Page 155 of Lawfully Yours

Her heart leapt at the intimacy of it, though she didn’t dare point it out, afraid he’d immediately change the fork if she did. Instead, she stayed quiet, savouring the small, secret sweetness of the moment.

When he lifted the fork toward her again, she leaned in deliberately slow this time.

“Mmm, you feed me so good,” she hummed.

That was when his eyes finally snapped to hers. For the first time all evening, he looked directly at her. He had caught the double meaning after all.

“You said you’re hungry. So, stop flirting and eat.”

“I’m hungry, but not just for food.”

He exhaled sharply, trying to ground himself.

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing, Arundhati.”

“Exactly what you were doing back in Dalhousie… whenIwas blindfolded andyouwere feeding me.”

The words faltered on her tongue because the moment she said them, memories of that night came crashing back. That night they had come so close, got so intimate. It was the first time they had crossed so many lines together in one night.

Kushal’s face hardened, colour rising faintly in his cheeks as his own mind betrayed him with the same memory. Arundhati’s thighs pressed together beneath the table, instinctive, desperate to curb the ache building in her core just from thinking of that night.

And Kushal? He read it all…her struggle, her want…just by the look on her face.

His stare dropped to her lips as she licked away the trace of sauce, his Adam’s apple bobbing with the effort to restrain himself. Every unspoken desire was written across his face, plain as day. If their world wasn’t so fractured, if pride and pain weren’t standing between them, she knewhe would have kissed her by now.

And God, she wanted him to.Desperately.

He continued eating in silence, occasionally lifting the spoon to feed her, too. No words passed between them, only the sound of cutlery and their shallow breaths filling the air. Arundhati had a thousand things to say, but the words refused to line up in her mind. Instead, she just sat there, drinking him in, letting the quiet stretch.

But one question clawed at her, refusing to stay buried.

When he fed her the last morsel and pushed his chair back, reaching for the plates, she instinctively caught his wrist. His hand stilled as his eyes met hers.

“Do you really want me to sleep in the guest room?” she asked softly.

For a heartbeat, his expression flickered. Then the mask slipped into place…that hard, ego-driven armour he always wore when he was bleeding inside.

“I want you to sleepawayfrom me. The whole house is yours, Aru. Pick any room… just notmybed.”

Her grip faltered, fingers loosening around his wrist as she let him go.Not his bed.That hurt!

Kushal saw the hurt flash across her face. Yet he turned away, forcing himself to ignore it. Without another word, he gathered the plates and disappeared into the kitchen, leaving her alone with the ache of his rejection.

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Arundhati barely slept a wink in the guest room. She kept staring at the door she hadn’t locked, clinging to the foolish hope that it might open in the middle of the night, that he might walk in, lie down beside her, or better yet, carry her back intotheirbedroom. She prayed for it, her heart aching with every glance at the door, ears straining for the faintest sound of the knob turning. But the silence never broke, and in that restless wait, exhaustion finally dragged her into a shallow, uneasy sleep.

Kushal’s night was no better. He tossed and turned in their bed, the duvet tangled around him, sleep galaxies away. His wife was home again, under the same roof, yet in another room, becausehehad pushed her there. She had wanted their bedroom. She had wantedhim.And still, he had denied her. So why did it hurt so much now?

In some corner of his heart, he thought she might come to him in the dead of night, the way she once had in Dalhousie. Maybe that was why he had left the door unlocked. And God help him, he didn’t even know what he’d do if she had. If she demanded to stay, to sleep beside him, would he fight her? Or would he give in completely?

The thought alone burned in his chest. With a groan, he shoved the duvet aside and got up, reaching for the bottle on the nightstand. He gulped down water, trying to steady his pounding heart, before walking to the tall glass windows. The city stretched before him in its hush of midnight lights, sleeping soundly while his own world raged. His gaze inevitably drifted to the high-rise opposite, to the balcony where he often caught that couple wrapped up in each other’s romance. Now he knew it wasn’t just strangers. It was Rajveer and Ananya.

But tonight, he couldn’t even look. He didn’t want to see anyone’s love. Not theirs, not anyone’s. All he wanted desperately and painfully was his wife. In his arms. In his bed. To finally have the one thing that might quiet the storm and return his peace. This timeForever.

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Next Morning