The billionaire impregnates the maid and abandons her – but he regrets it when he sees her again.

The billionaire left his maid impregnated, but regrets it when he sees her again.

The chandelier of Singhania Estate was not just shining; It shone like a crown over a kingdom of marble and money. Below him, Arjun Singhania—business tycoon, hotelier, master of impossible deals—stood calmly, sentencing like a judge. His hand was waving in the air, pointing to the door.

“Get out. ”

Meera Rao, a maid in a bright blue uniform, shuddered as if she had been slapped. His palms were protectively on the small bulge of his stomach. She wasn’t trying to be brave; She was trying to stand up straight.

“Please, Arjun… It’s yours. ”

For half an instant, something human moved behind his eyes. Then she disappeared.

“I don’t care what you say,” he replied in a soft voice as a blade. “There will be no molestation with me. ”

It should have ended there—but fate had other plans.

A forbidden beginning

Months ago, at midnight, the same mansion in Jaipur looked different. The noise of the world had subsided in the library: sandalwood cabinets, leather-bound ledgers, the faint hiss of fire. Meera worked here, even after the others left, where Arjun would stay with files and a glass of single malt, which he had never finished.

Their first conversation was barely a conversation—a question about the missing ledger, an answer to where he found it. The second conversation went on for a long time: weather, pay, broken fan in the staff wing. In the third conversation, he was telling her about the hotel she had saved from bankruptcy at the age of twenty-nine, and she was telling him about her mother’s deteriorating health and the river that built her childhood town in Madhya Pradesh.

He didn’t smile very often. She didn’t flirt at all. Yet something was opening up between them—dangerous because it seemed safe.

On a stormy night, the power went out. Meera was crossing the hall with a candle; He left the library at that moment. Wax shuddered. Shadows jumped. His eyes were fixed on Meera. It smelled like bergamot and rain.

“Careful,” she said, and fixed the candlestick—and then, without any plan or permission, which she had carefully made, she kissed it. Not like a billionaire asking for a reward, but like a lonely man finally exhaling.
The Cruel Cut

When Mira found out she was pregnant, she didn’t think of fairy tale-like endings. She was only hoping for decency. He was confident that Arjuna would appear for the truth he had helped create.

He appeared—hard, shiny, and absent like a closed door.

“You will be compensated,” he said, gazing across her shoulder at the marble floor. “But you won’t work here again. ”

His throat was burning. The hall was spread out into a tunnel. She managed to get going, because all she had to do was walk. The door closed behind him with the expensive sound of the end of his life.
Five years later…

Time is like a knife and a balm. It bites, then stains.

Five years later, Mira’s life was one that never made headlines but keeps much of the world alive: a modest flat atop a bakery in Goa, a job in a small seaside hotel called the Lotus Breeze Inn, an old bicycle creaking down the hills.

She knew the fishermen who gave money and taffy, the tourists who left too much perfume in their rooms, and how the lights fell when the seagulls were leaving the dock at four o’clock in the evening.

She knew Kabir best. To her little son, whose eyes laughed before her mouth. There was his curiosity and Arjuna’s smile – the same inclination, the same brightness in the corner, as if happiness were a challenge he had accepted again and again.

“Why isn’t my father around?” she asked, once shaking her feet on a wooden stool while she was packing her tiffin.

“You get me,” he said, kissing her hair. “And I’m not going anywhere. ”

return

On a thick rainy afternoon, his manager adjusted his tie and looked nervous, which meant trouble or a much-needed guest was coming.

“Meera, we have a VIP coming here. Take care of it yourself. Put everything in white gloves. ”

“It’s okay,” he said—then looked at the man at the door, and the ground shifted.

Arjun Singhania. Now there is a little silver on the temples, something that looks like strength without fooling anyone. The same immovable currency. The same eyes that don’t miss anything.

For a moment, she didn’t recognize him. Then he looked, and the confidence from his face disappeared so quickly that he almost looked vulgar.

“Mira. ”

“Mr. Singhania,” he replied, silently as a rock. “Welcome to the Lotus Breeze Inn. ”

A paper plane flew through them and stopped near Arjuna’s shoe.

“Mom! Look at me—”

Kabir paused, staring at a stranger whose face looked strange, intimidating and familiar. The lobby shrunk to a heartbeat and converging eyes.

Arjuna swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. “He…?”

“Yes,” said Mira. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to be elevated. “Yours. ”

A father’s regret

He checked in. Absolutely. He had quietly come to Goa looking for a development site that he wanted to buy through a shell corporation. He told himself that he would do a thorough investigation, make an offer, and leave.

Instead, the next morning she found Kabir at the reception, elbows resting near the bell, another paper plane launching.

“Does it fly better than turning it here?” asked the boy, furrowing his eyebrows.

Arjun rebuilt hotels in Delhi, Jaipur and Dubai. He had never made a paper airplane with a five-year-old.

“Let’s give it a try. ”

The plane swerved wildly, then crashed into a potted palm tree. Kabir laughed so much that he hiccups. Something twisted inside Arjuna—like a metal twists before it breaks, like a closed hinge twists when it meets the right angle.

liberation

Gradually, Arjuna began to appear:

Saturday morning: A tiger-shaped plastic kite, which was impossible to keep in the air until Arjun learned to blow and Kabir learned to run.

Tuesday night: A library card.

Thursday afternoon: a wounded knee in the parking lot, bandaged from small rockets, and a father who doesn’t panic even at the sight of blood.

He did not ask Meera for anything but permission. He gave her what she had never asked for and what she never needed: proof.

He was not exonerated. But he was present.

election

On a stormy night, the inn’s electricity went out. Emergency lights flickered, then went out. Somewhere upstairs, a child cried. Kabir ran from the corner, his breathing slow.

Before Meera could reach him, Arjuna fell on one knee with his arms outstretched.

“I’ll catch you. ”

The boy instinctively ran towards him. They sat together in the dark, on the floor of the corridor, a group of three.

When the electricity returned, Meera saw Arjun’s face—not the mask he had given to investors, but a raw, flimsy truth.

She didn’t forgive him right away. The apology kept coming intermittently, like the monsoon. But for the first time, he allowed himself to believe that he could finally become the man he should have been five years ago.

Beginning again

He didn’t rush a happy ending. They built it slowly, like a temple stone-by-stone.

Kabir started calling him “Papa” without saying anything. For the first time, it was a coincidence. The third time, it didn’t happen. Arjuna didn’t correct it. He simply responded, like gravity existing.

On a clear evening with the scent of salt and cardamom, the three of them were strolling along the shores of Goa at low tide. Kabir moved forward, chasing the oysters shining like mysteries. The sun was setting in the sky, the water was turning into gold.

“I don’t know if I will be able to forgive you completely,” she said, glancing at the horizon.

“Neither do I,” Arjun admitted. “But I can come again and again. I can love you without even asking for answers on my timeline. ”

She smiled, light and sincere. “That’s a good sentence,” she said, and this time it was not a warning, but a gift.

He took her hand. She didn’t force him to ask. Their fingers were intertwined, ordinary to the onlooker, miraculous to them.

Up ahead, the waves were repeating their old promise: they would come, go, and come again.

They kept going, they didn’t recover, they didn’t end—but finally, the beginning came.