He found the locked door amusing.
Anaya had bolted the master suite with a rare stubbornness, thinking she could shut him out the same way she shut out emotions.
Aryan didn't knock.
He used his key.
The sound of the lock turning made her blood freeze.
She sat up in bed, crimson robe wrapped tightly around her, eyes narrowed as he stepped inside—composed, calm, dressed in black with the scent of gunmetal and sandalwood clinging to him like a second skin.
"You went through my books," he said simply.
"You left it where I could find it," she snapped.
He said nothing.
Anaya stood, bare feet touching the marble, fire blazing behind her eyes.
"How long?" she demanded. "How long were you hers?"
His jaw flexed. "That's not what matters."
"*It matters to me!*"
He stepped closer. "Why? Because you're jealous? Or because I felt something for someone you can't control?"
She slapped him.
Hard.
His head turned slightly. But he didn't retaliate.
Instead, he whispered, "She was the first person who saw me. Before the medals. Before the violence."
Anaya's throat tightened. "And yet you let her marry him."
He nodded. "Because I wasn't enough."
Silence fell. A heavy, cracking silence.
And then her voice—quiet, trembling with the kind of vulnerability she rarely let slip.
"Am I just revenge?"
His eyes found hers. "You were."
A breath hitched in her chest.
"And now?"
He stepped forward, his hands slow, deliberate, reaching up to cup her face. She didn't flinch—couldn't.
Now he was close enough to taste the salt on her skin.
"Now," he said, "you're my consequence."
---
She kissed him.
Not with hunger.
Not with dominance.
With devastation.
Because his truth was the one thing she hadn't prepared for.
Not that he had loved Meher.
But that he had *let her go*.
That Aryan Rathore, the man who never surrendered anything, had surrendered *her*.
And now… he wouldn't let go of Anaya.
---
He undressed her slowly, reverently, like it was *not about sex* for once, but some kind of surrender. A ceasefire between bodies that had only known war.
When he lay her down on the bed, their lips brushing, she whispered into his mouth:
"Don't leave."
"I won't," he said.
Not that night.
Not anymore.