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Pratiksha's POV

Three weeks. Twenty-one days. Five hundred and four hours. That was how long I had been away from the office, away from what I thought was my home, away from him.

My Baba was improving, recovering well at home with the diligent care of a full-time nurse and my mother. With his health stabilizing, it was time to return to the life I had built here—no matter how fractured it felt.

Walking through the glass doors of Shrivastava Enterprises felt like stepping into a world that had somehow shifted slightly out of place. The same walls, the same desk, the same people greeted me with warm smiles, but nothing felt the same. Or maybe it was just me who had changed.

“Pratiksha!” Meera, my junior, called out as she rushed toward me. Her eyes sparkling with relief as she enveloped me in a hug. “Thank God you’re back! It’s been hell without you here. The boss has been impossible to deal with!”

“I’m sure you managed just fine, Meera.” I smiled faintly, patting her back.

“Oh, you have no idea, dude!” She jested, pulling back to look at me. “I don’t know how you do it or have been doing it. Five years as his assistant, and you haven’t lost your mind yet. I’ve been here for over two years, and I swear, it feels like you must have nerves of steel to keep up with him.”

“I guess you just learn to adapt.” I laughed it off, but if only being his assistant was all that tied me to him.

Sahil Shrivastava. My boss. My husband.

Though to even think of him as such was to indulge in a fantasy I could no longer afford. My mind wandered back to that fateful day when everything changed—or rather, when it should have changed but didn’t.

We had been on a site visit in an off-the-grid remote village—my said boss and I. It was supposed to be just another day on the job, evaluating land for a new project, but unexpectedly things spiraled out of control quickly. We were taken hostage by a group of orthodox villagers who held up their twisted sense of honor, dictating that a man and a woman couldn’t be together unless they were married. They threatened to kill us if we didn’t comply with their demands.

In that crucial moment, my virtuous man did the only thing he could to save us—he married me.

He promised those villagers that we were husband and wife, sealing our fates in a situation more absurd than any fiction I’d ever read. And then, the second we returned, my barely-hours-old husband made it clear—painfully clear—that our accidental marriage was nothing but a calculated necessity, a reckless mistake even.

“Forget it ever happened, Ms. Naik.” As if I could. As if I could ever erase the way his hand shivered while applying the vermilion to my hair, or how his voice quivered ever so slightly with a crack of emotion as he pledged his vows while looking straight into my eyes.

Yet I, foolishly in love with a man who could never love me back, agreed to his terms. I told myself that I could live with it, that being near him was enough. But as the weeks turned into months, and the months into three endless years, the reality of our marriage—a marriage in name only—began to eat away at me.

“Now, let’s get to work.” It was better to focus on the tasks at hand than to drown in my life story that had no reset button. “The boss will need his tea soon.”

“That’s not needed nowadays; he doesn’t drink tea anymore.” Meera informed. “Boss told me not to make it for him.”

I paused, shock and concern flickering through me. Sahil had a bad habit of getting terrible headaches if he didn’t drink his regular sugarless black tea, so how in the world was he surviving without it all this time? Not that I freaking care about it anymore.

“I see.” I murmured, trying to mask my worry. “I’ll take care of it. Why don’t you go prepare his schedule?”

“Sure.” Meera agreed merrily as she turned to get her tasks done.

I too walked to the kitchenette, and as I brewed the tea, the gloomy days flashed before me when I had outrageously hoped my heartless husband might see me—really see me—as more than just an employee or a replacement for the woman he had lost.

I had hopelessly wished for someone of my own to lean on when my father was fighting for his life, someone to tell me it would be okay. I didn’t expect much from Sahil, but during that time, he had only pushed me further away, triggering a resolve in me that I had not known existed.

With the tea ready, I took a deep breath and carried the tray to his office. Knocking on the door, I waited for his customary curt permission before stepping inside.

He was sitting at his desk, glass-rimmed eyes glued to his computer screen with one hand massaging his temples.

He looked… different.

His usually groomed self was uncharacteristically disheveled, his piercing eyes hollow, and his well-kept dark hair unruly. The strict posture that I was so used to seeing was unrecognizably slumped.

The sight twisted something deep inside me, a part of me I wished I could blacklist.

I cleared my throat to get his attention, and when his deep forest eyes met mine, I was startled by the way they lit up with golden flecks.

He looked staggered, relieved even, and for a moment, I saw something in his gaze that I couldn’t quite place.

“I made your tea.” I uttered, placing the cup on his desk directly. “You should drink it.” He opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it, nodding hurriedly instead.

He tried to get up, perhaps to do Lord knows what, but I stepped back, and that stopped him halfway.

“I have work to do.” The tension in the room was almost tangible as I turned to leave, but his voice stopped me just as I reached the door.

“Pratiksha—" He called out, his tone softer than I’d ever heard it, like a fragile thread barely holding itself together.

I paused, my hand hovering over the handle, debating whether to stay or to walk out and spare myself another round of his dismissive indifference. But there was something in the way he said my name—a hesitance that felt alien on him, almost… vulnerable.

And against my better judgment, I turned around. “Yes, Mr. Shrivastava?” I kept my tone professional and neutral, to maintain the impenetrable walls I’d so carefully constructed over the past three weeks.

He flinched, just slightly, at the formal address. His symmetrically full lips pressed into a thin line as he asked.

“How’s your father doing now?” His voice, low and careful, sliced through the stillness. It wasn’t his usual tone—the sharp, clipped authority he wielded like a weapon. No, this was softer, almost hesitant, like he was afraid of what my answer might be.

I gritted my teeth, willing myself not to react. Not to care. He had no right to ask me that. Not after everything. But, of course, I couldn’t just ignore him.

“He’s doing much better.” I replied curtly, keeping my voice as perfunctory as possible. “Recovering well at home.”

He nodded; his fingers tapped the edge of the desk—a nervous tic I’d only recently noticed about him. For a man who always seemed so in control, so sure of himself, he looked… uneasy. Like he wanted to say something but couldn’t quite bring himself to do it.

Good. Let him squirm. Because I knew what this was. The same charade of civility we’d been performing for years where he'd reach out with these little crumbs of concern, dropping them just close enough for me to see but not close enough for me to hold. And every time, I’d be stupid enough to think, Maybe this time. Maybe this time he’ll actually mean it. But he never did.

And I was done falling for it.

Even now, as I stood there in this ridiculously sleek office with its floor-to-ceiling windows and modern furniture that screamed power and money, all I could think about were the moments I couldn’t unsee.

The endless sea of texts he’d sent while I was away was a fragile olive branch.

How’s Baba?
Let me know if you need anything.
Don’t hesitate to call.
How are you?
Take care.

I didn’t respond to most of them. Partly because I didn’t know how to. Mostly because I didn’t trust myself to.

And then there were the nights at the hospital. The first time I saw him there, I thought I was imagining it. Sahil Shrivastava, standing by the nurses’ station at two in the morning, looking so out of place in his tailored coat and polished shoes.

He didn’t speak to me. Didn’t even try to approach me. He just… stayed. Quietly, without letting me get a wind of it, but I noticed. I always noticed. And I hated him for it. Hated him for the way he made me feel. For the way he cared—but only from a distance. Like I was some fragile thing he couldn’t afford to get too close to, for offering his care and concern in a way that only deepened the wounds he had inflicted somehow.

Also there were these unannounced visits to my parents’ house where he’d been showing up out of nowhere, files in hand, claiming it was “urgent business.” As if the CEO of a multi-billion-dollar company needed to personally deliver paperwork to his assistant.

My mom loved him, of course. She’d sit him down, serve him tea, and gush about how “kind” and “thoughtful” he was even as a boss. Baba was more reserved, but even he softened a little around Sahil.

And me? I couldn’t even be in the same room for more than five minutes without wanting to scream. Or cry. Or both. Because deep down, a part of me—an embarrassingly hopeful, stupid part—wanted to believe it meant something.

That he meant something. But hope was a dangerous thing, and it had claws.

“I’m glad to hear that.” His voice pulled me back to the present. “I was worried.”

I blinked at him, my heart stumbling over itself for one stupid second before I forced myself to look away. “There’s no need for worrying or your visiting either.” I cut him off briskly, “He’s in good hands now.”

“Pratiksha…” he began, leaning forward slightly, almost pleading. It was the kind of voice that could make me forget all the reasons I shouldn’t care. And that was exactly why I couldn’t let him continue.

“I have work to do.” I cut in, stepping back toward the door. “It’s just a month or two more that I have to be your secretary, Mr. Shrivastava. Let’s not waste time talking when there’s so much to be done. I need to make sure Meera takes over my place properly before I leave.”

The words came out colder than I intended, but it was the truth. My time here was limited, and I wasn’t about to spend it playing his games.

His jaw tightened, his hands curling into fists on the desk. For a moment, I thought he might argue. That he might fight for something. But then he sighed, leaning back in his chair, the tension draining from his frame.

“If that’s what you want.” He uttered quietly, accepting the final scraps I threw his way.

It wasn’t what I wanted. But it was exactly what I needed. Because no matter how much I wished things were different, they weren’t. And they never would be.

This—this bitter distance, this emotional divide—was the reality. Our reality that I had to accept, even if it tore me apart from the inside.

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Lots of Love,

ANKITA