Arnav's POV
The late-afternoon sun washed the entire Delhi cultural festival in liquid gold, turning dust motes into drifting fireflies and the murmuring crowds into a river of color.
Stalls lined the grounds—rangoli demonstrations, handloom artisans, street performers, children flinging powdered color into the air as if trying to paint the sky itself.
At the center of it all stood Arnav Singh Raizada, the chief sponsor of the event, surrounded by organizers and photographers jockeying for a good angle.
But even in the noise, he remained an island of stillness—tall, sharply dressed, posture commanding without effort. People looked at him the way they always did: with a mix of awe and distance, reverence and fear.
He barely heard the festival coordinator's words.
He barely noticed the camera flashes.
He barely acknowledged the business partners walking up for handshakes.
Because something—someone—had pulled the ground out from under him.
It wasn't dramatic.
There was no thunder, no cinematic wind, no spotlight.
It was simply… her.
A girl laughing at the edge of a children's booth.
Her laughter didn't even reach him at first.
But her presence did.
Bright.
Warm.
Unaware of the world watching her.
Unaware of him watching her.
She was crouched beside a group of children, helping them mix colored powders for a rangoli competition.
Her white kurta was already stained in pinks, oranges, greens—splashes of life that should have looked messy but somehow looked like she belonged in them, made for them, made of them.
Then one of the children tossed a handful of yellow gulal into the air.
And the sunlight chose her.
It caught her hair—soft, long, slightly mussed from the wind—and turned it into a halo that made Arnav's breath vanish.
He felt it viscerally, like a punch and a pull at the same time, something breaking and forming in the same second.
He had no name for the sensation.
He had spent his entire adult life avoiding sensations like that.
Yet here he stood, chest splitting open like fabric caught on a nail.
"What's the next set of sponsor arrangements, ASR?" one of the organizers asked.
Arnav didn't answer.
"Sir?" Aman prompted quietly beside him.
Still nothing.
He couldn't hear.
Couldn't think.
Couldn't look away.
Because she was laughing.
Not a polite smile.
Not a half-hearted giggle.
A real, full, unrestrained laugh that made the children around her laugh louder, as if joy radiated off her and infected everything in its path.
Arnav's jaw tightened.
He didn't know her.
He didn't know why the sound hit him like heat and hunger combined.
He didn't know why he hated—absolutely hated—the idea that the world could hear that laugh so freely.
But he knew this:
He wanted it again.
He wanted it closer.
He wanted it for himself.
A child tugged her dupatta, and she bent down to tie it into a little turban on his head.
The movement pulled her hair forward and sunlight streaked through it again.
A slow, unfamiliar burn spread through Arnav's spine.
Aman followed his gaze, slightly startled. "Sir…? Are you—looking at someone?"
Arnav's voice came out rougher than he intended.
"What's her name."
"Who, sir?"
"That girl." His eyes didn't leave her.
"Find out who she is."
A beat of silence.
"Now."
Aman knew better than to question that tone. "Yes, ASR."
Arnav forced himself to stand straighter as she rose, brushing color off her kurta, smiling at the children as if they were small sovereigns she served willingly.
She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and something inside him pulled taut.
A thread.
A string.
A tether he hadn't given permission for.
Yet there it was.
Wrapped around his chest.
The coordinator called out again, "Sir, for the press—"
"Handle it," Arnav snapped.
He shouldn't care.
He didn't care.
He absolutely, unequivocally did not care.
So why was his heart beating harder than it ever had in a boardroom, a negotiation, a confrontation?
She moved toward a stall in the corner—her laughter fading into the crowd noise—but his focus followed her like a magnetic field.
Aman returned quickly. "Her name is Khushi Kumari Gupta."
Arnav repeated it silently.
Khushi.
A name that sounded like sunlight on skin.
"She works at a small café two streets from here. Family lives in Lajpat Nagar. No criminal records, no—"
"Enough." Arnav's voice dropped. "Her schedule?"
Aman blinked. "Sir—her… what?"
"Schedule. Working hours. Lunch break. Days off. Everything."
Aman hesitated. "Yes… ASR."
Arnav exhaled once—sharp, deliberate—because something inside him had shifted permanently.
He wasn't sure what this was.
But he knew what it felt like.
Hunger.
Not physical.
Not intellectual.
Something far more dangerous.
Khushi had moved farther now, playfully scolding a child who smeared color across her cheek. She looked radiant, unguarded, untouched by the world Arnav ruled.
A world he suddenly wanted to drag her into.
"Sir," Aman said carefully, "should we proceed to the main stage?"
Arnav didn't take his eyes off her.
"In a minute."
He watched the way she placed her hand gently on the child's shoulder… the way she knelt to clean a little girl's stained fingers… the way she smiled like the world had never hurt her.
Too trusting.
Too open.
Too unprotected.
Something primal bristled in his chest at that.
He didn't like it.
He didn't like that the world had access to her softness.
He didn't like that strangers could make her laugh.
He didn't like that sunlight dared to touch her so intimately.
No.
He wanted to be the one she turned toward with that smile.
He wanted to be the one she laughed with.
He wanted—
He inhaled sharply.
He wanted things he had no right wanting.
Her dupatta fluttered suddenly in the wind, sliding dangerously off her shoulder as she reached to catch a falling bowl of colored powder.
Arnav moved before thinking.
The crowd parted instinctively around him as he strode toward her.
Khushi didn't even see him—she was focused on soothing the little boy who had dropped his bowl.
In that moment, the dupatta slipped further, revealing the delicate curve of her back.
An unwanted heat shot through him.
Then a darker instinct layered right over it.
He stepped close—closer than any stranger should—and caught the dupatta just before it fell completely.
With a swift, controlled motion, he draped it back over her shoulder, fingers brushing the soft fabric.
She didn't turn.
She didn't feel it.
She didn't know.
But the contact sent something electric and unnerving through him.
Aman stared in disbelief. From afar, the scene looked harmless—just a passerby adjusting fabric—but Arnav felt his pulse thrumming as though he'd crossed a line no one else could see.
He stepped back quickly, exhaling through his teeth, forcing composure onto his face.
This was madness.
He didn't do impulsive.
He didn't do emotional.
He didn't do… this.
And yet—
Khushi turned slightly, confused at the sudden adjustment of her dupatta, glanced around once, then went back to helping the children.
Arnav's throat tightened.
He had touched the fabric she wore.
He had touched a moment he shouldn't have touched.
And yet it felt inevitable.
He walked away before he did something truly irrational.
But he didn't walk far.
Only enough to look without being seen.
Aman approached slowly. "Sir… should I continue collecting information—?"
Arnav didn't respond immediately.
He kept watching her.
Then, quietly, he said:
"Yes. Everything."
The last of the sunlight began to fade, but its imprint on her hair stayed burned into his mind, branding itself into a space he had never allowed anything—or anyone—to enter.
Khushi Kumari Gupta.
He said the name again in his mind, tasting it like something forbidden.
Something he already wanted to claim.