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Someone knocked on the door and Raashi snarled, “Go away.”
“It’s me.” Priyanka’s voice came through the door.
Raashi looked at Veda for permission to open the door and she nodded. Priyanka stepped in, her eyes huge in her face.
“What the fuck was that?” she asked, unconsciously echoing Raashi’s question. “Did you guys have a fight or something?”
Veda laughed bitterly. “We need to talk to fight.”
“Then what happened?” Priyanka looked from Raashi to Veda.
“I don’t know,” Veda said slowly. “But I’m going to find out.”
Nineteen
AGASTYA
The wedding reception that evening had felt a lot like getting stabbed in the eye with an ice pick. Agastya glared at the mass of people who’d apparently turned up to wish him and his blushing bride well. Except, his bride looked more murderous than blushing and Agastya had a feeling she had a knife with his name on it hidden somewhere in the voluminous lehenga she wore.
He honestly didn’t blame her if she did. He’d been a complete ass to her…and on their wedding day.
He absentmindedly accepted someone’s congratulations, his glance alighting on Harsh who was speaking to a couple of ministers from the opposition party. As he watched the men laugh and pat Harsh on the back, he realised that his younger brother, who was known for not giving a shit about politics or networking was actually doing a better job of it than Agastya was.
And this wedding was supposed to be the networking event of the decade.
He waited a beat for the ambition bled into his very bones to kick in … but nothing. All he wanted to do was sneak another look at his bride to see if she still looked like she wanted to slice his balls off.
And then Ganesh stepped on to the stage, his gaze lasering into Agastya’s from the expanse of the dais. He was already moving even before his aide opened his mouth to say anything.
“You got it?” Agastya asked, hope rising inside him.
Ganesh shook his head. Agastya ran his hand through his hair, frustration battling with anger in every cell of his body.
“Then what?” He knew Ganesh wouldn’t interrupt the reception without a valid reason.
“There’s some chatter in the online forums. A conspiracy theory about Ashrayam.”
Agastya narrowed his eyes at Ganesh even as his mother called out to him from the back of the stage. Ashrayam was his pet project, through which he hoped to convert government schools into residential schools of a standard and caliber to rival private schools. He hoped to offer the children of their state, not only free, quality education but a safe and clean home to receive it in. He hoped to give them their childhood back.
“What conspiracy theory?” he asked, holding up an imperious hand to silence his mother who was calling out to him again.
“They think you took the pandemic fund to finance it.”
Rage roared through him, the likes of which he’d rarely felt. He lowered his raised hand slowly, his mind clearing on the heels of the fury that burnt through it.
“Kill it,” he told Ganesh.
Ganesh nodded slowly.
“I want the chatter gone. Do whatever you need to do to make it happen.” He shot his cuffs and adjusted his suit jacket before walking back to where Veda stood, looking a little lost in the middle of the crowd of people waiting to speak with them. He needed to get his head out of his arse, shove his guilt into a locked box in his mind for the time being and do what was expected of him.
“Namaste Ramesh Garu.” He bent to touch the older political leader’s feet before doing the same for his wife. Beside him Veda followed suit, taking her cue from him.
Agastya straightened, his smile in place. Drawing on every ounce of charisma and political acumen he’d garnered over the years, he worked the conversation to pass on the message that was needed.
Their party was innocent of any wrongdoing, the scandal was a thing of the past, and his marriage was just the icing on a cake with zero imperfections. His mind worked with laser like precision to slice through idle chatter, ferret out unsaid connotations to seemingly innocent conversations, and finally to set the record straight without once addressing it directly.
Beside him Veda smiled and nodded, to the outsider a perfect bride. Only he read the taut tension in her slim body and the body language that radiated her displeasure with his very existence in that moment.
