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“I don’t have an excuse,” he said finally. “I did what I had to do to survive. It’s what I know, what I’ve learned even before I learned the alphabet. I’m sorry, so fucking sorry that I hurt you. But I can’t be sorry for something that brought you into my life, for something that brought me you.”
“I don’t need an excuse. I need an explanation.”
Agastya sighed, his head falling forward, pain and self-loathing darkening his voice. “It was supposed to be a simple plan. I knew you had a crush on me. It was obvious.”
Veda blushed, a fiery red.
“Don’t,” he said tenderly. “Don’t be ashamed of it. Your feelings for me have been the single most defining thing in my life. There is nothing I treasure more.”
“And yet, you used it against me,” she reminded him.
“I did,” he accepted roughly, his hand cupping her cheek, unable to resist touching her. “I’m a bastard.”
Veda didn’t bother to refute the claim, both of them knowing that it wasn’t baseless.
“Your father has always had a bit of an axe to grind when it came to our family. I was tired of it. I wanted to silence the endless hatchet stories that City News kept publishing. I used you to do it. Or rather, I tried to. It’s fairly obvious that the plan failed,” he said drily.
Veda smiled, a bitter twist of her lips. “My father loves nothing and no one more than the news.”
“I thought I was exactly like him. I thought that I loved nothing and no one more than my family and its political legacy.” He stared at her, his gaze roving over her face like he was committing her features to memory. “I was wrong. I have never loved anyone or anything the way I love you, Veda. As far as I am concerned, the whole world could hang in the balance but to pick a side, all I need to know is which side you’re on. My place is by your side, always.”
She swallowed hard, tears rising to the surface.
“You have to forgive me,” he said, intensity roughening his voice as he leaned forward in his chair. “You have to, Veda. I don’t know how to live without you anymore.”
“I don’t think I know how to live without you either,” she murmured.
He pressed his forehead to hers, his heart shuddering in his chest. “Please don’t ever learn how to. I won’t survive losing you.”
“I forgave you a while back, Agastya. I grew up in a family of ruthless men. I always swore to myself that I wouldn’t allow myself to be used by them. And then I went ahead and did exactly that because I wanted you for myself so badly. The depth of that stupidity is what I’m struggling with. So, I think the person I really need to forgive now is myself.”
“For what?” He pulled back enough to glare at her. “You’re perfect.”
“Just declaring that with all of your Kodela arrogance won’t make it true,” she told him acidly.
“Yes, it will,” he said firmly, pulling her into his lap. “Tell me what to do to make it better and I’ll do it. Anything. Just tell me.”
She curled up against him, drawing her legs closer to her chest. “This. Just do this.”
“Get drunk and hallucinate you?” he asked dryly.
She laughed softly. “Just hold me. Stay with me. Love me.”
“That I can do.” He kissed her smiling lips. “That I could spend an eternity doing.”
“Forgive me?” he asked.
“Already have,” she whispered. “Love me?”
“Always,” he told her. “There isn’t a moment in this lifetime when I won’t.”
“I love you Agastya Kodela.”
“I love you Mrs. Veda Kodela.”
“There’s my pookiebear,” she grinned.
Agastya put his mind to kissing that grin off her face and it was a while before either of them thought of uttering another word.
