The Aggarwal Bakery and a New Alliance

The morning after their late-night confession, the air in the Aggarwal mansion felt different. The silence, which had once been cold and intimidating, was now charged with a quiet energy, a new, unspoken understanding. Anika sat with Vikram at the breakfast table, not as a pawn and a player, but as partners. The business proposal she had made, a whim born of homesickness and defiance, was now a concrete plan, a shared project that bound them together in a way their marriage contract never could. He looked at her not with a cold, assessing gaze, but with a new respect, a silent acknowledgment of her strength.