Chapter 15: Public Display of Ownership
The champagne flute felt slippery in Rohan’s grip. He took a small sip, the bubbles doing nothing to cut through the tightness in his throat. The room was a cacophony of success—the low thrum of conversations about mergers and market shares, the sharp bursts of laughter that felt more strategic than joyful. He adjusted his collar. The suit, a relic from his own company’s annual party last year, felt cheap and constricting under the glare of the crystal chandeliers.
He watched her. Priya was a sun around which planets orbited. Men in impeccably tailored suits, women with sharp, confident smiles, they all gravitated towards her, drawn by the energy of her new promotion. Vice President of Emerging Technologies. The title hung in the air around her, invisible and weighty.
“A well-deserved leap, Priya,” a silver-haired man was saying, clapping her on the shoulder. “The ‘Sharma Algorithm’ is going to redefine our entire data pipeline.”
Priya’s smile was a perfect, polished tool. “Thank you, Robert. It was a team effort, of course.” Her eyes, however, flickered over to Rohan, pinning him in place from across the room.
He felt a fresh wave of heat under his arms. The ‘Sharma Algorithm’. His wife’s name was being trademarked in conversations he barely understood.
Another colleague, a woman with a severe blonde bob, leaned in. “And who’s this? Don’t tell me you’ve already poached your next star from the competition, Priya.”
Priya’s smile widened, turning possessive. She extended a hand, not for a handshake, but to pull Rohan into their circle. Her grip on his arm was firm. “No, this is my secret weapon. My husband, Rohan.”
“Ah, the lucky man!” Robert boomed, giving Rohan a once-over that felt like an appraisal. “What do you do, Rohan?”
“I’m at NexGen Tech,” Rohan said, his voice sounding reedy to his own ears. “Senior developer.”
“Good outfit,” Robert said, already losing interest. His gaze was back on Priya. “So, the integration timeline…”
But Priya wasn’t done. She tightened her arm around Rohan’s waist, pulling him flush against her side. He could feel the solid, athletic frame of her body through his jacket. It was the same way she’d held him in the office, but here, under the public gaze, it was a performance.
“Rohan’s wonderful,” she announced, her voice carrying just enough to include the people nearby who were subtly listening. Her fingers found the soft space just above his hip bone, her thumb pressing down in a slow, deliberate circle. It was the same spot she’d mapped out in the dark glow of the laptop screens. Look how small you are here. “He keeps the home fires burning so I can focus on the chaos. Isn’t that right, love?”
He tried to smile. It felt like a crack in dry clay.
Her fingers pressed deeper, a silent command. Her voice dropped, becoming a murmur just for him, yet somehow still part of the public display. “I really do take such good care of him.”
The words were sweet, wifely. But her touch was a brand. The champagne turned acidic in his stomach. He was being presented not as a partner, but as a prized pet. Well-groomed, well-behaved, and entirely dependent.
The group’s conversation moved on, a river flowing around the rock that was Rohan. He stood there, trapped in the cage of her arm, feeling the impression of her fingers through the fabric of his suit and shirt, a phantom pressure he knew would be there for hours. He was drowning in the scent of her perfume and the faint, humiliating aroma of his own sweat.
He remembered the spreadsheets. The brutal, objective truth of the numbers. Here, it was no longer just numbers on a screen. It was translated into power, into respect, into the very space they occupied. He was shrinking in this room, in this suit, in the embrace of his wife, becoming exactly what her spreadsheet said he was: a footnote.
Priya leaned her head close to his, her lips nearly brushing his ear as she accepted another congratulations from a passing executive. “You’re being so good,” she whispered, the praise a shard of ice in his veins.
He didn’t pull away. He just stood there, a soft smile fixed on his face, while inside, something fundamental finally broke.