Page 41 of Lawfully Yours

The same one she had slipped onto his finger on their wedding day fourteen months ago. Even after their separation, their fights, the legal proceedings that had turned their divorce into a nationwide spectacle, he still woreit.

Whereas she, on the other hand, had shed every symbol of their marriage the moment she walked out of his house. No ring.No Sindoor or Mangalsutra. Nothing to remind her of what they had been.

Guilt gnawed at her insides.

She turned toward the window, gripping her hands together in her lap as she didn’t want to acknowledge these emotions that settled over her. In a few minutes, the car slowed down and finally stopped.

They had reached her apartment gates.

Kushal parked the car but didn’t move. He didn’t say anything, didn’t even look at her as she unbuckled her seatbelt. But just as she reached for the door handle, her thoughts still clouded with guilt and confusion, she made a careless mistake.

She didn’t check behind her.

The moment she stepped out, a motorbike came speeding down the wrong side of the road.

It happened too fast. Despite alerting her with a blaring horn, the reckless rider brushed against her left arm speedily with a painful impact.

She gasped, stumbling back as pain seared through her arm. The biker didn’t even slow down. He just vanished into the darkness, leaving behind only a trail of Kushal’s furious yell.

“Son of a—” His curse was cut short as he threw open the car door and rushed toward her. Before she could stop him, his hands were on her, pulling her to him as he scanned her in concern.

“Aru… are you okay?” His fingers skimmed over her arm, trying to assess the damage. “He hit you too hard. We need to go to the hospital.”

Arundhati bit the inside of her cheek, nodding in denial, her mind still processing he just called her‘Aru’… her nickname, which only her uncle called her, and Kushal too did when they were living together after marriage. Not wanting to get diverted by their past again, she pressed her other palm over the achingspot, determined to deal with the pain herself. She didn’t need his help.

But Kushal was having none of it.

His touch was surprisingly gentle as his fingers brushed over her skin, rubbing slow, soothing circles over the sore area. It was an innocent gesture, one meant to comfort, but it was too much. Too intimate. Too familiar.

Suddenly, all the memories she had spent months burying clawed their way back. The way he used to touch her, hold her, whisper against her skin when they used to kiss.

No.

She couldn’t afford to fall into this trap again.

With a sharp inhale, she pulled away from him, breaking the contact between them, and without sparing him a single glance, she turned and walked briskly through the apartment gates.

She didn’t look back.

Kushal watched her go, a storm brewing in his dark eyes as he exhaled harshly. That woman was too stubborn, too frustrating, and unlike anyone he had ever met in his life.

Chapter 7

Arundhati’s Apartment – Same Night

Arundhati sat on the couch, cradling a mug of tea between her hands, her arm still faintly throbbing from the motorbike incident earlier that night. The ache was dull but persistent, just like the memory of Kushal’s hand gently holding hers, his thumb brushing the sensitive skin of her upper arm as he checked for bruises. That fleeting moment that was so unexpectedly intimate refused to leave her mind.

She’d tossed and turned for hours after returning from the club, every attempt at sleep hijacked by that man’s face. The way he’d spoken, the concern in his eyes masked by sarcasm, it all pulsed beneath her skin.

To distract herself, she had brewed chamomile tea and shuffled to the living room, playing a soft, old tune on her speaker. But as the music played, a familiar piano chord unfurled a memory she had locked away—the first time she had met Kushal Nair at a party of Verma and Associates one and a half years ago. The night everything shifted.

Verma Residence, Delhi – Late Afternoon (One and A Half Years Ago)

Arundhati dropped her travel bag by the foot of the couch and sank into it with a groan, pulling off her sandals with a sigh. The flight from Bangalore had been exhausting, not so much physically as mentally. Her uncle had sounded unusuallyserious on the phone, using the word ‘Come home urgently’ like punctuation.

“Uncle? I am home.” She called out from the drawing room.

Raj Verma appeared from his study, dressed in a crisp white kurta, looking every bit the powerful patriarch he was in the legal world.