Page 94 of No Boss
Her voice faltered. Her gaze dropped again.
A breath left him, almost a laugh. He pushed off the table and stepped closer once more, stopping just behind her shoulder.
“Go on. I am listening.”
She nodded and turned another page, her fingers steadier now.
“Thakur Vijay Kumar Anand risked everything. The British would have executed him if they had found out. He did it anyway. That is what it meant to be an Anand. To protect what was yours.”
“Is that what you are doing?” His voice dropped again. “Protecting what is yours?”
She met his eyes. “Yes. I am.”
The words reached him deeper than he expected.
He should have answered. Pushed back. Slipped into the man he had been until yesterday.
He didn’t.
He watched her instead. The devotion in her gaze. The warmth on her skin. The uneven pull of her breath, held together by sheer will.
“We should break for lunch.” His voice came out rough.
She paused, then closed the journal carefully, her palm resting on it a moment longer than needed.
“Of course.” She adjusted her dupatta. “Evening then? When it’s cooler?”
“Evening.”
She nodded, setting the journal back into the shelf, anywhere which didn’t require him to stand behind her again.
He reached the door first and held it open.
She passed him carefully, trying not to touch him.
He noticed.
The corridors widened. The air shifted. Space returned, and so did Meera’s breathing.
By the time they reached the courtyard, the sun had taken over.
“Eight o’clock,” Meera said, stopping where their paths split.
“Eight.”
She gave a single nod and turned away.
A smile touched his lips as he turned in the opposite direction.
???
Meera sat cross-legged before Kul Devi and folded her hands.
She stayed that way for a few breaths. Then one eye opened. Then the other. She looked straight at the goddess and exhaled. “Maa, I need help.”
The flame flickered once.
“Specifically,” Meera continued, “I need to understand why my brain has decided that a man standing close to me in an archive room is now… a situation.”
