Redemption of Royals (Royal #1: Book 3) | ✔

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can't believe RwR ended today. Yuvraaj went from my least liked characters to my most favourite ones. It's like he fell in love to show the world how it's done.

enjoy this sweet surprise while I go weep in the bathroom ✨

-• the beginning of an end •-

Taranya

Rudra left.

It's been four hours, and there's no news of him. He isn't picking up my calls, isn't answering my texts, isn't letting me know where he is. I've no means to reach him, and I'm bursting my head over his abrupt disappearance. It has something to do with the man Virendra brought along. That's when the shift happened, that's when Rudra appeared far away, despite being right next to me. I couldn't do anything when he ripped his hand out of mine and walked out, without glancing back. I don't think he was even aware I ran after his car until the gates, that the guards had to hold me back when he drove out at an insanely fast speed it made my heart climb my mouth in fear.

"The number you're trying to-"

Clicking my tongue, I pull the phone away and cut the call, redialling again.

"Is he still not answering?" Niharika asks softly.

I shake my head.

She inhales a deep breath, pacing back and forth in front of me as I stay seated on the end of the bed, shaking my leg anxiously. I wouldn't be this paranoid if his reaction wasn't so out of the character. Rudra is a brave man. He doesn't run away. He doesn't go into hiding. And he certainly never shuts me off so suddenly. There has to be something that drove his thoughts far out of control that he didn't even notice me screaming and running after his car. This has never happened-

"I'm sorry."

"God, I'm so sorry, Taranya."

"I want this, but- but I don't know-"

The realisation sinks in. I slap a hand over my mouth. Niharika stops pacing the room and looks down at me curiously. I meet her eyes, my own wide, and I blink in shock.

"Wha- What's wrong?" She whispers, concern coating her rich timbre.

"This is Manohar Jadega."

"Do you remember him?"

"How would he, Virendra?"

"He was a child back then. Only eight or nine years old. And he was always fast asleep whenever I stopped by to meet him."

I drop my face in my hands as the undisputed reality of my husband's past crashes down on me. My chest constricts and a heavy, loud sob breaks through my mouth, muffled in my hands as I hunch over, unable to hold myself together. My knees crash to the floor and I struggle to breath through the unceasing cries. Niharika rushes over to me, sinks to her knees in front of me and takes me in her arms, wrapping them around me as I weep hard. I hold onto her, scared that if she lets me go, I might just break down in pieces. It isn't empathy that I'm feeling. Neither is it pity. It's his grief, as if the tunnel that I had once begged to be between us so his pain could be transferred to mine is finally opened, and I'm feeling every last detail of his heart-rending past.

"Tara, you're scaring me. What is it?" Niharika runs a hand down my back, trying her hardest to calm me down, but failing because having a shoulder to cry on makes me feel guilty, for the man I love is alone somewhere, caught up in the storm of his childhood.

The man I love.

The man I love. Oh God, the man I love.

I love him.