Page 4 of The Secret Bride
The elevator gave a sudden jolt. The lights brightened back to their normal intensity, and the smooth mechanical hum resumed. The digital display above the doors flickered back to life and began counting upward. Thirteenth floor. Fourteenth floor.
The woman pushed herself to her feet quickly, smoothing down her clothes with trembling hands. She clutched a manila folder against her chest like it was some kind of shield. She still refused to look directly at me.
The elevator chimed softly. Fifteenth floor. The doors slid open with a quiet whisper.
She moved toward the opening immediately, clearly desperate to escape. But just as she stepped over the threshold, she paused. She glanced back at me, just for a second, her voice barely louder than a breath.
"Thank you."
Then she was gone, disappearing into the hallway beyond.
The doors closed. The elevator continued its smooth ascent toward the thirtieth floor. I stood there alone, staring at the brushed metal doors, my mind still replaying the last ten minutes in vivid detail.
I could still feel her weight in my arms. The way her hair had felt beneath my palm, soft and slightly tangled. The faint scent of something floral that had clung to her clothes. The way her entire body had trembled when she could not breathe.
I shook my head slightly, forcing myself to refocus. I had a company to run. I had meetings to attend. I did not have time to stand in an elevator thinking about a woman whose name I did not even know.
The elevator doors opened on the thirtieth floor. I stepped out into the familiar hallway, my shoes clicking against the polished marble as I made my way toward my office. Meera, my personal assistant, was already waiting near the glass doors. She had her tablet in hand and that crisp, efficient expression she always wore when she had a long list of things to tell me.
"Good morning, Mr. Khanna," she said, falling into step beside me as I walked. "Your ten o'clock with the development team has been rescheduled to eleven thirty. The quarterly financial reports are already on your desk. You have a video conference with the London office at two, and the marketing team wants to know if you are available for a brief this afternoon."
I pushed open the door to my office and walked inside. The space was exactly the way I preferred it. Clean. Minimal. No unnecessary clutter or distractions. Floor to ceiling windows offered a panoramic view of the city below, but I had learned long ago not to let the view pull my focus.
"Tell marketing I will give them fifteen minutes at four," I said, moving around my desk. "What else?"
Meera hesitated. That was unusual. She was normally direct and precise, never one to pause or second guess herself.
"Your grandmother called this morning."
I stopped, my hand halfway to loosening my tie, and looked at her.
"What did Dadi want?"
Meera's fingers moved across her tablet screen.
"She asked me to clear your schedule for next Friday. She wants to visit the Mehra residence to meet with Miss Avija's parents."
Of course she did. I should have seen this coming.
I sat down behind my desk, leaning back in the leather chair. Dadi had been planning this for months now. Ever since I hadintroduced her to Avija at that family gathering last year, she had been obsessed with the idea of seeing us married. She was terrified that I would end up like my father. Alone. Broken. Lost in grief.
Dadi was the woman who raised me. My mother died shortly after I was born. Complications during delivery. The doctors tried everything, but in the end, there was nothing they could do. I never got the chance to know her. Never heard her voice. Never felt her hold me.
But my father knew her. My father loved her with the kind of intensity that most people only read about in novels. When she died, something fundamental inside him shattered. He could not stay in Rajmer anymore. Every street reminded him of her. Every building held a memory. Every sunset was another moment they would never share. So he left. He moved to the United States and built an entirely new life there, thousands of miles away from the ghosts that haunted him.
He left me with Dadi.
I did not resent him for it. I understood, in an abstract sort of way, that grief could destroy a person. That love, when ripped away, could leave wounds that never truly healed. But I also could not fathom loving someone that deeply. Loving someone so completely that losing them would break you beyond all repair.
I liked Avija. I had met her at a business networking event about two years ago. She was beautiful, intelligent, ambitious. She ran her own fashion design business and came from a respectablefamily. We got along well. We understood each other. Our relationship made sense on every practical level.
But did I love her the way my father had loved my mother? I honestly had no idea. Maybe that kind of love was rare. Maybe it was something most people never actually experienced.
"Mr. Khanna?"
I blinked, refocusing on Meera.
"Sorry. You were saying?"
