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“You should, Maya. His problems are yours now. And he's already solving your biggest worry - me,” Garima reminded her.
“You are not a worry for me.” Maya hugged her mother. “Stop saying that.” She pulled away and smiled ta her. “Did you take your medicines? You have stressed yourself a lot today. Now that Pammi aunty is gone too, you should sleep.”
“More than me, you need rest.”
“I will. But after Ranveer returns.”
“That’s like a good wife,” Garima’s patted her cheek.
After urging her mother to rest, Maya waited up for Ranveer. Around midnight, she awoke with a jolt, realizing she'd dozed off. Was he back yet? She hurried to his room but found it empty. Where could he go? The dim light of the gym caught her eye. Quietly, she peered in to find him working out aggressively, sweat-slicked and shirtless. Transfixed by his lean, muscular torso, she tried unsuccessfully to ignore the shivers it elicited.
Steeling herself, Maya entered the room. “Why are you still up at this hour?” she demanded.
Ranveer barely glanced her way, continuing his relentless workout. “What else did you expect after tonight?” he bit out.
“I know you're angry with me, but this isn't the solution,” she chided. “And as it is, we had decided to take this relationship one step at a time, didn’t we?”
He slammed the weights down and rose to his feet. Maya recoiled a step as he closed in, backing her against the wall.
“Tonight, was that first step, Maya. To sleep together with a trust that I would not touch you without your permission. You didn’t show belief in Daadi’s words, you showed distrust in me.”
She looked up, horrified.
“Don't put this on me,” she retorted hotly. “I was just respecting her wishes.”
“By crushing mine?” he challenged. As she floundered for a reply, he added, “You undermined our very relationship tonight. How do you expect me to react?”
It dawned to Maya that he didn’t even touch her now, as if he feared to be punished for that even. For a man who desired her profoundly, it had to be so tough to show this sort of control even after marrying her lawfully.
Chapter 48
“You're overreacting,” Maya murmured weakly, but realized she had only angered him further.
“Because you're barely reacting, dammit,” Ranveer snapped punching the wall in frustration, likely injuring himself though he didn't flinch. “You came to me yesterday, asked me to marry you, said we'd take this slowly. And now you're already backing away. Do you have any idea what I'm going through? It's like offering candy to a child then snatching it back with lame excuses.”
Words choked in her throat. She realized she had been negligent and taken him for granted.
Ranveer continued his tirade, “You said marriage is about us, not you and me separately. But now I wonder - why did you agree to marry me at all? It doesn't seem you did it for us.”
“Ranveer, please,” Maya tried to interject but he barreled on relentlessly.
He was a man of few words, he had always contained his emotions from the world, but Maya had every right to know what she was doing to him knowingly or unknowingly this time.
“You tell me to work on my ego and I have, at least with you. But you need to reconsider your misconceptions about me. I've done everything to prove myself - shared my past, my darkest moments. Yet I can't read you, Maya. I don't know how you truly feel about me and it torments me. For the first time, this relationship isn't superficial or merely physical from my end. I'm genuinely invested. But when you pull away, give me hope, then yank it away, I go insane. If you want to keep your distance, fine. But be clear about it instead of leading me along with false promises. It hurts like hell.”
Tears sprang unbidden to Maya's eyes.
“F*ck.” Ranveer immediately cursed himself. His intention hadn't been to make her cry on their wedding night. But he had to break through the barriers between them, make her understand she was toying dangerously with his feelings and confusing him profoundly.
As tears streaked her cheeks, he started to wipe them but caught himself. “I don't even know if I'm allowed to touch you, but god knows I want to,” he said gruffly, his own throat tightening. “Stop crying, Maya, and go back to your room.”
He grabbed a towel and left, needing a cold shower to soothe his overheated body and jangled nerves. Their first fight after marriage had drained him. He hoped she at least considered them to be married.
Maya sobbed, never having hurt someone so deeply before. For the first time, she felt true remorse over her actions. She had always been confident in her decisions, striving for what seemed right. But Ranveer's reaction showed she needed to rethink. She couldn't put others' happiness first at the cost of hurting Ranveer. He deserved her care and attention as her husband and partner. How could she neglect that? Ranveer deserved her as his wife, companion, partner. Now that she was married to Ranveer, it was crucial for her to make things right and ensure that the man who had positively changed her life received her kindness, not pain.
Next Morning
The next morning, Maya knocked on Ranveer's bedroom door, a peace offering of his favorite breakfast in hand. Her mother always said the way to a man's heart was through his stomach. Though Maya had doubted it before, now seemed the perfect time to test that advice and apologize after their fight.
