I stayed at the office that night. Not because I had too much work to finish—my desk was cleared before midnight, the reports neatly stacked, contracts sealed with signatures, and my executives long gone home. No, I stayed because the silence of these glass walls suited me more than the suffocating conversations that awaited me at the mansion. Home was not a sanctuary for me. Home was a battlefield, dressed up with family warmth and chandeliers, where my father always waited with the same question disguised as concern: “Vikrant, it’s time for you to settle down.”

Marriage.