Trieste with Destiny

TRIESTE with DESTINY

The elevator doors opened with a soft metallic sigh, and Zara stepped out barefoot.

No suitcase behind her this time. No check-in pleasantries or bellboy chatter. Just her -- in a teal cotton kurti, hem brushing her knees, her long hair loosely braided down her back, a pair of gold-tinted sandals in one hand, and her heart quietly storming in the other.

The marble floor of the Mahsuri Beach Resort's upper lobby kissed the soles of her feet with a coolness that made her pause. It felt expensive. Undeserved. She smiled at the absurdity of it.

She wasn't dressed for opulence -- her kurti was slightly wrinkled, her lips bare of color, and a stray strand of hair kept catching at her mouth. She licked it away and padded forward toward the balustrade where the view of the sea, framed by columns and carved wood, looked as if it had been made for someone wealthier, older, freer.

Maybe she'd go for a walk. Maybe she wouldn't. She wasn't good at making plans here. That was part of the point.

A lone ceiling fan turned lazily overhead, slicing the thick tropical air. Frangipani floated in bowls at every corner, mingling with the salt-kissed breeze pouring in through the open arches. The late December sun was a burnished copper disk melting into the sea -- heat without anger, light without sharpness.

She paused near the edge of the gallery, her fingers brushing along the polished wood of the carved railing. A family was swimming far below, children shrieking as they splashed. A waiter passed behind her with a tray of fruit cocktails clinking like windchimes.

She wasn't watching them. Not really.

Something had pulled her eyes to the main entrance -- down in the grand atrium below, where the revolving glass doors turned and caught the setting sun like a lens.

A man had just walked in.

He was tall, dressed in soft cotton trousers and a short-sleeved white shirt that clung lightly to broad shoulders. He moved slowly, like someone just off a flight -- tired but not slouched, restrained but not stiff. He paused at the reception desk, not turning his head, not looking up.

Still, she could see the side of his face. The jaw was clean-shaven. The skin warm-toned. His hair dark, streaked at the temples with silver, pushed back like he did it with his fingers instead of a comb. And even from this distance -- and the way the light hit him -- something about his posture made her stare harder than she meant to.

A memory whispered through her -- no, not a memory. Something older. A hunger, maybe. The kind a girl wasn't supposed to have.

What was she doing watching a stranger so intently?

And yet, she didn't stop.

The man took a step to the side, half-turning as the front desk attendant handed him a keycard. His profile came into full view then -- and for a split second, their eyes might have met.

She wasn't sure.

But her breath hitched, just slightly. And then she smiled. Quietly. Almost in spite of herself.

Her gaze swept from his face down the line of his body. The shirt hung open at the neck, revealing a glimpse of collarbone. His hands were large. One rested on the counter. The other tucked something -- sunglasses? a passport? -- into his trouser pocket. His skin looked sun-warmed, lived-in.

He didn't belong to the polite world she'd grown up in. That much was obvious. No wedding ring. No wife at his elbow. Not dressed for dinner or family photographs.

There was something solitary about him. Self-contained.

She had no business liking that.

But she did.

And before she could help herself, before she could even process the thoughts fluttering at the edges of her spine, she leaned a little over the railing and whispered under her breath:

"Someone gift-wrapped like a Christmas present."

The words surprised her.

So did the heat that bloomed in her cheeks. Not embarrassment exactly. Not shame.

Recognition.

It had been too long since her body had reacted to something -- someone -- with that sudden flare of want. Not love. Not even lust. Just... interest. Spark. That reckless flicker inside her that she kept hidden beneath spreadsheets and polite smiles and carefully timed yeses.

She looked away, biting back the curve of her mouth.

Behind her, the elevator doors hissed closed. She walked toward the corridor that led to the stairs down to the beach.

Her feet made soft wet prints on the marble. Her engagement ring caught the light. She didn't twist it. Not this time.

***

The glass doors of the Mahsuri Resort spun open with a low hush, and Amar stepped into the cool hush of money.

Marble, gold, and soft orchestral music. The place reeked of comfort -- that rich kind of silence only the well-paid could afford. He dropped his duffel onto the polished floor beside him, adjusted the collar of his shirt, and exhaled. The tropical humidity slid from his skin like a second, sticky soul.

He was tired. Not jetlag-tired. Not even funeral-tired.

He was tired in a way that seeped into the marrow.

The flight from Melbourne had been quiet, and he was thankful for it. No chatty seatmates. No children kicking the back of his seat. Just a paperback he couldn't finish, a tray of food he didn't touch, and a window that showed nothing but indifferent clouds.

The woman behind the reception counter greeted him in lilting English. He returned her smile -- that faint, automatic curve he'd perfected over the years -- and handed over his passport. His voice was hoarse from disuse, barely above a murmur.

"Yes. Amar Thakur. Presidential floor."

He watched her fingers move over the keyboard, nails neat, knuckles smooth. Her bracelets jingled like distant bells.

The marble underfoot gleamed -- buffed to an unnatural shine. He stared down at his reflection in it.

He didn't look like himself anymore.

Silver at the temples. Jaw tighter. A line between his brows that refused to vanish. The funeral had taken something. Not just Marcus. Something essential.

He'd buried his best friend three days ago. Threw dirt on a box that held thirty-seven years of flesh, blood, laughter. Marcus's wife had collapsed at the grave. His children -- eight and five -- had held each other like twigs in a storm.

Amar hadn't cried. He'd stood there, lips pressed shut, fingers curled into fists at his sides. A vice in his chest and no key to loosen it.

And now here he was. A thousand kilometers from anyone who knew his name. His wife thought he was in Kuala Lumpur for business. He'd sent the memo to his secretary, called in a few favors, packed a bag. No meetings. No partners. No explanations.

Just absence.

The receptionist handed him his keycard with two hands. "Welcome, sir. Your suite is on the seventh floor. The bar is open until midnight. There's a sunset buffet on the beach--"

He tuned her out. Something behind her had caught his eye.

Movement. A shadow. A figure.

On the upper gallery, past the marble columns -- the silhouette of a woman leaning slightly over the railing. She wasn't looking at him. But for a moment, the light behind her caught the outline of her form: long legs, bare feet, a braid falling over one shoulder, the hem of her kurti lifting just slightly in the sea breeze.

Not overt. Not staged.

But deeply, irrevocably feminine.

His breath caught, shallow and unwelcome.

The woman turned away and disappeared into the corridor.

The shadow of her lingered.

He blinked once. Then again. As if trying to erase the imprint.

Don't be stupid.

She was just a woman. A stranger. A shadow in silk.

And yet something about her movement -- the poised way she'd stood there barefoot and unbothered -- had snagged a thread inside him. Tugged, hard.

He wasn't looking for anyone. He wasn't here for women. This wasn't that kind of escape. He wasn't the kind of man who wandered. Not since he was twenty-four and drunk in Goa and stupid.

He hadn't even looked at a woman with anything close to want in years. His wife, Sunita, had always filled the room with light. Theirs wasn't a love that scorched, but it warmed -- reliable, loyal, safe.

He'd thought that was enough.

But Marcus's death had rewired something. Maybe not broken. But... disturbed.

He pocketed the keycard and picked up his bag. As the lift carried him toward the seventh floor, he found himself inhaling deeply -- the ghost of frangipani still hanging in the air.

Somewhere in the upper floors, she was walking barefoot on marble.

The suite was absurd.

A bed that could sleep four. A balcony large enough to host a dinner party. A fruit basket, a bottle of wine he wouldn't touch, chocolates arranged like jewels on the pillow.

He dropped the bag. Kicked off his shoes. Walked to the window.

The sea stretched into bruised twilight -- orange giving way to ink. Boats bobbed faintly near the horizon. From below, the muffled sound of laughter, a woman's voice, a cork popping.

He touched the glass. Cool.

What was he doing here?

He hadn't cried for Marcus. Hadn't told anyone that sometimes he lay awake wondering what he was doing with his life, running a construction firm that paid well and satisfied no part of his soul.

But he had come here. For silence. For erasure.

For something unspoken.

He didn't unpack.

He turned off the lights, let the room fall into shadows. The sea outside was darker now. The breeze cooler. He opened the balcony doors and stood there, letting the wind press against his chest like it wanted to test his bones.

He pulled out a pack of Dunhill's from his pocket and opened it, lit one. The frist drag made him a little woozy. He had not smoked since college days. Buying a bottle of water at 7-Eleven at the airport, he had also bought a pack of cigarette.

His friend Marcus was a smoker.

The silhouette of the woman behind the cloud of smoke he blew.

From somewhere far below, a woman's laugh.

Not hers. But he still looked.

***

The breakfast terrace overlooked the sea, lazy with light. Wicker chairs, linen napkins, a breeze that teased her braid loose strand by strand. It was early, but not quiet. Clinks of cutlery, the occasional squawk of a hornbill in the canopy, a soft murmur of voices from couples in pressed clothes and coordinated smiles.

Zara wasn't one of them.

She sat alone, sleeves rolled to her elbows, ankles crossed under the table, reading The Razor's Edge with the hunger of someone needing answers but knowing she'd only get mirrors. Her untouched fruit plate sweated under the heat. Her coffee had gone cold. But she didn't move.

She was at the paragraph where Isabel realises Larry will never be hers. That he will choose the pathless path instead -- ascetic, unknowable. Zara had underlined the passage in pencil.

"You cannot possess what cannot be caged."

A voice startled her.

"May I?"

She looked up. He stood there again. Taller than she remembered. Less of a silhouette, more of a question. In daylight, he looked carved out of old stone. Weather-worn. Shadowed under the eyes. Not beautiful. Something more difficult.

He gestured to the chair opposite hers.

"Sure."

He sat down with the caution of someone who didn't do this often -- or hadn't in a long time. No wedding ring. A linen shirt rolled to the forearms. A single cufflink tucked into his breast pocket.

Zara put her hand on her lap, she removed her engagement ring and tucked into her pocket. She swollowed.

'Why did I do that? Why the fuck did I do that?'

His voice shattered her thought, she swallowed.

He glanced at the book.

"Maugham? Glad he's still read."

Zara raised an eyebrow, setting the book gently down. "You've read Maugham?"

"I wish I had not... so I could have the pleasure of reading it for the first time."

She tilted her head, studying him. The lines around his mouth. The restraint in the way he held his coffee cup.

"Ah. A joker."

"Life is a joke, isn't it?" he said quietly. "A very elaborate joke played by gods on men."

Zara smiled -- not because she agreed, but because it was the sort of thing she herself might've said and regretted.

"Where are you from?" she asked.

"Melbourne."

"That's not where you're from-from."

"No," he said. "Delhi. But I've been running from it long enough to say Melbourne now."

"And are you here to keep running?"

He didn't answer. Just watched the sea a moment.

"You read like someone looking for permission."

Zara stiffened. "Permission?"

"To burn something down."

She looked away. "Maybe I am."

Silence folded between them. Not awkward. Just... aware.

He sipped his coffee. She turned a page she hadn't read.

"You?" she asked eventually. "What are you burning?"

"Everything I can't carry back with me."

Their eyes met then -- and held. She could see grief in him. The kind that doesn't sit neatly in platitudes. That changes the shape of a man.

She broke the stare first. "You're intense for breakfast."

"You started it. Maugham isn't light reading."

"Neither is your face."

He laughed -- not a full laugh, but a corner of the mouth lift. "I'll take that as a compliment."

Zara pushed her fruit plate toward him. "Papaya?"

"No, thanks. I don't eat things that look like body parts."

She blinked, then snorted.

He looked satisfied. "See? I'm not all grief and stormclouds."

"No," she said. "But you're not entirely here either."

Another silence.

"How long are you staying?" he asked.

"Till the 2nd. You?"

"Same."

She didn't believe in coincidences. Not anymore.

"You know," she said lightly, "if I didn't have a fiancé, this would be the part where I ask if you'd like to have dinner."

"And if I weren't married," he replied, "this would be the part where I say yes."

Their smiles were slow. Sad. But not defeated.

"Another coffee?" he offered.

"No, thanks." She smiled.

He went away to get fresh coffee for himself, returned and sat down.

"Have you been here before... Ms..."

"Zara, "

"Amar. Hi nice to neet you Zara." He said, taking a sip of his coffee and grimacing at the bitterness. "Since neither your fiance is here... he is not is he?" She shook her head, he continued. "Nor is my wife, can we got out as friends. I know the local cuisine well, if you can stand the chili the Asam Pedas on the other side of the island is amazing."

"I will pay for the cab, if you pay for the lunch."

"You won't have to. I rented a a car at the airport."

"Ah can I drive, then?"

His lips creased into a smile.

"Edinburgh? Your accent, No way, I have seen the skill of the drivers there. No way."

"Hey, you are being judgmental. You Aussies must have those types too."

"I admit we do." He nodded. "So say half an hour, at the lobby."

"An hour, if you please. I just brushed my teeth and came fown here."

"Eleven thirty then." He stood up. "And Zara... thanks for letting sit."

"My pleasure."

***

He waited by the oversized planter in the Mahsuri lobby, pretending to read the complimentary newspaper. It was hot even indoors -- the kind of tropical warmth that curled around the ankles like a lazy cat, refusing to be shaken off. The air-conditioning hummed, but it couldn't stop the faint sheen of sweat along his collarbone. His linen shirt was already creased -- he hadn't cared about that in years.

It was 11:29 a. m.

She arrived at exactly 11:30.

Red t-shirt. Loose. Slightly damp at the nape from a hurried shower. Jeans that clung low on the hips, practical sneakers, a canvas tote with a book sticking out. Not the image from breakfast. She'd swapped literature for something else now -- amusement, perhaps. He straightened.

"You're punctual."

"You doubted me?"

"You don't strike me as the type who follows other people's clocks."

"This isn't your clock. This is chili-related motivation."

He chuckled, already turning toward the valet. His silver rented Proton Saga was waiting out front -- modest, but clean, and blessedly air-conditioned.

"After you."

She slid into the passenger seat and exhaled. He could feel her energy immediately -- that barely-contained restlessness, like someone always mid-decision.

She tapped the dashboard lightly. "No music?""

"You're welcome to sing."

"He smirked. "Only in Punjabi. You'll regret it.""

The drive began in silence -- not uncomfortable, just layered. Trees blurred past the window. Langkawi rolled out like a heat-drenched poem -- banana groves, the distant shimmer of the sea, tuk-tuks zipping along the narrow lanes.

"So," he said, "You're not afraid of chili, but how about fast corners?"

"That depends. Do you drive like a man trying to impress or like a man who has nothing left to prove?"

"Somewhere in between."

She smiled, turning to look at him.

"That's very Gower of you."

He blinked. "Gower, as in the cricketer?"

"Who else?"

"You follow cricket?"

"And tennis. I'm versatile."

He grinned despite himself. "Who can't love Gower?"

"My fiancé."

That made his hands tighten on the wheel for just a second. She noticed.

"He's more of an Imran Khan type."

"Ambitious. Decisive."

"Exact words from his mother."

"Sounds like a handful."

"He is. I'm not sure if I'm the right size hand."

He glanced at her, trying not to read too much into that.

They drove through a patch of village where chickens darted past the car. He slowed and pointed out a warung tucked under a massive tamarind tree.

"Best laksa in Langkawi. But you need to speak Hokkien to get the real menu."

"Do you?"

"My wife does. Sunita's Tamil, but she grew up in Penang. Picked up Hokkien before she learned to drive."

There it was. The first mention. The truth tightening the space between them.

She didn't flinch."And does she approve of you charming strange women over sambal?"

"Zara... this isn't a vacation."

"No?"

"No. Funerals aren't vacations."

The air changed in the car.

"I'm sorry."

"You asked."

"And women?"

"Charmed them back in college. Delhi winters. Always a bottle of Old Monk, always some disaster in the making."

"And now?"

"Now I live a quiet, married life."

"Then why..."

"Why am I charming you, Zara?"

Her blush was immediate. She looked out the window.

"I can stand the chili."

He let her change the subject. They were nearing the coast.

***

The restaurant wasn't much to look at. A series of weathered wooden tables under a thatched roof. But the sea was steps away, turquoise and lazy, and the breeze finally offered relief. Coconut trees swayed like they were eavesdropping.

The owner recognised him. Smiled. Pointed them to the corner table with the best view.

"You've been here before," she said, fanning her neck.

"Twice. The cook's a magician. The asam pedas is hellfire, but it'll ruin all other food for you."

They ordered. Coconut water arrived in green husks. Cold, dripping. She sipped. Closed her eyes.

"God. That's obscene."

"Told you."

When the food came, it was bright red, steaming, and unapologetic.

She took a bite.

Then choked.

"Oh my god."

"Too much?"

She fanned her mouth, eyes watering. Nose wrinkling.

"I'm fine. I can stand the chili."

"Clearly. Want more water?"

"No. Pride won't allow it."

He laughed -- really laughed. A sound he hadn't heard in himself in too long.

"You're a menace," she said.

"You agreed to this."

"I was tricked. By your grief and your Gower references."

They shared the meal. Hands brushed occasionally when passing condiments. He caught her glancing at his mouth once, quickly looking away.

He didn't push it.

"You know," she said, licking sambal from her thumb, "if we weren't being so bloody proper, this would qualify as a date."

"A proper one or an improper one?"

"A burning-your-life-down kind."

He looked at her.

"Careful. Some of us have already lit the match."

She didn't smile this time. Just held his gaze, steady, like she finally saw the thing inside him -- the thing even his wife had stopped asking about.

The waves broke behind them.

He reached for the check.

"I said I'd pay," she reminded.

"I lied."

"You're full of surprises, Amar Thakur."

"Not all of them pleasant."

"We'll see.".

***

The car ride back to the Mahsuri was slower. Sunset had begun to bleed into the sky--soft, watercolor pinks smudging into the sea. Her belly was full, her lips still tingled from the chili, and her pulse thudded with something she wouldn't name.

She hadn't expected the day to feel like this.

Not just full, but full of him.

He pulled into the resort driveway with one hand on the wheel, the other resting on his thigh. Controlled. Relaxed. And yet she had the strange feeling that every moment was watched, catalogued--like he lived in permanent awareness.

As they stepped into the air-conditioned lobby, she laughed, hand on her stomach.

"I swear, I'm not eating for three days."

"Famous last words," he said. "Come on. A nightcap then before bed?"

She hesitated.

He saw it.

"The bartender here makes a Margarita that could make a nun swear in Portuguese."

That made her smile.

"I'll take my chances."

The bar was quiet -- not deserted, just murmuring. A couple at the far end whispering over a glowing candle. The occasional soft clink of a spoon against a glass. Dim lights threw shadows across the polished wood.

She slid onto the stool beside Amar, noticing how his shoulders curled inward slightly as he sat -- not quite defensive, but like someone used to making space for grief.

Two Margaritas arrived -- perfectly salted rims, thin wedges of lime perched like green commas.

She took a sip. Sharp. Cold. Perfect.

"God," she said. "That's... medicinal."

He raised his glass. "To good medicine."

They drank.

Minutes passed -- stories about bad tequila in Delhi, worse hangovers, his embarrassing first attempt to cook biryani in Melbourne ("My dog wouldn't eat it"), and her impromptu college protest in Lahore against a professor who banned The Bell Jar.

And then it changed.

She noticed the shift in his face first. A stillness that crept in slowly. A shadow in the jaw.

He stared into his glass.

"It's bothering me, Amar."

He looked up.

She held his eyes. "What you said this morning. Are you hurting over something?"

He didn't blink.

"I lost my best friend two weeks ago."

Her breath caught. She didn't speak.

"Marcus. My only fiend since school. Like a brother. Motorcycle crash. Phuket. Fast and bloody."

She leaned in. Just enough that he could feel the softness of her concern without touching.

"I'm sorry."

"Thanks."

He drank.

"We weren't close most of our lives. But the year before it happened--we reconnected. Really reconnected. He was... full of life. Too much of it. He called me boring, told me to leave my job, my marriage, everything. And now he's the one gone. And I'm still here. Beige and breathing."

She didn't know what to say. So she said nothing.

He went on.

"I think I came here to feel something. Anything. I thought it would be grief. But it's turned into... rage. Emptiness. Guilt."

The bartender quietly replaced their glasses. Neither touched the second drink.

Her hand hovered near his, but didn't touch.

"I don't think you're beige," she said softly.

He smiled, barely.

"Why are you here, Zara?"

She blinked. The question wasn't aggressive. Just... exposed.

She stood slowly. "Walk me to the lift?"

He followed.

The elevator opened. She pressed 6. He pressed 10.

Silence filled the mirrored box. The lighting was soft. Too intimate.

She stared straight ahead. But she could see his face in the reflection.

As the lift began to hum upward, he broke it.

"Why are you here, Zara?"

The words hung in the air.

She stepped forward as the door dinged at her floor. Her hand reached to hold it open.

"The story is long," she said. "Maybe I'm here because I was supposed to be."

He didn't answer. Just nodded. Once.

She stepped out.

But before the doors closed, she turned.

"Goodnight, Amar."

He said nothing. Just looked at her like she'd taken something he didn't know he'd offered.

Back in her room, she undressed in the dark.

The ceiling fan whirred. Outside, the sea whispered.

She lay on the bed, stomach still full, lips still tart with lime, and yet --

A warmth spread through her.

To her core.

***

The hotel had quieted for Christmas Eve. Dinner service long cleared, the distant hum of staff cleaning up carried faintly down the hallways. Zara stood barefoot in her room, staring at the ceiling fan blades in slow orbit, the ceiling half-lit by moonlight slanting through the blinds. The bed was untouched. Her thoughts weren't.

She'd said goodnight. She should've meant it.

But there she was, twenty minutes later, walking down the carpeted corridor to the tenth floor, wearing a light silk dress and regret that tasted a lot like longing.

She didn't even know what she'd say. A question -- something trivial. A flimsy excuse to knock.

And knock she did.

The door opened almost instantly, as if he'd been standing there too. Amar's shirt was off. His eyes registered surprise, but not alarm.

She breathed.

"Will you take me to the beach tomorrow, Amar?"

The silence stretched.

His brow lifted, just barely.

"At midnight?"

"I couldn't sleep."

He didn't move aside.

"You want to talk about tomorrow?"

"No."

That was the truth. She stepped past him. He let her.

He poured a drink. Handed it to her. Her fingers brushed his.

She set the glass down untouched.

Then reached for him.

No more waiting. No more questions.

She kissed him first.

His skin was warm from the shower, bare under her fingertips. Her lips met his -- soft, searching -- with a tremor that started in her knees and climbed through her ribs. He tasted like lime and something darker, something unsaid. The silk of her dress whispered as she pressed into him, a sigh of fabric sliding against bare skin. Her breath caught when he didn't pull away, only deepened the kiss, his mouth parting for hers. The air between them thickened, tropical and charged, and the distant hum of the sea seemed to echo through the suite.

And as somewhere, in some corner of the world, the clock struck midnight--Christmas was born into moonlight and silence, and they unwrapped each other instead of presents.

"When I saw you at the reception," she murmured, between kisses, "I thought... my Christmas present."

"You believe in Christmas, Zara?"

"I believe in presents. Tonight I will be yours. You be mine."

Their bodies obeyed before words could ruin it. Her fingers slipped into his hair as his hands splayed along the small of her back, pulling her flush against him. The air was heavy with the scent of sea salt, silk, and something primal.

He reached for the thin of strap of her nightdress and pushed it over her shoulder, followed it by the other side. Her lips trembled as she watched her dress slide off her body and slither down, softly landing on the floor.

Their eyes were locked as she tool the hem of his t-shirt and pulled it over his head.

Their lips pulled at each other again, this tme there a moan, escaping her lips, a sigh from his. She broke off, her lips wet and warm as she began to kiss her way down, to his throat, then shoulder.

Urgent kisses, as if she delayed the moment, would be gone, the lips got warmer, her breath against his skin hot. She crossed his broad chest. Her tongue now in play.

How do I know how to do this, why am doing doing this.

She wondered but pushed the thought away as another part of her body told her of something else happening, a trickle of wetness began to make its way along her inner thigh.

She looked up when her tugged her hair.

"I must unwrap my present." She said, her voice h oarse, and sank to her knees.

She was tugging the Bermuda shorts down, his cock bobbed up and down as it was freed, her fingers wrapped around it. Her fingers trembled, her breath ragged.

Her fingers trembled, unsure. She'd seen this done. Heard about it. But now, kneeling, cock in hand, she felt both absurd and aroused -- powerful and inexperienced.

"I've never done this before," she said, not for him, but for the truth of it.

Then her mouth opened of its own accord and she tasted the salty, oily drop of precum on his cock and moaned. Her mouth took more of him in, then more and more till he was buried in her mouth.

She pulled away, gasping. Her lips glossy, chin wet.

He was watching her -- eyes unreadable, jaw clenched. Then he reached down and, wordlessly, took her arm.

She protested.

"I want more of that."

"You will, in the comfort of the bed."

"Promise to come in my mouth."

He laughed.

"Do you like to swallow?" He was laying her on bed.

"I don't know, I might." She answered and as he climbed on the bed she rose and pushed him down on his back.

Her mouth wrapped around his cock, this time he leaned back and thrust into her mouth, reaching her throat. She seemed natural. Saliva slicked his cock as she rose and licked and sucked. His cock responded and stiffened. His hands reached for her head, pushed the haor back and watched. She had taken all his seven inches in, he shuddered.

Her throat had opened up to swallow him, it was as is she had no gag reflex.

The sight as her raised her gaze towards him, cheeks sunken, did it for him. He shot.

His semen spurted out with a force he did not know he was capable of. Her eyes widened, and as she pulled out a little his next stream roped into her mouth. She closed and eyes and shuddered.

She was grinning -- somehow -- even with his cock still in her mouth.

She tried to pull away but he held her down. His voice was almost a command.

"Stay." She stayed till his cock softened a tad and all the trickle was done.

He let go of her hair and fell on the pillow.

She rose, grinning.

But as she hovered over him, on her elbows, her nipples grazing his chest she blushed, shy.

"Was it... good." She asked in a whisper.

"Exceptional."

"I want more Amar, I want a whole lot more, I want you to do everything a man can do to a woman, and I want you to teach me what all a woman can do to a man. I want to do that to you, all week long."

"That means a whole lot of dirty."

There was a hesitance in her voice then. As she lay her forehead on his chest.

"Yes, I want it all, if you don't mind."

"You said something at the lift, Zara. That you were supposed to be here. What did you mean?"

She lifted her head and looked into his eyes, expression serious.

"I don't know, just felt it was like tat. That was was supposed to see you in the lobby, mine was the only table empty and you inviting me to eat... just felt... like this being in your arms feels the right place."

"Good, then. Get off me, I need some water or beer. Would you like some beer?"

"I am parched." She slid off him.

They took swigs of beer from the same can till it was finished. and lay on her back.

"What next?" She asked.

"A man grunts when he comes. But the true test of a man is to make his woman scream his name. He crushed the can and threw it on the floor. He sat folded knees and taking her ankles pulled her down and up. She squealed.

"Are you going to eat my pussy?" She asked, eyes wide.

"Eat, Zara, east?" He growled, sending ripples of tremors in her. "I am feast on it."

It was not much later, not much later at all, when he was thankful the suite was large and isolated. Her screams started as moans and reached a crescendo.

"Fuck, yes, Amar, Fuck, fuck yes. Stop... stop... don't fucking stop."

She was a trembling, melted thing beneath him -- all breath, no bones.

Neither said anything. They didn't need to. But as she drifted off with her cheek pressed against his chest, her fingers curled around his wrist -- as if to anchor the night to her skin.

***

Despite how late they'd slept, they were up early -- drawn not by hunger, but by the invisible string still connecting them, taut and insistent. The restaurant was already stirring when they arrived, sunlight glazing the windows and making silhouettes out of white-jacketed waiters and orchid centerpieces.

Zara wore linen today. Pale, almost translucent where the sun caught it. Her hair was pulled up in a messy twist, neck bare, skin still kissed with sleep and salt. Amar had chosen a navy polo, open at the throat, and trousers that did little to hide the looseness in his limbs -- the well-fucked ease that softened his movements.

They didn't hold hands. Didn't need to.

But something had shifted.

Their smiles came quicker. Their laughter laced with something private. Their eyes met and lingered.

The staff noticed. So did the elderly Australian couple two tables over.

They didn't care.

Zara stirred her coffee slowly, lips pursed like she was trying to hold in a secret. Amar, reading the breakfast menu but clearly not reading, glanced up when her knee nudged his under the table.

"Is kissing in public allowed in this country?" she asked, barely above a whisper.

He raised an eyebrow. "I don't think so, no."

"Would I be arrested if I kiss you here?"

"Both of us would probably be. And deported. Maybe fined."

She pouted. "Damn. I so want a kiss."

He laughed -- not loudly, but with his whole chest. The kind of laugh that made his eyes crinkle, that cracked the last of his reserve from the night before.

He didn't lean over. Didn't kiss her. But his foot slid gently along her ankle, the brush of skin to skin enough to make her breath hitch.

They ate fruit and toast and soft-boiled eggs like it was an ordinary morning. But nothing about the way her fingers curled around the stem of her juice glass was ordinary. Nothing about how he looked at her lips, then her collarbone, then back to her eyes, was forgettable.

The breakfast room kept humming, oblivious. But for Zara and Amar, something had begun -- and it wasn't going back to sleep.

They lingered longer than necessary, sipping slowly, avoiding the bill like it meant the end of something. Outside, the Langkawi morning had begun to hum in earnest -- mopeds zipping down narrow lanes, the slap of slippers on tiled floors, the briny scent of the sea riding the breeze.

Amar rose first, murmuring something about a walk. Zara followed without needing an invitation.

The hotel garden spilled into a shaded promenade lined with hibiscus bushes, fat with bloom. A pebbled path curved through, sun dappled through palms. They walked side by side, not touching, but the heat between them held the space taut.

"I keep thinking someone's going to look at us," she said, voice softer than it needed to be. "And just know."

"Maybe they already do." He didn't look at her when he said it. "But I don't care."

She paused. He walked on, then turned when he felt her absence beside him.

Zara stood still, a little stunned by how the words landed. They shouldn't have meant much. But they did.

"Say that again."

He smiled faintly. "I don't care."

Something burst quietly inside her. A balloon of fear she didn't realize she'd been holding.

He reached for her hand, briefly, just his fingers brushing hers. Then dropped it.

They kept walking.

A cat darted across their path. Somewhere nearby, a housekeeping cart rattled across tiles. The ordinary clashed beautifully with the inner storm.

"You seem... different," she said finally.

He glanced at her, eyebrows raised in amusement. "Different how?"

"Like... looser. You laugh more. You're more..." She searched for the word. "Alive."

He didn't answer. Just looked at the path ahead. Then, with a half-laugh, "That's not a compliment, Zara."

"It is," she insisted. "It is."

He stopped walking. Looked at her with something caught between disbelief and wonder.

"I haven't felt alive in a long time," he said.

And she believed him.

They reached a shaded bench overlooking the water. The waves glinted like silver teeth gnawing at the sand. Amar sat. Zara didn't -- not right away. She paced a few steps. Then stopped and turned to him.

"Can I ask something that's not mine to ask?"

He waited.

"That man. Marcus."

His jaw shifted. The lines around his eyes deepened.

"You don't have to answer," she added quickly. "It's just... when you said his name last night, something about you changed."

Amar leaned back. Elbows resting on the wooden bench. His gaze out to the horizon.

"He died in a crash," he said eventually. "Two weeks ago.. My best friend. My brother in every way but blood. I was supposed to be in that car."

The wind rustled Zara's dress against her thighs.

"I wasn't," he said. "Because I changed my mind. At the last minute. Because I wanted to... I don't even remember what I wanted."

"And the guilt?" she asked.

He looked at her now. No defensiveness. No shields.

"It never left."

Silence fell between them. The kind that wasn't awkward -- just heavy with truth.

She sat beside him, their shoulders barely touching. He didn't move away.

"I think," she said, "we're both here because something cracked. And instead of falling apart completely, we came... here."

He tilted his head slightly, watching her. "What cracked for you, Zara?"

She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes.

"I'll tell you. Not today. But I will."

They sat like that for a while, the waves relentless in their rhythm. When he stood, he offered her his hand. She took it.

Neither noticed the passing tourists. Or the way the hotel staff looked up as they returned through the lobby -- their walk slower, more deliberate.

Back in the elevator, their reflections in the mirrored walls didn't match who they were three days ago.

And when the lift opened on her floor, she stepped out and turned.

"I still want that kiss," she said.

Amar stepped forward, eyes dark, hand on the door to stop it from closing.

"Tonight."

Her breath caught. He didn't smile. He stopped the door before it closed.

"But why wait" He said, reaching for her hand and pulling her back in. "Don't go," he said. His voice was low, urgent. "Not yet."

Relief broke across her face like dawn. She stepped back in, and this time, when the doors slid shut behind them, he backed her into the mirrored wall and kissed her. Fierce. Possessive. His fingers threaded into her hair like he needed to anchor himself.

"I don't want you out of my sight this whole day," he growled, breath ragged. "Not one damn second."

"Me too," she whispered, already reaching for his mouth again.

The elevator resumed its climb. But neither of them noticed.

"I need to go get my things from my room, you know." She said, trying to find something practical in a world that was turning upside down for her.

"I know. We will go later, together."

"Getting possesive, are we, mate,"

He let go of her hand to fish out the keycard from his picket.

"You are mine, Zara, this week, this whole damn week."

He opened the door. He turned, she was standing still, hands down, palms facing outwards, eyes intent.

"And you? Are you mine too, Amar? Just for this week?"

"Yes, I am. You doubt that?"

"No. But when we go in we need to continue the kiss. I lead."

She stepped in. The door closed behind them with a click.

"I am all yours, Zara. " He said, softly. He did not see her eyes close shut, face scrunch before she relazed and turned to him.

"Thank you, Amar Thakur," she whispered, wrapping her arms around him -- but her fingers were already at his belt, tugging him toward what came next.

***

The sun hadn't fully risen, just brushed the horizon with faint streaks of apricot. The beach was deserted except for them, their bare feet making no sound as they walked the tide line. Sand clung to Zara's toes, and her hem was damp from saltwater and dew. The world smelled of seaweed, sun-warmed shells, and the beginning of something.

They didn't speak for a while. Silent glances, brushing of hands did the talking, eyes spoke more than words could.

Amar's shirt hung loose, sleeves rolled up, trousers cuffed. His hands were in his pockets, but his attention was entirely on her -- the slope of her shoulders, the way her fingers occasionally reached down to trail through the water.

Zara's voice came quiet. "I used to love mornings like this."

He glanced at her. "Used to?"

She nodded. "Before. When I still... remembered who I was."

He didn't answer, just waited.

"I'm engaged," she said, voice hitching. "Wedding's in eight weeks. He's decent. Predictable. My parents adore him." She paused. "But I needed to know what life was like outside everyone else's script. So I came here. Alone. Just to... remember who I was before everything became a checklist."

Amar's brow furrowed slightly.

"I felt... I became a... functional ghost. Beautiful on paper. Dying quietly inside."

She paused, toes digging into the damp sand.

"Will sex always be like it was with us, Amar?" she asked suddenly. "Is it like this with your wife?"

The question caught the wind.

Amar looked ahead, then back at her. He didn't deflect.

"No. It wasn't like this with her." A beat. "We had compatibility, respect. But never this... rawness. Never the sense of falling and flying at once."

Zara nodded, as if that answer settled something deep inside her. The rawness of her own voice cracked open the moment, and they kept walking, slower now.

They walked on, slower, quieter now.

"I forgot what it was like to feel wanted. Desired. Even looked at." She laughed softly. "When you looked at me in that lobby... something jolted back to life."

"I didn't mean to," Amar said, voice low.

"But you did. And I didn't mean to respond. But I did."

They reached a curve in the beach, where black rocks jutted into the sea. Zara climbed up without waiting, perching on one. Amar followed.

She hugged her knees. He sat close enough that their arms almost touched.

"Do you love him?" he asked.

"I respect him."

"That's not what I asked."

Zara turned her face to the sea. The wind tangled her hair, but she didn't brush it away. Her eyes were dry.

"I don't know what love looks like anymore," she said. "Maybe this -- what we're doing -- is a kind of treason. Or maybe it's mercy."

He didn't argue. Just nodded. "Or love."

She turned to look at him, his eyes were looking out into the horizon.

"Yes, love. It could be that... who knows.... Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing,"

He laid a hand on her knee, as if to emphasize.

"Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another, Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence."

""We can't see each other after this week," she said, voice brittle. "Erase each other from our memories.", her voice caught in the throat.

"No." His was deep, as if he had already thought about it. "No, that would be dishonest, cruel. We must remain a memory, never forget."

"Won't that hurt?"

"It will. It most certainly will. But forgetting? No... that would cheapen it. Turn you into a whore. Me, too. I can't have that."

Tears streaked down her cheeks.

"Don't cry, Zara please."

She turned to look at him, leaned and placed her lips on his.

"Tears of joy, Thakur, a way of saying thanks to the universe."

They watched the water creep forward, retreat, creep again.

When she leaned into him, he wrapped his hand around her, pulled her closer.

His arm lifted, wrapped around her shoulders. She sank in.

"I don't want to talk anymore," she whispered.

"Then don't."

Her breath was warm against his cheek, scented with sea and sadness. He turned his face slightly. Her lips were right there. The kiss they shared was different this time -- unhurried. No fire. Just heat. A soft gathering of mouths. A promise not to rush.

When they broke apart, neither moved. Her head stayed on his shoulder. His fingers traced idle patterns on her arm.

"Do you want to spend the day together?" he asked.

She nodded.

"There's a waterfall, not far. An easy hike. Quiet. Secluded."

Zara tilted her head up to look at him. "Will I get wet?"

He smiled. "Absolutely."

She kissed him again.

And the waves, behind them, just kept returning.

***

The trail wound upward through the tropical forest, the path dappled with shards of sunlight cutting through dense green. It wasn't a hard hike, but the air was thick with heat and moisture, and sweat clung to Zara's back before they were even halfway. The sounds of the jungle accompanied them--monkeys somewhere overhead, birds that chattered like gossiping aunties, and the occasional crackle of underbrush beneath their feet.

Zara's laugh echoed through the trees as she nearly slipped, catching herself against a mossy rock. "This feels like a scene from some old colonial romance novel," she said, brushing her palm against her damp jeans. "Except, of course, I'd be the wrong kind of girl for the hero."

Amar chuckled, reaching out to steady her as she wobbled again. "You'd be the only kind he remembered, long after the book ended."

She looked up at him, lips parting slightly. Then smirked, shaking her head. "Flatterer."

"Historian," he corrected. "Of what I'm likely to remember."

They rounded a bend, and the roar of falling water grew louder. The forest opened up to a clearing dominated by a cascade of water, plummeting down dark rock into a wide pool. It was secluded, shielded by overhanging vines and lush foliage, the kind of place that seemed untouched by time or people.

Zara didn't wait. She kicked off her sandals and stepped into the shallows, jeans rolled to her knees. "God, it's freezing," she shrieked, laughing.

Amar watched her from the bank, leaning against a boulder. The way the water caught the light on her skin, the clinging fabric outlining every curve--he swallowed hard. Something primal stirred.

She turned. "Don't just stand there looking like some stoic forest monk. Come in!"

He stripped down to his undershirt and stepped into the pool. The cold shocked his skin, but he welcomed it. She waded deeper. He followed. The waterfall thundered just ahead, misting them.

"There's an alcove behind it," he said, voice low. "Want to see it?"

Zara's grin turned mischievous. "Always following strange men into damp caves. My mother would be proud."

They pushed through the veil of water, breath catching as the chill hit them again. Behind the cascade was a small alcove--dark, hidden, the only sound the crashing water outside.

They were both soaked, clothes plastered to skin, breaths fogging between them. Amar's eyes locked on hers. A moment hung.

Then she reached for him.

The kiss was urgent, wet, tasting of minerals and nerves. Her hands tangled in his hair. His slid down her back, finding the curve of her hips. She gasped when he lifted her, back against the cool stone. Legs wrapped around him instinctively.

Her body arched into his. He groaned--her warmth, the slippery fabric, the way she clung to him like need.

"Fuck, Zara..."

"Don't talk," she whispered. "Just give me more of that."

He did. He pushed into her slowly, their gasps swallowed by the roar of water. She clutched at his shoulders, head falling back as he moved, deliberate and slow. Her cries echoed in the alcove, muffled by the wet air, by his mouth capturing hers again.

When they came, it was a flood. His name. Her fingers digging into his back. Legs trembling around his waist.

Later, she rested her forehead against his, both of them slick with sweat and water and something far older.

"I want to live like this," she said softly. "Even if it's only for a week."

Amar exhaled through his nose, voice raw. "You're the only peace I've known in years."

She kissed him again, slow. Grateful. Real.

Outside, the waterfall continued its endless song, but inside that alcove, time had stopped.

They dressed in silence, helping each other with soaked clothing and stolen smiles. She laughed when he wrung out his shirt like an old man with laundry.

He watched her walk barefoot ahead of him, the hem of her blouse clinging to her thighs.

In that moment, he knew.

He would remember every second of this day. Even if memory one day turned into ache.

***

They didn't return to their rooms separately. Instead, they walked quietly through the resort grounds, past the frangipani trees and bougainvillea, up the elevator and into her suite.

Zara threw her sandals and damp bag together into a tote, grabbing her charger and the lone paperback she'd brought. There wasn't much.

He carried her things. She carried her grin.

They stepped into his suite. The door shut.

That night, they didn't go out for dinner. They ordered in--Laksa from the warong near the hotel, the one he'd pointed at earlier in the week. The scent of lemongrass and tamarind filled the room. They slurped it cross-legged on the bed, sweating from the heat and spice, fingers sticky and lips tingling.

Zara fed him the last bite, laughing when he licked her fingers clean with mock seriousness. "You take your food seriously," she teased.

"Only when fed by an enchantress," he murmured.

Later, she lay with her head on his thigh, reading aloud the opening of The Razor's Edge while he absently ran his fingers through her hair. Her voice faltered now and then, not from tiredness, but from thought.

"All I ever wanted," she said suddenly, placing the book on her lap, "was to be a teacher. Read books. Teach children to read books. Not be someone's wife, or someone's possession. Just... me."

He didn't answer--just brushed a knuckle against her cheek.

Then, as if to shock herself back into levity, she turned slightly and asked, voice half-mischievous, half-serious, "Is anal sex painful? It must be. Will I like it?"

He raised an eyebrow, bemused. "That's quite a leap from Somerset Maugham."

She shrugged against his leg, smiling. "Books and sex. They open different doors."

They fell asleep tangled--her breath warm against his skin, his palm still resting in her hair, like a benediction.

The next morning dawned pink and quiet.

They had slept little, but woke early, drawn to the hush of a world just waking. Zara wore his shirt. He wore contentment.

He reached for his keys. She reached for his hand.

"I want to see the ocean again."

"Then let's walk before breakfast."

They stepped into the lift, heading for the beach. Beat 10 was about to begin.

***

Langkawi woke in a hush after the storm of the past days. The sky, washed pale blue, held no threat. Even the sea seemed softened. From the seventh-floor suite, the horizon shimmered like a brushed mirror.

Zara stood at the balcony, Amar behind her, arms draped around her waist, chin nudging her hair aside to kiss the bare slope of her shoulder. They hadn't spoken much since waking -- only the language of glances and touch.

Later, over breakfast, their legs touched under the table, feet bare and intertwined like an unspoken pact.

"I can't eat another egg," Zara sighed, poking the last of her omelette.

"Good. More for me," Amar said, stealing her toast. She rolled her eyes, but the smile that curved her lips was soft, almost girl-like.

By ten, they were on the road.

His car wasn't fancy -- a rented hatchback with loose suspension that groaned over bumps. She laughed every time they hit a pothole, bouncing in her seat. He grinned, one hand on the wheel, the other occasionally reaching for hers.

They stopped by the roadside for coconut water, drank it straight from the shell. Zara got hers all over her blouse and pretended to sulk. He bought her another.

Their next stop: a small, dishevelled secondhand bookstore tucked between a batik shop and a coconut candy stall. The owner looked like he hadn't moved from his chair in a decade.

Zara wandered the aisles, fingers brushing faded spines. Amar didn't follow. He watched her from a distance, the way she paused longer over the Maugham section, the way she muttered titles under her breath.

She finally held up a book. "I've always wanted to read this. The Colossus of Maroussi."

He paid for it without a word.

Lunch came next -- a small seaside shack that served grilled fish on banana leaves. They sat on plastic chairs, wind tugging her hair, sea spray salting their lips. Zara devoured her meal with bare fingers, licking tamarind off them without shame.

"Do you always eat like this?" he asked, amused.

"Only when I feel free."

A beat. He met her gaze.

"You feel free?"

She looked out at the sea, eyes narrowing. "I feel... suspended. Like I've escaped gravity. Like I'll fall any second."

He didn't say anything.

They wandered through the market, picking up fridge magnets, fake pearls, a ridiculous straw hat Amar made her wear just so he could tease her. She made him buy matching sandals.

And then -- the jewelry shop.

It was unplanned. He just stopped walking and turned inside.

Zara followed, curious. The air-conditioned coolness made her shiver. A polite attendant hovered. Amar gestured toward a glass case of necklaces.

"Help me pick something?"

"For your wife?" she asked lightly, but something snagged behind her ribs. "It better be expensive -- or you're sleeping on the couch."

He nodded. "Yes."

She bit the inside of her cheek and leaned forward, eyes scanning rows of delicate gold chains, pendants with subtle curves. She rejected flashy designs. Settled on something simple: a fine chain with a petal-like gold disc.

"This one," she said. "Elegant. Timeless. Wearable every day."

He paid without flinching. Boxed it. Thanked the attendant. Then stepped out into the sun.

They shared gelato from a roadside cart--his was durian, hers coconut. She wrinkled her nose at his, and he stole a spoonful of hers with a smirk. Rain came suddenly, warm and heavy, and they ducked under a flame tree near a street performance where a man played the erhu with aching precision. They said nothing, just stood, holding hands, soaked and still.

Later, back at the hotel suite, he placed the silk box on the nightstand.

"I won't be around for your wedding," he said. "This is my gift."

Zara stared. For a moment, she didn't breathe.

The gold disc gleamed under the warm lamplight. Her fingers touched it gently. A sound left her--something between a gasp and a laugh.

"You bastard," she whispered, and then she was crying.

Not loud. Not messy. Just silent tears tracking her cheeks as she clutched the box to her chest.

"All I ever wanted was to read books and teach children to read them," she murmured. "And now I'm here, in a life I borrowed."

Amar stepped closer, pressed a kiss to her forehead. Said nothing. Let her cry.

And when the sobs stopped, she kissed him with a softness that was heartbreak itself.

***

The morning arrived like a thief -- stealthy, cruel. Pale sunlight filtered through gauzy curtains, tracing tired patterns on the crumpled bedsheets. The air in the room still held the scent of salt, of sweat, of her. Of him.

Zara lay tangled in Amar's arms, one leg thrown over his, her cheek pressed to the hollow of his shoulder. Her hair fanned across his chest like a bookmark left in a story neither of them wanted to end.

They hadn't spoken much. They hadn't needed to. Each touch, each glance since midnight had been a frantic tally of what they'd lose when the clock struck farewell. They clung like addicts -- the kind that knew their next fix would never come.

She stirred first. Not from sleep -- they hadn't truly slept. Just drifted in and out of warmth and ache and silence. The digital clock on the nightstand glared red: 6:42 a. m.

"No more minutes left to steal," she whispered, lips grazing his skin. Her voice was brittle, as if each word cost her more than the last.

Amar's hand gripped tighter around her waist, desperation flaring in his chest. "Steal them anyway. Stay."

She turned in his arms, eyes glistening. "I can't. You know that."

He sat up. "Then let's run. Let's get in the car and drive somewhere the world can't find us."

Zara's laugh cracked through the silence. Not mocking -- broken. "My wedding's in seven weeks."

"I'll talk to Sunita. We're allowed two wives under tradition. Maybe..."

She shook her head. "Don't. Don't cheapen what we had with desperate fantasies."

"What we had?" he repeated, voice frayed. "This wasn't a what-we-had, Zara. This was a fucking storm. This was soul-deep. And we never got to do all the things a man and a woman do to each other."

She pulled away gently. Swung her legs over the side of the bed, feet kissing the cold floor. Her body ached in all the ways it should. Between her thighs, on the backs of her knees, in her throat. But it was the hollow in her chest that hurt the most.

She stood, naked, and walked to the small armchair where her clothes lay in a careless tumble. Tears slid down her cheeks silently as she moved, her fingers trembling as they picked up her panties. There was no shame in her nakedness now -- just grief.

He watched.

She didn't cover herself. Not this time. She was past modesty, past shame. She picked up her panties, stepped into them slowly. Her bra came next. Her back arched as she fastened it. His breath hitched.

"I don't want you to go," Amar said, voice hoarse.

She turned, smoothing down her dress.

"I know."

Her eyes flicked down.

The tent in his boxers was unmistakable.

She smiled -- not wicked, not coy. Aching.

"Damn. I can't leave you like this," she murmured. "I don't have time to shower again. Leaving you like that would be a sin I can; t forgive muyyself for."

But she crossed the room. Sank to her knees before him. Her fingers found the waistband of his boxers, tugged them down.

"You sure?" he rasped.

She didn't answer.

She took him into her mouth like a sacrament. No tease, no pretense. Just raw, urgent farewell.

He groaned, one hand tangled in her hair, the other pressed to his forehead as if he could hold the moment still.

Tears burned at the corner of her eyes. Not from the act. From the knowing. That this was the last time.

When he came, it was with her name gasped against the morning.

She swallowed everything.

Then rose. Kissed him once -- salt and finality.

They dressed in silence. At the door, she paused. Her hand hovered over the handle.

"So this is it?" she asked.

"No."

He stepped behind her. Pressed his lips to her neck.

"This was everything."

The door clicked shut behind her. The hallway swallowed her steps.

And Amar stood, alone, with nothing left but the echo of her name in his mouth and the imprint of her body on his sheets.

***

The sky over North London that morning was not just grey--it was indifferent. An opaque canvas stretched across the city, offering no sun, no storm, just the flat inevitability of a day beginning.

Zara clicked off the kettle before it boiled. Some habits were muscle-deep now--years of silence had trained her to soften the sounds that belonged only to her. The faint smell of damp leaves drifted in from the open kitchen window. Her tea steeped quietly while she moved to water the plants.

Every act was deliberate. Tea. Water. Feed the cat. Grade the essays. The rituals of a life that had long stopped asking questions. She leaned over her kitchen table, red pen in hand, circling awkward metaphors and scrawled apologies in the margins of adolescent fiction. Her students wrote with hope. She read with distance.

Her phone pinged. A message from Toronto. Just a heart emoji and a photo of a new winter coat. Zara smiled faintly. Her daughter always sent pictures, knowing her mother missed too much but didn't know how to say so.

The ache had been quiet these past few years--softened by routine, muffled by the ticking of clocks and the white noise of survival.

But something was different today.

Maybe it was the silence that held too steady. Maybe it was the way the air bit her fingers when she opened the window. Or maybe it was how, when she reached for a shawl, her wrist ached--the one that always ached when it got too cold.

Her eyes drifted to the top shelf of the built-in cupboard.

She stood on her toes, pulled down a plain cardboard box sealed with old yellowing tape. Inside: books. Some classics, some old student papers. And nestled between faded paperbacks, it waited.

The Razor's Edge.

She sat down slowly on the carpet, fingers brushing the weathered cover. She opened it carefully, like a sacred text. And there--halfway through the book--was the page she remembered.

The line he had once read aloud.

"The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to salvation is hard."

She didn't smile. She didn't cry. She simply pressed the book to her chest.

His voice had grown older in her mind, softened by years and forgetting. But in that moment, it returned as it was: rich, amused, full of breath and sun and danger.

And for the first time in years, she didn't just remember.

She missed.

She took the Tube to Bloomsbury.

The bookstore still smelled of wood polish and ambition. Her hand drifted over spines the way one might over prayer beads--slow, reverent. Each name sparked something. Not memories. Just tremors of them.

She pulled out Ulysses. A larger print edition.

Joyce.

Ireland. Italy. Trieste.

She closed the book and held it to her chest.

He'd once said something--offhand, half-mocking--about how Joyce had lived in Trieste. A city by the sea, full of churches and stubborn sun.

Zara blinked, frowned.

Was she really going to do this?

Back home, she made a cup of tea she wouldn't drink. Booted up her laptop. Browsed. Trains from Vienna. Flights to Rome. Bookshops in Trieste.

The ache in her chest had found its way to her fingers. They hovered over the keyboard.

She had planned Vietnam for this winter. She always picked new countries. New stories.

But some stories ask to be reread.

She typed:

"Flights to Trieste"

Then clicked "BOOK" before she could talk herself out of it.

She didn't tell anyone.

Not about the ticket. Not about the sudden shift in air pressure inside her chest. Not about how, for the first time in decades, she felt afraid of remembering too much--and more afraid of forgetting completely.

She rubbed her wrist again. The ache hadn't gone. Neither had the scar. She still wore long sleeves, even at home.

That night, she sat with a single suitcase. Small. Controlled. Meant for light travel.

The Razor's Edge went in first. Ulysses followed.

She paused at the mirror. The light flickered once above her.

And in the reflection, she saw her younger self standing behind her. A girl of twenty-seven, hair tousled by sea wind, eyes glinting with something reckless and luminous.

The older woman blinked. The girl was gone.

She zipped the bag. Turned off the lights. Slept in the dark, wrapped in memory and uncertainty.

She touched the empty space in the bed, her fingers lingered a beat and she brought them to her lips. 'Good night.' she thought the words, never said them aloud. No name after the words. Always afraid if she thought of his name, she might blurt it aloud.

In the lift at Heathrow, someone had asked where she was from.

"Edinburgh," she'd replied automatically. But the vowels weren't quite right anymore.

London had worn away the softer edges. Eighteen years in one city did that.

She'd packed one dress that made her feel "fifty and fearless" and another that only made her feel fifty.

The flight was uneventful. British Airways made no announcements that would shift the trajectory of her life. The woman beside her watched romcoms on an iPad. Zara read.

She slept a little. Dreamed less.

The train from Venice to Trieste ran through a landscape both too beautiful and too far away to reach. She watched the fields blur into vineyards, then coasts, then stone churches that could've belonged in postcards or parables.

When she stepped out of the taxi in front of the Savoia Excelsior Palace, the sun was golden in that way only European evenings manage. The Adriatic gleamed in the distance. The doorman took her bag.

She didn't unpack.

She pulled on walking boots, tied a scarf around her throat, slipped Ulysses into her satchel.

And walked.

Out into the cobbled streets. Into the cool of the Trieste wind. Toward a city that had once held Joyce, now waiting to hold her too.

She didn't walk like someone searching for something.

She walked like someone hoping the city might whisper something she didn't yet know she'd come to hear.

***

Amar sat in his office in Melbourne, the windows wide with morning light but no warmth. The scent of old paper and cedar oil from the antique desk mingled in the room, grounding him in the present even as his mind drifted. A cricket ball signed by Ravi sat beneath a glass dome beside a framed photo of his sons--young, grinning, oblivious.

The view from his window offered the city's relentless rhythm, but none of it touched the stillness in his chest. The calendar on the wall insisted it was spring, but the ache in his knees and the heaviness in his chest told him it was still winter somewhere inside.

Since he'd returned from Langkawi in January 1993, something in him had shifted--irreversibly. He was a husband, a father, a provider. He loved his wife. She had deserved all of him, and he had given what he could. But one part--just one--had remained elsewhere, tucked into a week so golden it felt unreal. He never spoke of it. Not even when Sunita had passed away in 2004, the cancer slow and brutal.

His sons were grown now. Rohan handled operations across Queensland. Kabir managed tenders and international partnerships. They were civil engineers by degree, MBAs by refinement--each shaped by Amar's discipline, none burdened by his ache.

The youngest, Ravi Thakur, had taken a different path entirely. A cricketer--handsome, fast, charming. Playing in the IPL. Amar never understood cricket, but he attended Ravi's matches, even wore his jersey. It was the boy's dream, not his, but he had made peace with that.

They called. They visited. They cared. Yet Amar moved through his house like a man who remembered everything but could name nothing. He refused to let his thoughts settle on the past. Even when memories brushed past him like ghosts in a hallway, he never gave them form, never said her name.

His study bore the scent of sandalwood polish and old maps. There was a photo of Sunita tucked into the mirror frame, one from the hills outside Shimla, her hair wrapped in a scarf, laughing. He touched the edge of the frame absently. Then reached for his phone.

Instead of calling, he sent a message.

Family Dinner. Tonight. No excuses. -- Baba

They arrived like old times. Rohan with Lizzie, her blonde hair pulled back in a tight bun, always a touch out of place in the warm chaos of their house. Kabir, solo--his girlfriend off at some retreat. Ravi, tousled and laughing, gym bag slung over his shoulder, just back from practice.

They sat around the dinner table, plates heaped with daal, rice, roasted lamb. The tang of tamarind filled the room, and for a while, it felt like the clock had rolled backward.

"So, Dad," Kabir grinned, "what's the big occasion? Midweek dinner feels suspicious. Found a girlfriend you want to introduce?"

"Planning on going for a vacation," Amar said, folding his napkin. "Just realized I never had one. Not since before your mom got sick."

"About time," Rohan said, passing naan to Lizzie. "Where? India?"

"Damn no," Amar muttered, sipping water. "Don't want the Rana Sahib doting and plastic smiles. Somewhere different. Quiet. Somewhere I can sit and read."

"How long, Baba?" Ravi asked, ladling daal onto his plate.

"A month. Maybe less if I get bored."

"Find a girlfriend, take a girlfriend," Kabir winked. "You won't get bored."

"Well, thank you, young man. But I'm too set in my ways."

"Go online, Baba," Lizzie quipped, laughing. "Plenty of women offering the GFE. For a price, of course."

"Thank you, Lizzie," Amar said, arching a brow. "And how do you know about that?"

"Everybody knows, Dad." Kabir laughed. "So, where are you going?"

"Trieste, Italy. A small town. Perfect to relax and read."

He leaned back, his gaze sweeping over them. "So tomorrow, get all the signatures and papers you might need. The business is yours for now. And no calls unless someone dies."

Kabir narrowed his eyes. "Are you testing us, Baba? See if we can run the company without bringing it down?"

"Maybe." Amar smiled.

Later, they sat on the porch, the bottle of Scotch slowly emptying, cicadas singing the night alive.

The next morning, Amar packed lightly. Khakis, linen shirts. A single bottle of his cologne. The Maugham he'd reread after returning from Langkawi. Still annotated. He opened it before locking his suitcase and reread a single line:

"It is dangerous to let your thoughts wander when your body remains behind."

He smiled faintly.

"Yes, very."

***

He landed in Venice and took the train.

The car swayed with the rhythm of decisions long deferred. The Adriatic flashed like a memory beside the window, and every town they passed looked like it could've held her. But none did.

Trieste was smaller than he imagined. Or perhaps it had always been this size. He had simply grown too large with longing, with the echo of years where every breath had been tight with restraint.

The scent of brine floated faintly in the air, mingling with the sweetness of fresh pastries from a nearby café. Somewhere, an old tram rumbled past. Amar felt the uneven cobblestones beneath his shoes and the sharp sting of wind against his cheeks. The city wasn't loud. It whispered--through the shuttered windows and the cracked marble of buildings that had seen better centuries.

And Amar walked slowly, as though every footstep might crush a memory still alive in the air around him.

The Savoia stood exactly as he remembered it in brochures. White stone, arched windows, the sea just beyond. The room smelled faintly of salt and old money. He liked it.

He didn't unpack.

He changed shirts, brushed his hair, slipped into walking shoes, and left the hotel before he could name what he was searching for.

He walked.

Past cafés, past bookstores. Past women in red coats and men with ice creams. He walked until he reached the promenade.

And then he stopped.

There. Not twenty steps away. A woman with a book.

The wind teased her hair, lifting strands like fingers leafing through a beloved old book. The pages of her paperback fluttered against her thumb, refusing to settle. She turned her face just slightly, and for a fleeting moment, Amar saw her as she once was--lying on a beach towel in Langkawi, The Razor's Edge in her lap, her laughter stitched into the wind. Her voice would no longer carry the burr of Edinburgh--it had softened, rounded by London's long years--but the tilt of her head remained unmistakably hers. There was something precise in her posture, a quiet dignity in the way her fingers marked the page of her book, as if guarding a secret she hadn't yet told even herself.

And the world pulled in its breath.

He didn't say her name. He wouldn't--not yet.

Because saying it might break whatever fragile spell had pulled them both here.

And he wasn't ready to wake up.

He just watched her.

He took one step forward.

Then another.

He didn't know what he'd say.

But he knew who he'd say it to.

The woman he hadn't dared remember.

The only one he could never forget.

***

He enquired discreetly at the desk. She was alone.

He couldn't sleep that night. Waited for her in the morning, hiding behind a paper in the hotel lobby.

She came down, walked out. He followed. Just as they reached the plaza, he called out--

"Zara."

A name that had not crossed his lips in twenty-five years, yet ran in every molecule of his blood.

She went still. Stiffened. The name hit her spine like a lash.

And then--slowly--she turned.

Recognition sparked in her eyes.

"Amar," she whispered, a hand flying to her mouth. Finally, the name she never even dared to think escaped her lips.

His knees buckled. He looked around, spotted a bench, and gingerly walked toward it, lowered himself.

The book she was clutching fell from her hand as she rushed toward him.

"Are you okay?"

"Your book." He pointed at the fallen paperback.

"Fuck it, are you okay?"

"Overwhelmed. Just overwhelmed. I looked whenever I stepped out into the street... looked around, hoping I might catch a glimpse of you. Just a sight from a distance. Never did. Then I thought I saw you yesterday, sitting and reading. I asked--you're alone. Sorry. I should leave."

"Yes, I am alone. Have been for a while. My husband died. Three years after..." She let the sentence trail. "Tell me, how are you? Life's good? Here with family?"

He took a long breath, as if the truth still had weight.

"No. Sunita died. 2004. Cancer. The kids are grown up now. Taking care of the business."

He saw her fingers glide across her wrist. A soft, absent rub.

"Kids? More than one?" she asked.

He didn't answer right away. He stood, walked to where her book lay. Picked it up. Held it. Then waved to her, an unspoken invitation to join him.

She came.

"Is it okay? We made a pact never to..."

"Oh, Amar. I think the statute of limitations must have expired on that." She gave a ghost of a smile. "Coffee? No Asam Pedas here, though."

"Coffee," he repeated.

They walked in silence, a silence born not of discomfort but reverence.

A small restaurant by the plaza. A table near the window. They ordered coffee.

***

"Tell me about yourself," he asked.

"Nothing much to tell. Got a decent insurance payout, found a job teaching. Adopted a daughter. Now it's books, classes, and travel whenever I can. Past three years I've just... wandered."

"And you?" she asked, softly.

There was a pause. The kind that always came between people who once shared everything and now had to ask the basics again.

"Twenty-five years," he said at last. "And yet it feels like yesterday. As if we just stepped out of a time portal and landed straight here from Langkawi."

His eyes lingered. "You're still as beautiful as you were in 1992."

"Ah, flattery." She laughed, resting her chin in her palms. The look she gave him sent a bolt down his spine. That tilt of the head--he remembered it. It was hers, untouched by time.

"You," she said, "look better than you did back then. You've... grown into yourself. Matured."

"How did you end up here? Trieste. You been before?"

She grinned. "Funny story. I woke up planning to buy a ticket to Vietnam. Walked into a bookstore instead. Saw a copy of Ulysses. Remembered Joyce lived here for a while. I thought--why not read it where he once lived?"

"And you?" she added. "What brought you?"

"Heard some students talking about Joyce. About this place. But now... now I think I was meant to be here."

They shared a silence. Not awkward. Just... quiet. Their coffee cooled, untouched.

"Let's walk," he said. "Unless you'd rather read?"

"The book can wait."

They walked side by side, slowly, as if afraid to break the spell. He kept stealing glances as she touched her wrist--again and again--where the bones had once broken and healed poorly. He didn't ask. Not yet.

"You know," he said finally, "I never said your name. Not once. In all those years. I was scared. Thought if I said it aloud, I'd lose my resolve. My control."

"I said goodnight to you every night," she whispered. "Never your name. Just... goodnight. I thought if I said your name, it would be blasphemy."

"Blasphemy?" He chuckled. "You've become religious?"

She laughed again--the same laugh that once undid him, warm and wild.

"Cricket and books. That's my religion now."

"Cricket? You follow the IPL?"

"You sane man, that's scripture."

"Ravi Thakur. My youngest. Played there."

She stared. "No way. That boy... he's good."

***

She touched her wrist again, absently. They were walking back, toward the hotel.

"What happened to the wrist?" he asked gently.

He felt her stiffen beside him, her steps halting.

"Don't go there, Amar. I don't want to lie to you."

His gaze moved to her wrist, then to her eyes, reading the crack in her voice like a faultline.

He looked at her for a long while. Then nodded.

They began to walk again. In silence.

"See you at dinner?"

"Well... we will see." She smiled and touched his arm. The touch was feather-light, but it lingered in his skin like a burn.

he clock by the bedside blinked 1:59 a few times, then 2:00.

He got off the bed, slipped on his trousers, shirt, shoes. No hesitation. Just an ache that grew louder than sleep.

He walked out, corridor lights low, carpet muffling his steps.

He knocked on her door. Softly.

Knocked again.

She opened it. She hadn't changed. No crease in the bedsheets behind her. No hint of sleep in her eyes--only the brittle gleam of knowing she wouldn't get any.

"You, damn you, Amar." Her voice broke, almost laughing. "One thing that's been constant is I say good night to you in my head and sleep like a stone. Tonight, it won't come."

"Can I come in?"

"Damn well might." She stepped aside. "Want a drink? There's Scotch in the minibar."

"No." His voice quiet. "I want to know what happened to the wrist."

"I told you not to go there." Her body tensed, shoulders drawing in.

"28th December 1992," he said, slowly. "A thorn pricked your hand. We put a plaster on it. You were asleep but I kept waking, checking it was still on. That you weren't bleeding."

"You will hate me, Amar. And that would kill me."

He didn't speak.

Just watched her.

She looked away. Took a deep breath and stood.

"I need a drink," she declared. Her voice cracked.

She poured the Scotch into a glass, returned, and took a sip.

She stared at it like it might tell her how to begin.

Took another sip. Then held it out to him. Her hand trembled.

"Drink. You'll need it."

Amar took it. His fingers brushed hers. A jolt. He drank. Placed it down.

"You want to know? Fine. I'll fucking tell you."

Her husband--the so-called gentle man--had worn a mask until the wedding night.

It started small. A criticism here, a silence there.

Her eyes glistened, but she didn't blink. Her fingers curled around the edge of the sofa.

"Cooking was horrible," she whispered. "I moved too much in bed."

She looked away then, jaw tightening. Her voice lowered, raw.

"'Like a whore.' That was his exact word."

Amar flinched.

A muscle in his cheek ticked. He didn't interrupt.

"He said I didn't respect him. That I didn't need to work. I was locked in, caged, and punished for the salt in the food. Too much. Too little. It didn't matter."

She drew in a breath--sharp, almost painful. The whiskey in her hand trembled.

"I told my parents," she said, hollowly. "You know what they said? That he was my god on earth. That I had to learn to please him."

A pause. Her lips trembled. She blinked at the glass in her hand as if trying to remember where she was.

"He started drinking. Gambling. And when he couldn't get it up... beatings. If he spilled too early, beatings. Then came the blame--I couldn't get pregnant. So the beatings became daily."

Her voice cracked at the last word. She swallowed hard, her throat convulsing.

"One day, he hit me with a rolling pin. I lifted my hand. It shattered the wrist."

She touched it absently, as if the memory still ached in bone.

"He locked me in. Left me to rot."

Silence stretched between them like glass.

"Three years," she whispered. "Three years I endured it."

Then, a flicker of rage lit her face. Her mouth curled into a bitter line.

"You want to know what broke me? The bastard sold the necklace you gave me."

She tossed back the rest of the whiskey. Her face twisted. Not from the burn. From the memory.

"He was drunk. I waited. I led him to the stairs. I pushed him. He died instantly."

Her eyes met Amar's--unyielding, unrepentant.

"I wanted him to suffer. But fate was kind. Too kind."

"So there you go, Amar Thakur. I am a killer. A ruin of a woman. The cops came. They questioned me. Blood alcohol helped. They called it an accident."

Amar surged forward, eyes blazing, hands lifting.

"No." Her voice cracked like a whip. "Don't touch me. Please. I'm a killer."

He didn't listen. He crossed the room. Sat on the coffee table. His fists clenched.

"It was self-defense, Zara. It was fucking justified."

He knelt. Pressed his face into her lap. His voice, muffled, broke.

"I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry."

"Not your fault, Amar," she whispered. Her hand, tentative, trembling, tangled in his hair.

He looked up, eyes bloodshot.

"I should've looked for you. I should've come."

She smiled--wry, sad, shattering.

"You gave me a lifetime of memories, Thakur. But pack up. Go back. Let me be."

She sounded like a woman defeated not by judgment--but by truth. The truth, now spoken, had stripped her bare. Her spine had not bent. But her eyes... her eyes told the tale of a woman resigned. Not broken, but hollowed by the telling.

And Amar? He could not breathe past the guilt. He stared at her wrist, at the mangled joint and the scar he had once kissed, back in Langkawi when her hand had only known poetry, not pain. It was his shame too. He hadn't been there. Hadn't come.

Inside, he vowed.

Never again.

The dawn broke like a whispered secret across the rooftops of Trieste, casting the world in a hush of peach and gold.

"Come," Amar said, his voice still hoarse, thick with everything they had left unsaid. "Let's see if anything's open."

"I need to use the washroom first."

He nodded, watching the faint shake in her hands as she disappeared behind the door.

He waited outside her room, staring at the worn carpet that ran down the hallway--green, patterned with tiny embroidered vines, like something out of a grandmother's house. Everything felt too still, like the world was holding its breath.

The town was just about waking up. The sky blushed pale gold. They asked the concierge about breakfast. He pointed to a small bakery down the block.

The streets were empty. The silence broken only by the echo of their footsteps and the metallic rattle of a distant shutter rolling open.

"So... what happened after that, Zara?" Amar asked, his voice gentle, reverent.

"I went to work. Found a job as a teacher," she said. Her voice was calm now, but distant, like she'd folded the pain neatly away. "The bastard's estate paid up. Good thing he had such a high value for himself."

She chuckled once--a bitter, breathless sound that barely reached the air.

"I felt lonely. I adopted a sweet girl. She was six. She became my life. Still is."

They reached the bakery just as its shutters rose with a sleepy groan. The scent of warm bread poured out, thick and comforting, softening the edges of grief with the memory of mornings long ago.

They sat at a small table tucked in the corner of the bakery, where warmth drifted in golden layers--fresh bread, strong coffee, and something else that couldn't be named.

Zara traced the rim of her cup with a fingertip, the nail catching slightly on a chip in the porcelain. Her breathing was steady, but beneath the surface, something trembled.

"What now, Amar?" she asked, her voice softer than steam, the words curling in the space between them.

"Melbourne," he said, eyes not leaving hers. "With me."

Her gaze flicked up, startled--not by the place, but by the way he said it. As if he were offering her shelter. As if he were saying come home.

"Remember what I said in Langkawi?"

She gave a breath of laughter, more exhale than mirth, but her lips tilted into a smile. A private one. Remembering things that once kept her awake at night.

"You said a lot of things," she murmured, glancing down at her hands. "I remember... everything. Every glance, every word..." Her voice dipped. "Every touch."

Amar's fingers tightened around his cup. His throat bobbed with a swallow. Then, quieter--rawer--

"I said I wasn't letting you out of my sight. Not even for a second. Back then it was a week. This time..." He inhaled sharply, shoulders lifting, then sagging like he was surrendering everything. "This time, I mean it for life. Till death do us part."

Zara's hand froze mid-motion. The color rose to her cheeks, and she looked away--out the window, at nothing.

Her voice was barely audible. "Your kids..."

He laughed then. A low, unfiltered laugh that cracked through the tension and spilled like sunlight over a frozen surface.

"Kabir told me to get a girlfriend. And Lizzie--Rohan's wife--offered to find me a hooker. Said I needed a proper girlfriend experience."

She blinked, stunned, then burst into laughter--sharp, clear, like glass shattering under pressure. Her eyes crinkled at the corners, and she clutched her stomach, shaking her head.

Amar watched her. The way her nose wrinkled when she really laughed. The faint tremble in her shoulders as she leaned forward, momentarily unguarded.

And just like that, his heart ached with love.

"So," she said at last, breathless, brushing a tear from her cheek, "what will I be, Amar? A girlfriend?"

He didn't smile. Not at first. He reached for her hand across the table, stopped just short, letting the intention hover in the space between.

"Friend," he said, the word thick with memory.

Then slower, deeper--"Girl. Friend."

And finally, with a tremor he didn't try to hide--"Wife."

He leaned in. His voice was almost reverent.

"Whatever you want. That's up to you."

Zara didn't answer.

But her fingers inched across the table, her pinky brushing his.

And in that brief contact, something passed between them. Something wordless. A breath shared. A history rewritten. A future cracked open.

Zara looked down at her cup. The coffee had gone cold. She didn't care.

A quiet stretched between them. Not awkward. But heavy, like a wool blanket soaked in storm.

"I came here to read Joyce," she said at last, her voice gentled, almost amused--as if reminding herself.

Amar arched a brow, resting his cheek against his fist. "Ulysses?"

She nodded. "The large-print edition. From London. I saw it at a bookstore, and it... called to me. I'd read it as a teenager. Hated it. Thought maybe I was too young then. This time, I figured--why not come to Trieste, read it where he lived for a while?"

She smiled, but there was a strange ache in it. "I thought I'd find something here. Maybe solitude. Maybe memory."

Amar leaned back slightly, studying her.

"And what did you find?"

Her eyes flicked to his. Held.

"You."

A pause.

He exhaled through his nose, quiet and slow, as if steadying himself. "I wasn't looking for anything either. Heard some students talking about Joyce, Trieste. Decided to come. But now I know..."

He met her eyes fully, the words landing like an anchor.

"... I was supposed to be here."

She blinked. Once. Then looked away.

For a moment, neither of them moved. The world around them blurred--the café door chimes, the scrape of chairs, the soft clink of spoons against porcelain.

"I used to imagine this," she said. "Meeting you again. By accident. Like a film." A small shrug. "But I never thought I'd still want it this much."

Amar's voice came rougher than intended. "You thought you wouldn't?"

"I didn't think I was allowed to."

He reached out, not for her hand this time, but for the worn copy of Ulysses sitting beside her on the table.

He lifted it gently. Turned a few pages. Found her scribbled notes in the margins--small, messy, impassioned thoughts in blue ink.

"You still write in the margins."

"I never stopped."

He slid the book back to her, fingertips grazing hers. "That's good. We're always in the margins, Zara. But the story never stopped."

She looked up sharply, eyes wide. Moist.

Then, quieter than breath: "No. It didn't."

They walked back in silence, the cobblestones glowing faintly under the hush of morning. Somewhere behind them, the bakery's shutters closed again. The city began to breathe. But their world narrowed--just the scrape of shoes, the shift of weight, the proximity of old souls rediscovering each other.

Halfway to the hotel, her hand found his.

No hesitation. Just a quiet inevitability.

Their fingers twined--softly at first. Then firmer, as if confirming something. Reclaiming something.

Tears slipped down her cheeks, silent as dew.

He glanced sideways, didn't stop walking.

"Crying, Zara?" he murmured.

She didn't answer.

But her grip tightened.

And after a long pause--barely a whisper, not for him but for the moment itself--

"Home," she breathed. "Is this... what it feels like?"

His hand tightened against hers in reply.