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Pratiksha's POV

The car ride back home was steeped in silence and laced with a weight neither of us seemed willing to address.

Sahil was behind the wheel with his eyes locked on the road ahead like it held the answers to things he didn't know how to say.

His expression was an impenetrable mask I had spent years trying to decipher. But I wasn't fooled.

Not anymore, because minutes ago this same emotionally repressed man had stood before an entire room and laid his guarded heart bare in the most unexpectedly heartfelt speech of his life.

He had spoken of me not just as his secretary, not just as the woman who kept his life in order, but as someone who mattered. As someone who had impacted him. And now? Now we were sitting here like none of it had happened.

Like he hadn't just shattered the very foundation of everything I thought I knew about him.

No.

Absolutely not, I thought, my mind a chaotic mess of unspoken words before the question finally burst out of me.

"Did you mean it?"

"Mean what?"

Oh, come on.

I turned to fully face him. "You know what."

He exhaled, the sound low and almost weary, before glancing at me briefly. "I don't say things I don't mean, Pratiksha."

That... shouldn't have made my stomach flip. But it did.

"So you'll actually miss me?"

"Yes."

Okay. I wasn't expecting that level of directness.

I blinked. "Oh."

Oh? Oh? That's all I could come up with. Seriously?

He sighed, fingers tapping once against the wheel before he spoke again, quieter this time. "I already do."

I turned my gaze to the window, watching the city blur past, the yellow streetlights streaking across the glass.

"You have a funny way of showing it."

I hadn't meant for him to hear, but, of course, he did, and his next words, however, weren't defensive. They weren't clipped or detached either like they would've been months ago. Instead, they were wistful.

"I always knew what I had, Pratiksha..." He murmured, almost like he was confessing something to himself rather than to me. "I just never knew how to say it."

His profile was sharp under the dim glow of passing headlights, the firm set of his jaw a contradiction to the vulnerability I could see now. Not just in the way his lips parted slightly, like he had more to say but didn't know how. Not just in the way his fingers gripped the steering wheel a little too tight, like he was holding onto something that was slipping through his grasp.

But in the way he wasn't hiding.

Not anymore.

He had been an open book these past few days, and I had refused to read him and to let myself acknowledge the cracks in his armor, the sincerity in his words, and the silent pleas in his actions, but he was hard to not notice even in a room full of people.

"Now do you?" My voice was barely above a whisper, but I knew he heard me.

He always heard me.

Even in the moments when he pretended not to, even in the times when silence was his chosen armor, he heard me.

"I'm trying..." He admitted it unguarded. His lips pressed together briefly, hesitation flickering across his face before he exhaled again, his head tilting slightly, as if debating how much to say. "For a long time, I thought doing enough would be enough." His words were measured, careful, each one seemingly weighed before leaving his mouth. "That if I did my job, if all I did was handle responsibilities, if I made sure things ran the way they should, it would... I don't know, show what I couldn't say."

A light, humorless chuckle escaped me along with a wry smile pulling at my lips. "Newsflash, sir. It didn't. We are fellow humans, not mind readers, you know."

That made him glance at me. The red glow of the traffic light illuminated his face, highlighting the subtle creases of exhaustion, of things unsaid, of things he might finally be ready to voice. And the way he looked at me—steady, searching, aching—made my pulse stutter.

"I know." The admission was quiet, barely more than a murmur, but I felt it reverberate through me. The light flickered green, and just like that, he turned away, eyes back on the road, but the shift between us had already happened.

I sighed, crossing my arms and leaning my head against the window. "You know, for someone so ridiculously smart, you really are an idiot sometimes."

A low huff of laughter escaped him. "You're not wrong about that."

I blinked, turning toward him. "Did you just agree with me?"

He shrugged, the corner of his mouth twitching in something close to a smile—real, unforced, almost fond. "I'm trying to be more honest. With myself... and with you."

I snorted, shaking my head. "Well, look at you. Personal growth."

His fingers tapped lightly against the steering wheel, almost absentmindedly. Then, softer, more deliberate, he said, "You helped."

"What?"

He glanced at me briefly, and the look in his eyes made something in me falter. There was no hesitation, no attempt to shield or disguise it—just something unbearably tender. "You heard me."

I had. Loud and clear.

And damn it, if my stupid heart didn't squeeze in response. My fingers twitched against my lap, restless, the emotions coiling inside me too much, too soon, too everything. And before I could stop myself, the words slipped out.

"Being with you is certainly doing something for me too, but God knows if it's growth or not."

The second they left my mouth, I cursed internally. Damn it, girl. Use a filter.

His hands stilled against the wheel. For a beat, he said nothing. And then, in a voice quieter, more careful than before—"You mean that?"

A breath lodged itself in my throat. This was my chance to backtrack, to play it off, to pretend I hadn't just unraveled something fragile between us. But I couldn't.

Because it wouldn't be the truth.

So instead, I nodded, my voice softer now. "Yeah. I do."

He exhaled, running a hand through his hair, messing up the strands that were usually so perfectly in place. "I don't deserve that," he admitted, almost to himself. "Not after—"

I cut him off before he could spiral. "No, you probably don't. Obviously. But I don't exactly believe in giving people only what they deserve."

Sahil stared at me, his dark eyes flickering with something unreadable—something hesitant and wanting and maybe even a little bit hopeful. Then, after a long moment, he made a noise—half a breath, half a chuckle—and shook his head, like he couldn't quite figure me out.

"You're something."

"I know. I'm generous, and you're slow. So, I guess we're even. Anyways, stop the car."

Ritvik's frown was immediate, "Where?"

"On the side, of course!" I huffed, jabbing my finger toward the window. "Look."

His gaze followed mine, landing on the ice cream vendor parked beneath a flickering streetlight.

"You want ice cream?"

He sounded almost... bewildered.

I rolled my eyes. "Yes, Sahil, I want ice cream. That's why."

He glanced at his watch. "It's late."

I scoffed. "It's not that late." Crossing my arms, I arched a brow at him. "Are you seriously denying me dessert like I'm six and grounded?"

"I'm not denying you of anything, I swear." His objection was laced with that calm, frustratingly rational tone of his—but there was a sliver of mansuetude too. "But you're sensitive to cold foods at night."

Wait. What?

My mouth parted in a small, startled 'o,' and I turned to look at him like he'd just grown an extra head. Or maybe a heart. Honestly, at this point, either felt just as impossible. "You knew?"

His shoulders stiffened just a bit, then fell again. He looked... sheepish. As in, Sahil Shrivastava—the man whose idea of emotional expression was blinking twice instead of once—was now giving me the kind of look I'd expect from a teenage guy who just got caught feeding stray cats behind his mother's back.

He exhaled slowly, eyes flickering to me and then away, almost like he couldn't hold my gaze. "Of course, I knew."

Why does it feel like I'd been sprinting full speed into a wall of bricks and now I was left standing there, dazed, blinking against the impact?

I stared at him, feeling a strange sort of pressure bloom behind my ribs. Even when he acted distant, or cold, or like feelings were optional and vulnerability was a disease. Even when he barely spoke, and I was left fumbling in the dark trying to decode him like some unsolvable riddle.

He'd been watching.

Listening.

Knowing.

Me out of all people.

"You knew," I repeated. My voice had dipped somewhere between wonder and confusion. "Even when I didn't tell you?"

"I saw how your throat would always get sore the next day. Or how you'd get that tiny crease between your brows after eating something cold at night, even though you tried to act like it was nothing in front of the kids who you often joined for late-night ice cream treats. You'd still finish it every time."

God. The detail. The observation. The care behind those words cracked something open inside me. Something I didn't know was still fragile.

For a man who couldn't say how he felt to save his life, Sahil had a damn good habit of showing it in ways that made my heart ache and swell all at once.

And right now? It felt like I was looking at a different version of him. Or maybe the real one—the one he didn't let the world see. The one who kept a mental record of the smallest things. The one who remembered that I always sneezed twice when I cried out of sickness. Who noticed when I skipped breakfast even if I tried to play it cool? Who paid attention to how cold food made my throat itch but never once said it out loud until now?

I blinked rapidly, my emotions piling up like traffic at a broken signal, disorderly and impossible to navigate. "You never said anything. Why?"

His lips quirked into a lopsided smile, the kind that didn't quite reach his eyes but still managed to tug at something soft in my chest. "I've been an idiot on record when it came to you, remember?"

I groaned, rubbing my temples like he was giving me an actual migraine. "Oh please. Don't you start with that again."

"Start what?" he asked, all innocence and wide-eyed mockery, like I hadn't heard that exact tone from him a hundred times before.

"This." I threw a vague hand in his direction, as if that would help articulate the tangled mess of my thoughts. "This self-deprecating, 'I'm a dumbass who can't do anything right' nonsense you keep pulling. You've been laying it on real thick lately."

He shrugged, looking far too casual for my liking. "Well, haven't I earned it?"

"Sahil!"

His name came out sharper than I intended. Less like a name, more like a scolding wrapped in a sigh. "You really need to stop talking about yourself like that. It's getting on my nerves."

He gave a small, almost guilty smile, like a kid caught stealing cookies before dinner. "I'm just being honest."

"No, you're being dramatic," I snapped. "There's a difference because you're not some hopeless cause no matter how hard you try to imply it that way."

That finally earned a real laugh from him—quiet and low, rumbling in his chest like it had been trying to break free for a while. He tilted his head toward me, his eyes twinkling with that kind of fondness that made me feel like I was standing barefoot in a thunderstorm, wide open, unsure if I wanted to run or stay and get drenched.

"Thanks, I think," he said dryly. "Partial idiot is an upgrade."

"Damn right it is," I muttered, crossing my arms with finality like I'd just declared a verdict in court.

His gaze flicked to the vendor again, then returned to me, thoughtful and something else—softer, maybe.

"Tell you what," he said after a pause, like he was offering me a truce. "Let me make you hot chocolate instead once we get home."

My eyebrows shot up. "Hot chocolate?"

He nodded, the corner of his mouth twitching like he was trying not to grin. "Yeah. The thick one with cinnamon, dark chocolate, a few marshmallows, and just a little bit of clove."

My heart did this strange thing, like skipping a step on a staircase and then trying to recover while pretending you meant to do it all along.

"You remember that?" I whispered, a little stunned, a little thrown.

His brow furrowed slightly, like the question didn't make sense to him. "Of course I do. It was that rainy week in October, remember? Last year. You had the flu but refused to admit it. Said something like, 'Work doesn't wait for a fever,' which was stupid, by the way."

I let out a breath of disbelief, staring at him as he went on.

"You were coughing your lungs out and still trying to run a team meeting on my behalf. And I had to practically drag you into the pantry and make you sit down. I brewed that cup with whatever we had, and you still drank it. Twice."

Holy. Shit.

I didn't even remember that in detail. Not like that. I remember the fever, sure, and being grumpy about missing deadlines and disappointing him—but the hot chocolate? Is he making it?

That memory had blurred into the edges of my brain like one of those quiet, insignificant moments life throws at you, and you don't realize it meant something until someone else remembers it in 4K resolution with surround sound.

And suddenly... I didn't care about the damn ice cream anymore.

Suddenly, I wanted that hot chocolate.

Not because I was craving chocolate or because of the taste. But because it meant he had seen me. All those little, ordinary, ignorable parts of me—he noticed. He remembered. He cared.

He'd been watching all along.

He saw what I didn't even see in myself.

And God, that did things to my insides. Unraveled something in me like a thread being tugged gently, but firmly, one slow pull at a time.

"You really are something else, Mister," I muttered finally, blinking fast, voice catching at the end.

"I hope that's a compliment, Missus."

I breathed out a laugh, one hand going to rub the back of my neck. "Depends."

"On?"

I turned to him, raising a brow with all the mock seriousness I could muster. "On whether or not this hot chocolate lives up to the hype. Because if you're going to drag me away from street ice cream, it better be worth it."

He chuckles at that, the sound so full and easy it made something in my chest unclench. Like some invisible knot had loosened itself just from the sound of him being happy. God, when was the last time he laughed like that by himself? With no weight pressing down on his shoulders, no guilt of his past hanging like a raincloud just above his head?

"Challenge accepted."

We drove off, the car humming beneath us as outside, the city blurred except for the headlights flickering like fireflies in the dark. Inside, the silence was different now, like an old golden song playing on low volume that hums within the space long after the music stops.

I looked at him again—hands on the wheel, jaw slack with ease, that boyish curve at the corner of his mouth still lingering—and something inside me softened even more.

Maybe it was stupid. Maybe it was reckless. But for the first time in a long time, I felt it—really felt it. That quiet tug in my chest, the one that whispered you're safe here. The one that reminded me of all the reasons I'd fallen for him in the first place. The one that had been buried under piles of hurt and disappointment and loneliness.

And it struck me—maybe I hadn't stopped loving him.

Maybe I'd just forgotten what it felt like to like him.

And this version of him? This boyish, thoughtful, marshmallow-remembering idiot?

Yeah. I liked him. A lot.

As the traffic lights flicked green and the car moved forward, I let my head rest against the window and closed my eyes for a second. Just one. Just long enough to hold the moment between my fingers like a firefly, I didn't want to let go.

And I thought—if this is what falling back in love feels like... not grand, not dramatic, but with laughter and teasing and remembered recipes for moments like these... then maybe, just maybe, I wouldn't mind the fall.

Not this time.

Not if it was with him.

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Lots of Love,

ANKITA