Page 43 of The Promise of a Traitor

Advik looked over to where she stood, smiling brightly at his cousin. There had been a time when she’d smiled at him like that. His heart ached for a chance to see that smile turned on him again.

Aastha glanced over at him, her smile fading but her eyes still warm and happy. “Thank you Adi. Thank you for doing this for me.”

This isn’t all he wanted to do for her. He wanted to do more, to do everything. And that settled the question in his head. He didn’t want revenge anymore. He wanted a do-over.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Aastha

Rehaan Bakshi was a revelation in the kitchen. For a self-taught chef, he was wildly inventive and compulsively exploratory. There wasn’t a recipe the man looked at and didn’t decide to push the envelope on.

“What got you interested in baking?” she asked him, as she worked on her cake beside him.

Rehaan shrugged, crouching by the oven to check on his biscuits. “I am interested in a lot of things. A bit of a jack of all trades, master of none.”

“You’re a master of this one,” she said lightly, sensing the undertone to his words.

“For now,” he straightened, tossing a hand towel over his shoulders. “Vik said his mother will send a couple of her helpers over so we’ll have some extra hands.”

Aastha exhaled hard, putting down her piping bag. “I cannot tell you how grateful I am for everything you and your family are doing for me. You’re literally saving my life. If there is anything, anything at all, I can do for any of you, you just have to ask.”

“Actually,” Rehaan said casually, picking up a knife and tossing it deftly in one hand, “there is something.”

“Name it.” Aastha leaned against the counter and met his gaze.

“Adi.”

The name was enough to have her smile disappearing. She knew what was coming.

“I know you guys have history,” Rehaan said, his own ever present smile nowhere in sight. “My family’s grapevine is legendary and the gossip vaults leak like a sieve.”

“Say what you want to say,” she murmured, “but please put the knife down while you do it. I don’t want my saviour slicing his hand open.”

He placed it gently on the counter top, picked up her piping bag and gently nudged her aside. He started making the little daisies she’d been working on, his big hands looking way too rough for such delicate work.

“I remember what Adi looked like when he came back from New York. He was a mess. But it wasn’t the mess that worried the family. It was the fact that he cut himself off from everyone. He wouldn’t let any of us in. Nothing mattered to him anymore. No one mattered.”

Rehaan piped on another perfect, little daisy. “My brother is the quietest of us all but his emotions…they scream the loudest. He loves the deepest, his loyalty is unshakable, and his heart…once it’s yours, he never takes it back.”

Aastha blinked, the burn of sudden tears making it hard to see what he was doing with her cake.

“Imagine what it takes to make someone like that stop caring.”

She stared at the knife he’d put down. Maybe she needed to pick it up…

“But I guess he didn’t stop caring, did he?” Rehaan piped on the last daisy, gently setting the piping bag aside. “I’m the last person to be giving anyone advice,” he sighed. “I’ve fucked up plenty in the past. But, Aastha,” he looked over at her, “if you ever put that look in my brother’s eyes again, I’m going to have put salt in the tarts or something.”

“Is that the worst you’ve got,” she asked with a watery chuckle. “Salt in the tarts?”

“Salt in the tarts would be sacrilege,” he informed her seriously. “Especially on Willy Wonka day.”

Aastha smiled sadly. “Hurting your brother was never my choice. I have no excuse or explanation for what happened. I can only apologise.”

Rehaan looked at her thoughtfully. “Can you promise that it won’t happen again?”

Aastha nodded. “I will never walk away from Advik again. If this ends, it will be because he ended it. Not me.”

The kitchen door opened and Advik appeared, “I have to go to work but-“ He frowned, his gaze going from Aastha’s teary face to Rehaan’s grim one. “What’s going on? Reh!” His irate gaze lit on his brother who had his trademark smirk in place. “What the fuck did you do?”