The morning at the Rathore estate churned with relentless pressure. Behind every elegant surface and rich silence, there was noise—a relentless thrum of business calls, clattering laptop keys, and clipped voices from the staff scrambling to keep up with Arush Rathore's pace.
He was a storm in motion.
"Get Mishra on the line. Now," he ordered into his phone, tone cold enough to bite. "If the shipment isn't cleared by tonight, we lose the entire deal. And if we lose this deal—"
He turned the corner sharply.
And collided into her.
Sanya, who had just stepped out of the hallway, barely had a chance to react. Her shoulder knocked against his chest, and the force sent her stumbling back into the wall.
The phone nearly slipped from his grip. "What the—" He turned on her, already fuming.
She looked up at him, wide-eyed, her lips parting in panic. "I—I'm sorry—"
"Do you even watch where you're going?" he snapped.
She flinched. "I didn't see you coming—"
"No, of course you didn't," he growled. "You never see anything. You just drift around this house like some ghost, useless and always in the way."
She stepped back quickly, her breath catching—but not fast enough.
In his irritation, he shoved past her.
Not forcefully—at least not intentionally. But his arm pushed against her shoulder, knocking her off balance again. Her back scraped roughly against the corner of the wall, the edge catching her arm, a sharp sting shooting through her skin.
She gasped quietly, more from surprise than pain.
But Arush didn't notice. He didn't look back. He was already pacing ahead, phone back to his ear, muttering angrily about shipping delays and contracts and people who failed him.
And Sanya just stood there.
Frozen. Her hand reached up slowly to her upper arm where the burn of the scrape still lingered beneath the sleeve of her kurta. She could already feel it bruising.
But what hurt more wasn't the injury. It was the fact that he hadn't even seen it.
He hadn't seen her.
Not the flinch in her eyes. Not the way her lip trembled as she pressed it shut. Not the little part of her that had been quietly hoping—foolishly—that he might stop. That maybe, just maybe, he'd notice the tears she always swallowed down before they fell.
But he never did.
To him, she was just air. Something to move through. Something that once shattered his world.
And now? A shadow in his mansion.
She turned away and slowly walked back down the corridor, hugging her arms tightly, like she could hold herself together if she just kept walking.
But the sting in her chest was louder than the scrape on her arm.
The house had quieted, but Arush's mind hadn't.
The echo of meetings, calls, tense negotiations still rang in his head like static. His voice had turned hoarse from too much talking, and the knot in his chest refused to loosen. He had thrown off his coat hours ago, rolled his sleeves up, and run a hand through his hair more times than he could count.
He'd been snapping at his team all day—short, sharp commands, eyes flicking to the clock every time a file arrived late or a document was misplaced. The empire he had built was shifting under pressure, but today, even his business—the one thing that had always given him control—felt unsteady.
And he hated losing control.
So when Sanya bumped into him in the hallway earlier—soft, quiet Sanya—he hadn't even glanced up.
He was already boiling with tension. Her sudden presence had triggered it all.
His shoulder collided with hers. She stumbled back.
And he just barked, "Watch where you're going!"
She had looked up at him with startled eyes. Wide. Frightened. And still… so gentle.
But he didn't care. Or told himself he didn't.
He had muttered something under his breath—nothing kind—and walked away. His fingers had accidentally brushed hers when he shoved her aside, but he didn't pause. Didn't ask. Didn't even notice the tiny flinch she gave as her arm hit the corner of the table.
He didn't see the pain. Didn't hear the breath she sucked in to stay quiet.
He had walked away like she was invisible.
But now, hours later, his eyes dropped to his sleeve—and saw it.
The faintest stain of red.
Blood.
His breath hitched. A flash of that moment replayed in his mind: her figure, small and trembling in the hallway, the way she hadn't said a word.
He stood abruptly, the chair scraping the floor behind him.
His heart wasn't racing—but something heavy started to pound inside his chest. A dull ache. Guilt?
No.
He wouldn't name it.
But he moved through the house with sudden urgency. He checked her room. The kitchen. The guest room. Each place emptier than the last.
She wasn't answering.
He tried to tell himself it didn't matter. That it wasn't his problem.
But then why do I feel this pit in my stomach?
The wind carried something faint. A sound.
He paused.
Was that...?
It came again.
Laughter.
Not loud. Not exaggerated. But soft, unguarded, like a child's—free from everything the world had taken.
It wrapped around him unexpectedly, that laugh. Like a gust of wind scented with old memories. Something pure.
He followed it.
Through the hallway, past the open French doors that led to the garden.
And then he saw her.
She was crouched down in the grass, her knees folded beneath her. Barefoot, her dupatta trailing behind like a whisper of silk. She was surrounded by three white rabbits, one nudging its nose into her palm while she giggled softly and stroked its head.
Her laughter echoed in the golden light of the setting sun—warm, melodic, full of something he hadn't heard in his world for a very long time.
He stood behind the tall hedge, half-hidden, eyes locked on her.
And something inside him cracked.
The stress, the anger, the revenge—it all blurred for a moment.
All he could see was her.
The way she smiled at the smallest things. The way she whispered to the rabbits like they were old friends. The way the light touched her face, revealing no bitterness, no pride—just a quiet kind of softness he hadn't realized still existed.
She didn't know he was watching.
And somehow, that made it more real.
She looked like a forgotten melody—beautiful and haunting. The kind that could make you ache without knowing why.
And for the first time in weeks, his mind… went quiet.
No deadlines. No fury. No twisted plans.
Just her.
Sanya.
A girl who had every reason to hate him… and yet still found joy in the simplest things.
He swallowed hard, jaw tightening.
How could someone like her still smile?
Still laugh… after everything?
After me?
His hand clenched by his side. He didn't know whether to walk forward or disappear.
Because if she turned and saw him, he didn't know what part of him she'd see.
The man who hated her.
Or the man who had just forgotten how to hate—for a heartbeat too long.
Arush entered the mansion just as the sky was swallowing the last light of dusk. His mind was a haze—still stained with her laugh. That sound. It haunted him like an unfinished sentence, lingering in the quiet corners of his memory.
He had left the garden the moment he felt his composure slip. He couldn't afford it—not with her.
Not when he had promised himself to never forget what she took from him.
But still, something gnawed at the back of his thoughts. An image.
Red.
Blood.
It had been on her sleeve. Barely visible, but now, under the harsh light of the hallway, it screamed in his mind.
He moved quickly through the corridor, footsteps soundless, tension wound tightly in his shoulders. He didn't know what he was looking for until he saw her.
The kitchen door was ajar. Light spilled out softly, and there she stood—back facing him.
Sanya stood by the sink. Her movements slow. Careful.
He stepped closer without thinking, half-shadowed by the doorway.
She was washing her arm, the water running pale pink where it met skin.
No sound. No complaint. Just a quiet, practiced rhythm—like this was routine.
Like she'd done this before.
Too many times.
Arush's breath caught in his throat.
The cut was longer than he thought. Raw. Uncleaned until now. No antiseptic. No bandage. She was just letting the water take what it could.
And still… she didn't flinch.
Didn't make a sound.
His chest tightened.
He should've noticed it earlier.
But she hadn't told him.
She hadn't even looked at him.
Not once.
She had just… accepted the pain. Moved around it. Smiled through it, even laughed. Played with those rabbits like she hadn't been shoved against a wall just hours before.
What kind of life teaches someone to treat pain like silence?
He hated the way her fingers moved—steady, unfazed. As if wounds were just another thing to hide.
Like she had been hiding them all her life.
She reached for a towel and dabbed the wound gently. Her brows furrowed only slightly—nothing more.
Arush stayed in the shadows.
And he hated himself for doing nothing.
For walking away earlier.
For not seeing what was so obvious now.
She didn't even know he was there.
Didn't know he had seen.
Didn't know that something in him cracked the moment he realized—
She was used to this.
Used to being hurt.
Used to not being cared for.
And in that moment, he wasn't thinking about revenge.
Or anger.
He was thinking about a girl who cleaned her own wounds in silence.
And how damn wrong that felt.
But he stepped back before she could turn.
Left again.
Because guilt was not allowed.
Not for her.
Not yet.