Tainted wife 2

2

Panchi sat on the edge of her bed, her face buried in her palms, her whole body shaking as tears rolled down endlessly. She couldn’t believe what had just happened. Out of everyone, her mother had chosen Aryan, her Aryan, to go to that wretched house. The Singh mansion.

Her heart twisted painfully just thinking about it. She had seen that family, she lived under their roof and not to forget Niel’s cruel father and known once. She had seen the hatred in their eyes whenever they spoke about the Khuranas. The way they looked down on them, the way they spat venom at their name. And now her mother wanted to send Aryan there? To deliver some msg to them? She knew they would never spare him. They would make his life miserable or maybe kill……

“No,” she whispered to herself, shaking her head, wiping her tears roughly. “I won’t let this happen. Mama can send anyone—anyone else. We have so many men in the house, why does it have to be him?”

She got up and began pacing around her room, talking to herself as she often did when she was upset. Her voice trembled, breaking in between her words. “I’ll talk to her… I’ll convince her… she’ll listen to me. She has to.”

She was still mumbling when she heard the sound of the door creaking open. She turned instantly—and froze.

It was Aryan.

For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. His tall figure stood in the doorway, calm as always, but there was a shadow in his eyes, something heavy and unreadable. Before she could think, before she could even stop herself, Panchi ran across the room and threw herself into his arms. She clung to his neck tightly, crying again, her words tumbling out between sobs.

“You don’t have to go, Aryan,” she cried. “Please don’t go there. You can leave this job, I’ll talk to Mama. She’ll listen to me, I promise! I’ll beg her if I have to just don’t go there, they’ll hurt you”

Her words came in a rush, one after another, as if saying them faster would make them more true. Aryan didn’t interrupt at first. He just held her, his arms firm around her trembling shoulders. But when her sobs grew louder and her words started to fall apart into broken sounds, he leaned forward and kissed her—softly, gently—just to stop her from spiraling further.

Panchi froze in shock.

It wasn’t a deep kiss, nor something to cross the line. It was brief, careful, like a moment stolen to silence her pain. The touch of his lips made her heart stop and her thoughts blur. She stopped talking instantly, her tears still wet on her cheeks, her breath caught somewhere between surprise and warmth.

When he pulled back, Aryan looked at her with quiet seriousness. “Panchi,” he said softly, “listen to me.”

His voice was calm but heavy, carrying the weight of something unspoken. He gently lifted her into his arms, and before she could react, he carried her to the bed and set her down carefully. Her heart raced so fast she thought he could hear it. She looked up at him, her face flushed red, her fingers twisting nervously in her lap.

“Don’t cry like this,” he said, brushing a strand of hair away from her face. “You don’t have to worry. I’ll be fine. I’m trained to face the worst things, you know that.”

“But you don’t know them, you don’t know how they are? If they comes to know that you are our men that will… (Panchi couldn’t finish her word but then changed it later) they will hate you,” she whispered. “They’ll hate you even more when they know who you are.”

He smiled faintly, the kind of smile that hurt more than it comforted. “Then let them,” he said quietly. “I’ll survive. I always do.”

Her lips trembled as fresh tears welled in her eyes. She wanted to believe him, but deep inside, fear kept growing. He looked down at her for a long moment, then touched her cheek gently.

“Panchi,” he murmured, “sometimes we can’t fight what’s meant to happen. But no matter where I go, remember—you don’t stop being my reason to fight.”

Her throat ached as she nodded, too overwhelmed to speak.

As he stood to leave, she reached out and caught his hand. For a brief second, their eyes met—hers full of fear and love, his full of quiet pain.

When he walked away, Panchi felt as though the air had left the room. And in that silence, she knew one thing for certain—if Aryan walked into that mansion, he might never return the same.

Morning sunlight slipped quietly through the curtains, brushing Neha’s face with a soft glow. She stirred, blinking her sleepy eyes open, only to find Kabir sitting on the chair beside the bed — watching her. His eyes were fixed on her face, dark and unreadable, and for a moment, she felt her heart skip.

He hadn’t slept. She could tell by the heaviness in his gaze, by the tired shadows beneath his eyes. But there was something else there too — a storm quietly raging behind the calm.

Neha didn’t feel scared, not exactly. Kabir wasn’t a stranger to her. Yet the way his eyes lingered on her made her feel… uncomfortable, exposed. She shifted slightly, pulling the blanket up to her chest. The silence between them grew thicker, and Kabir finally noticed the unease in her face.

He stood up quickly, almost too quickly. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I wasn’t trying to scare you. I was just… looking to see if you needed anything.”

Neha nodded without meeting his eyes. “I’m fine,” she murmured, her voice low. “I just have a lot of work today.”

Kabir’s eyes moved to her hands, to the faint tremor in her fingers. She looked pale, fragile — and something inside him ached. He stepped closer, unable to stop himself. “Dumbo,” he said softly, “you shouldn’t be working in this condition. You need rest… for our baby—”

The words died on his tongue.

The air in the room seemed to freeze. Reality hit him all over again the child growing inside her wasn’t his. It belonged to him. To Niel.

Niel the man he hated with every drop of blood in his body. The man who had destroyed their lives. The man who had taken everything from him, even the baby he never get the chance to hold or love. Kabir’s jaw tightened, his eyes darkened with the same pain that had never truly left him.

Neha saw it too the rage, the heartbreak flickering in his eyes. But she didn’t say anything. Words would only deepen the wound.

Without a word, she stood up slowly, holding her quilt close around her and walked toward the washroom. The quiet sound of the closing door echoed painfully in the room, leaving Kabir standing alone with the ghost of their past and the weight of a truth neither of them could escape.