Page 47 of When Love Trespassed

“Rhea, please,” he said. “Don’t do this. Don’t throw us away like this. Tell me what you need. I’ll give it. I’ll change. Hell, I already started making the changes. I’m home now. I’m present. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

And then, she snapped.

“I don’t love you anymore, Shaurya.”

She blurted out the truth with the force of a blade slicing through my flesh.

“There’s someone else.”

For a second, the world stopped spinning.

“I’m in love with someone else,” she continued, her voice no longer trembling. “It’s been a year. His name is Anirudh. He works with me. He’s a senior leader in my company.”

She didn’t sugarcoat anything. She didn’t try to soften the blow.

She laid it all bare—how she had grown close to Anirudh during his long absences, how the emotional connection slowly deepened, filling the void left by Shaurya, how her work trips weren’t just about work anymore.

Anirudh had been travelling with her. They were together. They had been together for a year.

“I’ve been waiting to tell you,” she said quietly. “Waiting for the right time to end this.”

Shaurya couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. His blood pounded in his ears.

One year. One entire year, his wife had been lying beside him, living with him while loving someone else.

“You’re telling me,” he said, his voice rising, fury finally finding a voice, “that while I was still building a life for us, while I was trying to fix what I broke, you were sleeping with someone else?”

She flinched but didn’t back down. “Don’t twist it like that—”

“I am twisting it? I? Seriously?” he thundered. “You were living in my house, lying in my bed, wearing my ring, while being someone else’s! What the hell was I even trying to save?”

“I didn’t want to become this woman,” she said, her voice hardening.

“But you left me no choice! You were never there. You didn’t see me, didn’t hear me.

I begged you to stay, begged you to choose us…

but you never did. You always chose your work, your meetings, your travel. I was done feeling invisible, Shaurya.”

He stared at her, the anger slowly replaced by devastation. “So you replaced me?”

“I found someone who didn’t make me feel like a calendar entry. Someone who put me first,” she snapped.

The room went quiet. The damage was done. Rage and betrayal crashed over him, but it didn’t change anything.

She packed her bags and walked out that very night, while he stood in the hallway, paralysed, too stunned to believe this was happening. When the door closed behind her, it felt like something inside him went with her. That was the night something in Shaurya Ahuja broke for good.

And true to her word, she filed for divorce within days. And from that night on, he was never quite the same.

Present

Back in the present, Shaurya paused and looked down at his bandaged hands, like he was trying to make sense of it all.

“At first, I refused to give her the divorce. Not because I still loved her. No, that part had died the night she confessed she was cheating behind me. I resisted granting her that freedom because of the humiliation, the betrayal, and the helplessness. It had consumed me. And from that moment, I turned rogue. I didn’t want her to be happy.

I wanted her to suffer. I wanted her to wait for the man she left me for.

To know she couldn’t be with Anirudh just yet. ”

“That’s cruel,” Nandini said softly, not judging him but just being honest.

“I know,” he nodded, his expression pained, full of regret.

“It was petty. I let things get ugly. People talked. And Rhea made sure the narrative favoured her. She painted herself as the neglected wife, the one abandoned by an emotionally absent husband who was too obsessed with work to notice his own marriage crumbling. She made sure no one saw her betrayal… only my failure. And I… I didn’t fight back.

I couldn’t bring myself to expose her publicly.

I couldn’t destroy the image of the woman I once loved, once dreamed of building a life with.

I let it go. Eventually, I gave in and signed the divorce papers. I walked away from it all.”

His shoulders slumped as he added, “But yet the anger didn’t leave me.”

Nandini held her breath.

“Six months after the official divorce, I found out they got married and were planning to buy a villa in Serene Meadows. The last one on the block. That’s when I made my move. I bought it before they could.”

Nandini stared at him, wide-eyed. “Villa number 11?”

He nodded. “They had their eyes on it. But I made sure they didn’t get it.”

“Shaurya…” she breathed, her heart aching.

He gave a hollow, bitter smile. “It wasn’t about love anymore. It was about not letting her win. That’s how twisted I’d become.”

Nandini looked at him, not with pity, but with understanding, her heart thudding as Shaurya’s words sank in.

Every brutal truth, every wound from his past was now laid bare in front of her.

She had never imagined or realised the weight he had been carrying all this time.

Rhea’s betrayal, the collapse of a marriage he once believed in, and the real reason he ended up in Villa Number 11.

It wasn’t just a home for him. This villa was his act of defiance. His open wound. His impenetrable wall.

Shaurya’s voice was steady now, but there was a heaviness in it that couldn’t be masked.

“Me buying this villa... that’s what pushed her over the edge,” he said quietly.

“That’s why she still tries to get under my skin.

Like she’s desperate to remind me of my failure and that she was the one who moved on first.”

His eyes darkened. “On New Year’s Eve, during the party… she sent me a message. A photo of her and Anirudh on a yacht. She’d captioned it, ‘Never been happier. Wholesome. Healing. Finally found peace.’ ”

He scoffed bitterly. “Peace. She burned a marriage to the ground by cheating on her husband and calls it peace?”

Nandini felt a sick twist in her stomach. She suddenly remembered the way he had been that night, cold and distant, and the way he’d fought with her grandpa before the entire community. It all made sense now.

“That photo… it screwed with my head,” he admitted.

“And that was the exact moment your grandpa ran into me at the party and taunted me regarding my marriage. I lost it. I lashed out. Not because of him, not really. But because of everything boiling inside me. I took it out on the wrong person. Though I’ve already apologised to him for that, I still feel bad. That’s not who I am.”

He sighed, rubbing his palms over his face.

“But in all of this twisted mess, there’s one thing I don’t regret. One decision that feels like it’s the only right thing I ever did.”

He looked straight into her eyes.

“Buying this villa. Because if I hadn’t, you and I would’ve never crossed paths. And no matter what I’ve lost, meeting you was worth all of it.”

Nandini blinked back tears, caught off guard by the honesty in his words. But Shaurya wasn’t done.

“The night a week ago… when you said you wanted to have babies with me… it caught me unaware,” he reminisced, his voice cracking slightly.

“In that moment, all I could think about was Rhea. About the dream I once had with her, and how everything fell apart. And I panicked, Nandini. I was terrified of making the same mistake again. Of failing my partner yet again. What if I couldn’t give you the life you deserve? What if I ruined this time too?”

His fists clenched slightly. “That is what scared me that day. I was a coward, Nandini. I let fear win.”

Nandini reached for his hand, her grip firm, steady.

“Shaurya, listen to me. You weren’t wrong to feel afraid.

Being scared doesn’t make you weak. It makes you human.

You made mistakes, yes, but so did she. And what she did to you.

.. that wasn’t just betrayal, it was cruelty.

You tried once you realised your mistake.

You bent over backwards for that marriage.

Gave it your all, even when you knew it was falling apart.

But she made a choice to walk away. You can’t keep punishing yourself for the failure of your marriage.

She chose a different path. It’s not your burden to carry it forever. ”

He looked at her, his eyes betraying his pain and disbelief at her words.

“Relationships…” she continued, “they don’t survive on perfection. They survive on effort. On trust. On the willingness to stay when things get messy. If one partner stumbles, the other helps them up. That’s how it’s supposed to work.”

Shaurya didn’t blink. His next words came with quiet intensity.

“I don’t care anymore who was right or wrong between Rhea and me. That chapter’s closed. Over. All that matters is what I want now. And it’s you , Nandini.”

His voice became more charged, his emotions no longer restrained.

“I want you as my girlfriend. As my wife. As the mother of my children. I want a future with you, along with the calm and the chaos. I want it all .”

The tears she had been holding back broke free, but this time, they weren’t from sorrow. She didn’t say a word; she just threw her arms around him, hugging him with everything she had.

He held her back just as tightly, as if afraid letting go would break the spell between them.

He pulled back slightly, cupping her face in his hands. His forehead rested against hers, their lips merely a breath away, when she suddenly pulled back.

“You have me,” she whispered. “I’m not going anywhere.”

A wave of relief and joy washed over him. His smile widened.

“Not even if your grandpa tells you to marry you that Rohit?”

Her eyes sparkled with mischief. “You are all I want, Mr. Ahuja… you with every ounce of that grumpy charm.”

He leaned in to kiss her, but she suddenly tensed, a thought striking her.

“Oh my God,” she gasped. “I just ran out without telling Lakshmi Aunty! And Grandpa could be back any minute.”

Shaurya sighed heavily, his arms falling to his sides. “You’re kidding me.”

She laughed softly, wiping her eyes, and leaned in to kiss his cheek. “I’m not. I really need to go.”

As she rose to leave, his hand shot out, catching her wrist and pulling her gently back into him. She looked up at him, caught in his intense gaze.

“Your Valentine’s party with your friends...” he said. “Is that still on?”

Nandini teased. “Why? Planning to crash it, Mr. Ahuja?”

He gave her a lopsided smile that made her knees weak. “No. Planning to steal you away that night before someone else gets the chance.”

Nandini smiled, a playful glint in her eyes. “Alright,” she said softly, “I’ll come up with some excuse not to go. But what about Grandpa?”

Shaurya leaned back, thinking for a beat, before a slow smirk curved his lips.

“I’ll take care of that,” he said. “I’ll talk to Mrs. Mehra and arrange something special…

maybe a Valentine’s evening for the seniors at the community centre.

I’m sure she’ll love the idea. I’ll even sponsor the whole thing if that’s what it takes to steal you away for a few hours. ”

Nandini beamed. “Then do your best,” she whispered. “And I’ll be yours.”

She leaned in and kissed him, this time no longer soft or teasing, but deep and certain.

His body tightened with need the moment her lips touched his.

He didn’t think, didn’t wait. His one arm slipped around her waist while the other pulled her effortlessly onto his lap.

Pulling her closer, he deepened the kiss, gently sucking on her lower lip, his breathing ragged against her mouth.

“I missed this,” he murmured, his voice husky and strained. “Your taste. Your touch. The feel of you.”

A soft moan escaped her as his fingers instinctively found the slit of her robe and brushed against the warm skin of her inner thigh. Her breath hitched. Desire laced her every heartbeat, yet she pulled back, trembling.

“Not now,” she whispered, her voice thick with need and restraint. “I really have to go.”

He paused, his eyes searching hers, reading the ache she tried to hide. He nodded slowly, understanding without a trace of frustration. He helped her up, his hands lingering at her waist.

Just as she turned, he leaned in close, his lips brushing against her ear.

“Valentine’s night, then,” he whispered. “No more excuses. That night, you’re mine.”

Her cheeks flushed a deep crimson, and she gave him one last smile before hurrying out, waving behind her as she slipped through the door.

Shaurya stood still for a moment, letting the silence wrap around him. For the first time in what felt like years, he exhaled fully, a weight lifting off his chest. He had finally told Nandini everything. His truth, his past, his pain, his fear. And she hadn’t walked away.

She had stayed.

She had chosen him.