The penthouse was swathed in shadows, the only light coming from the moon reflecting off the Arabian Sea. It felt colder than usual, a vast expanse of marble and glass that felt more like a mausoleum than a home.
Reyansh was where he always was when the world felt too small: at the floor-to-ceiling window, a glass of amber liquid in his hand. He didn't turn when he heard the elevator chime. He didn't move when the soft click of Myra's heels echoed across the floor.
"I told you not to come back if you walked out," he said, his voice a gravelly whisper that vibrated with a week's worth of exhaustion. "Are you here to beg for your job, Myra? Or did you miss the silk sheets?"
Myra didn't flinch at the cruelty. She walked toward him, stopping until she was standing just a few feet behind him. "I know about your mother, Reyansh."
The glass in Reyansh's hand stopped mid-air. The silence that followed was suffocating. The air in the room seemed to crystallize, turning into jagged shards of tension.
"I know what she did," Myra continued, her voice steady despite the hammering of her heart. "I know about the secrets she sold to Shanaya's father. I know about your father's death. And I know that this entire wedding... this entire 'Ice King' act... is just a cage you built to keep yourself from ever feeling anything again."
Reyansh turned then. His face was a mask of pure, unadulterated fury. "Who told you? Was it Khanna? I'll ruin him. I'll burn everything he owns—"
"Stop it!" Myra stepped closer, crossing the distance he so desperately tried to maintain. "You can ruin the whole world, Reyansh, but it won't bring him back. And it won't make the betrayal hurt any less. You're marrying a woman you hate to get revenge on a man who's already won because he turned you into this."
"You know nothing!" Reyansh roared, slamming his glass onto a side table. He lunged forward, grabbing her shoulders, his fingers digging into her skin. "You think a few stories make you an expert on my life? You think you can walk in here and play therapist?"
"I think you're terrified," she whispered, looking him straight in the eye. "I think you're terrified that if you let me be more than a 'sex buddy' or a 'stranger,' I'll do what she did. I think you treated me like property because property can't break your heart."
"Shut up," he hissed, but his grip on her shoulders was trembling.
"You don't want a fiancée, and you don't want a distraction," Myra said, her hand reaching up, hesitantly touching his cheek—the first time she had touched him with genuine tenderness since she arrived. "You want to be seen. You want someone to tell you that it wasn't your fault."
The mask didn't just crack; it shattered.
Reyansh's breath hitched. A sound escaped him—a broken, jagged sob that he tried to swallow, but it was too late. The wall he had spent fifteen years building collapsed in a single moment of vulnerability.
He didn't pull her into a kiss. He didn't try to dominate her. He simply let his forehead drop onto her shoulder, his massive frame shaking as he finally, for the first time since he was ten years old, let the grief out.
"She left me," he whispered into the crook of her neck, his voice sounding like a lost child's. "She looked me in the eye, took the check, and walked out while he was... while he was still in that room with the gun."
Myra wrapped her arms around him, holding the "Monster of Mumbai" as he fell apart in her arms. She felt his tears soak into her shirt—the same man who had humiliated her in the boardroom was now clinging to her as if she were his only lifeline in a stormy sea.
"I'm here," she murmured, stroking his hair. "I'm not her, Reyansh. I'm not her."
They stayed like that for a long time, the billionaire and the architect, anchored to each other in the dark. The "Ice King" was gone. In his place was a man who was finally, painfully, beginning to thaw.
But as Reyansh pulled back, his eyes were red-rimmed and raw. He looked at her with a terrifying intensity. "If you stay... if I let you in... and you betray me, Myra... I won't just ruin you. I'll end us both."
"I know," she said, realizing the weight of the heart she had just inherited.
The revenge against Shanaya was still in motion. The debt was still there. But for the first time, the "Stranger" in the penthouse was no longer a stranger to herself—or to him.
Author's Thought
THE TOTAL VULNERABILITY! 😱😭 This is the most emotional chapter of the book. Reyansh finally cried! He let her see the trauma that drives his obsession. But now, the stakes are even higher—if Myra ever leaves now, it will truly kill him. 🚩💔