Page 189 of Claimed By the Maharaja
Sanjana shook her head. “We haven't announced yet,” she said, her voice softening. “I'm two months pregnant.”
Yamini's breath caught. “Congratulations,” she said, feeling happy for the couple.
Sanjana smiled. “Thank you. Only Ram and Rani Ma know. And now you.”
“Thank you for telling me.” Yamini's eyes brightened with laughter. “That explains why Ram is monitoring your water intake.”
“He was already overprotective before,” Sanjana said. “Now it's his full-time occupation.”
Yamini laughed.
“You and Bharat should come to Devara before the baby arrives,” Sanjana said. “We'd love to have you.”
“We will,” Yamini said with a smile.
And she meant it without having to think about it first.
Across the garden, Bharat stood with his brothers in the afternoon light.
She couldn’t wait to tell him about Sanjana’s news later that night.
As soon as the thought occurred to her, she realized that she had been sharing quite a lot of things with him lately. Each evening when they had dinner together or later at night, she spoke of her day, and he listened quietly.
She wasn't sure when talking to him had become the best part of her day.
Strangely, that realization didn’t frighten her as it should have.
CHAPTER 45
Rewa Palace settled into its afternoon quiet after the celebration.
The terrace caught the last of the warm light. The valley beyond stretched wide and still, the chinar trees moving faintly in the wind. No press. No officials. No staff hovering close.
Just four brothers.
They stood at a comfortable distance from one another, the way men do when they've known each other their whole lives and don't need to fill silences. Samar stood with his hands clasped behind his back, still in work mode even now. Viraj leaned against a pillar, looking relaxed but missing nothing. Ram's gaze kept drifting to the far side of the terrace, where Sanjana sat with Yamini.
Bharat stood at the stone railing.
Across the garden, Yamini laughed.
He didn't turn immediately. He didn’t need to. He could separate her voice from the layered conversation without effort. He had always filtered rooms this way. Measuring tone, rhythm, shifts in breathing, the scrape of a chair, the flicker of flame. The world did not blur for him. It arrived in sharp fragments. He assembled it.
Right then, the only thing he assembled was her.
He noticed her laugh the way he noticed most things, first as sound, then as meaning. It was clear and unguarded, easy to pick out from the rest of the noise on the terrace.
Then he looked.
The afternoon sunlight caught her dusky face and the emerald fish pendant at her chest. She sat close to Sanjana, relaxed, talking with her hands the way she did when she was comfortable.
She looked happy.
It struck him how different she was from the woman who had once stood in his office accusing him of orchestrating her entire life.
When she looked at him now, there was no fury or suspicion in her eyes.
Just trust.
