Page 118 of Lawfully Yours

When she stepped out, wrapped in her robe and towel-dried hair clinging to her neck, her bedroom felt foreign. It lacked something, or rathersomeone.

She shook her head, mentally scolding herself, and walked to her bags. Time to unpack. Time to move forward. Her house help was still there, finishing up some final cleaning. As Arundhati opened the suitcase and began sorting clothes, the help paused at the doorway.

“Didi, do you want help with the laundry?”

“Just these travel outfits,” Arundhati replied, pulling out a few pieces. “Send them tomorrow morning. I won’t have time during the week. Work’s going to get crazy again.”

The helper nodded and stepped forward to collect the clothes. Her eyes widened slightly at the dresses.

“These are beautiful, Didi. Haven’t seen these before.”

Arundhati gave a small, absent smile. “There were a few events at the resort. I had to buy these from the resort’s boutique itself.”

She reached into her bag again and pulled out the golden-beige saree, the one she’d worn with Kushal for the Lord Shiva temple. And there it was…

The stain.

A small, blurred streak of vermillion right where the pallu met the border, a mark left behind when Kushal had filled her hairline in that temple.

The house help noticed it too. “This one also for laundry?”

Arundhati clutched the saree tighter to her chest. “No,” she said quickly, almost sharply.

“But Didi, it has a stain here… it should be washed off.”

She shook her head slowly. “No, that’s okay. You go.”

The woman didn’t question further, simply nodded and stepped out.

Left alone, Arundhati sat on the bed, the saree clutched in her arms. A hundred moments flashed through her mind again.

God, she was in trouble.

Because a part of her wasn’t ready to let any of it go. Not the saree. Not the stain. And definitely not the man who had left that mark on her heart long before the Sindoor touched her skin.

Chapter 21

Verma and Associates – Next Day

By the time the clock struck ten, the office had settled into its familiar rhythm…keyboards clicking, phones ringing, soft murmurs between legal assistants. But in Kushal Nair’s cabin, it had been anything but routine since sunrise.

He had arrived at seven.

Not because of deadlines.

Not because of pressure.

Because of her.

Three nights in Dalhousie in the same room as Arundhati had left him addicted to her nearness and tortured by the distance she kept. It had rewired his system, burned new circuits into his routine. The way she curled into his chest in her sleep. The scent of her shampoo on the pillow they shared. He had lived in a kind of borrowed dream.

Last night, returning home from Dalhousie to his cold, empty bed, it had hit him harder than he expected. He didn’t belong in that silence anymore. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her…under him, wrapped in sheets and heat and that stubborn pride that made him want her more.

He couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t sit still. Couldn’t keep himself from replaying every second they had shared. That ridiculous couple’s game. The way her lips had parted when he blindfolded her in their room. The way she had moaned his name when shelost control, not knowing that sound would haunt him through the night.

By six a.m., he gave up trying to rest. He showered. Dressed. Drove with no music. And showed up at Verma & Associates, hoping work would be the distraction he desperately needed.

It wasn’t.