It had been a month since Siya was thrown out of the Malhotra house.

Finding a place to live in a city that never slept had been almost impossible, but she had managed to rent a small apartment the same day she started looking. The building was old—its paint peeling, the staircase narrow and winding. There was no lift, and her room sat high on the fourth floor. Every step left her breathless, but she told herself it was worth it. It was hers.

She made the tiny flat look like a home.

Soft, colorful curtains framed the lone window; a few potted plants stood by the balcony, reaching for sunlight; a small sketch of a house she and Aadarsh once designed together hung above her bed. She had built warmth into the cracks of old walls, but the silence still hurt. Every night she fell asleep listening to the city outside and wondering if he ever dreamt of her, even by accident.

Every morning began the same way — a rush to the sink with nausea clawing at her throat. Morning sickness had become routine, but the emptiness beside her wasn’t. Earlier, he used to hold her hair back, whisper soft complaints about how stubborn she was for skipping meals. Now there was only the sound of her own breathing.

Once the sickness faded, she finished her chores in silence, made herself weak tea, and stepped onto the balcony to feed the sparrows. They arrived without fail, chirping like tiny messengers of comfort. “At least someone still comes back,” she murmured once, smiling faintly through the ache.

By nine, she was ready for work. For the past month, Siya had managed the firm’s affairs alone, quietly, efficiently — as if nothing had changed. She erased every trace of herself from Aadarsh’s laptop and mobile, both still locked in the office drawer. Every photo, every chat, every reminder of their life together — gone.

Only a few people in the office knew about their marriage, and she had made them promise silence.

“Don’t tell him anything,” she’d said firmly. “Not yet.”

They had nodded, pity softening their eyes, but she ignored it. She didn’t need sympathy; she needed control — the illusion of normalcy until he was strong enough to face the truth.

And so, every day for a month, Siya lived two lives: the professional assistant everyone saw, and the broken wife no one remembered

The conference room buzzed with tension. Siya stood at the head of the long glass table, holding a clipboard that felt heavier than usual. The walls around her were lined with project models and pinned sketches — all reminders of a man who no longer remembered the hands that helped him build them.

She drew in a steady breath. “Everyone, please focus,” she said, voice calm despite the weight in her chest. “The new client will be visiting next week. We can’t afford any delays. Even though Mr. Malhotra is away, the firm must run exactly as it always has.”

A few heads nodded. Someone murmured,“But ma’am, what if he—”

She cut in softly, but firmly. “He’ll be back soon, and when he is, we mustn’t overwhelm him. The doctors advised rest. So until then, we do our part. No stress, no mistakes, no talk of the accident. Just work. Understood?”

Her tone left no room for argument. The team agreed, admiration mingled with pity in their eyes. Siya didn’t notice — or pretended not to. She just straightened the papers in front of her and continued explaining deadlines and assignments.

None of them saw the figure standing silently at the door.

Aadarsh leaned against the frame, listening. He had walked in without warning — no message, no call, just instinct leading him to the familiar rhythm of voices in his firm. And among them, that one voice. Soft. Steady. Unmistakable.

He didn’t step in immediately. He listened as she spoke — as she guided his team with confidence, as she carried a sense of authority that felt strangely comforting to him. She sounds like she belongs here, he thought, unaware that once, she had belonged to far more than his office.

When Siya turned to check the presentation on the screen, she caught sight of him in the reflection — standing at the doorway, watching. Her breath hitched. The pen slipped from her hand and clattered softly against the table.

The room went silent.

Aadarsh pushed the door open and walked in, his usual composure back in place. “Please, continue,” he said to the room, though his eyes had already found hers.

She looked down quickly, pretending to adjust the laptop cord, her heart pounding so hard she was sure the silence could hear it.

He took the head seat and glanced around. “I’ve heard you’ve all been handling things well in my absence,” he began. “Thank you for keeping the firm running.”

The staff exchanged nervous smiles. Siya stayed quiet, hands folded tightly in front of her.

He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry,” he added, his voice steady but softer now. “I… don’t remember much from the past two years. If there were any ongoing projects or plans I was leading, I’ll need complete updates. We’ll start fresh together.”

For a second, no one spoke. Then someone murmured a polite “Yes, sir.” Everyone began packing up their notes, the meeting dissolving into quiet movement. But Siya couldn’t move. Her throat felt dry, her fingers numb.

When the last of the team had left, his voice stopped her.

“Ms.Mehra, stay back. I want to talk to you.”

She froze, her back still turned. The sound of her surname in his voice — professional, distant — was too much and too little all at once, how will she tell him it's not Ms. Mehra it's Mrs. Siya Aadarsh Malhotra now.

She turned slowly, keeping her face composed. “Yes, sir?”

He was watching her curiously now, not coldly, not warmly — just searching, like she was a puzzle he’d almost solved once and couldn’t remember how.

Aadarsh sat back in his chair, eyes still on her. For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Then his tone softened.

“You’ve kept everything running,” he said quietly. “I’ve seen the reports. The clients didn’t back out, deadlines weren’t missed. That couldn’t have been easy.”

She blinked, startled by the warmth in his voice. Gratitude—sincere, unguarded.

“I just… did what needed to be done, sir,” she managed.

He nodded slowly. “Still, thank you. I don’t remember these last two years, but I can tell a lot has changed. It’s strange walking into your own firm and feeling like a guest.”

Something in her chest twisted. She wanted to tell him that she knew every wall of this place, that they had spent nights here sketching designs on tracing paper, laughing about impossible deadlines. But all she said was, “You’ll get used to it again.”

He studied her for a second, then smiled faintly. “You sound sure of that.”

“I have to be,” she said, before she could stop herself. Her voice cracked on the last word.

He noticed. “Are you okay?”

She nodded quickly, eyes dropping to the files. “Just tired. It’s been a long month.”

He leaned forward slightly, elbows on the table. “Ms. Mehra I don’t know much right now—about projects, about… people—but I do know when someone’s held everything together. You did that for me, for this place. That matters.”

Her throat tightened. Gratitude shouldn’t have hurt this much. She forced a smile that felt too fragile. “It’s my job, sir.”

He tilted his head, the way he used to when he was trying to understand something that didn’t quite fit the blueprint. “Right,” he murmured, almost to himself. Then, with quiet sincerity:

“Thank you, Ms. Mehra. Really.”

She nodded once, afraid that if she spoke, the tears would come. Gathering the files, she asked, “Should I prepare a report for you on the ongoing projects?”

“Yes,” he said, standing. “And… Ms. Mehra?”

She looked up.

“If I ask too many questions, or if I repeat myself—just tell me. I don’t want to make things harder for anyone.”

Her voice was barely above a whisper. “You won’t.”

He smiled—small, genuine—and left the room.

Siya stood there for a long time after he was gone, her fingers still trembling around the file. His gratitude should have felt like comfort, but it only made the distance between them ache more.

He had thanked her for holding his world together.

And she couldn’t tell him that she was the part of it he’d already lost.

The door clicked shut behind him, muting the steady hum of conversation that had filled the corridor. For a moment, Aadarsh just stood there, palms pressed against the cool glass of the conference room window, breathing slowly.

Everything looked familiar: the model shelves, the city skyline, even the pattern of the shadows falling across his desk.

And yet, the air felt different—like someone had rearranged the furniture of his life while he’d been away.

He pulled the top drawer open again, fingertips brushing against the familiar weight of a black phone tucked in the corner.

For a second, he simply stared at it.

His phone.

He had assumed it was gone—lost in the crash or maybe crushed with the car. But here it was, screen dark, thin film of dust over the edges. He picked it up slowly, turning it in his hands. The small crack across the corner looked new; he didn’t remember how it happened.

“How did this get here?” he murmured to himself.

He pressed the power button. The screen lit up instantly, the same wallpaper he remembered—a blueprint of a modern villa he’d designed years ago. A wave of relief, then confusion, hit him. Someone had kept it charged, safe. Someone had placed it carefully in his drawer, not dumped it among his other things.

The lock screen required his old passcode, and his fingers moved to type it automatically. His memory might have gaps, but muscle memory didn’t. It opened on the first try.

Most of his gallery was empty. The message threads were clean. Even the work folders had been reset. But something felt off. It was too clean.

He scrolled through the call logs. Nothing beyond the date of the accident. No messages. No notes. No saved reminders.

As if someone had wiped it all—but left the phone waiting for him.

He frowned, rubbing his thumb along the edges again. It wasn’t the kind of mistake his family would make; his parents had never cared for his personal things, especially not devices. Someone else had made sure this came back to him.

His gaze drifted toward the glass wall outside his cabin. Through it, he could see Siya at her desk, bent over a file, the faintest crease between her brows as she worked.

A thought flickered. Could it be… her?

It made sense. She handled his schedules, the firm, the transitions. She would have had access to everything. Still, there was something almost… tender about the way the phone had been placed, as if whoever did it hadn’t just wanted him to find it—but to find it safely.

He looked back at the screen again. No photos, no texts, no memories. Yet somehow, the phone didn’t feel empty. It felt heavy, like it was carrying something invisible—something missing.

Aadarsh set it down gently, the faint reflection of his face flickering against the darkened glass.

He didn’t know why, but the silence in the room suddenly felt too loud.

And through the quiet hum of the office, he thought he heard something else—something that wasn’t sound at all, but a feeling.

Recognition.

He shook his head, forcing a breath. “You’re imagining things,” he muttered. He looked at her out of the window.

She wasn’t loud or assertive like most people he worked with. She moved quietly, spoke clearly, carried herself like someone who knew every inch of this office. He had noticed that immediately. The way she looked at him today—professional, calm, but with something behind her eyes—unsettled him.

He leaned back, rubbing a hand over his face. “Assistant,” he muttered. It still didn’t feel right. She didn’t act like a new hire. She handled the team as though she’d been running the firm for years.

And when she had said You’ll get used to it again, it hadn’t sounded like reassurance. It had sounded like promise.

He again opened the drawer of his desk. His notebooks were there, his pens aligned, his favorite mug—the one with the faint chip near the rim. None of it was supposed to matter, but the order of it all did. Someone had been maintaining it.

Her handwriting was on the latest file notes. He ran his thumb over the edge of the page. For some reason, the neat, rounded letters made his chest tighten.

Maybe it was just gratitude, he told himself. She had kept the place running. That was all.

But when he closed his eyes, the image that surfaced wasn’t the firm or the staff or the projects.

It was her. Standing in the meeting room, light catching in her hair, voice steady as she told everyone not to stress him. She’d sounded protective—almost too much for an assistant.

He exhaled slowly, shaking his head.

He was supposed to be starting over, supposed to be rebuilding memory through logic and work. But logic couldn’t explain why, when he thought of the word home, it was her face that flickered across his mind.

A soft knock came on the door, broke his trance.

“Come in,” he said, his voice steady though his pulse had picked up for no reason he could name.

Siya stepped inside, balancing a folder against her chest. Her hair was tied up the way she always wore it when she needed to concentrate. She placed the file on his desk, her tone even, all business.

“These are the project updates you asked for, sir. I’ve included client notes and pending approvals.”

He nodded, flipping through the pages. Her handwriting ran across the sheets—neat, rounded, familiar. His fingers brushed the edge of the folder at the same time as hers, a brief, accidental touch. Static hummed in the air. Siya drew her hand back quickly, eyes dropping to the desk.

He cleared his throat. “Ms. Mehra… there’s something I wanted to ask.”

She looked up, startled by the sudden shift in his tone. His hand moved to the drawer and lifted the phone lying inside.

“What is my phone doing here?” he asked, brow furrowed. “I thought I’d lost it in the accident.”

Her breath caught, but she forced herself to stay calm. “The day after the accident, I found it on the office floor,” she said softly. “It must have fallen from your pocket before you left. It was switched off, so I charged it and kept it safely in your drawer.”

He watched her as she spoke, eyes unreadable. “You did all that?”

“Yes, sir. I didn’t want it to get misplaced.”

He nodded slowly, turning the phone in his hands, his thumb tracing the small crack near the corner. “Thank you,” he said after a pause. Then his gaze lifted to her again, quieter, searching. “Can I ask you something else?”

“Of course, sir.”

His voice dropped slightly, almost hesitant. “Why do I feel like we’re close, Ms. Mehra?”

The question struck like a jolt. Siya froze, her heartbeat stuttering painfully. She opened her mouth, then closed it, forcing air into her lungs before answering.

“We were… good friends, sir,” she said finally, each word carefully measured. “Before the accident, we weren’t this formal. We used to call each other by our first names.”

Her lips curved into a small, sad smile—one that didn’t reach her eyes. “You always said calling me ‘Ms. Mehra’ made you feel like a school principal.”

He blinked, a flicker of amusement passing through the confusion in his gaze. But the heaviness between them stayed.

She stepped back, smoothing her palms over her kurta, needing to breathe before the walls closed in. “I’ll get back to work, sir. You can call me if you need anything else.”

She turned, reaching for the doorknob, determined not to let him see the tears threatening behind her composure.

“Siya.”

His voice stopped her.

🧡