we’re moving to Australia, Momo. To the beach house you’ve always dreamed of. We’ll be living by the sea.”

Her eyes widened. “You’d really do that for me?”

“I’d do anything for you.”

“But the beach house will be mine only after we’ve been married for a year.”

“Now, we’ll be married forever. And the beach house is not going anywhere. We are buying that beach house next week and expanding it into a bigger space,” Vikram explained, and Mahika smiled through her tears.

She brushed her fingers along his jaw, her voice breaking as she whispered, “Grizz… you don’t know what this means to me. For the first time in my life, someone actually chose me and my happiness over everything else. Do you know how precious that is? And you’re ready to give it all up and start over… just for me.” Her breath hitched as she let out a shaky laugh. “That’s incredible. It shows how much you love me. And I would have agreed to it without blinking, but the truth is, I love you even more.”

His eyes softened, as though her words were breaking open something within him he hadn’t even known was there.

“I don’t need to run anymore,” she continued, her voice firmer now as she cupped his face in her hands. “Not to Australia. Not anywhere. I just needed to escape Dehradun and the memories it had in my life… so I decided that Australia was my answer to everything. But now, those memories are overshadowed by something else… like falling in love with you. You’ve replaced every painful piece of my past withus. And that’s enough for me.”

Vikram went still. “Momo, are you saying you don’t want the beach house?”

“Yes…” She nodded, smiling through her tears. “I mean, I want the beach house. It’s ours now. I want it to be our little escape from this busy life we’ll have together. Right now, I just want to be with you. Wherever you are, that’s home for me. Andif you ask me where I want to live… I’ll say Mumbai. I want to live with you, with your people, in your world. I realised that just like you, I’ve started to like your friends too, and I wouldn’t mind spending the rest of my life surrounded by them.”

He pulled in a sharp breath, his thumb stroking the back of her hand. “Are you serious?”

Her smile widened. “Dead serious. I love you, Vikram Khurana. I would do anything for you.”

For a moment, Vikram just stared at her, her words cutting through his defences like sunlight through clouds. His jaw flexed, his chest rising and falling as if he was trying to cage the storm inside him. Then he leaned in, his voice rough with emotion he couldn’t hide.

“You have no idea what you’ve just done to me, Momo. No one has ever said that to me. No one has everchosenme. But you… you didn’t just choose me, you’ve captured my heart all over again, the one which is already yours…” He shook his head, almost in disbelief, caressing her cheek with a reverence that contrasted the blank mask of arrogance she always saw on him.

“Momo, I love you so very much. More than my pride, more than my empire, and even more than my own life. And if you’re dead serious about this, then you’d better know one thing… You’re mine, Mahika. For life. For every damn lifetime after this.”

She nodded her head, chuckling. “Mumbai it is.”

“Yes, baby. It is.”

Before she could respond, his lips crashed against hers, and not gently, but searing with everything he’d been holdingback. The possessiveness, the fear, the desperate love, and the devotion that burned through his veins. She kissed him back with the same fire, their fingers entwined, their breaths mingling, until the door swung open again.