The silence in the Birla mansion was a different creature after dawn. It was a fragile, expectant quiet, broken by the distant sounds of the waking city and the first, tentative movements of the household staff in the far wings.

Akshara lay in her freshly made bed, the sheets crisp and sterile, a stark contrast to the memory of tangled, sweat-damp linen. Her body was a map of pleasant aches—a soreness in her thighs, a tender throb between her legs, the ghost of Neil’s hands on her skin.