SHATTERED HER HEART

CHAPTER 04

Samira’s POV

I didn’t say anything immediately; silence was sharper than words. There was no use in arguing with Sejal — her request that I wait a few more minutes cost me nothing, and generosity is easy when the stakes are my father’s reputation and not just my mood.

If it had been anyone else, if it had been any other place, I would have cancelled the deal, walked out, and never looked back. But here, in Nainital, there was the involvement of my father. And I do not drop my father’s name into mud to feel taller.

We were seated in the meeting room inside his cabin. The resort was designed with what I call quiet wealth— wood polished to a sheen that whispered its expense, glass so clear it seemed to remember how much it cost to be flawless.

Every detail was curated to impress without shouting, the kind of understated opulence that pretends humility while flaunting privilege.

I stood and walked to the broad window because the view had been calling me like a forbidden song. From there, the lake glittered in its valley, reflecting sky and memory with ruthless honesty. I never had any good memory of this place, but this view — this view made me love Nainital in a way that frightened me.

Back home, during holidays in the Lake District, I used to sit for hours by the window, reading my favorite books, talking to Mom and Dad until evening smeared itself across the hills. This view reminded me of that. And that kind of memory of this place could be dangerous — it may masquerade as a gift, but could be really a trap.

My fingers traced the cold glass, and I smiled in spite of myself, lost in beauty and ache. The chirping of birds, the flapping of wings, the rustling of leaves in the cold breeze — they weren’t just sounds. They were time capsules. They carried me back to days when there were no resorts, only our little cottage and the mesmerizing view that made the world feel infinite.

As I stood there, lost in memory, I became aware of the man from earlier — the one who had walked in with the tray — watching me. His gaze was steady, curious, almost intrusive, and for a moment it unsettled me.

And then, as if summoned by that silence, a face appeared in my mind.

Familiar.

A boy.

Someone close to my heart.

The one I love to see again and again, even when it comes uninvited in nightmares and sudden mind-pops.

It was him — the boy who had been my best friend, and perhaps even my first love. I can’t completely recall if it was the same boy whose hand I clung to with conviction, believing the world would never let go of me. The boy who offered his shoulder when I cried, whose words stitched bravery back into me when I thought I had none left. The boy who once proposed under a sky that seemed to consent to us, and the boy I said yes to without hesitation.

He gave me my first hug that meant forever. And my first kiss — just an innocent peck, but it meant the world to me because I had never felt that kind of warmth with anyone else. It wasn’t passion, it wasn’t desire — it was belonging.

A belonging so rare that even now, years later, I ache for it.

If there is anything I deeply want to accomplish in my life, beyond the empire I am building, beyond the respect I fight to earn, it is to find that boy again. To know if he was real, or if he was just a dream stitched into my childhood.

And now, for the first time, his face flashed clearly in my mind. Not blurred, not half-remembered, but vivid. Yet even as clarity struck, doubt followed. Because the boy I used to dream of — the boy who haunted my nights — looked older than the image that surfaced now. Older, wiser, carrying the weight of years. Whereas this face, this sudden vision, was younger, softer, almost fragile.

I stood frozen, torn between memory and imagination, between the ache of the past, the suspicion of the present that kept whispering these questions.

Was my mind playing tricks on me?

Was this boy — the one etched into my heart — the same as the blurred figure who had just appeared in my thoughts?

Or was I chasing a ghost that had already grown into someone I might never recognize again?

Sejal’s phone rang, slicing my nostalgia clean in half.

The sound was shrill, surgical, cutting through the fragile haze of memory like a blade. She answered quickly, her voice low, her posture stiff. I watched her face drain of color, as though the window beside us had vacuumed it out. Her frown folded her features into worry, and when she hung up, I asked—too bluntly to be kind, too late to pretend I cared more than I did:

“What happened?”

Her lips trembled before the words escaped. “Vivaan… he met with an accident.”

Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes, and for a moment, I felt two conflicting currents inside me. A pure, simple, human sorrow for the news — because no matter how much I despised him, accidents are cruel. And alongside it, an entirely separate, selfish surge of relief. Relief that this was not my failure to manage, but his. Relief that the burden of his absence was not mine to explain.

Professionalism asserted itself like a reflex, a habit you can’t unlearn. My voice came out colder than I intended.

“So, what about the presentation?”

Yes, it was rude. Yes, I should have asked about his health first, then about business. But business makes monsters of us all, and at the end of the day, I am a businesswoman. The meeting was my only priority.

Sejal stared at me, her eyes wide, as though I had revealed a secret ugliness. I let the stare pass. She swallowed her grief, steadied herself, and requested ten minutes to prepare. I nodded. Competence is kindness when circumstances are cruel.

She left the room, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

I quickly checked the time. It didn’t take a genius to know I had missed my flight. The airport was too far, the minutes too few. Frustration surged through me, every muscle humming with anger. I pulled out my phone and texted Irene, instructing her to make arrangements for our departure — and, if necessary, arrange for a chartered flight back to London.

Before I could hit send, my father’s call interrupted me.

“Hello,” he said, his voice careful, measured, as though he already knew what storm he was stepping into.

“Hey, Dad,” I replied, my tone clipped, my patience already fraying.

Even before I could offer him an update, he spoke. He told me there was no need to rush back today, that I should stay, give Vivaan some time.

He had already heard about the accident. I sighed, because this was turning into an opera I had never bought tickets for.

He mentioned that Vivaan’s cousin — recently joined his firm, working as a project manager — could handle the presentation. I knew he was hinting at Sejal.

He said she was capable, that she could step in even if Vivaan wasn’t there. He asked me to give her some time to prepare. Before he could say anything more, I hung up.

My father’s hope has a way of softening my spine, and I couldn’t afford softness now.

Whether I liked it or not, logistics were conspiring against me. I had already tried to book a flight the moment irritation hardened into resolve, but there were no direct flights.

Every available connection to Delhi was scheduled for the next morning. Of course. Naturally. Inevitably. In this weather, at this hour, traveling to Delhi to catch a flight was too risky.

If Vivaan had arranged to meet me in Delhi, I could have walked away, taught him a neat little lesson about time. But here, stranded between hills and history, I had no choice.

I would have to wait.

I would have to meet him.

I would have to endure his absence, and then his presence.

Whether he had planned it or simply benefitted from it, it felt like a trap. And I do not forgive traps easily.

I could almost hear him — in that polished voice from his interviews — speaking about value, about patience, about discipline.

Meanwhile, his cousin scrambled in and apologized for abruptly leaving and requested for some time for her to prepare.

I noticed all his staff panicking, while his resort served nostalgia as anesthetic.

If this was chess, he had already cut off my exits.

And I despise men who try to win by barricade.