His Only Exception
The distance between Jaipur and New York wasn’t just measured in miles; it was measured in missed birthdays, delayed text messages, and the subtle shifting of two lives growing in opposite directions. For the first eighteen years of her life, Ritvi Prakash’s world had a constant, grounding center of gravity: Avinash Singh Chauhan. They were the legacy of their fathers' unbreakable bond, two halves of a chaotic whole. Where Ritvi brought noise, color, and relentless questions, Avi brought quiet patience, steady hands, and a scowl that he reserved for everyone in the world except her. Then came the departure terminal. Avi traded the warm, sandstone hues of Jaipur for the glass-and-steel ambition of the US. Ritvi packed her insatiable curiosity and moved to Delhi to bury herself in research labs and thick academic journals. They promised to call. And they did, at first. But time zones are cruel, and growing up is crueler. Conversations turned into quick updates. Shared laughter dissolved into polite congratulations on business milestones and research grants. The boy who used to carry her heavy textbooks was now a formidable corporate heir featured in Forbes, his jaw sharper, his eyes colder. The girl who used to drag him out into the monsoon rain was now a brilliant scholar, her light shining for everyone but him. The gap between them was a silent, aching thing. Ritvi thought she had lost her best friend to the ruthless world of business. What she didn’t know was that every board meeting Avinash commanded, every sleepless night he spent expanding his father's empire, was driven by a singular, unshakeable obsession. He was building a world worthy of her. And now, a forced family merger and a mandatory three-month retreat at the Chauhan ancestral estate was about to crash their two worlds back together. Avi was finally coming home. And this time, he wasn't leaving without the only thing he had ever truly wanted.
