The disoriented proprietor strummed her fingers against the edges of the MacBook. Her dazed eyes studied the content of the report, but her befuddled mind had abandoned processing the information after the second paragraph when her thoughts wandered to the subject of Ranveer Dhoopar.

"If you had asked for my company, if you had wanted my presence, there wasn't a person whose opinion could have stopped me."

He had expressed his unbridled and unwavering support after listening to Yukti's words, or so she had deduced whilst tossing and turning in her bed the night before. His shallow breaths, his bedraggled appearance, his tousled hair, and his stormy eyes - that was his reaction to the partial revelation.

The glimpse into his concern burned away the doubts she had harbored about his reaction if he learned the truth, but the knowledge had also seared her soul. His ardent affection had made the conclusion plausible and prudent - she was the woman described by Aanchal.

The woman who made the alliance with Aanchal unpalatable. One who, according to her, would make her impossible proposition palatable, for it offered him the chance to live his desires.

"Last I remember, you refused me to marry me when asked!"

The memory of his words filled her with dread. His speech had been laced with despair and the desperation of lost hopes, promising all of his trust only for it to be torn away. And she was the woman who destroyed his world, leaving devastation in her wake, and turning his heart into a pile of ashes.

"The marriage between us might not be real, Suhani. But it does not mean I will not care for you or defend you."

The premise of their relationship might have been a facade, but he was from being the only solicitous one in their relationship. Suhani picked her phone and typed away a message to him.

It was time they faced each other without any pretense or lies, to strip away the veils of deception and speak their truth. No more masks to hide behind, no more tongues tied with secrets - the moment had arrived for them to finally be honest with each other.

****

"Are you alright? Did you need something?" demanded Ranveer when his impatient and incessant knocks at the teak door had found their answer to reveal a stoic Suhani Malhotra.

"Come in," she said in a mechanical and indifferent voice she had perfected over the years and the one he had heard innumerable times at the social gatherings they attended. He could not shrug away the queasiness when he stepped over the threshold and walked into the penthouse.

She closed the door, allowing a vexed sigh to fall through her parted lips. A mesmerising bird-eye view of the busy city greeted him from the pristine wall made of one-way glass. The golden ball played hide-and-seek with the clouds, lending a resplendent orange lining to the clouds, and warm hues splayed across the sky interspersed with clouds that wafted away without a worry.

"Mom had bought this penthouse for her retirement." The rays of sun peeking through the cloud reflected off the nostalgic brown irises. Ranveer's eyes snapped back to the distant woman. "She loved the view and thought it offered her detached perspective."

His powder blue linen shirt hung lax from his drooped shoulders and deflated chest. "It's an irreplaceable loss. I'm so sorry for what you had to go through."

Despite the sincerity in his words, she could not subdue the sarcastic chuckle that spilled out of her lips. How much could he imagine, she speculated, and she decided the torment was beyond anything he could imagine.

The befuddled man's eyebrows sloped towards each other and a chill seeped into his bones. "Is everything alright, Suhani?"

The maroon satin blouse stretched against her skin when she crossed her arms against her chest. Beads of perspiration rolled down her back despite the central air-conditioner running at the maximum speed.

"Neither of us have been honest in this..." Suhani signed at the gap between them with indecisive waving off of her hand. "In this arrangement, which turned into a friendship, I suppose."

The lines running on his forehead deepened and widened, whilst dread loomed around his heart, intensifying the chill he felt in his bones. "I... I did not share my reasons to propose this marriage-of-convenience, but I will tell you one reason I chose you."

The strain permeated into her voice despite her best efforts to maintain a steady tone. The heaviness of her heart added to her parched throat to make the task at hand excruciating.

"Aanchal, your ex-fiancee, is my friend. She had confided in me about her doubts that you were in love with another woman."

Her chilly tone made shudders run down his spine and his eyes widened with the gleam of realization. "I thought an open marriage would aid you in continuing your affair with this woman. I believed a marriage with no conjugal expectations from the wife would please you."

A wry chuckle escaped her lips, and she glanced away from the man, who blanched when the implication of her words dawned on him. "Suhani..."

"I was wrong. The same proposition from a different woman, perhaps, would have delighted you, but not from me. Am I wrong in drawing this conclusion, Ranveer?" she asked, stepping towards him. A thin shaking film of tears covered her demanding eyes.

"Look, I can explain..."

"I am not seeking explanations, Ranveer. I just need you to answer without deflecting or distorting what I seek to know." She took another step towards him. The filled eyes overflowed and the beads of brine rolled down her flushed cheeks.

The sight of her distraught self twisted the dagger of contrition deep into his heart and threatened to sever the ties that restrained his tongue. "I was the woman mentioned by Aanchal, wasn't I? The reason for your failed engagement?"

He had deemed it appropriate to conceal the truth from the subject of his affections when they had entered the arrangement, but the circumstances were no longer conducive to obscure what she had already deduced.

"You think you're the reason my engagement failed? Not a chance, Suhani." Her eyes widened in shock. "I'm to blame because I was searching for you in her--trying to replace what only you could fill. But when I couldn't do it, his despair was unbearable. Because I never stopped loving you..."

Except for her trembling lower lip, there was little indication of Suhani Malhotra's consciousness or cognizance of what the towering man had uttered. Her upper lash descended with the abandon of leaf freed from the tree in a relentless storm and drops descended her overfilled eyes unfettered.

As much as her reticence agonized him, the torment did not hold a candle to the suffering brought about by the hot drops of lacrimation that left trails on her clenched cheeks that burned through his conscience.

The trembling fear in his heart mounted at the thought that his paranoid supposition may have been correct. He felt an overwhelming surge of sorrow when he realized that instead of providing her with solace, he had plunged her into a never-ending abyss of despair and anguish. His innards twisted as he accepted responsibility for the abject misery that overwhelmed her.

His shivering fingers advanced towards her flushed cheeks to erase the traces of warm moisture, but to no avail, for she stumbled away from him, unleashing the storm in her crimson eyes that threw daggers of accusations at him.

"D-don't..." she said in a raspy whisper, raising her outstretched hand between them.

He yearned to approach her, his remorse making it impossible for him to stay still. But when he moved closer, the tightness in her body alerted him of the potential ramifications if he dared take one more step.

"T-this arrangement..." she panted, struggling to catch her breath and stand straight in the wake of dizziness, which had evoked a profound nausea. "This arrangement... it cannot continue."

The observant man had not excluded the anguishing possibility from his mind. To hear her spell it out still proved to be a bane of his solace. "Suhani..."

She instinctively stumbled backward, trembling and dread replacing the warmth that had just a moment ago illuminated her eyes. His heart twisted viciously at her terror, pressing acidic bile into his throat and bringing a new wave of pain to his already cut soul. He never thought it possible for him to instill such fear in another living creature.

Ranveer raised his hands in surrender and tiptoed away from her. "I cannot... cannot sustain another relationship with pretension and live with the sense of inadequacy debilitating me! I cannot marry you!"

"Why would you have to pretend?" he asked, biting back his own tears. "If nothing else, we are friends, Suhani. And you can let go of pretenses in the company of friends. You can- "

Her whimpers worsened into wails. "You will resent me! Why don't you understand?" she demanded. Her juddering chest housed the turbulent pounding of her frenzy heart, whose agitated beats reverberated in her ears.

The rapid beating of her heart pounded in her ears like a drum, echoing through her veins as if trying to escape her body. Her breath was coming in short gasps as the dizzying sensation of impending doom swept over her. She tightened her arms around herself in a desperate attempt to stay upright, her face flushing scarlet while tears stung her bloodshot eyes.

The contrite man's heart ached with panic, feeling helpless against the woman's fear. His mind raced for a way to make it go away without denying its existence.

"We can never have a normal relationship, Ranveer! Maybe you thought... you thought I'd give in someday, but I cannot!"

"I never- "

"Touch terrifies me," she spat, erasing the traces of tears from her cheeks without the slightest compassion for her rouged cheeks, which blanched at the roughness of her touch. "That man... that man... he ensured I'll never... never be comfortable with it!"

The woman's pain pierced his heart as she confirmed the terrible truth he had already guessed. He wanted to look away but found himself unable to avert his gaze, powerless in the face of her anguish. The horror of what she had suffered seared his soul and an intense grief overwhelmed him far beyond anything he had expected.

Her nails dug into her palm when she balled them into fists. A throbbing headache raged on and her blurry vision worsened the onslaught of the ache. "You'll resent me. You will, when I... I don't fulfill your desires."

"That's not true- "

"You don't understand!" She shrieked, her hair a wild mane around her face. "No one knows that! Everyone keeps expecting me to be something I'm not and it's too much, it's just too much!" Tears streamed down her flushed cheeks as she raked her hands through the tangled mess of her hair. "I can't do this anymore. I won't take it anymore!"

Her piling frustration was palpable as her voice rose by several octaves. "I... I chose you because I thought you... you would have no expectations of me! Now that I know better... that I know you are bound to have expectations from me, this... this cannot go ahead!"

"I had accepted not marrying you when you rejected that marriage proposal, Suhani. I-" His involuntary step towards her made her stride away from him with raw and unbridled terror in her eyes. A fresh wave of anguish washed over the wounds of his conscience.

"Suhani, please, I... I can do away with the expectations as well. You will never have to face the brunt of them!"

As she slumped against the wall, Suhani felt the tears pricking her eyes and the knot of sorrow cinching her throat. The gentle rumble of Ranveer's voice reverberated around her soul like a roaring storm, unleashing all the emotions that she had kept suppressed inside her for so many weeks. It took nearly a lifetime for her to admit and accept that he had deeply etched himself into her broken heart.

She could no longer deny her passionate feelings for him, but the walls she had built around her heart to protect it seemed impenetrable. As she stood at the edge of a precipice that would define her future, she was forced to push down every ounce of resistance and accept what lay in her heart - a unconditional fondness for the kindhearted man before her.

His begging gaze reached deep into her hardening soul, stirring the forgotten parts of her that yearned for an understanding confidant, and the young girl inside, who craved a passionate love. But she was strong-minded and listened only to what her mind dictated to her, never swaying from its advice to take caution—no matter what. Still, despite these thoughts, the battle between her heart and mind waged on.

"I wish... I wish I could believe that. It's not on you. It's me. I cannot trust anyone. This arrangement... this relationship won't be fair to either of us." She bit down on her chapped lips to swallow fresh whimpers that gurgled at her throat.

As her eyes fixated on some invisible point far away from Ranveer, her head felt like a bag of lead dangling over an abyss. Desperate to escape into a dreamland devoid of the terrors that plagued her, she began to sway and stumble under the unbearable weight of her eyelids. With each passing second, light pouring through the window became more piercing and searing until she could no longer remain in this state. Her consciousness was being pulled away by a force too powerful to resist and, as darkness threatened to swallow her completely, she made out Ranveer's frantic silhouette running towards her.