Saanvi Khanna
The morning after tastes like red wine and regret.
I wake up tangled in expensive sheets, my pulse still echoing with his touch even though nothing truly happened. Not physically. But something shifted. Something unspoken. A line blurred. A breath shared. And now, my world feels too quiet.
The penthouse is hushed when I emerge. My bare feet tap against the marble floors as I make my way to the kitchen, pulling his oversized white shirt tighter around my body. It smells like him—amber and heat and danger. I hate how much I want to drown in it.
He's already there, back turned, sleeves rolled, pouring coffee like it's just another ordinary morning.
Except nothing is ordinary anymore.
He glances over his shoulder. "You didn't sleep much."
I raise a brow. "Are you keeping tabs now?"
He doesn't answer. Just hands me a cup, his fingers brushing mine, a familiar current sparking again.
"You were trembling last night."
"I wasn't."
"You were."
The silence that follows is heavier than the words we won't say. He watches me sip, and I watch him pretend not to care. But I see it in the way his jaw ticks when my hand lifts to my throat, where he kissed me last.
I move to the windows, letting the sunlight kiss my skin. The city below looks manageable from up here, but he makes everything feel bigger. Louder. Uncontainable.
"You're avoiding it," he says.
"Avoiding what?"
"The fact that you didn't stop me."
I spin around. "There was nothing to stop."
He steps closer. "You call that nothing?"
I don't answer. Because I don't lie when it matters.
He stops inches from me, his fingers brushing a strand of hair from my cheek. "Tell me to stop, and I will."
"I don't want to."
The words fall out before I can weigh them. Before I can protect myself.
He exhales sharply, like I've just pulled the pin from a grenade.
Suddenly, his hand is on the glass beside my head, trapping me without touching. His body doesn't press into mine. Not yet. But it hovers, hot and magnetic, drawing me in like gravity knows something I don't.
"You don't get to play with fire and expect not to burn," he says.
"I'm not playing."
"You're tempting me."
I meet his eyes. "Then what are you waiting for?"
He doesn't move.
Doesn't breathe.
Then slowly, he lifts his hand, runs the backs of his fingers down the side of my throat.
My knees almost buckle.
But just when I lean in, he pulls away.
"You're not ready," he whispers.
Anger flares in my chest. "Stop deciding for me."
He turns back toward the kitchen, pouring more coffee like he didn't just unravel me with a whisper.
"I need you sharp, Saanvi. Not addicted."
"I'm not your weakness," I say.
"No. You're my threat."
And somehow, that scares me more.
---
The office is colder than usual.
He walks two steps ahead, like last night didn't happen. Like my body doesn't remember every inch of his tension.
I sit across from him during the meeting with our new client, a man with too many rings and too little charm. He smiles at me the way creeps in bars do, and Aaryan's hand fists under the table.
"I'd like to continue this negotiation with Ms. Khanna privately," the man says.
Aaryan's voice turns lethal. "Not happening."
The client laughs, light-hearted, stupid. "You don't trust your own people?"
"No. I don't trust men who can't keep their eyes off what isn't theirs."
His gaze cuts to me like a warning.
After the meeting, I follow him to his office.
"You didn't need to do that," I say.
He stops by the window, staring out at the city. "Didn't I?"
"You keep acting like I'm yours to protect."
He turns. His eyes burn. "You are."
"I didn't agree to that."
"You didn't have to."
My heart races, pounding louder than reason. "You don't get to own me, Aaryan."
He walks toward me, slow and deliberate.
"Then stop looking at me like you want me to."
I don't move.
I don't breathe.
Because he's right.
And I'm terrified of what happens when I finally admit it.