AllFreeNovel
Share Us
But whatever he thought Raashi would do disappeared from his mind when he caught sight of her. The dress looked like liquid smoke as it hugged her curves. She had curves, lush, smooth curves! Where the fuck had she been hiding them till now?
Her short hair with startling red highlights, skated along her jawline framing her face and falling in light waves till just below her shoulders. It was a dramatic change from the heavy braid she usually sported.
Cheat day, he thought dazedly. Today could be his cheat day. Did that mean he could…She looked…she looked…Words failed him.
“What the fuck did you do to yourself?”
Would you look at that? All words hadn’t failed him. Just the right ones had.
Raashi stiffened, her eyes flaring with anger. “What the fuck is your problem?” she hissed back at him.
“Ooooh. Sick burn, Viper,” he sneered, feeling like some kind of hobgoblin had taken control of his tongue.
His gaze swept over her, a swarm of butterflies taking flight inside him. No, not butterflies. Bugs, creepy crawlies. Bees, big stinging bees. That’s what they were.
His eyes narrowed on her. “Where are your glasses? Can you even see the guests who’ve come without them?”
Raashi opened her mouth to answer but he spoke over her. “Our families have invited some of the biggest power players in the country for this party. The protocol and etiquette involved in every conversation tonight is going to be a mindfuck without adding you not being able to see the people involved to the fucking mess.”
Silence descended on them. Belatedly, he realised Agastya had joined Veda and the two of them were gaping at him like he’d grown a second head. He probably had or why would he be sweating so hard? Harsh wiped his sleeve over his damp forehead.
“Since when do you care about protocol and etiquette?” Agastya asked, his voice careful and even like he was trying to calm a spooked horse.
“What’s the point of all this then?” Harsh gestured wildly to the whole, extravagant spectacle around them. “Isn’t this engagement about the families’ reputations and ensuring that everyone’s business and political stars keep rising?”
“No.” Veda frowned, looking completely baffled. “It’s about your rabid fans attacking Raashi and whitewashing your reputation so you get your dream role.”
Oh right. Harsh could feel his shirt sticking to his back beneath his blazer. He pulled the blazer off and tossed it on to a chair.
“I’m wearing contacts.” Raashi spoke for the first time since his meltdown began. “I can see you and your ugly, red face just fine. And I do believe the protocol in dealing with an ass is to ensure he stops braying first.”
A muffled snicker escaped Veda.
“My face is not ugly.” Harsh’s mental groan was loud enough to drown out everything else. Was that all he had in his verbal arsenal?
“You look like the flaming face emoji on the phone,” Agastya interjected helpfully. “That’s pretty ugly.”
“How would you know? You don’t even know where the emojis are on a phone.” Great. He’d devolved into a six-year-old. Wonderful. Raashi and her smoke dress had officially fried his brain.
“Veda! Agastya!” Suryakanth Kodela waved them over and the two useless traitors left.
They left him alone with this Smoke Siren. How could they? How the hell could they abandon him like this?
“You’re an idiot,” she observed, her cheeks tinged with bright red splotches.
“Well spotted,” he told her acidly. “But I’m not the only idiot here tonight.”
Raashi glared at him, her finger going to her nose to push her glasses up before remembering that she wasn’t wearing them anymore. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded.
“What did you do all this for?” He waved his hand around in front of her, trying to encapsulate the whole of her startling, bees inducing transformation.
“I wanted to look different,” she snapped, crossing her hands in front of her chest, a move that pushed her cleavage up higher, closer to his line of sight.
Harsh immediately trained his eyes to look over her head. “Different,” he scoffed. “You didn’t need to look different. You looked just fine before this.”
“Well, I wanted to look better than fine, jackass.”
“There was nothing wrong with how you looked!”
