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Clearly still troubled by the whole evening, Priyanka squeezed Raashi’s hands in comfort before stalking over to the car to get in. She threw one last, furious glare at Harsh. He forced a mocking grin to his face. Priyanka slammed the car door shut, leaving Raashi and him standing on the pavement. His guards continued to studiously ignore them, pretending they couldn’t hear every furious word.
“Well then,” he said after a beat of silence. “Have a good dinner. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Do you still want me there?” Her voice was carefully unemotional, but the words had his heart stilling in his chest.
“I don’t give a shit what you get up to tonight, Raashi,” he said, his own voice flat and toneless. It was hard because he did give a shit. He gave a fucking truckload full of shit. “But you’ll be at the mandap tomorrow, on time and with a big, fat, fucking smile on your face. You will marry me, Raashi Gadde. We had a deal and you won’t renege. I won’t allow it. You’ll come to the mandap willingly or I’ll drag you there, kicking and screaming.”
“No.” Her pale, set face didn’t waver. “You won’t.”
Her confidence in him would have been heartwarming if it hadn’t been so farcical.
“Don’t be so sure,” he warned, a dark fury overtaking his common sense.
“You don’t need to worry, Harsh. I’ll be there. I don’t renege. Not on anything.”
They stared at each other, rage, hurt, guilt, confusion, a toxic mess of emotions swirling in the air around them.
Until finally, Harsh broke eye contact and stepped towards the car. His bodyguard held the car door open.
“Harsh,” she called out. “You asked me what had changed.”
He looked to the side, his face in profile, listening but unwilling to look back. He had a strange feeling that if he did, he wouldn’t find it in him to leave.
“Everything, Harsh,” she said softly. “Everything has changed. Every single thing.”
The truth of her declaration sliced through the armour around his heart, shattering it into unfixable shards. Harsh got into the car, slamming the door behind him with trembling fingers. He didn’t look back. He couldn’t. There was only so much a man had the strength for. And he’d hit his limit for the night.
Thirty-Eight
RAASHI
People believed your wedding day is the most important day of your life. Raashi believed it was an important day but only because it was the start of a whole new life for her. Not in the traditional sense but in a far more fundamental, freeing sense. Raashi Kodela would do everything Raashi Gadde never could. She watched her reflection in the full-length mirror as her sister leaned in to put a black dot on her cheek, to ward off people’s evil eye.
She wondered if the warding off could be customized. The scene from the previous night played like a broken reel in her head. From the ugly scene with Harsh to the uglier one with Anant. The second man had not taken well to her ultimatum or to the threat it came with. Anant didn’t like being threatened. He liked being the one to do the threatening.
A shiver ran down her spine. There was a storm coming. Raashi could almost taste the electricity in the air. She tipped her chin up, studying her reflection. She saw a pale, bloodless creature wrapped in a deep red and gold saree, wide, blank eyes and an unnatural stillness to her body.
An antique gold choker wrapped around her slim neck, huge gold jhumkas hung from her ears, dangling almost to her shoulders. Her mother had the taste and sensibility to always stay on the cutting edge of fashion.
Raashi had never looked better and never felt worse. She’d known she wasn’t marrying for love. But she’d hoped for friendship. Especially in the last few weeks with Harsh. And now, that hope was gone.
There was no friendship left. She’d trampled all over it with her betrayal. His assumption of her betrayal. She pressed her hands together in her lap to conceal their tremors from the women chattering away around her.
She hadn’t betrayed him. Not the way he thought she had. But wasn’t what she’d done a betrayal too? She’d hidden something so large, so vital from him in the hopes of dealing with it herself.
Veda leaned in from behind, wrapping her arms around Raashi and hugging her tight. Raashi didn’t move to hug her back, her eyes on the stranger she saw in the mirror.
Why did it matter to her that she dealt with it on her own? Was it only because she’d always dealt with it on her own? She’d had no champion when she was younger. So, why did she need one now?
Liar.
Her inner voice taunted her, mocking her delusional internal monologue. Raashi watched a slight flush tint her cheeks. She was a liar. She didn’t tell Harsh the truth because she didn’t want him to think poorly of her. She’d been enjoying their new relationship too much to allow for a fall of grace in his eyes.
Sure, the truth didn’t show Anant in a good light. But neither did she shine in that story. And she didn’t want that. She wanted the warmth in Harsh’s eyes when he looked at her to stay. She wanted him to laugh with her, to tease her, to bicker with her…she wanted what they’d shared for a few short weeks to last a lifetime.
A single tear escaped her right eye, sliding down the curve of her cheek and landing in her lap. A dark stain formed on the silk saree, her hand instinctively going to cover it. Veda gently wiped the trail of the tear from her cheek, leaving her hand to rest on Raashi’s shoulder in comfort.
“Harsh is a lovely person, Raash. It’s going to be fine. You’re going to be fine.”
