[FEATURED IN WATTPAD INDIA PROFILE]
❝Pioneering the art of constructing love, my Kanmani.❞
Xavier teased her skin, slowly caressing her cheeks and her lips trembled.
❝You don't dare!❞
And he kissed her.
------
When he had compromised his dreams and...
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Krithika's eyes darted over the sprawling mosaic of photo frames that covered an entire wall above Xavier's desk. The study was so enormous it felt less like a room and more like a detached mansion-within-a-mansion, complete with a desk that could double as a small island.
The photos—oh, there were many, and many was putting it lightly—captured every era of Xavier's life. There he was, shaking hands and flashing teeth as he nabbed some shiny trophy during his college days. There he was again, grinning ear to ear on a cobblestone street in Italy. And then there were the ensemble shots: Xavier with assorted people she guessed were his inner circle. A collage of memories frozen in time.
Is any one of these his ex-wife?
She didn't know the answer. But she noticed something peculiar: there were no pictures from his childhood or recent years.
Strange.
He was, without a doubt, a super-genius—just like Rathna had described. Her mind struggled to wrap around the fact that he owned a photograph of himself receiving an award from Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam. In the image, he looked almost like a teenager—tall, lean, with a mop of dense curls covering his head and an infectious grin plastered on his face. It was so contagious that she smiled wide, her fingers lightly brushing against his image.
Then there were the travel photos. Machu Picchu, Amalfi Coast, Red Rock Canyon—basically the VIP section of her "someday, maybe, when my bank account stops gasping for air" travel list. In every shot, Xavier looked incandescently happy, surrounded by friends who matched his energy, their laughter practically audible through the glass.
But as her eyes moved further, the tone shifted. A different set of faces populated these frames. She spotted Alisha easily, but a petite, striking woman shared the spotlight. The woman's delicate frame contrasted sharply with Xavier and Alisha's taller, broader figures, making her look like a porcelain doll in the company of giants. Another picture showed her as a bride, standing next to a man Krithika assumed was her husband. And then there was a picture of Satya and Dhanya together—but oddly, no Xavier in that one.
The pièce de résistance was unmistakable: a colossal portrait of an elderly man, prominently placed at the center of the gallery. Xavier crouched beside him, an arm draped around the older man's shoulders in an almost reverent embrace. She remembered Xavier mentioning his late grandfather, the person he'd loved most.
Her gaze drifted toward a different wall, where a massive frame stood apart. Intrigued, she stepped closer. This one wasn't a photo—it was a painting. A woman, impossibly graceful, sat with a book in hand, her dark curls cascading like waves. Her smile, radiant yet tender, was captivating. But her eyes—oh, her eyes—stopped Krithika in her tracks. Deep, lustrous brown flecked with molten gold. They shimmered like her favorite color, Burnt Umber, brought to life.
