She had been, as ridiculous as a notion as it sounded now, been waiting for him to do something after the admission. Smile down at her, whoop with relief, hug her.. anything but what actually occurred. Anything but the somber mood that suddenly settled in her bedroom.

"Why did you end it?"

A more pointless question could not have been broached, in her opinion, and her expression when she glanced up at him in stunned silence made that clear. Why? There were a dozen reasons why- he didn't have to ask, and why did it even matter? What mattered was the betrothal, the wretched betrothal was over-

She cried all that in her mind. And then he was kneeling before her and even as he took her hands, his lips brushing against the palms in tenderness, she knew. She knew that whatever she may have expected, it was all wrong. She could not have been more far off.

"Tell me it wasn't for us."

And in that instant, as his gaze held her own and her fingers traced over his face, she knew what he wanted to hear. And she knew, all at once, that to give him anything else would only be opening herself up to a rejection she could not, would not bear.

"Of course it wasn't," she said with a forced laugh, one that sounded foreign even to her own ears. Tracing a thumb over his chin, she gave a nonchalant shrug of her shoulder, and said, "Kabir's just.. not right for me, you know. I couldn't bear it any longer."