Beneath The Storm (Completed)

Chapter-28: Echoes of Possession

Inaara sat quietly in the small garden she'd created, surrounded by the soft fragrance of jasmine and the calming sway of leaves in the gentle evening breeze.

Her hands rested on her lap, her fingers absentmindedly tracing circles on the fabric of her saree as if searching for solace.

Her eyes held a distant look, clouded by disappointment and the weight of expectations that seemed to crush her spirit.

A whisper, filled with exhaustion and sorrow, escaped her lips.

"Why, Atharv?" she murmured, her voice barely louder than the rustling leaves.

"Every time I begin to believe that you're starting to understand me, you prove me wrong. Every single time."

Inaara closed her eyes, letting the words linger in the quiet around her, as if somehow the garden could absorb her disappointment.

She felt as though each step forward was met with a wall, an unyielding reminder that she wasn't enough-not yet, not for the Rajvansh name.

And each time, she felt a piece of her spirit break.

"You make me feel that not to belong here, I must change everything about myself," she whispered, the ache in her chest tightening.

"How many times must I break and reshape myself to fit this image, this standard, this... family?"

She sighed, her voice trailing off, defeated. "But what about who I am?"

---

Across the house, in the dimly lit study, Atharv sat in his leather chair, his elbows resting on the polished wood of his desk, hands pressed together in a rare gesture of frustration.

The room was still, but his thoughts were loud, clashing within him like thunder.

"What is happening?" he muttered under his breath, struggling to understand the tangle of emotions that her defiance always seemed to ignite within him.

"Just when I begin to think that I can trust you, Inaara... you disappoint me."

His gaze fell on the untouched stack of documents-the papers she'd refused to sign.

He shook his head, a bitter smile tugging at his lips. "It was just the papers," he said, as if the explanation would somehow ease his own turmoil.

"But no... you had to make this into something else entirely, you had to... complicate everything."

A frustrated sigh escaped him, and he leaned back, staring at the shadows that lined the walls of his study.

"Why do you always have to challenge me, Inaara?" he thought. "You could make things so much easier. But you're so stubborn, so insistent on carving your own path, on sticking to your principles... even if it destroys everything between us."

He shook his head, but there was an unfamiliar heaviness in his chest-a strange, painful emptiness that he couldn't explain.

The silence in the study felt suffocating, a reflection of the void that seemed to grow wider between them with every passing day.