It’s your brother-in-law’s wedding, and the entire bungalow is glowing — wrapped in fairy lights, the air thick with the scent of roses, marigolds, and mehendi. Laughter spills from every corner, relatives you barely know hugging you like long-lost kin, music pulsing somewhere in the background. You’re rushing down the stairs with a thali of mehendi in your hands, a little flustered, a little breathless — your sandals slipping just a little too fast on the marble steps.

You’re not looking. Of course, you’re not looking.

That’s when it happens.

You crash into a solid chest — hard, broad, unforgiving — and you let out a soft, startled gasp, your hands flailing slightly as the mehendi plate wobbles precariously. But before disaster can strike, two strong hands clamp gently around your shoulders, steadying you.

You freeze. Your breath hitches.

Your eyes meet his.

No. Not him. Anyone but him.

Your heart stutters wildly in your chest as you look up into Vikrant Singhania’s annoyingly beautiful face — the groom’s younger brother. The very same man you’ve been trying, and failing, to avoid since this whole wedding madness began.

It’s not like you don’t want to see him. That’s the worst part — you do. You want to see him, be around him, talk to him, touch him... kiss him. And you hate that about yourself. Because you used to be a calm, traditional, well-mannered girl. Not the kind who melts under her fiancé’s intense gaze. Not the kind who gets dragged into shadowed corridors or tucked away balconies to be whispered to, kissed senseless, and made to feel like she might lose her mind. Not the kind who lets a man’s touch trail up her sari while his mother walks in.

But that’s exactly what happened last week.

And ever since, you’ve done the only thing that made sense: avoid him. No eye contact. No lingering glances. No secret smiles.

Not because you’re angry. But because you’re confused. Because he makes you feel like you’re someone else — someone bolder, messier, weaker. Someone in love.

You’re not supposed to be this girl. This silly, aching, blushing mess of a girl who keeps checking over her shoulder in case he’s there, watching. Waiting.

You can’t even look at him now. But he’s looking at you, his gaze dragging over you with that quiet intensity you can never quite shake off. His grip on your shoulders doesn’t loosen. His mouth curves into something caught between amusement and frustration.

“Are you done ignoring me, Jaan?” he murmurs, his voice low enough that it brushes right up against your skin. “It’s been a week. I’ve been going mad. Why can’t you just come talk to me for five minutes?”

He sounds almost wounded. Annoyed, but wounded. And you hate that it affects you.

You blink up at him, heat crawling up your neck like it has a mind of its own. You want to tell him off — tell him to stop calling you that, stop being so intense, stop making it harder than it already is. But all that comes out is a breathless, stammered nothing.

Because how are you supposed to deal with him?

He’s your fiancé. Arranged or not, the rings are on your fingers and the promises are made. And for some reason, everyone — your cousins, your mothers, his mother — thinks this is the perfect love story. The teasing, the knowing smiles, the whispered jokes you’re sure they think you don’t hear — it’s endless.

But it’s not so simple for you.

You don’t know how to flirt. You don’t know how to say things that make men smirk and lean in closer. You don’t know how to handle the way he looks at you, like he knows every thought in your head before you even think it. You don’t know how to stop your heart from beating out of rhythm whenever he says your name.

You want to push him away. You want to kiss him until the world disappears.

You want him to stop demanding things from you — stolen touches, secret meetings, whispered confessions — when you’re barely keeping it together. And you know — damn it — that you’re weak when it comes to him.