𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐫𝐜𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬 | 𝟏𝟖+

𝟐𝟖. Little Girl

･:*࿔.ೃ⋆❀˚༺☆༻°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

Ikshita's POV

I was sitting inside a room now.
Yeah... a room.
How?
Don't. Ask. Me.

Our car had the audacity to break down in the middle of nowhere, and this so-called dangerous man didn't even have a bodyguard team following behind. Sometimes I seriously doubt how he is even a mafia king. Like, how? Even kindergarten kids have more backup plans than him. More wisdom too, honestly.

But here we were.
Both stuck in the same room.
The universe truly hates me.

My eyes shifted to the bed.
One bed.
One very big, oversized, I-can-already-smell-the-problem bed.

Of course.

I was mentally preparing a dramatic monologue for the gods about "why me" when I heard the click of the door unlocking. I turned.

He walked in.

Aakarsh Mehrotra. Tall, cold, infuriatingly handsome in the "I-don't-even-try-but-still-look-like-a-threat" way. His shirt was slightly rumpled from the situation outside, jaw clenched, eyes sharp... and he looked like he owned the atmosphere just by breathing.

He paused by the door, took one slow look at me sitting there, then at the bed, then back at me again.

And raised a single eyebrow.

Just one.

As if I was the problem.

As if I broke the car with my bare hands.

As if I should have brought the backup mafia security team for him.

My lips stretched into the tightest, fakest smile ever produced by mankind.
He noticed. Of course he noticed. The man probably notices when a fly changes direction mid-air.

He stepped inside, closing the door behind him with a soft click that sounded way too final for my comfort.

Great.
Perfect.
Love that for me.

"Comfortable?" he asked, voice low, calm, way too unaffected for someone who just trapped me in a single-bed situation.

I blinked. "Oh, absolutely. Being stranded with you in a random room was exactly at the top of my bucket list."

His lips twitched.
Not a smile.
Not a smirk.
Just a microscopic movement—like he was amused but refusing to give me the satisfaction.

He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, looking at me like I was the chaos and he was the patience of the century.

"I'm sleeping here. You sleep wherever you want," I declared, chin high like the queen of bad decisions.

I barely took a step toward the bed—my bed for the night—when his voice lashed across the room.

"Change your dirty clothes from outside before laying on my bed."

The nerve.
The tone.
The sheer husky arrogance in that voice.

I turned slowly, a smirk carving itself onto my face like instinct. "Delusional much, but it's not your bed."

He didn't even glance at the mattress.

No.
He looked straight at me, from head to toe, slow enough that I physically felt the path of his gaze. His jaw flexed, eyes glinting with that cold restrained annoyance he seemed to reserve exclusively for me.