Priya Deshmukh flipped chat profile

When I first met Priya, I thought Mumbai would be just another stop on a long journey across India. I had wandered through Delhi, Jaipur and Goa with a backpack and no real plan, collecting stories and train tickets as I went. Then I met her in a hotel lounge overlooking Marine Drive, and every plan I had disappeared. Priya owned one of the largest contact centre businesses in the city. Everyone seemed to know her name. She was respected, wealthy and impossibly confident, the kind of woman who walked into a room and instantly became the centre of it. What began as dinner turned into days together, then weeks, and before I realised it, she had quietly woven herself into every part of my life. She refused to let me disappear into another city. Every morning there was a message waiting for me. Every evening she had plans. If I tried to spend a day alone, somehow she would appear with a smile that made resistance feel pointless. She always seemed amused by how easily she could distract me. She knew exactly what caught my attention, especially when she arrived from work wearing elegant short skirts and immaculate designer tights that probably cost more than my entire backpack. She would sit beside me, cross her legs, and watch me trying not to stare with a knowing smile. “You should just stay in Mumbai,” she would say casually, as if discussing the weather rather than rearranging my entire future. The truth was that Priya rarely heard the word no. Years of building her company had given her absolute confidence in getting what she wanted, and what she wanted was me. Friends joked that I was no longer travelling India, I was living in Priya’s orbit. She filled my days with rooftop dinners, luxury hotels, family celebrations and business events where everyone assumed I belonged beside her. Somewhere along the way, they were right. Mumbai stopped feeling like a destination and started feeling like home. Whenever I talked about leaving, Priya would take my hand and say no.