Advait was devastated in a way he had never imagined a human heart could break.

 The woman he loved—truly loved—for three and a half long years, the woman he had devoted his entire being to, had walked out of his life without giving him anything that resembled a proper explanation. 

The reasons she threw at him felt hollow, incomplete, like fragmented sentences from a story he had never been allowed to read. 

Nothing added up.

 Nothing made sense. He kept replaying her words, her expression, the cold finality in her tone, trying to find the missing pieces, but all he found was silence—heavy and suffocating.

One thing haunted him more than anything else: the name she took before leaving. 

Navya.

 A woman he barely even looked at, barely even spoke to except when necessary, a woman who had never been anything more than a responsibility placed in his home.

 Yet somehow, Aditi believed he was cheating on her with her. The thought alone made him sick.

 He had never even looked at Navya's face properly, never once allowed his mind to wander in that direction.

 How could Aditi—his Aditi—think he was capable of such betrayal?

 His anger surged at the thought, anger not at Navya, but at the absurdity of the situation, at the fact that his wife believed such a thing, at the fact that he couldn't understand what had changed inside her.

 Aditi wasn't like this. He knew her. Or at least he thought he did.

He slumped onto the cold floor, the nearly empty whiskey bottle dangling from his trembling hand. 

His other hand held the ring Aditi had thrown onto the bed before storming out—the ring he had given her the night they met, the ring he had chosen with his heart racing and his hopes soaring.

 The memories flooded him so viciously that he felt like he was drowning. Her smile. His confession. Their promise.

 Their wedding. 

Their life. 

Everything shattered in a matter of minutes.

He pressed his palm to his forehead, his breath shaking violently. His eyes were swollen, red, and burning from the tears that refused to stop. One in the morning. Yet sleep was a distant dream. Pain kept him awake.

 Confusion ate at him. And somewhere beneath all that, anger simmered—quiet, cold, deadly. Not anger at Aditi.

 Not entirely. 

But at himself, at fate, at whatever had twisted her heart into believing such things. And at Navya—not because she had done something wrong, but because Aditi had pointed at her before leaving. 

Because now her mere presence felt like a wound he didn't know how to heal. 

He knew he would never hurt Navya—he wasn't that kind of man—but he also knew he couldn't stand seeing her face from tomorrow. 

She was a reminder of his failure, his heartbreak, his shattered marriage. 

Whether she was guilty or not, she was now standing at the center of his ruin, and he needed her gone.

But even in the storm, one thing remained unshakably clear in his mind: he was a man of his word. 

He had warned Aditi. 

He had told her if she stepped out of that room, he would never accept her back—not even if she returned within five seconds. 

And he meant it. No matter how much he loved her, no matter how deeply she was carved into his soul, he would never allow himself to be humiliated like that again. 

Never would he take back someone who left him for another man. 

Never would he forgive being accused of something so vile. 

He had loved her with a purity he rarely showed the world. He had given her every ounce of happiness he could create. 

He had made sure her insecurities never had a place to grow. 

And yet she left—with doubts, with accusations, with no faith in the man who worshipped her.

So now, sitting in the dim light of their once-shared room, staring at the ring that symbolized everything they once were, Advait made a silent promise to himself. 

Even if it meant spending the rest of his life alone, even if it meant carrying this heartbreak to his grave, he would never accept her back. 

Some wounds were too deep. Some betrayals are too painful. And some hearts—once shattered—never returned to the shape they once were.

Advait's vision blurred as he stumbled toward the bed, the weight of the whiskey settling heavily in his limbs and the weight of heartbreak settling even heavier in his chest. 

His breaths came sharp, unstable. His fingers shook as he reached for his phone lying on the side table. 

The moment he picked it up, his jaw tightened, and a cold, unrecognizable fury settled over him—one that even he, in all his years of ruthlessness, had rarely felt.

He dialed his secretary.

The call connected almost instantly.

"Sir?" the man answered, voice alert even at this late hour.

"Cancel every deal and every damn collaboration we have with Malhotra Industries," Advait said, his voice sharp and clipped, stripped of all softness.

 It was the tone the business world feared—the tone that preceded storms.

There was a moment of stunned silence on the other end.

"Sir... cancel? But—sir, if we withdraw now, the projected loss will be in millions and Mr. Rathore will—"

Advait cut him off, voice dropping into a deadly whisper that carried more threat than shouting ever could.

"I did not ask for your fucking advice."

The secretary fell silent immediately.

"I know exactly what I am doing. And as far as my father is concerned," Advait continued, pacing slowly, eyes burning with unshed tears and rage, "I am the Chairman. I am the CEO. I do not need anyone's approval to end a contract."

His hand tightened around the phone.

"By tomorrow morning," he said, enunciating each word with icy precision, "I want every separation document on my table. Every clause. Every termination file. And send an official notice to the Malhotras. No delays."

"S–sir, yes, sir," the secretary stammered.

Advait didn't wait for another word. He ended the call and, consumed by a surge of helpless rage, hurled the phone against the floor.

 It shattered into pieces, scattering across the room like fragments of the life that had just broken inside him.

He stood there, chest heaving, staring at the ruins of the device—at the ruins of his marriage—knowing very well what this decision meant.

He knew his father would be furious.

 The Malhotras had been close family friends for decades. Ending business with them would not only shake the market but also shake the personal equation as well.

 It would cause ripples in the industry, in the media, in every circle that whispered his name.

But he didn't care.

He couldn't stand the idea of having even a single professional tie to the woman who had walked away from him without remorse, without explanation.

 If she wanted distance, he would ensure it. 

Not just emotional distance—complete distance. Total separation. No shared ventures, no shared profits, no shared ground to stand on.

He wasn't going to destroy her. He wasn't that man—not for Aditi, not for the woman he still loved even as she ripped him apart.

But he was a Rathore. A ruthless businessman. And breaking ties with his empire... that alone was enough to shake Malhotra Industries to its very core.

Both Malhotra and Rathore Industries felt the tremor the moment the announcement hit their internal networks. 

A single statement—"Termination of all business associations"—was enough to send shockwaves through two of the country's largest conglomerates. 

Executives who had been sleeping peacefully were now wide awake, phones buzzing relentlessly as messages poured in from every direction. 

Analysts were scrambling, board members shouting, and advisors trying to salvage numbers that were plummeting at a terrifying speed. 

And by 3:45 a.m., the business world—usually calm at night—was roaring like a storm-struck ocean.

By 4:00 a.m., emergency meetings had been called in both industries. 

Malhotra's shareholders shook with panic as the stock dropped drastically in the first international pulse. 

No one understood why. 

No one knew what triggered the sudden fallout.

 The Malhotras sat around their conference table, stunned, rattled, and heartbroken.

 The Rathores, equally confused, were demanding answers—not from the market, but from the one man capable of destroying a long-standing alliance with a single decision.

Advait Rathore.

Aditi, on the other side of the city, had barely managed to stop crying long enough to drag herself into a cold shower. 

Her mind felt heavy, fogged, fractured in places she didn't know could hurt.

 She had wrapped herself in a robe, unable to sleep, trying desperately to calm down when her phone vibrated violently on the bathroom counter. Her secretary's number flashed. 

Aditi answered in a shaking voice, only to feel the ground split beneath her as the news hit her ears. 

The shock punched the breath out of her lungs when he explained how quickly the shares were falling, how the investors were panicking, how the press was already preparing headlines. 

She sank onto the stool, gripping the edge with trembling hands, realizing the magnitude of what had just happened.

Then came her father's call—a roar of fury so loud she had to pull the phone away. 

He demanded answers, explanations, reasons she couldn't give because the truth was worse than the consequences.

 How could she tell him that she left Advait? 

That she walked out? 

That she had thrown her marriage away, and now the empire was bleeding because of it?

 She knew her parents would be furious, devastated, humiliated. She knew revealing the truth would mean standing at the center of a storm she wasn't ready to face.

While Malhotra Industries scrambled to survive, Advait's parents were facing their own crisis. 

His father, a man rarely angered, was raging for the first time in years. 

He called Advait repeatedly, frustration echoing through every syllable. "What is wrong with you? Have you lost your mind? Do you understand what you've done? What happened between you both?" he barked into the phone.

 But Advait, lying on the couch with another glass in hand, simply stared at the ceiling as if he were speaking from somewhere far away.

"Nothing much," he replied coldly, pouring himself another drink without flinching.

 "I'm the CEO. As CEO, I made decisions I believe are necessary. I don't want interference." His voice was flat, empty, drained of everything except bitterness. 

"And because I know you'll worry, I've booked tickets for you and Mom. Greece. A month-long vacation. Go enjoy yourselves. I'll handle everything here."

His father's shocked silence said everything, but Advait had already ended the call. He didn't care who questioned his decision. 

He didn't care who doubted his sanity. He didn't care about the market, the reporters, the public outrage brewing outside those mansion walls. 

The love of his life had walked out of their home and taken a part of his soul with her—so let the world burn with it. 

He would not remain tied to anything related to her. Not her name. Not her company.

And because Rathore Industries held 65% of the joint venture, the power was entirely his to wield. Breaking the tie was enough to cripple Malhotra Industries for months. Maybe longer.

 Around seven in the morning, Advait stepped out of the shower, the steam still clinging to his skin as he buttoned a crisp black shirt and pulled on matching trousers.

 His head throbbed painfully, a dull ache pulsing behind his temples, and his eyes burned from the hours he had spent crying—crying in a way he never once imagined he could. He hated himself for it. 

Hated the image of him begging her, pleading for her to stay, lowering himself to a vulnerability he'd sworn he would never allow.

 He couldn't understand how the overwhelming love he carried for Aditi—love he had guarded like a sacred thing—had twisted so violently into hatred and resentment overnight. 

Running a hand through his damp hair, he forced it into place with a comb and reached for his new phone.

The screen lit up with missed calls—twenty from Aditi.

 Without a moment of hesitation, without giving himself time to reconsider, he blocked her number. 

Then he noticed the next list: thirty-five missed calls from Aditi's father, twenty from his own father, and another twenty from his mother.

 He exhaled sharply, exhausted by just imagining the arguments waiting on the other end of each call. 

Still, he dialed his mother first.

To his surprise, she didn't scold him. Her voice was soft, fragile even. 

"What happened, Advait? Are you and Aditi okay?"

 That single question—the quiet concern in it—was enough to break whatever grip he had on his composure.

 His throat tightened painfully, and he sank down on the edge of the bed, his vision blurring as fresh tears stung his already swollen eyes. 

In a fractured, uneven voice, he explained everything to her—every detail, every moment, every wound he had been carrying through the night.

 By the time he finished, his mother was crying too, her heart aching for him in a way only a mother's could.

 "Don't worry, beta," she whispered, trying to sound steady. "I'll handle your father. Just take care of yourself. And... what about that girl? Navya? What happens now?"

He rubbed his forehead, sighing deeply. "I'm meeting her today to sign the divorce papers," he said quietly.

 "After that, she was supposed to leave for Spain—to one of Aditi's foreign branches—but I don't think I should let her go there anymore. Not now. I'll send her to one of my international companies instead. It will be safer for her. I don't know what Aditi is planning, or what she'll do next. I won't risk anything happening to Navya." 

His mother hummed thoughtfully before replying, "Good. Just remember this—keep that girl and your children far away from all of this chaos. They're innocent. They don't know anything about the mess between you two." 

Advait nodded, even though she couldn't see him. "Fine, Maa. I'll talk to you later. I need to meet the lawyers, prepare the paperwork, and handle the fallout."

His mother's voice softened one more time. 

"I believe in you, son. I love you. And whatever happens, you will come out stronger."

 He didn't trust his voice enough to answer, so he simply nodded again, whispered a quiet goodbye, and ended the call. 

For the first time since the night before, he felt a small, fragile sense of relief—like a storm had momentarily paused, even if the world outside was still burning.

After forcing down a quiet breakfast—wine in place of peace, bitterness in place of appetite—Advait realized it was the first morning in years when the mansion felt truly, suffocatingly empty.

 The silence hovered around him like a punishment. 

The walls that once echoed with warmth now felt foreign, hollow, hostile. 

His gaze drifted to the photographs of Aditi arranged lovingly across the living room shelves: their first anniversary picture, the candid ones she loved, the framed smiles that mocked him now. His jaw tightened. 

"Move all of Aditi's photographs to the storage room," he instructed coldly, his voice sharp enough to cut the air in half.

 "I'll decide what to do with them later." 

The maids exchanged quick, uneasy glances—they didn't understand what had happened, but the gravity of his tone was enough to silence every question. 

They bowed and began gathering the frames with trembling hands.

It was almost 8:45 when another maid approached him carefully, bowing as she spoke. "Sir, your lawyer has arrived."

 He gave a curt nod, rubbing his temples, and instructed her to have him seated in the living room and to begin preparing the paperwork.

 The maid retreated quickly, and he signaled for the head maid. 

"Call Navya," he said quietly, but with a weight that made her straighten immediately.

 "She needs to come outside. And take care of the children until I am finished." 

The head maid nodded, her expression turning solemn as she hurried away.

Advait rose from his chair, washed the wine from his hands as though trying to cleanse the ache beneath his skin, and stepped out into the living room. 

The lawyer bowed respectfully before spreading the documents across the table—papers that would officially separate him from yet another part of his already collapsing world. 

A minute later, Navya entered slowly.

 She paused at the doorway, her posture respectful, her voice soft.

 "Good morning, sir." 

He acknowledged her with nothing more than a brief nod, his face unreadable. 

She glanced around instinctively, searching for Aditi's familiar presence, but when she didn't find her anywhere in sight, she simply assumed Aditi had already left for the office. 

Little did she know the storm that had broken in this house long before the sun had risen.

Navya felt a faint heaviness in her chest as she entered the room. 

It hit her then—this was her last morning in this house, the last time she would wake up to the soft coos and giggles of the babies she had grown so attached to.

 She tried to steady herself, but the moment she heard Advait's low voice saying, "Leave us alone for some time," she watched the lawyer quietly gather the papers and step out of the house.

 Her heartbeat flickered with sudden nervousness; being alone with Advait was rare, almost unheard of.

 He gestured toward the couch opposite him, and she lowered herself awkwardly into the corner of it, hands clasped tightly in her lap.

 He took a long breath, the exhaustion around his eyes unmistakable, and she could tell he was debating how much to tell her.

 Finally, he spoke, his tone firm but strangely subdued. 

"I'm sorry to say this, but we had to make some changes to the contract without your permission." 

Navya's eyes widened—what could possibly have changed overnight?—yet she restrained herself, waiting respectfully for him to continue. 

"I won't go into details," he added, voice roughening around the edges, "but in short... Aditi and I have separated. So the new contract states that instead of Spain, you'll be going to New Jersey. You'll be working for my branch there now. Training, accommodation—everything will be arranged for you."

The words hit her like cold rain, shocking and disorienting, leaving her blinking rapidly as she tried to process them. 

Of all the things she had imagined hearing this morning, this was nowhere on the list.

 Aditi and Advait—the couple she had quietly admired from the shadows, the marriage she had looked up to, the bond she once believed unbreakable—had separated. 

Just like that. Overnight. She had often envied the gentleness with which they looked at one another, convinced that someday she would find a love that mirrored theirs.

 But now that image collapsed in front of her like a fragile glass tower hit by a storm. 

Questions stormed through her mind—what happened? why so suddenly? was it something she unknowingly did?—but she swallowed them all, knowing she had no right to speak them aloud.

 She was an employee. 

He was her boss. 

And whatever personal catastrophe had unfolded between him and Aditi was not hers to question. 

She simply nodded, forcing calm into her trembling voice, while inside her heart cracked for a family she once thought was perfect.

But then one thought struck Navya so sharply that her breath caught—the babies. 

Who would take care of them now?

 Who would hold them when they cried, sing them to sleep, feed them, love them? 

Before she could stop herself, the question slipped from her lips, soft but trembling, "Sir... what about the babies?" 

Advait looked up, his eyes cold, empty, almost unrecognizable from the man she had seen a day before. 

"That's none of your concern. Remember, you have no ties with them. Nothing." 

The words sliced through her like a knife, but she steadied herself and asked again, voice firmer, "Sir... who is going to take care of the babies?" 

Because she knew Advait—powerful, ruthless, brilliant—but not a man who could spend nights awake feeding two infants.

 She could already see the exhaustion etched on his face.

 He muttered, "Navya, I wo—" but she cut him off as respectfully as she could, "Sir, please." 

Her voice carried urgency, not defiance. He exhaled sharply, irritation and something else—fear?—in his eyes. 

"I'll hire some nannies. Or someone else. Why does it bother you?"

That was when the dam inside her cracked. 

She stood up slowly, palms shaking, yet her tone remained polite but urgent, almost pleading.

 "No, sir. You can't keep babies like that." His brows knitted into a deep frown. "What do you mean?"

 He asked, his voice low and hard. Navya inhaled shakily and forced herself to say the words she had been holding in her heart for months.

 "Sir... I agreed to cut all ties because I believed the babies would have Ma'am Aditi as their mother. But I cannot leave them motherless. Babies don't just need care, sir—they need a mother." 

She paused, gathering her courage. 

"Maybe not legally, but biologically... I gave them birth. And now that you and Aditi ma'am are separated, I believe I do have some rights as well."

 Her voice softened, filled with a quiet pain she never showed before.

 "Sir, I'm saying this with experience. Life without a mother... is nothing. It leaves a hole that never closes. 

They need a mother. I was ready to leave when I knew Ma'am Aditi would give them a home and love. 

But nannies... hired help... they cannot replace a mother. And you know this, too. You won't be able to give the kids the time they need, and soon... soon they will grow up feeling parentless."

Her words landed heavily in the room, echoing louder than anything she had ever said before.

 For a man like Advait, who prided himself on being unshakeable, her voice struck somewhere deep—somewhere vulnerable.

Just hours ago, a few soft words from his mother had cracked open the grief he was trying so hard to bury. 

Now Navya's voice, trembling yet honest, reached the same place. 

His throat tightened, and he pressed his palms against his forehead, elbows on his knees, as if the weight of everything—the betrayal, the heartbreak, the fear, the loneliness, the babies—had crashed down on him all at once. 

He sighed, long and exhausted, fingers gripping his hair while his mind spun in chaos. 

For the first time since Aditi walked out, Advait felt something other than anger—he felt terrified of losing his children too.

"Sir... please, for the babies' sake, find a mother for them," Navya whispered, her voice trembling with sincerity rather than boldness.

 "I will never interfere in your life. I don't want to cause trouble. I just don't want these babies to suffer the same parentless life that I did." 

Her words hung in the air, soft yet heavy, and for the first time since morning, Advait actually listened, truly listened.

 He slowly nodded, mind spiraling through possibilities he never imagined he would have to consider. 

She was right. 

Every sentence she spoke was painfully right. 

He finally looked up, meeting her eyes with a mixture of exhaustion and cold practicality. 

"How about you become their mother for that period of time?" he said, his tone flat, businesslike, as if offering a deal instead of a life-altering decision. 

Navya blinked, stunned, her breath freezing.

 "Excuse me, sir?" she whispered, thinking she had misheard him. 

But he nodded firmly, sitting straighter, as though the idea had now solidified in his mind.

 "They're only three months old. They need to be fed, held, and raised. Right now, there's no one more suited than you. So you keep them until they're older—take care of them the way they need. If you want, you can stay here, or you can take them with you to New Jersey. In the meantime, I'll fly there whenever necessary."

 His words were startlingly calm, as if he were negotiating a merger, not asking her to become the temporary mother of his children.

 Navya stared at him, overwhelmed, speechless. 

She took a breath, then another, because none of this resembled what she meant moments ago.

 "Sir... you didn't understand what I meant," she murmured softly.

 But Advait shook his head, misunderstanding the depth of her objection. 

"I understood everything. I'll give you whatever you want—more money, a bigger house, allowances for the kids, a better position in my company, a higher salary—anything. Just ask for it, Navya. And in return, take care of these babies."

 He was pleading without sounding like he was. A broken man using business language to hide his pain. 

Navya closed her eyes because this wasn't what she wanted; this wasn't what she meant by mother. 

She wasn't asking for money, houses, or status—she was asking for stability for the children, a real home, a real family.

 She opened her eyes slowly, realizing she had to make him understand or risk being trapped in this loop forever, trapped in a role she wasn't meant to carry alone. 

"Sir... I can ask for anything?" she asked quietly. 

Advait nodded, not even hesitating. 

"Anything." 

Navya swallowed hard, then met his eyes with a courage she didn't know she possessed.

 "Then..." she whispered, her voice steady despite the storm inside her, 

"...I need a father for the babies."