The air in the ballroom was thick with a thousand perfumes, the scent of mogra blossoms, and the loud, competitive drone of conversations. It wasn't just a wedding; it was an exhibition. Acres of shimmering gold-lame and crushed velvet draped the walls, reflecting the relentless flash of professional camera lights. Guests, dripping in ancestral diamonds and the latest designer lehengas, postured and gossiped, their laughter too loud, their smiles too wide. Everyone was either networking or showing off.
Roo felt like she was drowning in the performance. A few minutes ago, her boyfriend, Shyan, had squeezed her arm—a gesture that looked affectionate but was a warning—after she'd merely smiled politely at an elderly cousin. "Don't wander too far," he'd murmured, his eyes locking hers with a possessiveness he labeled "intense love."
Finally, Mark excused himself to "make connections." Anya seized the momentary freedom. Lifting the heavy, embroidered fabric of her own lehenga, she managed a quick, almost frantic escape through a side door and onto a cool, dark balcony.
Looking down into the empty, enclosed garden, she saw him.
Lav sat alone on a black wrought-iron chair, his back to the ballroom's glow. He was still, a patch of shadow in a world of blinding light. A quiet Golden Retriever, Ghost, lay curled at his feet, an island of calm.
Roo walked down the stone steps with the practiced, elegant glide she had mastered for her demanding, narcissistic parents, and crossed the quiet lawn. The distant music was a muffled thrum now. She stopped beside his chair.
She took a seat on the adjacent chair. "Hi," she said, her voice soft against the cool air. "So, you also don't fit yourself for these kind of functions... well, I also can't."
Roo's voice was so soft, so direct, that Lav jumped slightly, pulling his hand away from Ghost. He turned his head slowly, and Roo finally saw his eyes—hazel, but so profoundly empty they looked like deep, cold ponds. The suicidal thoughts she had sensed were not a dramatic flicker; they were a dull, constant presence.
He stared at her for a bit too long, taking in the elegant lehenga and the tired intelligence behind her own eyes. He had been seen, and it unnerved him.
He cleared his throat, his first words gravelly. "I'm not trying to escape," he said, a deliberate stiffness in his voice. He reached down to scratch the dog's ears, avoiding her gaze. "I just prefer honest company to ambitious ones."
It was a cutting line, meant to dismiss both her and the party inside, putting a clear distance between them.
Roo didn't flinch. She saw the pain beneath the cynicism—the betrayal that had taught him to distrust ambition.
Roo knows he is hurting.
Roo didn't respond to his cutting remark. Instead, she lowered herself slightly and looked at the Golden Retriever resting at his feet. The cynical remark about ambition seemed to hang forgotten in the air.
"It's a cute baby," Roo murmured, her voice laced with the kind of genuine warmth Lav hadn't heard directed toward him—or anything he owned—in over a year. She reached out slowly, a motion that was more an inquiry than an action, and began talking to the pet.
"Baby, can sister play with you? You are such a little charming cutie baby… you stole my heart when I saw you from the balcony. I will buy you treats next time if we meet... promise."
She spoke the last word, promise, to the pet, but the weight of it was directed entirely at Lav. She then lifted her gaze from Ghost to Lav, her eyes wide and sincere like a puppy asking for a treat.
"Please, can I hug him?"
This is the moment of truth for Lav. Roo has offered him something pure and undefended. For a man who sees the world as gray and treacherous, this is a sudden splash of color.