“Wake up, princess, we’ve reached Mumbai,” 
I felt someone shaking me gently. I opened my eyes only for it to meet a pair of kind brown ones.
“Chale?” He asked with holding out his hands for me.Putting my hand in his I got up but my feet were aching terribly from wearing heels all day long so I lost my balance.
(Let's go?)
He immediately wrapped his other arm around me, “Easy there.” 
I nodded my head wincing a little, “My feet are killing me.”
He held me till we reached the car that came to pick us up and helped me get in the car, a classic black Range Rover.
He bent down to tuck my skirt to prevent it from getting caught in the door.
“Thank you.”
The drive home was nerve racking. What if his family hates me? What if they think I trapped their son? What would be their expectations from me?
Those thoughts were so all consuming that I didn’t even realize how long it took to reach their place.
“Relax and breathe,” he said quietly as we reached the front door. He had already called his mom to let them know we were coming since it was almost midnight.
The mansion exudes elegance and class. It's grandeur illuminated by soft warm ambient lights. The huge mahogany doors flew open and standing there were two women in their 50s, probably his mother and aunt.
We both bent down to touch their feet. 
“Khoob khush raho.” 
(God Bless you loads of happiness.)
The older looking one cupped my face gently and said, “Raahil beta, bahu toh bahut hi sundar hai.”
(Son, your bride is beautiful.)
“Badi Maa!”
(Mom!)
He leaned down to hug her tight. Then he moved to the other woman. 
“Mum.”
She hugged him back and didn't say anything but had a smile on her face. She had the aarti plate in her hand.
Together they did the aarti and put Teeka on our forehead. Behind them I could see a guy and a girl approaching us.
As soon as they stepped aside and let us in, Raahil was tackled in a bear hug by the two of them. 
“BHAI!”
(Brother!)
I smiled. It reminded me of myself and Karan bhaiya.
“Niyati, meet these two little hell raisers. This is Samar and she is Seher.”
Samar dramatically bent to touch my feet, “Bhabhi maa!”
 
My eyes widened and I looked over towards Raahil. 
“Samar! Behave and she’s younger than you.”
Samar just grinned, “Welcome to family bhabhi.”
I smiled and thanked him.
Seher pushed him aside and hugged me. I was taken aback at first but it felt nice. I needed that comfort of a hug.
“I'm so glad you're here. Ahana bhabhi and I could use someone in our team. It's been just the two of us against these 3. Actually 4, now that Arsh is here.”
I laughed and patted her back. 
“Ahana bhabhi really wanted to be here to welcome you but Arsh has been cranky all day and she’s putting him to sleep right now,” she added.
“Samar! Seher. Let them go now. They had a long day,” Raahil’s mum said.
She turned to us,“You two go and get sleep. Both of you must be really tired. We'll meet the rest of the family in the morning and do all the rituals.”
I once again touched her feet and wished her goodnight while Raahil kissed her cheek.
He led me upstairs towards his bedroom and once again my nerves were on fire. Suddenly my whole body felt too warm. 
I gulped as I entered his room. I took a look around. The warm lights and hardwood floor gave a cozy vibe to the room. It had the bed in the centre of a huge rug and side to the bed was a glass wall. The entire room was painted in shades of grey. There was one door on both the opposite sides. 
“Do you want me to call Seher to help you change?”
“No, it's alright. I'll manage.” It was already so late now. I didn't want to disturb her any further.
“Okay. You can change in the closet and I can change here.”
I followed him to the closet and saw all our luggage was lined up neatly. Raahil took his clothes from the wardrobe and left the room to give me privacy. 
The closet was luxurious and seemed spacious enough of all of my clothes and other stuff. There was also a dresser in front of a mirror that was almost from the floor to the ceiling. 
I opened the suitcase that had all my loungewear and took out a loose plazo pants and kurti to wear because I didn't feel comfortable wearing pyjamas because that's mostly shorts and t-shirt.
Getting out of this outfit should be a challenge in Squid Games, I swear. It took me a while to figure out where to start from. I first removed my bangles then I took out my nose ring. After that I started taking out all the pins from my veil.
It was easy to unpin my Dupatta but the real challenge was taking off the blouse. It was so tight I couldn't even reach behind to unhook it. 
I was in the middle of freaking out when I heard a knock at the door. 
“Niyati, you've been in there for a while. Do you need my help?”
Knowing I had no other option, I quickly put on my duppata in the front and opened the door.
“Can you please unhook my blouse?” I pleaded.
He didn’t say anything, just nodded. I moved aside to let him in and stood in front of the mirror. I turned around and showed him my back. I could feel my cheek heating up. 
The time couldn't have been any slower.  Every second felt like eternity when I felt the back of his hands on my back. I moved back a little when he pulled the ends together. My heart had never raced like this before. I gulped and closed my eyes.
There were three hooks and while he undid the last one, I dared to open my eyes and look up and saw that his eyes were already on me.
I realized that his eyes were there the whole time. And that fact brought this immense sense of security and safety that I knew I could be naked infront of him and he wouldn't look below my eyes. 
If that wasn't enough the next thing he did seemed like the testimony of his character. After he was done, he took the one end of my dupatta hanging from my shoulder and draped it across my back and pulled the end over my other shoulder. 
“Thank you,” I whispered, looking into his eyes, hoping he could read just how grateful I was.
He gave me a small smile and a gentle squeeze on my shoulder then walked out.
After that I quickly undid my hair, combed out all the knots and pulled it up with a claw clip. Then I changed and freshened up and walked back into the room.
Now, this was the moment I was dreading the most. I was nervous about the conversation we were going to have because from here the unknown began and no fear is greater than the fear of the unknown.