The meeting had ended, but Sia’s heart was still pounding. She walked through the quiet halls of the office, each step echoing in her mind like a reminder of everything she was trying to forget.
Kabir. His name itself was a wound. And today, seeing him again after all these years—it felt like the past had reached out and pulled her under.
She thought she had prepared herself for this. The deal, the alliance—it was all business, nothing more. She had told herself that she could handle it. That she wouldn’t let his presence shake her. But the moment he called her name in the garden, everything inside her had cracked.
The garden had always been her refuge—a place of quiet, away from the harsh lights of boardrooms and the weight of expectations. She had gone there to breathe, to gather herself. But he had found her there, his voice soft and insistent, breaking down every wall she had built around herself.
“Sia,” he had said. Just her name. But the way he said it—like a plea, like a memory—had brought back everything she had fought to bury.
His eyes, dark and searching. The same eyes that once looked at her like she was the only thing that mattered. She hated that she remembered. Hated that even now, her heart betrayed her with every beat.
But betrayal was betrayal. And Kabir Malhotra had betrayed her in ways she couldn’t forgive.
People saw Kabir as this perfect man—poised, powerful, always in control. They didn’t see the truth. The way he could cut someone down with a smile, how he could make you believe he cared while he held your heart in his hands like it was disposable.
She had believed him once. Believed in the man behind the mask. But when it had mattered, when she had needed him most, he had turned away.
Treating a woman like she was nothing—like she was just another piece in his game. That was something she couldn’t forget.
As she walked home that night, the city lights blurred around her. She tried to lose herself in the noise, the crowd, but Kabir’s voice still echoed in her mind.
“You can’t pretend I don’t exist.”
He didn’t understand. He never would. It wasn’t about pretending—she had to survive. And to survive, she had to forget him.
But her memories were traitors. They slipped in when she least expected it. The way his hand had brushed against hers, the softness in his voice when he spoke her name in the dark. She had wanted to believe that was real. That he was real.
Now, she knew better.
In the quiet of her room, she let the tears fall. Just for a moment. She let herself remember the nights she had waited for him to choose her, to fight for her. She let herself feel the weight of the betrayal she had carried for so long.
She wasn’t the girl who had once believed in him. She was stronger now. Harder. But even steel bends when it’s pushed too far.
“Kabir Malhotra ” she whispered into the silence. “I will not let you break me again.”
The next morning, she looked in the mirror and saw the girl she had become. Her eyes no longer held the softness of hope—they were clear, sharp, unyielding.
She would face this alliance. She would face him. But she would not let herself be that girl again—the one who had waited for love that never came.
She would not forget the way he had treated her like she was nothing. The way he had worn his mask of perfect control while she fell apart.
No matter how close he stood, no matter how much his eyes tried to tell her another story—she wouldn’t let herself believe it.
Betrayal was betrayal. And some scars never truly heal.
She stepped out of her apartment, the morning light catching in her hair. She took a deep breath, feeling the chill of the air on her skin. She was ready. Ready to face him, to face this deal, to face whatever came next.
She wouldn’t let his mask fool her again.
And as she walked toward the future that waited for them both—so close, yet so impossibly far—Sia Kashyap carried one truth in her heart:
“You may think you know me, Kabir. But you don’t. Not anymore.”
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