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It took three cups of my favourite Vienna roast to keep me upright through the long-winded speeches. We were down to the last one before the guests dispersed for lunch.
“Why is it taking so long?” I whined, stroking the fine embroidery on Diya’s sari.
I was so glad the karigar was willing to revive his great-grandmother’s extinct design for the Maharani of Trikhera. He had created a full line of embroidered outfits for Diya’s new design venture, House of Trikhera.
“The Chief Minister certainly has a lot to say about your grandmother,” she said diplomatically.
“He’s just relieved she died before she could come out with her memoirs as she had been threatening to do for the past few years. I’m sure she had a few juicy tales about our CM Sahab’s misspent youth,” I replied with a snort. “But seriously… why is he still droning on about her? She’s not here to hear him.”
“Maybe she is,” murmured Diya, with a shudder. “I wouldn’t put it past her.”
“Oh no! I bet Dadi Sa is already rotting in hell. She was kind of overdue for her appointment there,” I replied with a grin that I hid behind my dupatta before my mother could notice.
After my shenanigans at the funeral, she’d skin me alive if she even caught me smiling at my grandmother’s prayer meeting. She had asked me to squeeze out a few tears if I could, but I just couldn’t do it.
My mother was a kind soul who could put up a decent show of mourning for the old hag who had tortured her when she was alive. Unlike me.
A good princess would shed a few tears over her dead grandmother, but I was sick and tired of being good. And I was never good at being fake anyway. As a child, I had feared Dadi Sa, and I had grown up to hate her with good reason. She made Cruella De Ville look like a fairy godmother and had only brought misery to Ma and me while Baba was alive. After all, like mother, like son.
Ma and I had survived their bullying that bordered on abuse, but I refused to feel anything but relief that we were finally free of both those monsters. Now all I had to do was wait for all these people to disperse before we got down to the main program of the day - the reading of Dadi Sa’s will.
“You’re squirming in your chair like a preschooler,” murmured my best friend-turned-sister-in-law.
“I can’t wait anymore, Diya! I’ve waited for this moment for years,” I replied.
“Are you so eager to leave us, Isha?” asked Diya sadly.
“I’m not leaving anyone,” I corrected with exasperation. “Gulab Mahal is just a short drive away from the palace.”
“But what about when I need a midnight ice cream buddy?” she wailed.
“Kick your husband awake,” I suggested sweetly. “He has to be good for something other than sex.”
“That’s not an option because we fight over the same flavours. You’ll just have to stay, Isha, because I’ll soon be too big to be lumbering around the city in the middle of the night every time I get a craving for pistachio gelato,” she informed me imperiously.
Diya was six months pregnant and had no qualms about leveraging her pregnancy to make me feel guilty for wanting to live my life.
“Nice try, but I’m still moving,” I replied, with a nervous glance at my watch.
When would all these people leave? Didn’t they have lives of their own?
“I could always lock you up in the dungeon,” muttered Diya.
“Lock whom up?” asked a deep voice, and I tensed at the familiar tingle that ran down my spine.
I ignored it and turned to flash a decidedly fake smile at Veer, who had lowered his delicious self into the chair next to mine.
“You,” I said sweetly. “Because the skeleton in our dungeon needs replacing.”
His caramel-coloured eyes flashed with anger at my rudeness and I braced myself for his reply in kind because Veer was a grade-A asshole even on his best days.
Diya glanced at me in surprise because she had never seen me start a fight with her brother. Until recently, I’d done my best to ignore the way he snapped and snarled at me. Not anymore. This new Isha refused to take shit from anyone, especially the high and mighty prince of Jadhwal. I was fully prepared to kick him out of the palace on his grumpy ass if he gave me any grief today.
“If you want to tie me up in your sex dungeon, you only have to ask, Princess,” he murmured meaningfully, and that tingle turned into a full-blown shudder. And my lady bits did a happy dance at the thought of tying Veer up and having my way with him.
I ignored the shudder firmly and ordered my lady bits to shut up and sit down as I pretended to gag.
“Don’t mess with me today, Veer. I’m so stressed that I’ll throw up all over your shoes again if you piss me off,” I threatened and Veer moved his feet away hastily.
