Ishq hua (Duet 1)

Chapter 41: Underground

Aira:

I didn't sleep easily that night.

The room was quiet, but my mind wasn't. I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling, watching shadows shift across the plaster like my thoughts: restless, unwilling to settle.

The small box sat on my bedside table. I hadn't opened it again after placing it there.

Fake flowers.

I pressed my lips together, feeling the ghost of words I couldn't quite form.

Of all the things Arsh could have done... this wasn't even on the list of possibilities my mind could have prepared for.

My brain kept replaying the amusement date, frame by frame, like a film I couldn't pause. The way he had compromised his own comfort for my happiness. The way his eyes followed me without him even realizing it, tracking my movements like I was something precious he was afraid to lose sight of.

The way he had tried the unhealthy food, 'according to him,' all because I asked him to. The slight grimace he'd tried to hide. The effort behind every bite.

And now this.

I turned onto my side and exhaled slowly, the breath shuddering out of me.

He made them with his own hands. That realization sat heavy in my chest, a weight I didn't know how to carry.

Arsh Oberoi wasn't into arts and crafts. He signed contracts worth crores, negotiated empires, and decided fates with a single nod of his head. His hands were meant for power, for control, for building empires. Not for this.

And yet... he had sat somewhere, alone, wasting his precious time, burning his fingers, ruining my expensive lipstick, shaping petals with clumsy determination. Just because I was allergic to real flowers.

Just because he wanted to give me something beautiful without hurting me.

My mind, annoyingly, drifted back to his study. To him. To those hands that I'd seen hold weapons, sign death warrants, command rooms with a single gesture. Those same hands had held a lighter and lipstick, fumbling through something so delicate it almost seemed impossible.

They weren't meant to be burned while crafting something so... trivial.

And yet they had been. For me.

The thought settled in my chest in a way I didn't like. Warm and terrifying and absolutely unwelcome. It was so unlike him that it almost scared me, this glimpse of someone softer beneath all that steel.

That softness didn't belong to the man everyone feared.

It didn't belong to the man who ruled rooms without raising his voice, who could silence crowds with a look, who wore danger like a second skin.

And yet... it had been there. Real. Undeniable.

For me.

The flower petals were uneven if you looked closely. Slightly melted at the edges, the wax warped from inexperienced hands. No two flowers exactly alike, each one bearing the evidence of his struggle, his persistence.

Yes, I had yelled at him. And yes, I was still angry about the lipstick. I was allowed to be. Christian Louboutin wasn't something you casually destroyed, even if money grew on trees for him. I had saved for months, budgeted carefully, bought it with my own hard-earned money. It had meant something.

So my anger hadn't been fake.

But it hadn't been the whole truth either.

Because beneath the anger, tangled with it, was something else. Something that felt dangerously close to being moved. Touched. Affected.