Chapter 2 - A BRIDE SOLD FOR DEBTS
Aarohi turned back to Arnav.
He pushed himself upright using both legs for one brief, undeniable second.
Then froze.
Their eyes locked.
The candles burned low.
Her wedding bangles trembled against her wrist.
Aarohi’s voice came barely above a whisper.
“You were never paralyzed.”
Arnav Malhotra said nothing.
That was answer enough.
Aarohi had not wanted to marry him.
She had not wanted to marry anyone.
Not after watching her father’s name used like a debt notice in every family conversation for six months.
Her father, Dev Sharma, had once owned a respected textile export business in Jaipur. Not royal. Not enormous. But solid. Good cotton. Reliable accounts. Artisans paid on time. International buyers who trusted him because he answered calls himself.
Then Dev died suddenly of a stroke.
And after the funeral, the debts appeared.
Not one.
Many.
Loans Aarohi had never heard about.
Letters from lenders.
Threats from suppliers.
A property lien on the family haveli.
A missing inventory shipment.
A bank account drained through authorized signatures that did not belong to her father’s handwriting.
Aarohi was twenty-four, with a degree in architectural conservation and a half-written application for a fellowship in Delhi. She had planned to restore old buildings, not become collateral inside one.
Her stepmother, Kavita Sharma, took over the house with frightening speed.
Kavita had married Dev when Aarohi was fourteen, three years after Aarohi’s mother died. She was elegant, practical, and never openly cruel in a way outsiders could condemn. Her cruelty came through arrangements.
Aarohi’s clothes moved to a smaller room because “guests needed space.”
Aarohi’s mother’s jewelry disappeared into a bank locker “for safety.”
Aarohi’s opinions were delayed, redirected, softened, corrected.
By the time Dev died, Kavita had become the person who spoke to lawyers, bankers, relatives, and priests.
Aarohi became the daughter who was told afterward.
The marriage proposal arrived two months after the first lender came to the gate.
Not proposal.
Offer.
From the Malhotra family.
Old wealth.
Royal connections.
Palace hotels.
Political friendships.
A name heavy enough to make creditors lower their voices.
Arnav Malhotra, eldest son of the late Rajveer Malhotra, heir to the family’s heritage palace business and philanthropic trust.
Paralyzed after a private accident three years earlier.
Reclusive.
Difficult.
Thirty-two.
Unmarried.
The Malhotras wanted a bride from a “respectable but distressed” family.
Kavita called it destiny.
Aarohi called it purchase.
“They will clear the debts,” Kavita said in the sitting room, one hand wrapped around prayer beads she used only when performing virtue.
“I am not a debt instrument.”
Kavita’s eyes hardened.
“No. You are your father’s daughter. That means you carry what he left.”
“My father would never sell me.”
“Your father is dead.”
The sentence emptied the room.
Aarohi stood.
“I will work. I can negotiate. I can sell land.”
“You think men waiting outside our gate will negotiate with your fellowship letter?”
“I can speak to the bank.”
“The bank wants payment, not courage.”
Aarohi looked at her.
“What do you get?”
Kavita’s expression did not change.
“Security.”
“For whom?”
“For this family.”
Aarohi laughed once.
Cold.
“You mean for you.”
That earned her the first slap Kavita had given since childhood.
Not hard enough to leave a mark.
Hard enough to remind her of hierarchy.
“Do not become dramatic,” Kavita said.
Dramatic.
The word people use when a woman names the cage before the lock turns.
Aarohi refused for nine days.
On the tenth, the lender returned with two men and a copy of the property notice.
On the eleventh, Kavita showed Aarohi a medical bill from Dev’s final hospitalization still unpaid.
On the twelfth, Aarohi found her mother’s gold bangles missing from the prayer cabinet.
On the thirteenth, Kavita said quietly:
“If you refuse, your father’s name will be dragged into court. Fraud. Default. Dishonor. Everything he built will rot in public. The Malhotras can stop it.”
Aarohi signed the engagement papers that night.
Not because she agreed.
Because grief makes certain threats unbearable.
She met Arnav only once before the wedding.
In the palace garden, beneath bougainvillea and old stone arches, with both families watching from a distance as if privacy could be staged.
He sat in his black wheelchair in a white kurta, hands resting loosely on the arms, eyes dark and unreadable.
Aarohi stood before him in a pale yellow salwar suit, angry enough to feel calm.
“Did they tell you I agreed willingly?” she asked.
His mouth twitched.
“No.”
“Good.”
“They told me you were sensible.”
“That means obedient in rooms like this.”
“Yes.”
She studied him.
“Are you cruel?”
His eyes lifted to hers.
“Sometimes.”
The honesty startled her.
“To servants?”
“No.”
“To women?”
“No.”
“To wives?”
“I’ve never had one.”
She almost smiled despite herself.
Then remembered the situation and hardened.
“I will not be your nurse.”
Something flickered in his face.
Pain?
Amusement?
Warning?
“I did not ask for one.”
“Then what did you ask for?”
His answer came after a pause.
May you like
“A witness.”
Before she could ask what that meant, Kavita approached with Arnav’s uncle and the conversation ended.
