Page 60 of Lawfully Yours

The others giggled.

Arundhati nodded stiffly. “I’m coming,” she said.

The group retreated, leaving her standing there alone with Kushal again. Before she could take a full step away, Kushal caught her wrist again, enough to make her stop.

“Come back here when you’re done,” he said lowly, his thumb brushing against the rapid pulse at her wrist.

She yanked her hand free sharply. “I’m never coming back to you, Kushal,” she said. “Not here. Not anywhere. Stop waiting.”

She didn’t look back this time as she walked away.

Kushal stood rooted to the spot, his hand closing slowly into a fist where her warmth had lingered a second ago.

No matter how fiercely she said it, he would still wait.

Not because he was patient.

Not because he was noble.

But because waiting for her was stitched into the very fibre of who he was.

Some wars are won simply by refusing to leave the battlefield. And when it came to her, leaving had never even been on the table.

****************

Around 2:30 a.m., the last guest finally left Raj Verma’s grand villa. Only three people remained now—Raj, Arundhati, and Kushal. Raj, a little tipsy but still coherent, looked between the two and grinned lazily.

“Why don’t you both stay here tonight?” he suggested, his voice slurring slightly.

Arundhati opened her mouth to refuse. Every instinct in her wanted to get away from Kushal. But she was bone-tired. The thought of driving back at this hour felt unbearable. A part of her reasoned it was just practical to stay.

She nodded reluctantly.

The moment she agreed, Kushal’s voice followed. “I’ll stay too.”

That shocked her. Her eyes snapped to him, momentarily betraying her surprise. She remembered him telling her during their short-lived marriage that he couldn’t sleep properly anywhere except his own home. Not in hotels, not at relatives’ places. Home was his sanctuary.

And yet he agreed tonight.

She knew why.

He was desperate to talk to her. Desperate enough to sacrifice even his precious peace for a shot at one conversation.

Raj’s eyes twinkled at them both. “Good. Good,” he said, clapping his hands together once. “Feels like old times.”

He swayed slightly and added, “Aru, show Kushal the guest room, will you?”

“Not needed,” she said, brushing invisible lint off her saree. “His memory is too sharp. He knows where it is.”

Kushal’s lips curved in a slow smirk. “Next to your bedroom,” he said smoothly.

Her cheeks flamed, but she refused to react.

Except for one reckless second, an old memory blindsided her.

She remembered the last time they had stayed here, during their marriage, months ago, when everything between them was still raw, but not yet broken.

Kushal had been restless that night too, struggling to sleep in a new bed, in a new house. When she had turned over in the middle of the night, she’d caught him wide awake, sitting up, just watching her sleeping form.