Lawfully Yours - Chapter 21
Chapter 21
Verma and Associates – Next Day
By the time the clock struck ten, the hum of the office had settled into its familiar rhythm…keyboards clicking, phones ringing, soft murmurs between legal assistants. But in Kushal Nair’s cabin, it had been anything but routine since sunrise.
He had arrived at seven.
Not because of deadlines.
Not because of pressure.
Because of her.
Three nights in Dalhousie in the same room as Arundhati, had left him addicted to her nearness and tortured by the distance she kept. It had rewired his system, burned new circuits into his routine. The way she curled into his chest in her sleep. The scent of her shampoo on the pillow they shared. He had lived in a kind of borrowed dream, where desire and memory blurred into something dangerously close to hope.
Last night returning home from Dalhousie to his cold, empty bed, it had hit him harder than he expected. He didn’t belong in that silence anymore. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her…under him, wrapped in sheets and heat and that stubborn pride that made him want her more.
He couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t sit still. Couldn’t keep himself from replaying every second they had shared. That ridiculous couple’s game. The way her lips had parted when he blindfolded her in their room. The way she had moaned his name when she lost control, not knowing that sound would haunt him through the night.
By six a.m., he gave up trying to rest. He showered. Dressed. Drove with no music. And showed up at Verma & Associates, hoping work would be the distraction he desperately needed.
It wasn’t.
Every knock on the door made his head snap up, wishing it was her. He told himself this was pathetic. That a man like him shouldn’t feel this undone. But all his logic collapsed the moment his heart dared to ask: What if she never lets you close again?
He hadn’t just missed her last night.
He had ached for her.
And the most frustrating part? She hadn’t even texted him after she took the cab from airport. As if nothing had shifted between them, as if that night where she kissed him like he was oxygen, these three days they spent together in Dalhousie had been just a lapse and nothing more.
And here he was, waiting for her to walk into the office…
That’s when, the door opened again and Raj Verma walked into his cabin unannounced, hands shoved casually in his coat pockets.
“Kushal? What am I hearing?” he asked.
Kushal looked up, immediately standing straight. “Good morning, Sir.”
Raj stepped inside.
“You reached here at seven?”
Kushal exhaled and gave a slow nod. “Had a backlog. Figured it was time to tackle it.”
Raj narrowed his gaze, amused. “Since when do you tackle anything before coffee?”
Kushal didn’t reply. How was he supposed to tell Raj Verma that it wasn’t court filings that had kept him up, but the memory of his niece that had brought him to office early.
Raj stepped closer and clapped his hand on Kushal’s shoulder. “Look, son. You don’t have to overcompensate. Your body needs rest. Pushing yourself to exhaustion isn’t how you impress anyone here in this firm.”
Kushal bit the inside of his cheek to keep from blurting, It’s not the firm I’m trying to impress. It’s your niece I want to hold again.