THE WIFE HE REGRETTED!!

Prologue

The scent of expensive incense and crushed jasmine petals hung heavy in the air of the Oberoi mansion, thick enough to choke the breath out of anyone who wasn't intoxicated by the celebration. To the outside world, it was the wedding of the decade. The union of the Oberoi empire with the legacy of the Khannas.

But to Piya, it was the day her life truly began.

She sat before the ornate mahogany vanity, her reflection almost unrecognizable beneath the weight of the traditional red lehenga. The fabric was encrusted with real gold thread, the dupatta so heavy it strained her neck, but the weight felt like a badge of honor. Around her neck sat the 'Rani Haar,' a family heirloom passed down through four generations of Oberoi women.

"You look like a queen, Piya beta," Gayatri whispered, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. The older woman's eyes were misty, but there was a flicker of something else there-guilt? Piya was too happy to notice.
"Is he ready, Maa?" Piya asked, her voice a soft tremolo of excitement. She didn't need to say his name. To her, there had only ever been one name.

Hriday.

She remembered the day she was six years old, standing in a hospital corridor, clutching a tattered teddy bear while her father drew his last breaths. Rajveer Oberoi had knelt before her, wiped her tears, and promised her a home. He had pointed to a scowling ten-year-old Hriday standing in the corner and told her, "He will be your protector, Piya. Always."

She had spent fifteen years living for that promise. Every book she read, every dish she learned to cook, every prayer she whispered at the temple-it was all for the boy with the dark, brooding eyes who had grown into a man of lethal charm and cold efficiency.

"He is waiting at the Mandap," Gayatri said, her voice strangely tight. "Come, the mahurat is passing."

As Piya walked down the grand staircase, her kaliras clinking with every step, she felt the eyes of five hundred guests on her. But her own eyes were locked on the figure standing by the sacred fire.

Hriday.

He looked breathtaking in his ivory sherwani, his shoulders broad, his jawline sharp enough to cut. He didn't look at her as she approached. He was staring fixedly at the flames, his expression unreadable.

He's just nervous, Piya told herself, her heart fluttering like a trapped bird. He's always been private with his emotions.

The ceremony was a blur of Vedic chants, the heat of the fire, and the stinging smoke. When it came time for the Pheras, the symbolic seven rounds around the fire, Piya felt a surge of pure, unadulterated joy. With every step, she felt herself becoming his. His shadow, his partner, his wife.

When he applied the sindoor to her parting, his fingers were ice-cold. He didn't look into her eyes. He didn't smile when the priest declared them husband and wife. He simply pulled his hand away as if she had burned him.

The wedding night.

Piya sat on the edge of the vast, circular bed in the master suite. The room was decorated with thousands of white roses-Hriday's favorite. She had picked them out herself, wanting everything to be perfect. Her heart was drumming a frantic rhythm against her ribs. She had waited for this moment since she was a girl-the moment she would finally be allowed to tell him she loved him, not as a ward of his father, but as his wife.

The door creaked open. Hriday walked in, but he didn't look like a groom. He had already ripped off his turban and unbuttoned the top of his sherwani. His face wasn't filled with the warmth of a new husband; it was a mask of cold, jagged granite.

Piya stood up, her bangles chiming softly. "Hriday... I... I can't believe we're finally here."

He stopped a few feet away from her. The silence in the room became suffocating. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, his thumb flying across the screen with an urgency that made Piya's stomach sink.

"Who are you messaging?" she asked softly, stepping toward him.
"Someone who actually matters," he snapped. The venom in his voice hit her like a physical blow.

Piya flinched. "What do you mean? Hriday, it's our wedding night. My aunt said-"

"I don't give a damn what your aunt said. Or what my father said," Hriday interrupted, finally looking at her. But there was no love in his eyes. There was only a burning, pulsating hatred.

"Look at yourself, Piya. Look at this circus." He gestured vaguely to the roses and the decorated bed. "You really thought this was real? You really thought I wanted this?"

Piya felt the air leave her lungs. "The promise... your father said..."

"My father's 'promise' is a debt I was forced to pay," he hissed, taking a predatory step toward her. He was so close now she could smell the expensive cologne mixed with the scent of the ritual smoke. "He used my inheritance, my position in the company, and his own health to blackmail me into this marriage. You aren't my wife, Piya. You're a shackle. You're the price I had to pay to keep my empire."

"No," she whispered, tears blurring her vision. "You... you were always kind to me growing up. You bought me gifts, you-"

"I was being a good host to a guest!" he roared, making her jump. "I pitied you. The orphan girl who had nowhere else to go. But pity isn't love. I love Alisha. I have loved her for three years, and I was going to marry her until my father staged this 'honorable' drama."

He reached out, his hand gripping her chin, forcing her to look at him. His touch wasn't tender; it was punishing.
"Listen to me very carefully," he said, his voice dropping to a deadly, calm whisper. "You may have the name 'Oberoi' now. You may have the mangalsutra around your neck. But you will never have me. You will live in this house, you will play the perfect daughter-in-law for my parents, and you will stay out of my way. In this room, and in my heart, you are a stranger."

He let go of her chin with a flick of his wrist, as if he were discarding trash.
"I'm going out," he said, turning toward the door.

"It's midnight, Hriday," Piya choked out, the first tear finally spilling over and carving a path through her heavy bridal makeup. "Where are you going?"

He paused at the door, his silhouette dark and imposing against the hallway lights. He didn't turn around.

"To Alisha," he said simply. "She's waiting for me. Unlike you, she doesn't need a contract or a father's dying wish to make me want her."

The door slammed shut behind him.
The sound echoed through the silent, rose-scented room, sounding like a gavel. The sentence had been passed.
Piya sank to the floor, the heavy gold lehenga pooling around her like a cage. She looked at the bed, covered in the roses she had carefully chosen, and felt a hysterical laugh bubble up in her throat.

She was a bride. She was an Oberoi. She was the most envied woman in the city tonight.

And as she reached up to touch the cold gold of her mangalsutra, she realized it wasn't a piece of jewelry. It was a noose.

She had married the man of her dreams, only to find out she was the villain in his.

Piya pulled the heavy pins from her hair, letting the dupatta fall to the floor. She didn't wipe her tears. She let them fall onto the silk of her wedding dress, staining the gold.

The Wife He Regretted.

The title tasted like ash in her mouth. She had a lifetime of this ahead of her. A lifetime of being a ghost in a golden palace.

Outside, the distant sound of the last wedding fireworks faded into the night, leaving nothing but the silence of a broken heart.

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