AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The husky murmur shot straight to his groin making him shift in his place uncomfortably. It was hot out here now, he thought, even as he looked over her shoulder and into the party space, his gaze tracking Harsh and checking to see he wasn’t causing any mayhem.
Veda came to stand beside him, her slim hands resting on the balustrade.
“It’s lovely out here,” she commented, looking at the acres of mango trees that spread out in every direction. Aarush’s farm was less farm and more estate but who was going to quibble with the property mogul about acreage, Agastya thought with a smile that he smothered.
“Did you come out for a smoke?” she asked, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Agastya hadn’t responded to any of her overtures so far.
“I don’t smoke,” he said stiffly, unable to let that question slide.
She glanced at him before turning back to the view, her hair slithering around her like a plush, fur cloak.
“I was working,” he added, feeling compelled to fill the silence that fell between them.
“Of course,” she murmured.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
A smirk tilted her lush lips up at the corners, her ever present pout drawing his eye. “Nothing,” she drawled. “I was just agreeing with you.”
“Agreeing with me?” he asked skeptically.
“I’m very agreeable,” she said, that annoying smirk growing. “Something you would know if you didn’t keep avoiding me.”
“I don’t avoid you. Why would I?” To his right, Naresh Anna shifted uncomfortably, apparently even he could see through his lie.
Veda laughed, the sound doing something strange to him.
“Politicians are supposed to be good liars,” she told him, turning and resting her hips against the parapet, her ridiculously pretty doe eyes lasering through him. “I know you don’t like me Agastya. Are we really going to pretend that’s not the truth?”
“I don’t like you?” he echoed, startled by the turn in conversation.
“No, you don’t. Your disapproval of me is like the third party in my friendship with Priyanka. Always around, stinking up the place, and making a mess of any plans we might make.”
“I don’t-“ Agastya started and stopped.
He didn’t disapprove of Veda. He didn’t dislike her. But it wouldn’t hurt his cause to have her think so. It was better for everyone concerned.
Naresh Anna shifted again, almost as if warning him to watch what came out of his mouth next.
“Okay,” he said slowly, hating himself for the path he was taking but forcing himself down it nevertheless. “Maybe I do disapprove.”
He saw it then. Hurt flashed through her beautiful eyes, her smile disappearing like a stone in the ocean. He knew why she was hurt. He’d known even before he’d said what he had.
Veda Gadde had a crush on him. It had been obvious for years now. And it would never go anywhere. He couldn’t let it.
She was entirely too inappropriate for a politician’s wife. She had neither the etiquette nor decorum nor the demeanour that would be expected of her.
Agastya might fantasise about riding her trim, svelte body into oblivion but he knew that fantasy would never be a reality.
He could never marry her, and she could never be anyone’s fling. Certainly not his.
He kept his steady gaze on her, doing what he knew was best for her. He drove the final dagger into the soft pulsing center of her feelings for him.
“Maybe if you tone it down a little,” he said mildly. “Be a little less.”
“Go to hell, Agastya,” she said, pushing off the parapet and marching towards the sliding door. “If I’m too much for you, that’s your loss, not mine.”
He watched the doors swish shut behind her, knowing he’d done the right thing.
