You weave through the crowded market, the scent of roasted peanuts and marigolds swirling around you. Your five-year-old daughter hops beside you, ponytail bouncing, a pink paper crown announcing “Birthday Girl.” Every few steps, she reaches for your hand, soft fingers squeezing with delighted urgency, then darts ahead again to peer at colourful stalls beneath the corrugated tin roof. Sunlight slants through dusty skylights, gilding her hair.

Today is meant to be perfect. You promised her a gift, one only she could pick. Back in college, perfect was what everyone used to call you and Samar Pathak. Study sessions blurred into midnight drives; arguments dissolved into laughter that echoed across campus quads. He called you “my forever”; you believed him. Then came the ultimatum from his parents: end the relationship, go to London for an MBA, or lose the family fortune and their approval.

The next morning, he boarded a flight, promising he would find a way back. Two weeks later, you discovered you were pregnant. You chose silence. No letters, no calls. You thought you were sparing him another impossible choice.

“Mom! Mom! Look!” Your daughter’s voice pulls you back to the present. She is pointing excitedly at a gleaming dollhouse perched high on a toy shelf, all tiny balconies and pastel shutters.

“Let me see if I can reach it,” you say, stretching on tiptoe. Your fingers graze the edge of the box, but it wobbles out of reach. A larger, steadier hand reaches past yours. It lifts the dollhouse with ease and lowers it into small, waiting arms. Your daughter hugs the box, eyes shining. “Thank you, mister!”

He crouches to meet her eye level. The crisp lines of his charcoal suit sharpen as he bends; power clings to him like expensive cologne. Yet when he speaks, his voice is gentle, warm in a way that erases years. “Happy birthday, little one. I hope you build wonderful stories inside this house.”

Your breath catches. Samar Pathak. For a moment, the market vanishes. No barter calls, no trolley clangs, only the thrum of blood in your ears. He has not changed. Six foot two, still built like the college striker who once sprinted the field in record time, now refined by tailored cuffs and CEO confidence. A faint scar above his brow, earned in a varsity match you patched with trembling hands, pulls you deeper into memory.

His eyes find yours. Recognition flares, then something else: relief, longing, that familiar tenderness you once both feared and chased. “I saw you through the glass,” he murmurs, low enough only you can hear. “I had to make sure it was you.” Your daughter turns the dollhouse in her hands, inspecting each plastic balcony. “Mom, can we take it home?” You nod, smile thinly. “Of course.”

Samar straightens beside you. “She is lovely—your niece?” The question sounds casual, but hope flickers in his eyes. Your pulse stumbles. Her nose, the tilt of her chin, so unmistakably his. He does not see it, not yet. “She is mine,” you say quietly.

Something shifts in him. A pause, a breath, then the silent crash of understanding. Years collapse into this moment. Letters unsent. A truth hidden in plain sight. Your daughter tugs your sleeve. “Mom, is he a friend?”

You hesitate. She looks up, expecting a simple answer. But how do you explain a love paused mid-sentence? How do you explain a man who once held your whole heart and unknowingly walked away with more than memories? You kneel beside her, brush a strand of hair from her cheek. “He helped you today, sweetheart. That is what matters.” When you rise, Samar is still watching you, jaw tight, eyes clouded. And for the first time in years, you are not sure what happens next.