Mornings in the Malhotra house began before sunrise.

Not because anyone particularly enjoyed discipline.

Because old-money families treated routine like religion.

By seven-thirty, the dining table downstairs already looked like something from a luxury magazine spread.

Fresh flowers. Silver cutlery. Newspapers arranged perfectly. Tea served at exact temperatures.

And absolutely no warmth.

Aaradhya walked downstairs tying her hair into a low knot while checking emails on her phone.

Three unread messages from work. Two from Meher. One from her mother asking whether she would attend some charity brunch next weekend.

And seventeen notifications from the muted family group chat.

Naturally.

The dining room smelled faintly of coffee and tension.

Her father sat near the head of the table already reading financial papers while Ishita scrolled through entertainment headlines beside him.

Television screens mounted along the wall played a muted news channel discussing cricket selections.

Veer's face flashed briefly across the screen.

Even inside her own house, celebrity never fully left.

Aaradhya reached for coffee quietly.

No one greeted her immediately.

This too had become routine.

Not cruel enough to be called mistreatment.

Just absence.

The sort that slowly hollowed people out.

Her father finally glanced up.

"You're leaving early?"

"Big client meeting today."

He nodded once.

Conversation over.

Across the table, Ishita looked up from her phone.

"You should wear something sharper if clients are attending."

Aaradhya looked down at her outfit.

Simple cream shirt. Black trousers. Minimal makeup.

Perfectly professional.

But in this house, criticism often disguised itself as advice.

"I'm interning at a law firm, not attending Cannes."

Veer nearly choked on his coffee.

Ishita's eyes narrowed slightly.

Then, unexpectedly, Veer laughed.

Actual laughter.

Low and brief.

"That was good."

Aaradhya blinked once.

Tiny moments like these always felt strange.

Because they reminded her that beneath all the resentment and silence, Veer still sounded like her brother sometimes.

Before she could answer, their father folded his newspaper sharply.

"Ishita's film trailer launches next week."

There it was.

The real conversation.

Public image. Appearances. Performance.

Always performance.

Ishita immediately straightened slightly.

"The PR team wants a family dinner after the event."

Her father nodded.

"Good. We need clean coverage this time."

Clean coverage.

Not successful. Not meaningful.

Clean.

As if scandals were stains families scrubbed constantly.

Aaradhya drank her coffee quietly while they discussed premieres, press interviews, and public narratives.

Nobody asked about her meeting.

Nobody asked whether she was sleeping properly.

Nobody noticed she looked exhausted.

Except Veer.

Unfortunately.

His eyes flicked toward her briefly.

Observant. Annoyingly so.

Veer looked up briefly from his coffee when Aaradhya reached for another file from her bag.

Just one glance.

Quick. Assessing.

The kind siblings exchanged after years of growing up together.

Then he looked away again.

No comment. No concern voiced aloud.

That wasn't how Veer operated.

He noticed things quietly.

Like the dark circles beneath her eyes. Like the fact she barely touched breakfast. Like the way she kept checking work emails beneath the table.

But the Malhotras were not a family built for emotional conversations.

Concern existed here in strange forms.

A driver waiting downstairs without being asked. An extra coffee ordered silently. Security checking whether someone reached home safely.

Never words.

Especially not from Veer.

Their father looked up briefly.

"Can we not start the day with everyone looking miserable?"

Instantly the table shifted back toward performance again.

Aaradhya stood first.

"I should leave."

Nobody stopped her.

But as she walked toward the hallway, she noticed the house staff already carrying out her work bag toward the car.

Veer didn't look up from his phone.

Of course not.

That would make the gesture visible.

And Veer hated visible softness more than almost anything.

And that somehow made everything harder.

-

Mumbai traffic moved like organized violence.

By the time Aaradhya reached Nariman Point, her inbox had tripled.

The law firm tower rose above the city all steel and glass and exhaustion.

Inside, controlled chaos already thrummed through every hallway.

Phones ringing. Printers humming. Associates speed-walking with caffeine addictions and superiority complexes.

Aaradhya genuinely liked it here.

Which surprised even her.

Because unlike the Malhotra house, this pressure felt earned.

Nobody cared about her surname once deadlines started collapsing.

At work, everyone suffered equally.

Meher spotted her immediately from across the office.

"You survived family dinner?"

Aaradhya dropped her bag beside the desk.

"Barely."

"Any emotional damage?"

"Standard amount."

Meher handed her iced coffee with the solemnity of religious offering.

"You need therapy and better relatives."

Aaradhya laughed quietly.

The office around them buzzed with overlapping conversations.

Someone was crying near the copy room.

Somebody else argued aggressively about compliance clauses.

A junior associate looked moments away from resignation.

Meher leaned closer.

"Advait yelled at three people before nine-thirty."

"Only three?"

"He's growing."

As if summoned by hatred itself, Advait Kapoor appeared from the corridor carrying files and stress.

Tall. Perfectly dressed. Chronically irritated.

The kind of man who probably billed clients for breathing near them.

"Conference room in ten," he said sharply without slowing down. "And if anybody embarrasses me today, I'll start naming names publicly."

Meher watched him disappear.

"One day I'm keying his car."

Aaradhya smiled faintly while opening her laptop.

This life felt real in ways her home never did.

Messy. Demanding. Human.

Nobody here cared that she came from old money.

Nobody cared about scandal whispers or family politics.

If she failed here, it would belong entirely to her.

That mattered.

An intern from the neighboring desk suddenly appeared holding three collapsing files.

"Has anyone seen the Singhania acquisition draft or should I start panicking professionally?"

Meher pointed toward Aaradhya immediately.

"She color-coded the entire thing because unlike us, she values survival."

The girl looked genuinely emotional.

"I owe you my firstborn."

"Please don't. I'm already overwhelmed."

The office dissolved into tired laughter.

That was the strange thing about exhaustion shared between young professionals.

It created intimacy quickly.

People learned each other through:

stolen coffeeslate-night deadlinesstress breakdowns in washroomsfixing presentations together at midnightsilently covering for each other during disasters

At one-thirty, half the interns occupied the pantry eating terrible sandwiches while complaining about corporate law like war veterans.

Meher sat dramatically sprawled across a chair.

"If Advait sends one more 'gentle reminder' email in all caps, I'm reporting him to God."

A guy from litigation looked up immediately.

"He made me redo seventy pages yesterday because a comma looked aggressive."

Another intern added,

"He once stared at me for thirty seconds after I used the wrong font."

Aaradhya laughed properly this time.

Head tilted back slightly. Eyes crinkling at the corners.

Relaxed.

The version of her that almost never existed inside the Malhotra house.

Meher noticed immediately.

She always did.

Her voice softened just slightly.

"You like it here."

Aaradhya looked down at her coffee.

Then nodded once.

Small. Honest.

"I know it's exhausting," she admitted quietly. "But at least when people here are difficult... it's not personal."

The table quieted for half a second.

Not pitying.

Just understanding enough to avoid asking questions.

Good friendships often lived inside restraint too.

Then the pantry door slammed open.

Advait walked in carrying his laptop and immediate irritation.

Everybody straightened automatically.

He looked around once.

"Why does this room feel unemployed?"

The entire pantry groaned.

Meher muttered under her breath,

"One day a woman will humble him."

Advait looked directly at her.

"Miss Thakur, if you have enough energy for commentary, you have enough energy to finish the merger notes."

Meher blinked.

"That's actually terrifying."

Aaradhya bit back another laugh while reopening her laptop.

And for the first time in a long time, the noise around her didn't feel suffocating.

It felt like life.

Across the office, a television screen played entertainment news silently.

Armaan Khanna flashed briefly across it again.

Clips from last night's party. Blurry balcony footage. Headlines calling him reckless and irresistible simultaneously.

Meher noticed instantly.

Of course she did.

"Your brother's best friend is unfortunately illegal-looking."

Aaradhya didn't even glance up.

"Please don't say things like that before meetings."

"I'm serious. The man looks genetically engineered for bad decisions."

A laugh escaped Aaradhya before she could stop it.

And for one strange second, without warning, she remembered Armaan standing across the hall the previous night beneath warm golden lights.

Black kurta. Sleeves rolled. Looking at her like he'd almost forgotten she existed until that moment.

The memory vanished quickly.

Good.

Because men like Armaan Khanna belonged to headlines and scandals and lives far louder than hers.

And Aaradhya Malhotra had spent her entire life learning not to want things that were never meant for her.