Billionaire’s contracted wife

Hi, I’m Shonali Verma. But everyone—yes, everyone in my family—calls me Shona. Shona, the hurricane. Shona, the madness. Shona, the walking, talking, singing, dancing, guitar-strumming, flute-playing, rule-breaking tornado who lives in a house that feels more like the set of a sitcom than a residence. Welcome to my life.

Let me start by painting the full picture. After all, I’m a Fine Arts major—painting is kind of my thing. But canvas pe canvas, let’s begin with the chaotic, colorful strokes of my world.

I live in Mumbai. City of dreams, traffic, vada pav, and Bollywood billboards that are taller than my future ambitions. We live in a cozy 3BHK apartment in Andheri West, right between a gym that no one in our family uses and a beauty salon where our Dadi once tried Botox and came back looking perpetually surprised for a week. My family? Oh, don’t even get me started. Or actually, do. Because if you think you’ve seen crazy, wait till you meet the Vermas.

We are five people: my parents, my grandparents, and the dazzling star of this madhouse—me. My father, Chef Raghunath Verma, owns a restaurant named Pyaar Ka Zaayka. Romantic name, na? But don’t be fooled. The man cooks like an angel and scolds like a headmaster. He’s a culinary wizard who creates magic with masalas and has a laugh louder than the pressure cooker whistle. He once tried to make sushi and ended up creating something that exploded. We still talk about it every Sunday lunch.

Then there’s my mother, Mrs. Kavita Verma, schoolteacher and secret ninja. I call her the strict one. You can’t even sneeze at home without filling a leave application in triplicate. She has this uncanny sixth sense for detecting mischief. And trust me, with me around, mischief is in abundant supply. She’s the iron lady of the house, standing at 5 feet 2 inches of pure discipline. But she’s also a soft-hearted marshmallow who teaches poor kids for free every evening. Honestly, she’s a total Bollywood maa. You know the type: strict from outside, soft from inside, and always smelling of Dettol.

Now, meet the senior branch of this entertainment company. My Dadu, Retired Colonel Vikram Verma, served in the Indian Army for 35 years. A man of rules, discipline, and terrifying bedtime stories about how he once ate a snake in the jungle during a mission. True or not, we don’t know—but Dadu still brings it up during every family argument. He wakes up at 4:30 AM sharp, whether it’s Monday or Sunday, and expects the rest of us to do the same. Obviously, I don’t. But his daily war against my laziness is now part of our household routine.

And Dadi. Oh, my rockstar Dadi! Sixty-five years young and the living, breathing definition of swag. She wears aviator sunglasses, swears by WhatsApp University, and once advised me on my love life using a scene from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. She believes in love at every age, gossips more than my entire college combined, and secretly watches Korean dramas with me at night while pretending to scold me during the day. She says, “Pyaar mein age kya dekhna, beta? Dil hona chahiye jawaan!”

We live in a world divided. It’s always Team Discipline vs Team Disaster. My mom and Dadu form Team Control Freaks, while my dad, Dadi, and I are proudly Team Shona. Anytime I pull off a prank, and trust me, I pull plenty, the scolding session goes like this:

Mom: “Shonali! Again?!” Dadu: “This is not the army, but even in the army, we had rules!” Me: “It was just a glitter bomb inside the fridge, Dadu. You have no appreciation for art.” Dad (from the kitchen): “Beta, next time use edible glitter. I almost licked the fridge by mistake.” Dadi (giggling): “Waise, fridge toh kaafi festive lag raha tha. Diwali vibe aa gayi.”

And then I escape to my room, mission accomplished, laughter echoing behind me like background music from a movie.

Now, about my room. It’s not just a room. It’s a studio. A performance stage. A jungle. A hiding place. And above all, a sanctuary. Especially because it’s the headquarters of my most scandalous secret: My best friend, my confidant, my partner-in-prank, my little mouse—literally—a mouse named drea.

Yes. You read that right.

He’s not a metaphor. He’s a real, breathing, squeaky mouse. Brown, fluffy, with shiny eyes full of wisdom. I found him one monsoon evening while returning from college. He was stuck under a fallen potted plant near the gate, shivering and looking absolutely heartbroken—like a Bollywood hero after interval. I picked him up (with a handkerchief of course; I’m crazy but not unhygienic), brought him home, fed him some biscuit crumbs, and named him drea. Short for ‘dreaa.’ Because dreams are small, unexpected, and you hold onto them even when the world says you’re mad.

Mom nearly fainted when she saw him the first time.

Mom: “Mouse! In MY house?! a little rat! Me: “He’s a guest. With emotions.” Dadu: “Kill it. Strategic elimination!” Dad: “Wait. Let me feed him. What does he eat?” Dadi: “Beta, is he single?”

But the funny thing is, Drea stayed. Every time I tried to let him go, he’d find his way back. Crawling up the pipe, hopping across the balcony, sometimes arriving with a leaf like an offering. Now he lives in a shoebox mansion beside my bookshelf. We talk. Well, I talk and he squeaks and occasionally farts. He listens better than most humans. Doesn’t argue. Doesn’t gossip. Doesn’t judge when I cry after watching sad romantic movies. He’s perfect. If I ever marry someone, I swear Drea gets to approve first.

Anyway, life’s good. College is fun. I paint abstract chaos on canvas that makes my professors nod like they’re seeing Mona Lisa’s secret sister. I sing in the canteen, dance in the corridor, and sometimes play guitar on the terrace while the entire chawl listens like it’s a live concert. I once tried to play the flute during college fest, but accidentally blew a bubblegum into it. Became a viral moment. Hashtag: FluteFail.

I am not just multitalented—I’m an artistic explosion wrapped in a pink hoodie.

I have dreams. Not the ordinary, I-want-a-job-and-flat dreams. Mine are cinematic. I want to showcase my paintings in Paris. Dance on a Broadway stage. Sing in front of a thousand lights. And maybe—just maybe—fall in love with someone who doesn’t try to ‘fix’ me. Someone who finds my madness charming. Someone who lets me be the chaos I am, and brings some rhythm to my riot.

But until then? I have my jungle book of a life. My army-grandpa. My rockstar-grandma. My sushi-failing, giggling father. My detergent-smelling, big-hearted mother. And my tiny mouse roommate who listens better than Alexa.

And me—Shonali Verma. Miss Crazy. Miss No-Rules. Miss Full-On-Fun.

Buckle up. Because this? This is only the beginning.

On the other side of the city—far from Shonali Verma’s chaos-soaked, laughter-filled Mumbai apartment—stood a cold, towering structure of steel and glass. The Oberoi Mansion. Sleek, modern, untouched by clutter or mess, and just like its master—flawless, unyielding, and intimidating.

Rudra Oberoi sat in his minimalist study, where not a single pen dared to be out of line, and where silence wasn’t empty, but sharp. The ticking of the vintage Swiss clock was the only sound that dared interrupt his world. Perched behind his black mahogany desk, he glanced up from the glowing screen of his custom-coded dashboard, eyes colder than the monsoon rains that lashed against the high-rise windows.

Arrogant. Ruthless. Unapologetically rude. Those were the names they gave him in boardrooms, investor conferences, and hostile takeover meetings. He didn’t flinch. Let them talk. Words couldn’t cut steel. And Rudra Oberoi had forged himself into something far harder.

He was a man sculpted not by love, but by loss. Not by privilege, but by pressure. The world saw him as the youngest self-made billionaire in the tech industry—founder and CEO of R-CORE Systems, a global empire in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. But no one saw the endless nights, the bleeding knuckles on keyboards, the war he waged with his past, with himself. Discipline wasn’t a choice—it was his shield.

Rudra didn’t believe in emotions. Emotions were clutter. They got in the way of algorithms, they blurred the clean logic he lived by. Love? A biochemical distraction. Friendship? Something he believe. Marriage? A contractual agreement. He believed in perfection, not passion. Order, not chaos. But sometimes, even he forgot why the coldness had become a comfort.

His OCD was legendary. The cutlery in the mansion was arranged by weight and frequency of use. His closet—a matrix of greys, blacks, navy blues—was sorted by fabric type, sleeve length, and mood. Mood? Well, he had only two: working and working harder. Spontaneity made his skin crawl. Surprises? He had system firewalls tougher than national intelligence.

Yet, amidst this pristine universe, there were fragments of warmth. His golden retriever—Buddy—curled loyally at his feet, the only creature allowed to mess up his Italian rugs. His presence brought back a sliver of something Rudra never allowed himself to name. And then there was her—his baby sister, Ruhi. The only person who could make Rudra’s granite eyes soften, who could hug him without warning and not be pushed away. He protected her like a knight, though he never said the words. Love wasn’t spoken in the Oberoi mansion. It was encrypted. Hidden in gestures, silences, protection.

Family dinners in the Oberoi mansion were war zones camouflaged in silverware. His Dadi, the last remaining trace of old Bollywood romance, would try to bring up marriage every ten minutes.

" get merried, Rudra. It’s my dying wish to pick the flowers for your wedding mandap.,” she would sigh dramatically, adjusting her pearl necklace as if already planning the guest list.

Dadu, however, had no interest in flowers or feelings. “Discipline, Rudra. Structure is legacy. Don’t let emotions compromise your legacy,” he would declare like a judge pronouncing sentence.

Then came the background noise: Chachu and Chachi—gold-diggers disguised in silk and Rolexes. Always sniffing around Rudra’s wealth like hounds. Their son—Rudra’s cousin—Aarav, a perfect storm of entitlement, laziness, and hedonism. Expelled from three colleges, he still had the gall to smirk in Rudra’s presence.

“Bhaiya, let’s throw a pool party on the terrace. Hottest influencers, unlimited champagne, you and I—Oberoi style,” Aarav once suggested, legs propped on Rudra’s Italian coffee table.

Rudra didn’t even look up. “Throw yourself into a job first, Aarav. You might find it more rewarding than fake tans.”

His only real friends? Vansh and Dev.

Vansh—silent strength, meditation-in-motion. His eyes spoke more than his mouth ever did. He was the calm Rudra often envied. The one who reminded him to breathe.

Dev—on the other end of the spectrum—was chaos in sneakers. Loud, hilarious, a walking contradiction. The kind of guy who would gift Rudra a cactus plant with a note: “Even this is more huggable than you.”

And Rudra? He would just raise an eyebrow and reply, “You overestimated my affection for vegetation.”

Sometimes, late at night, when the world slowed down and Buddy lay asleep, Rudra would stand by the tall window, sipping black coffee, watching the city lights blink like data streams. That’s when the loneliness crept in—not loud or dramatic—but like a silent line of code eating into his firewall.

He would remember things he pretended didn’t matter. His mother’s voice, long gone. Her lullabies—out of tune, off-key, but his first experience of affection. He had been thirteen when she died. And something inside him had frozen that day.

His father had turned to alcohol. The mansion had become a museum of silence. And Rudra—he had turned to structure. To code. To machines that never lied, that didn’t die, that didn’t leave. That’s how R-CORE was born—from grief and grit.

People said he was cold. They were right.

People said he didn’t feel. Wrong.

He felt everything. Too deeply. That was the problem. That’s why he built walls instead of bridges. That’s why he trusted numbers, not people. That’s why his heart was a vault with no password.

But maybe, just maybe, the universe was done letting him hide.

Because unknown to him, a whirlwind named Shonali Verma—chaotic, loud, rule-breaking, full of emotion and dreams—was about to crash into his perfectly aligned world like a glitch in his algorithm. And Rudra Oberoi, the man who controlled everything, was about to meet the one thing he never calculated for: chaos in the shape of love.

But for now, he didn’t know.

All he knew was his next board meeting was in five hours, his suit needed pressing again (because Aarav’s juice had left a mark), and Buddy had decided to chew his only favourite Oxford.

“Perfect,” he muttered with a sigh, picking up the chewed shoe. “Even the dog has started rebelling.”

Somewhere in Mumbai, a girl named Shonali Verma sneezed.

And destiny grinned.