The silence during lunch was a physical weight, pressing down on the small table between them. Rooh picked at her food, each bite tasting like ash. The humiliation from the morning—the money, his words, the entire ugly exchange—replayed in her mind on a loop. The worst part was the unspoken implication she had constructed: if she hadn't returned the money, it would have felt like payment. Like she was a whore who had accepted compensation for a sexual favour. The thought made her stomach churn.

Neel watched her, the misery on her face a mirror of his own internal torment. He couldn't bear it. The defeat from earlier morphed into a desperate, clawing need to fix the unfixable.