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The next morning, the sun climbed over the Delhi skyline, but inside the Rathore bedroom, a different kind of tension was brewing.

The Pink Tie Morning😗😗

Shivank stood in front of his walk-in closet, staring at the bed. There, laid out with surgical precision by Aanvi, was his usual charcoal-grey bespoke suit. But resting on top of the crisp white shirt was a silk tie so shockingly neon pink that it looked like it was glowing.

"Aanvi," Shivank called out, his voice sounding like a warning bell.

Aanvi poked her head out from the bathroom, her toothbrush in her mouth, looking like a confused rabbit. "Mmm-ph?"

"I am the Chairman of a multi-billion dollar conglomerate," Shivank said, gesturing to the tie. "I have a meeting with the Ministry of Commerce at 10:00 AM. I cannot walk into the Secretariat looking like a flamingo."

Aanvi quickly rinsed her mouth and ran over, her "baby nature" giving her a burst of morning energy. She grabbed the tie and held it up to his chest. "A deal is a deal! You lost the Golgappa war, Shivank-ji. If you don't wear it, it means your word isn't as strong as your spice tolerance."

Shivank looked at the tie, then at her wide, pleading eyes. He knew he was being manipulated by the most adorable force of nature on the planet.

"Fine," he growled. "But if the stock market crashes today, I am blaming you."

He tried to tie it himself, but his hands were unusually clumsy with the bright fabric. Aanvi giggled and pushed his hands away.

"Let me." She stood on her tiptoes, her small fingers working the silk with focused intensity. She was so close he could smell her strawberry shampoo. "There. It makes you look... approachable. Like a mountain with a sunset on it."

Shivank looked in the mirror. He looked ridiculous. He looked terrifying. He looked like a man who was deeply, hopelessly in love. "I look like a sunset that’s about to fire someone," he muttered.

When Shivank’s black sedan pulled up to the office, the security guards stood at attention. But as he stepped out, the air seemed to leave the lobby.

Whispers broke out like wildfire.

"Is... is that a pink tie?"

"Did he murder a highlighter?"

"Is it a secret signal for a market takeover?"

Shivank ignored them all, his face a mask of cold, unyielding iron. He walked through the halls with his usual predatory grace, the pink silk flapping behind him like a banner of war.

He entered the boardroom. The directors, already seated, went pale. They looked at the tie, then at his face, then back at the tie.

"Gentlemen," Shivank said, slamming his laptop onto the table. "Before we begin, if anyone—and I mean anyone—mentions the color of my neckwear, they will be escorted out and their contract terminated. Is that clear?"

A chorus of terrified, "Yes, Mr. Rathore," echoed through the room.

In the middle of a heated discussion about logistics, Shivank’s phone buzzed. It was a photo from Aanvi. It was a picture of her at home, wearing his oversized suit jacket and holding a sign that said: "My husband is the bravest flamingo in the world! (P.S. Take your medicine at 1 PM!)"

Shivank stared at the screen. A small, involuntary smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"Mr. Rathore?" a director asked tentatively. "Is everything alright?"

Shivank looked up, his eyes softening for a split second before returning to their sharp, CEO focus. "Everything is perfect. Now, let’s get back to the 12% growth target. And someone call the florist—I want five dozen pink roses delivered to my house by 4 PM."

The directors blinked. The Devil wasn't just wearing pink; he was buying it.

The 4 PM deadline had passed, and the pink roses had been delivered, but when Shivank walked through the front doors of the mansion, he didn't hear the usual pitter-patter of Aanvi’s feet. The house was strangely quiet.

"Aanvi?" he called out, unknotting the infamous pink tie.

No answer. He checked the living room, the kitchen, and the garden. Finally, he headed toward his private sanctuary: the library.

When Shivank pushed open the heavy mahogany doors, he stopped dead in his search. His meticulously organized library—the one arranged by genre, author, and publication date—looked like a paper cyclone had hit it.

Hundreds of leather-bound books were scattered across the floor. And there, in the center of the chaos, was a pair of small, wiggling feet sticking out from under a fallen stack of heavy encyclopedias.

"Aanvi!" Shivank roared, his heart leaping into his throat.

He dove toward the pile, tossing the heavy volumes aside like they were made of cardboard. He unearthed her, finding her curled in a ball, clutching a stray "Architecture for Beginners" book to her chest. Her "baby nature" had led her to try and surprise him by "color-coding" his shelves, but the towering ladder had other plans.

"I... I just wanted them to look like a rainbow," she whimpered, her voice small and trembling.

Shivank pulled her out from the debris and sat her on the floor. His eyes immediately scanned for damage. His gaze locked onto her right ankle, which was already starting to swell, and a nasty scrape on her forearm where a shelf edge had grazed her.

"You're bleeding," he muttered, his jaw ticking. The "Strict CEO" was gone, replaced by a man gripped by cold, sharp panic.

"It doesn't hurt that much, Shivank-ji," she lied, but as she tried to move her foot, she let out a sharp sob and gripped his shirt. "Okay, it hurts a lot! I'm sorry I ruined your books!"

"Forget the damn books, Aanvi!" he snapped, though his hands were incredibly gentle as he lifted her onto the library sofa.

He disappeared and returned in seconds with the first-aid kit. He knelt before her, just as he had on the day of the burn. He didn't say a word as he cleaned the scrape on her arm. Aanvi hissed, her eyes welling up with tears.

"Don't cry," he commanded softly, blowing on the wound to cool the sting of the antiseptic. "If you cry, I won't be able to focus on fixing you."

He moved to her ankle. He felt the bone carefully with his long, steady fingers. "It’s not broken, but it’s a bad sprain. You’re officially grounded, Aanvi. No stairs. No walking. No 'rainbow' organizing for a month."

"But I wanted to be a good wife," she sobbed, a fat tear rolling down her nose. "Good wives don't break the library."

Shivank stopped. He looked at her—messy hair, tear-stained face, and ink-smudged fingers. He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against hers, his voice a low, gravelly whisper.

"A good wife is a wife who stays safe. I don't need a librarian, Aanvi. I need you. Do you have any idea what happened to my heart when I saw your feet sticking out of those books?"

Aanvi sniffled, looking into his dark, intense eyes. "It... it got scared?"

"It stopped," he admitted.

He finished wrapping her ankle in a professional compression bandage. Then, he did something completely unexpected. He picked up the "Architecture for Beginners" book she had been holding.

"Since you’re grounded on this sofa," he said, sitting down next to her and pulling her head onto his lap, "I’m going to read this to you. And you’re going to tell me which of these houses we should build on the plot of land I bought last week."

Aanvi’s eyes widened, her pain momentarily forgotten. "You're going to build a house? A real one? Not a corporate building?"

"A home," he corrected, opening the first page. "Because apparently, I have a wife who thinks mountains should have flowers, and I need a place to plant them."

Aanvi snuggled into him, her small hand finding his. The library was a mess, her ankle throbbed, and she was covered in dust—but as Shivank’s deep, steady voice began to read, she felt like the luckiest "disaster" in the world. ......

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