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“There you are,” she murmured, her palm going to cup his cheek. He closed his eyes and turned his face into the caress, his heart turning over. “There’s the man I fell in love with. I’ve missed him.”
His heart stilled, his guilt rearing its ever-present head. Not wanting to go down the road this conversation was taking them, he asked, “Do you want to try this again?”
“This?” she asked, her voice low and soft, a gentle stroke against his soul.
“Dress for the event. I need to as well.”
“So maybe we can do it together?” she asked, a teasing glint entering her eyes.
He looked at her sternly. “We are supposed to leave in the next five minutes.”
Veda pulled out a handful of pins from her bun, allowing her hair to fall loose over her shoulders.
“Then I suppose,” she said huskily. “We need to be quick.”
Agastya groaned, his hand tunnelling through the glorious mass of her hair, clenching at her nape.
“You’re a menace,” he muttered.
Veda laughed, a throaty sound. To his eternal regret, she stopped tempting him and stood. “I’ll go get ready. Would a brocade salwar kameez work? High neck and full sleeves but fitted to look classy and elegant?”
He nodded, arousal making it hard to form coherent words. She almost made it to the bathroom door before he spoke.
“Veda?”
She turned slightly, her beautiful face in profile, lit by the yellow glow of the bathroom light.
“I’m sorry.”
Her hand vised on the doorjamb, her face tightening. “I should ask you what you’re apologising for, Agastya, but I won’t.”
He rose to his feet, watching her. “Why not?” he asked. She should be demanding an apology from him, making him pay. She should be extracting her pound of flesh, one way or another.
“Because I’m scared of the answer.” She still didn’t look at him. “I’m scared to accept what my heart already knows. I want to live in denial.”
“That night-“
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she interrupted.
“Veda, we have to talk about it,” he shot right back.
“We’re already late. We don’t have time for this.” And with that, she slipped into the bathroom, shutting the door in his face.
Leaving him alone with his guilty conscience and shattered moral compass.
Twenty-Two
VEDA
“Again!” Guruma ordered.
Sweat dripping from her brow, Veda took her spot in the center of the stage. Every muscle, every bone in her body groaned in protest but she forced it into compliance.
Music swelled and the other dancers swung into their steps around her. Veda held her pose, not a muscle moving until she heard her cue and she spun into a twirl, her kurta flaring out around her.
She was seconds into her performance when the music cut out and an ominous silence filled their practice hall. Guruma’s silence always screamed louder than her rage.
“I have chosen to teach idiots, it seems,” she said finally, her voice dangerously quiet. “Idiots with no sense of rhythm.”
