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“I am not asking you to change your mind. I never said that.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“You are my pride and joy, Agastya,” she said, her shoulders drooping. “I never expected to see a day when I was also disappointed in you.”
He was still standing there, stock still, reeling from her words, when she stepped around him and left. His phone vibrated in his hand and he glanced down at it. A message popped up from Veda.
Anna says you are coming here now.
Before he could reply, another text from her pinged through.
I am waiting.
He’d set this juggernaut in motion. There was nothing to do now but ride it through to the end.
Eight
VEDA
He walked in like a conquering hero. The dark blue simple cotton kurta pajama, the slightly disheveled hair, the brooding, intense eyes…it was all a bit much.
Veda suppressed the shiver that snuck through her and waited for her brother to greet Agastya before she did. And then he was looking at her, all that dark, devastating intensity lasering through her.
She should say something brilliant and witty and charming and awesome.
“Hey,” she said with a limp wave of her hand.
His lips quirked at the corners, the tiniest bit. “Hey,” he said back almost making her fall over with shock.
Agastya was not ‘hey’ people. He was ‘hello’ and ‘namaste’ people. Well, she supposed he wasn’t going to say namaste to her but…
“Veda!” Ram Anna’s irritated voice cut through her wandering thoughts.
“Yes?” she asked him, still feeling a little dazed and disoriented.
“Sit down.”
She looked around and realised that the men had sat down and she was the only one still standing. She dropped onto the couch with a loud thump, almost unseating Ram who was seated next to her.
After another humiliatingly silent moment, Ram cleared his throat. “What would you like to talk about, Agastya?”
“I’d like to talk to Veda,” he replied. “Alone.”
She glanced up at him. He sat back on the single seater, one leg crossed over the other, ankle resting on the other leg’s knee and looking for all the world like royalty surveying the peasants.
“Whatever you have to say, you can say in front of me,” Ram said, his voice like granite.
“You asked me to come here, I did.” Agastya sighed, boredom leaking through his own voice. “I’m hardly going to ravish her in the middle of your family home’s drawing room. Give me some credit, Ram. I prefer to do my ravishing in far better settings than this.”
Veda’s cheeks flamed at the sheer arrogance of his words, temper stirring inside her. Ram opened his mouth to speak but she cut him off.
“Whatever the setting, you will not be ravishing me unless I allow you to,” she said, her voice cool and polite. “My brother stays. You wanted to talk to me, Agastya. Let’s talk.”
She saw it then, the flash of respect that lit his eyes. It was gone before she’d had a chance to process it, but she knew it had been there and it bolstered her faltering courage.
Agastya leaned forward, his hands resting on his knees. “I asked your father for permission to marry you.”
She stayed silent, waiting.
