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Always good. Then why did it feel so bad?
Two
VEDA
Veda woke the next morning sprawled across Priyanka’s couch, her mouth tasting like the inside of a toilet and her head pounding like elves were taking hammers to her temples. Oh God! Why did she agree to do shots with Harsh? Whatever alcohol he’d filled in the little glasses had wrecked her. She should have insisted on vodka shots. Mixing alcohol never worked for her.
“Good morning sunshine,” Priyanka’s annoyingly cheerful voice had her groaning and burying her face in her hands.
“Go away,” she muttered, feeling bile rising at the back of her throat.
“But we just got here.”
Agastya’s smooth, cultured voice had her head shooting up. Nausea roiled inside her and she swallowed hard, trying desperately to stay in control. She saw his eyes take in her bedraggled, booze-soaked state and a flash of something darkened his eyes. Distaste, disdain, some ‘dis or the other,’ she supposed.
She got to her feet, wobbling a little. Agastya reached out, his warm hand closing around her upper arm. Veda yanked her arm away, even the brief contact burning through her skin. She couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t been aware of this man. And neither could she remember a time when he’d ever looked at her with anything but polite condescension.
“Maybe if you tone it down a little. Be a little less.”
His words from the previous night echoed in her brain as she walked around him, her aching head held high.
Priyanka held out a glass of water and a painkiller which she took gratefully. She left brother and sister to whatever they were doing so early in the morning and took refuge in the nearest bathroom. Hopefully, Agastya Kodela would be gone by the time she came out again.
Veda let her head fall back against the closed bathroom door, a defeated sigh escaping her. Years…she’d spent years pining for the man standing in the other room. Years of loving him from afar, years of being in the same room as him and watching his gaze pass over her like she didn’t exist. Years of being his little sister’s best friend and an annoying pain-in-the-ass.
She shut her eyes, bringing back the visual of him from the other room. His crisp and clean kurta pajama, his spicy cologne, and his perfectly brushed hair with the sunglasses shading his eyes had practically been an assault on her senses.
She was hopeless. Hopelessly in love with a man who thought she was a disgrace. That was another ‘dis.’
She straightened from her slump and stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Her hair looked like a rat had been rooting around for cheese in it, her kajal had smudged and was giving her beautiful raccoon eyes and her lipstick, which was supposed to be kiss-resistant, had smeared into her chin like a dab of ketchup.
Shit. No wonder he was ‘dis’gusted by her.
She stripped out of her party dress and underwear and turned the shower on, leaving the setting on cold. The icy shower would clean her up and, hopefully, clear her stuffy, throbbing head. She let the water rain down on her, forcing all thoughts of Agastya and the way she kept humiliating herself in front of him away.
Feeling mildly refreshed, she forced herself back into her dirty clothes, grimacing at the itchy, unclean feeling it gave her. She scrubbed at her hair with a towel to remove the excess water and let it fall in a damp sheet down her back. Taking a deep breath, she hauled the bathroom door open and left her self-declared sanctuary.
Hopefully, Agastya had left. She peeked around the wall and into the hall that had been her bedroom for the night. Her hopes crash-landed at her feet, smashed into a million smithereens.
He sat in a corner chair, one leg crossed over the other, the ankle of one resting on the other knee. His fingers tapped out an irritated rhythm against his thigh. His strong, corded thigh. Veda smothered the wave of lust that swept through her and stepped into the room.
Harsh Kodela looked up at her entrance, his red-rimmed and tired eyes brightening at the sight of her. Her partner-in-crime looked as rough as she felt.
“Hey you!” he exclaimed, his infectious and permanent good cheer making her smile. Harsh was adorable. A bit out of control, but still, adorable.
“Hey,” she replied, ruffling his hair as she walked past him to an empty seat. Agastya’s dark, brooding gaze tracked her innocent gesture like he was a bloodhound with a scent.
“Go get dressed, Harsh,” he snapped now. “We need to get home.”
“No.” Harsh blew a raspberry with his lips. “And what’s wrong with what I’m wearing anyway?”
He was wearing boxer shorts and nothing else, Veda noted, camouflaging her smile before Agastya exploded.
“Harsh-“
Whatever Agastya had been about to say was cut off by his Personal Assistant, Ganesh, walking in. The man looked indescribably tense, even his safari suit seeming to bristle with tension.
“Sir,” he murmured. “There is something you need to see.”
