Rejected 100 Times, Still His Bride
Chapter 1: One Last Proposal
Before the mission, I looked Arjun straight in the eye and asked, my voice barely above a whisper, "Will you marry me?"
My fingers tapped nervously against my phone case, a tiny staccato rhythm betraying my calm. For a split second, my mind flickered back to the first time I ever confessed to someone—standing outside the school gate, sweaty-palmed, Papa waiting nearby with a box of sweets he wasn’t sure he’d get to open. Years of hoping and exhaustion pooled inside me.
He was silent for a moment, gaze fixed somewhere past my shoulder. Then, without meeting my eyes, he muttered, "Theek hai."
Both the system and I blinked, stunned. "Oh no."
Hadn’t we agreed? After being rejected a hundred times, I could finally go home. All these years—what was it for?
Turns out, it was all for nothing.
On the last mission, I’d accidentally become a stand-in for his first love. Three days Arjun spent with her before he remembered me. But what reached him in the end was the news of my sacrifice in the line of duty.
The memory pressed on my chest like the sticky April heat in Mumbai, when nothing stirs except the swarm of questions in your head, restless and heavy.
