BOOK ONE OF THE SWEET AND SOUR SERIES
Vanya Sharma hated marriages. Growing up seeing troubled and failed marriages carved a bitter spot in her heart, especially when one of them belonged to her parents. While escaping the shadows of her past, she f...
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༘⋆🌷🫧💭₊˚ෆ
𝐌𝐞𝐫𝐚 𝐘𝐚𝐚𝐫
मेरा यार है रब्ब वर्गा, दिलदार है रब्ब वर्गा, इश्क़ करूं या करूं इबादत, इश्क करूं या करूं इबादत, इक्को ही गल्ल ए
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M A H I R
I try to listen to Nayan. I really do. He's been talking for the last five minutes about a client, or a case, or maybe the fall of civilisation, I genuinely wouldn't know, because every few seconds my eyes drift back to her. It isn't intentional. It's the kind of pull you don't fight because you've already lost.
Vanya stands across the hall with Maa and her own mother, smiling politely as another elderly relative reaches out to hold her hand. And God, she smiles. That quiet, careful smile she gives strangers, the one that still somehow softens something inside my chest like warm fingers pressing against bruised skin.
I watch her move through the crowd, gentle yet a little overwhelmed, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. She sways a bit on her heels, and my entire body tenses before my brain can intervene, as if I'm ready to sprint across the reception floor just to steady her.
Pathetic. And true.
Nayan clicks his tongue beside me, but I keep my eyes on her, scanning the faces she passes, the men who look a second too long, the steps where her lehenga might snag. She's been taking care of herself for years, had an entire life before me, but something in me refuses to let her navigate this room unobserved.
Maybe that's what love does, turns simple awareness into instinct, into vigilance, into something dangerously close to devotion.
"Bhai," Nayan mutters, nudging my arm. "Aakhri baar bol raha hoon... focus."
"I am," I say, even though I'm absolutely not.
He sighs in that overdramatic way only he can manage. "Mahir. You're staring holes into her. At this point, I'm worried you'll burn her dupatta."
I force myself to look away. Calm down, Mahir. She's fine. She's simply walking, not crossing live traffic.
But the moment I glance back, she turns a little too quickly, and her dupatta shifts off her shoulder. My heart stutters. I take an involuntary half-step forward before catching myself, fingers curling and uncurling like I can physically restrain the impulse.
"She's been alive for twenty-five years without you," I mutter under my breath. "She can handle a dupatta."
"The fact that you have to tell yourself that is... deeply concerning," Nayan says drily.
