Good Morning, Mrs. Rathore

I woke up to bangles clinking that weren't mine.

For one stupid half-second, I thought I was home in Jaipur, and Kavya was getting ready next to me. Then I saw the sandalwood ceiling, the heavy brocade curtains I didn't recognize, and the red sindoor smudged on the pillowcase next to me.

Right. Married. Wrong husband.

I looked at the sindoor. Was everything really going to be alright?

"Brilliant," I muttered, shaking my head at myself.

A soft snore came from the couch.

Veer Singh Rathore was asleep sitting up, one arm thrown over his eyes to block the morning light, his wedding kurta wrinkled. The pillow he'd claimed last night was on the floor. He'd kept his word. He hadn't come near the bed.

I must have made a sound, because he jolted awake instantly.

He stood and headed for the bathroom. The moment he looked at me, he froze.

"Hey — sorry — you okay?" he said, voice rough with sleep. Then he remembered where we were. "Right. Stupid question."

Before I could answer, a soft knock hit the door. Three quick taps. Hesitant.

Veer and I looked at each other.

"Aaradhya Didi?" a small voice whispered. "Are you awake?"

Kavya.

I was off the bed before I thought about it, yanking the door open. My sister stood in the hallway in yesterday's bridal lehenga, hair a mess, eyes red. Sindoor in her parting stopped my breath — not mine. His.

Hers was Aditya's.

"Kavya —"

She crashed into me and started crying, quiet and hard, the way she'd cried since we were kids. "Didi, I want to go home. Please tell me this is a nightmare."

Behind her, down the hall, a door opened. Aditya Singh Rathore stepped out of his study in a perfectly pressed navy kurta, as if he'd been awake for hours.

He looked at Kavya clinging to me. At the sindoor in her hair — his sindoor. His jaw tightened once, barely.

"Kavya ji," he said gently. "Good morning."

She flinched and buried her face deeper in my shoulder.

My hand moved through her hair on instinct. I had always known how to comfort Kavya. I just didn't know how to fix this.

Veer appeared in my doorway, keeping a careful three feet of distance. "Bhai. We need to talk. Now. Lawyers, annulment, press —"

"Downstairs," Aditya cut in, "Breakfast. Dadi is waiting. We do this properly, or not at all."

The Rathore dining room looked like a crime scene that someone had tried to cover with marigolds.

Dadi Sa sat at the head of the table like a general, her prayer beads clicking steadily. The family lawyer, Mr. Mehta, was already there with two thick folders, looking like he'd been awake all night.

No one was eating.

"Sit," Dadi Sa ordered.

Kavya sat next to me instantly, grabbing my hand under the table. Veer took the chair on my other side. Aditya sat opposite us, alone.

Mr. Mehta cleared his throat. "Right. Legally — both marriages are valid. Seven vows completed, sindoor applied, registration papers were pre-signed by both grooms yesterday morning to save time at the registrar's office —"

Veer choked on his water. "What?"

"Standard practice for high-profile families," Mehta said dryly. "Which means as of 9 a.m. today, both couples are legally married under the Hindu Marriage Act."

Kavya made a small sound. Aditya reached across the table without thinking, then stopped himself, hand hovering over hers before pulling back.

"Fix it," Veer said, flat. "Both of them. Today."

"It's not that simple," Mehta said. "Miss Kavya Mehra is twenty. With mutual consent, no cohabitation, and her parents' sign-off — her marriage to Mr. Aditya Rathore can be annulled within 48 hours. without much problem.

Kavya exhaled so hard she swayed. I squeezed her hand.

"And mine?" I asked, voice steadier than I felt.

Mehta hesitated. "Yours… is complicated, Mrs. Rathore."

"Don't call me that."

"Rathore Textiles issued a press release last night," Aditya said quietly, sliding his phone across the table. "With photos."

There we were on the business page — me in my red veil, hand in hand with a man in an ivory sherwani. The caption: Rathore Textiles CEO Aditya Singh Rathore weds designer Aaradhya Mehra, sealing the Mehra Boutique merger.

Except the man in the photo wasn't Aditya. You couldn't tell under the low light and the veil, but I could. Those were Veer's scuffed brown shoes. Veer's nervous grip on my fingers.

They'd announced the wrong groom with the right bride.

"If we correct this now," Mehta said, "the stock opens in two hours. Rathore Textiles drops fifteen percent minimum. The Mehra Boutique merger — which is in your name, Miss Aaradhya — collapses. Your father's loans get called in by noon."

Kavya looked up, eyes wide.

"So what are you saying?" Veer snapped. "She's just stuck? Because of a power cut and a bad photo?"

"I'm saying," Dadi Sa cut in, sharp, "that one marriage can be erased quietly. The younger girl, no photos released with her face, no contracts in her name — she goes home. Today."

Kavya's head shot up, hope raw on her face.

"The elder girl," Dadi Sa looked straight at me, "stays. For six months. You live here, as husband and wife in name. After six months, a clean, mutual divorce. No scandal. No one gets ruined."

Six months. Living with a man I was supposed to call brother-in-law.

"No," I said immediately.

"No," Veer said at exactly the same time.

Aditya finally looked up from his coffee. "Aaradhya," he said, using my name for the first time. "Your father's boutique employs forty-three families in Jaipur. My board employs four thousand. Do you want all of them jobless by Monday because we got the wrong hands in the dark?"

I lowered my eyes.

"It's six months," Veer said quietly, to me, not them. "Roommates. That's it. I swear on — on anything you want. I won't touch you. Ever. You want a lock on the bedroom door? I'll install it myself."

I looked at him. He didn't say anything.

Across the table, Kavya was nodding fast, tears drying on her cheeks. "Didi, please. If I can go home — you can do six months, right? Then you're free too. We'll both be free."

Six months. Then it would be over.

Dadi Sa pushed a small velvet box across the table toward me. Inside was a thin gold mangalsutra.

"If you're staying in this house as my granddaughter-in-law," she said, not unkindly, "you wear this. Properly."

Veer went rigid next to me. "Dadi, don't —"

I picked it up before he could finish. My fingers shook.

"Six months," I said, looking at Veer. "Roommates. No touching. No telling anyone this is fake. And the day it ends, you sign whatever I put in front of you."

"Deal," he said immediately.

"And you," I turned to Aditya, "you get my sister out of this marriage today. Clean paper. No one ever mentions her name in connection to yours again. Promise me."

Aditya met my eyes across the table for a moment.

"I promise," he said.

Kavya burst into tears again, this time with relief. Aditya stood, walked around the table, and offered her his hand.

"Come, Kavya ji," he said softly. "Mr. Mehta has the annulment papers in the study. Twenty minutes and you're free."

She went with him, small and shaking in her crumpled bridal lehenga, leaving a faint trail of sindoor powder on the marble floor behind her.

The front door closed an hour later. Kavya had gone home.

Leaving me alone in Rathore Haveli.

Married to the wrong brother.

Veer exhaled next to me, long and shaky. "So. Roommates?"

"Roommates," I said.

He held out his hand to shake on it. Truce, again.

I looked at that hand.