The morning arrived wrapped in fog, a rare winter mist that rolled off the Arabian Sea and swallowed Mumbai's skyline whole. Priya stood at her bedroom window, watching the city disappear behind veils of grey, and tried to sort through the chaos of the past two days. The garden. The lotus pond. The forehead kiss that still burned like a sacrament. And then yesterday, the chess game in his library, the way he had explained his strategies with patient reverence, the way he had looked at her when she finally checkmated him, not with resentment but with something that looked terrifyingly like pride. He had kissed her knuckles before she left, his lips lingering until she felt the brush of his tongue against her skin, and she had spent the entire night staring at her own hand as if it belonged to someone else.

Her phone buzzed. She reached for it with a speed that embarrassed her, her heart already racing before she read the screen.