Page 12 of The Promise of a Traitor

He was about to walk right past the living room without acknowledging them, acknowledging her but his mother’s voice stopped him.

“Advik! You’re home finally!” Maya beamed up at him. “We’ve been waiting for you to get home so we could all have dinner together.”

He managed a tight smile for his mother. His father, who was pouring himself a whiskey at the bar, was watching him closely. Aastha, he ignored completely. Until he saw his mother’s smile start to dim. Then, he looked in her direction, making sure he didn’t make eye contact, and nodded.

The silence stretched awkwardly between them. Advik cleared his throat and muttered, “I ate at office.”

Maya’s smile disappeared. Yash cleared his throat, holding Advik’s gaze. “But I could always eat again,” he said reluctantly.

“Good.” Maya rose from her seat. “I made some of your favourites.”

“Biryani?” he asked hopefully, his stomach rumbling and making his excuse of eating at office a complete lie.

His mother smiled, patting his cheek as she walked past. “Behave,” she whispered, “And maybe you’ll deserve my biryani.”

“Can I help you?” Aastha rose to her feet.

Her voice had goosebumps erupting on his skin. He still refused to look at her.

“No.” Maya laughingly waved her off. “Stay. Spend some time with Advik. Yash will help me.”

Yash, who had his glass halfway to his mouth, sighed and put it down. He got up without a word and followed his wife into the kitchen. Silence, fraught silence, fell on the room the moment they left.

“You don’t have any staff to help out?” she asked, that voice like the softest satin scraping across his raw nerves.

“Sorry to disappoint you, Your Highness,” he snapped, his hackles going up immediately. “But we don’t believe in keeping people up till late at night for our convenience. We do our own work or do without.”

He walked past her to the bar and poured himself two fingers of whiskey in a crystal tumbler. He threw it back and the liquid burned a fiery trail down his throat. It did nothing for the ice that encased his insides though. He poured himself another measure.

“I only asked because I saw the attached staff quarters when I was entering the house.”

The quiet words reached him from behind. He swallowed the rest of his whiskey, every last drop before asking, “What are you doing here?”

“Your mother invited me to dinner.”

“That’s not what I asked you,” he rasped, his tenuous hold on his complicated emotions starting to fray.

“You didn’t reply to my message.” Her own voice stayed calm, even, annoying. “We need to talk, Adi.”

It was the Adi that tipped him over the edge, flinging him back into that abyss of anger, grief and despair that he’d lived with since the day he’d woken and found her gone.

“You want to talk?” he asked, his own voice an icy razor. He turned on his heel and looked at her, raking an insolent glance over the simple, white kurta set she wore. Her hair was loose, tumbling down over her shoulders, her makeup minimal with a simple kajal lining her big, doe eyes and a light gloss making her lips look shiny and plump.

His hands clenched around his empty glass. “Don’t like being ghosted, do you?” he drawled. “Can’t take what you dish out?”

She flinched, her gaze skittering past him to the large window at his back. Mumbai’s skyline sprawled across it, a million lights twinkling in the darkness. He wished for just one light to spark in his soul. But there was nothing. Not when she’d left and taken it all with her.

“Alright darling,” he said now, allowing his anger and bitterness to show. “Let’s talk.”

Her gaze came back to meet his, storm clouds darkening it. Her own anger rose to match his.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked abruptly. “Why did you say yes to marrying me?”

“Let me guess.” His lips twisted in an approximation of a smile. “You don’t want to marry me.”

She shifted restlessly, crossing her arms around her waist. “You don’t want to marry me either,” she reminded him. “You hate me, remember?”

“How can I forget?” Advik laughed. “You burned that emotion into my soul.”