Page 45 of The Promise of a Traitor

“You’re not a screw up, Reh.”

“I’m not the CEO of the fastest growing AI powered robotics firm either. Fuck!” he blew out a perfectly formed smoke circle. “I don’t even know what that means, what it is you do exactly.”

“Would you like to come down to the office one day and find out?”

He saw Rehaan’s split second hesitation, and then he shook his head, beaming that bright, reckless smile at him. “Nah bro. It’ll all go over my head. Plus I’m gainfully employed for the next few days.” He tipped his head towards the café.

Advik turned back to where Aastha had come to the doorway with Rohan, her handbag over one shoulder. The two were still engaged in serious conversation, neither glancing over to the other side of the road and the men who were watching them.

“I like her.” Rehaan dropped the cigarette butt to the ground and ground it out with his shoe.

“So do I,” Advik murmured.

Rehaan chuckled, low and amused. “Never figured you for being the one who brought the drama.” He clapped a hand on Advik’s shoulder and said, “See you tomorrow.”

Rehaan raised his voice enough for Aastha to glance over at them, her gaze snagging on Advik. She waved to Rehaan and said something to her manager, but it was Advik and Advik alone that she looked at.

He was barely aware of Rehaan leaving, the sound of his bike revving splintering the quiet of the mostly residential street. And then she was walking over to where he stood.

“I thought I’d give you a ride home,” he said, when she reached him. She smelled of sugar and flour and everything yummy. He wanted to take her home and gobble her up like a greedy ogre in a bad fairytale.

“I booked a cab,” she said, holding her phone up and showing him the app tracking the car.

“Cancel it.”

“I’ll lose money.”

Advik exhaled, a tortured sound. “Aastha.”

She cancelled the cab without another word. He held his hand out to her and she placed hers in his, allowing him to lead her to where he’d parked his car. She brushed past him as she slid into the passenger seat and he shut his eyes, praying for control. He closed the door and rounded the car to get in on the other side.

He slid in to the car and started it, pulling out into the road smoothly. He changed gears, sliding into second as he manoeuvred a rather high speed breaker. Aastha’s hand covered his as it clenched around the gear box, her fingers twining with his. His gaze flickered to it before going back to the road, his fingers vising around the gear.

“I’ve missed you.” Her soft admission filled the car, reverberating in his ears like a drumbeat.

Advik swallowed hard before he replied, “I’ve missed you too.”

She lifted their joined hands to her lips, pressing a soft kiss to his knuckles. A tear dropped on to them, a gentle reminder of all the pain and anger that lay between them.

“I never forgot you,” she confessed, her voice raw and broken. “Not for one minute of all these years. I was going to come back, Adi. To New York. To you. Once I’d sorted everything out. But…it didn’t get sorted out. It got worse.”

His hand clenched around hers as more tears flowed, drenching their fingers. He pulled off to the side of a secluded tree lined avenue, unclasping her seat belt and hauling her over the gearbox and into his lap. She came willingly.

He buried his face in the crook of her neck, his arms desperately tightening around her, holding her as close as was humanly possible. She curled into him, holding on just as tightly, almost like she feared she’d disappear again, if he let go.

When their lips met, it was a desperate, almost frantic need to feel each other, to reassure themselves that this was real, to allow themselves the hope of having found each other again. Her tears didn’t stop even when he kissed them away, her name a never ending prayer on his lips.

“I love you,” he breathed, the words a breath of air. “I love you so fucking much.”

Aastha froze in his arms, pulling back just enough for her gaze to take in his shadowed profile. “After all these years?”

“I never stopped,” he confessed. “Not for a single minute. Even when I hated you, I loved you.”

“I love you too,” she said with a watery smile, a fresh waterfall of tears springing from her eyes. “I have loved you forever, Adi. For every second of this endless purgatory, I have loved only you.”

Her hand came up to cup his jaw, to caress his cheek, before she leaned in to kiss him again, softer, more gently.

“What does this mean?” she asked. “For us?”