Aaryan's POV
The sound of the penthouse door clicking shut echoed louder than it should have.
Aaryan paused in the entryway, blinking away the haze of exhaustion. Emergency surgeries had a way of distorting time. The clock had read a little past 3 a.m. when he'd finally handed over the last critical patient to post-op. Now it was nearing five, but the city was still tucked in shadows, wrapped in its final hour of sleep.
He exhaled slowly, loosening the collar of his shirt. His tie had been discarded sometime around midnight. His coat was draped over his arm. Every part of him ached. Not from the work, but from the silence that waited inside these walls.
He didn't expect Inaaya to be awake. She rarely was, not at this hour.
But the lamp in his office was on.
His pulse sharpened.
He walked quietly down the hall, careful not to startle her if she was reading or working. But when he reached the doorframe, he didn't step inside right away.
She sat at his desk—her back to him—bathed in the amber glow of the desk lamp. Her hair was tied in a loose bun, a few strands falling over her cheek. She was still wearing her nightclothes, that soft blue cotton kurti she always seemed to retreat into after long days. Her delicate fingers turned a page of a file, slow and trembling.
He recognized the file.
His breath caught.
Saif Mirza.
She hadn't meant to find it. She'd likely come in to review hospital documents—he often left charts on the desk—and had stumbled into the past.
Into his guilt.
Into the truth he hadn't yet figured out how to tell her.
He watched her for a beat longer, unable to move. Then she spoke, not turning to face him.
"I wasn't snooping," she said softly. "I couldn't sleep. I thought I'd revise a few cases... but then I saw his name."
Her voice cracked on his.
Aaryan stepped in slowly. "You don't need to explain, Inaaya."
Her shoulders stiffened, but she didn't move. "Why do you have my father's private file?"
He closed the door gently behind him. Silence stretched between them like an open wound. "Because I've been looking into the circumstances of his last days at Rathore Medical Group."
She turned around now. Her eyes were rimmed in hurt, not just from the file—but from something deeper.
"You knew something," she whispered. "Even before we married... you knew something."
Aaryan didn't answer immediately. Instead, he walked to the edge of the desk and rested his hands against it, facing her. She looked impossibly small in his office chair.
"Your father was a brilliant man," he said, carefully. "But he was also caught in something none of us understood at the time. There were fractures in the hospital board... power plays, cover-ups. He tried to shield others. He tried to protect you."
"And my mother?" she asked, sharper now. "Was she part of those power plays?"
He met her eyes, something heavy unraveling in his chest. "I don't know. Not for certain."
She stood then, her hands curled at her sides. "Why didn't you tell me? You let me walk into this hospital blind. You let me marry you blind."
"I didn't let you do anything," he said, the edge of steel in his voice only barely concealed. "Your mother agreed to the arrangement. You did too."
"I agreed because I was tired, Aaryan," she whispered. "Because that house didn't feel like home anymore. Because I thought... maybe you'd be kinder than what I was used to."
He flinched.
The shame hit sharper than a scalpel.
"I never wanted to hurt you," he said, quieter now. "But I didn't know how to explain everything without... breaking what little peace you had left."
Inaaya looked at him for a long moment. The desk between them might as well have been a chasm.
"I don't know what hurts more," she said finally. "That you chose me over Aleena for a reason I still don't understand... or that in three months of marriage, you've never once tried to make this house feel like ours."
He didn't answer.
He didn't have a defense.
⸻
THREE MONTHS EARLIER
(Aaryan's memory)
The ceremony had been quiet. Just family. Barely a dozen people. No music. No celebrations. Just a signature, a pair of rings, and the cool click of cameras flashing behind the press embargo.
He'd watched Inaaya the whole time—how she sat beside him in stunned silence, how her mother wore a practiced smile that never once touched her eyes. Aleena stood near the back, arms crossed, her expression unreadable.
Inaaya's hands had trembled when he placed the ring on her finger.
But she hadn't cried.
That night, they'd entered the penthouse as strangers bound by contract. He'd shown her the bedroom, offered to move to the guest suite, and she'd shaken her head.
"We're married," she'd said, softly. "Let's not pretend otherwise."
So he stayed. But for weeks after, he made sure to come home only after she'd fallen asleep. He'd leave before sunrise. Their schedules rarely collided. When they did, they exchanged polite greetings and nothing more.
At first, it had felt like a mercy—to keep his distance. But the longer it went on, the more unbearable it became.
Especially when she started laughing again—mostly with Aryav. When she wore that soft expression while reading case files. When she left him tea with a yellow Post-it saying "Don't skip meals."
He began to look for her laughter in the silence. And hate himself for it.
⸻
NOW
"I didn't choose you out of pity," he said finally.
Inaaya blinked, startled by the suddenness in his voice.
He stepped around the desk, slowly, carefully—like approaching something fragile. "And I didn't choose you because I loved you then. I didn't even know you."
"Then why?" Her voice was barely a whisper. "Why not Aleena? You dated her once."
He paused. The words had never been easy to say. But maybe now was the time to stop hiding.
"Because Aleena always wanted power. Legacy. Position," he said. "But you... you never wanted any of it. You looked at this hospital like it was sacred ground. Not a throne."
She was quiet.
He stepped closer.
"I admired that about you. I thought if there was anyone who wouldn't use my father's name to advance their own cause, it would be you."
A silence fell between them, thick with a hundred unsaid things.
Inaaya's gaze dropped to the folder still open on the desk. "And now?"
Aaryan hesitated. Then he said, "Now I wish I had told you everything sooner. Because you deserve the truth. Not just about your father—but about all of this."
She nodded once, then stepped back from the desk, closing the file gently.
"I'm tired," she said.
"I'll give you space."
But as she moved past him, she paused—just a heartbeat—and whispered, "I never hated the idea of being your wife, Aaryan. I just hated how alone it made me feel."
Then she walked away.
And he stood in the lamp-lit office, haunted by the ghost of what he couldn't say.