His Burden, His Blessing

The True Heir

The rain continued, a soft, relentless curtain of sound outside the window. It had been nearly twelve hours since I stood at the doors of that ballroom, and the tension still hummed in the apartment's dead air. The clock on my nightstand read ten minutes past ten in the morning.

My phone, which had remained dark and silent through the anxious night, suddenly pulsed with light in my hand. It was an incoming message. My breath  hitched. It wasn't the number I had waited for, the one I had dreaded, but the one I secretly hoped for.

Aditya.

Aditya: You couldn't sleep either, could you?

I stared at the screen, the five simple words igniting a wildfire in my chest. He knew. He always knew. He wasn't asking; he was stating a fact. It was a frightening, intoxicating intimacy.
A thousand thoughts raced through my head. Ask him why he left. Ask him why he came back. Ask him what he wants now. But I couldn't. I was a married woman, and he was the ghost of a life I had to trade for a facade.

I pressed my forehead against the cool glass pane, gathering my composure. The answer had to be non-committal, safe. I didn't want to close the door he'd just taken a risk to open. It was selfish and wrong on many levels too but I felt like life owed me this one.

Ishaani: I have a lot on my mind, that's why. Now you go get some sleep.

I sent it. A subtle deflection, a polite care disguised as distance. I knew it sounded like I was begging for him to ask me and I didnt mind being shameless. I set the phone face down, my heart hammering against my ribs, waiting for the inevitable follow-up. But none came. The silence was heavier now, charged with expectation.

It was nearly eleven-thirty when the key finally scraped into the lock. I was standing in the kitchen, making a cup of coffee, when Zeyansh walked in.

He looked rougher than I'd ever seen him. His immaculate suit was rumpled, the silk tie hanging loose, and the faint, stale scent of whiskey and sweat clung to him. But it wasn't guilt I saw in his eyes. It was a cold, simmering fury. He tossed his jacket onto a chair, the heavy thud sounding like a weapon hitting the floor, and headed straight for the kitchen.

"Where were you?" I asked, my voice flat. I didn't want to show the concern that was still a default setting, so I injected a weary annoyance into the question.

He stopped, his hand gripping the edge of the counter, his eyes cold, blue, and venomous, fixed on me. "Where was I?" he scoffed, the sound laced with aggression. "I was busy handling the fallout from my wife's little dance."

He hadn't even offered an apology for staying out all night. He went straight for the attack. Typical.

"Oh, the dance," I replied, setting the mug down with a deliberate clink. "The one that happened hours before you decided to call it a night?"

"Don't try to change the subject, Ishaani." His voice was low, commanding,. "You know exactly what I'm talking about. Aditya Singh Rathod. You were practically plastered to him on the dance floor. In front of the entire management of my hospital."

"Plastered?" I let out a dry, incredulous laugh. "The song was slow, Zeyansh. What exactly did you expect me to do, maintain a two-foot distance?"

"I expected you to remember you are a married woman and my wife," he spat out. "And I expected you to behave with dignity, not like some cheap accessory he could just pick up for a spin. That man is trouble, and he knows exactly what he's doing."

"Trouble?" I finally snapped, the dam breaking. "Trouble? That man is a ghost of my past who happened to offer an escort to a woman whose own husband abandoned her at the event he made her attend! You want to talk about dignified behavior? How about the way Tanisha was practically sitting on your lap, laughing like a hyena? Don't you think that was conspicuous behavior for a married doctor?"