Raj was a healthy male in his prime, but he’d never had trouble controlling his sexuality. He’d always had very little sympathy for men brought low by their urges. Well, the joke was on him, because Nayna Sharma could bring him to his knees with her mouth alone… and he wasn’t sure he liked that. No woman should have that much power over a man.
It made the man far too vulnerable.
“You hungry?” he asked gruffly.
They didn’t have a chance to really speak again until they were sitting down with their meals—both of them had chosen sandwiches, though hers was considerably smaller than his.
“Will that be enough?” Nayna frowned. “Don’t tell me that’s all you eat doing such a physical job?”
Raj felt warmth stab at him, and it unsettled him all over again how quickly she was getting under his skin. Nayna was even more dangerous to him than he’d believed.
* * *
“I eat about every two hours when I’m physically on a site.” Raj’s face was unsmiling and hard to read, his words almost curt. “I have to spend one day per week in the office to take care of business matters, but I like working on builds much better.”
Nayna nodded. “It’d be a waste of incredible skill if you didn’t.” She’d looked up their company website, seen the jobs on which he’d been listed as the head builder; as she’d experienced herself, Raj was gifted with his hands.
Her skin tingled, and she had to force herself back from falling victim to her physical reaction to him. Wearing a dusty T-shirt and with tumbled hair, his jaw scruffy again, Raj was bone-meltingly gorgeous; it took exquisite control not to crawl across the table and kiss him with slow, deep intensity. “I thought you’d decided against an arranged match?” she said, her voice husky.
He held her gaze with the penetrating darkness of his. “I didn’t think it was fair to meet other women when I was haunted by a woman in a skintight dress who only wanted me for my body.”
Cheeks hot, Nayna deliberately took a giant bite of her sandwich. Raj didn’t fill the taut silence with words—he was, she thought, a man comfortable with silences. Finally swallowing the bite and taking a sip of water to wash it down, she decided he deserved the truth. “You were meant to be my wild fling before I settled down into marriage with a stranger.”
A raised eyebrow followed by the faintest hint of a smile. “I wouldn’t have thought I’d qualify as a wild fling.”
Now that she knew him, she understood why: he was too intense, took things dead seriously, and oh that was far more intriguing than a brainless hunk. “Trust me,” she whispered, “you qualified for me.”
Their eyes locked again, the air still.
Hand closing into a fist on the table, Raj said, “I want to marry you.”
The stark words reverberated inside Nayna’s skull, leaving her without a response.
“I can’t get you out of my head,” he added, not sounding exactly happy about that. “Marriage would let us explore our physical connection without boundaries.”
Nayna frowned. “Such romance.”
A grim look in return. “We’re adults, Nayna. Romance is for children,” he said in a tone that was as hard as stone. “And you’re unlikely to get a better offer. Your sister’s affair with a postgrad student before she ran off with another man is well known in the community.”
Nayna’s ears burned. The affair with a married man wasn’t something any of them ever talked about, but it lay at the root of all the anguish Madhuri had caused her family. At the time, that master’s student had been a member of the local Indian community too. As had been his wife and toddler son.
It was the wife who’d turned up at the Sharma residence, sobbing her heart out after discovering evidence of the affair on her husband’s phone. Madhuri, a new university student at the time, when confronted about the affair, had yelled that she was in love.
“My sister was eighteen and a half. He was twenty-four. He should’ve known better.” Madhuri wasn’t innocent, had been old enough to make the right decision, but Nayna refused to allow the world to cast her in the role of villainess.
“Agreed,” Raj said unexpectedly. “He was the married one, the one who cheated. But you know how the world works—everyone blames your sister, and that’s a stain against your family name.” His tone remained hard, unbending. “You’re not going to get many marriage offers. It’s not fair, but people assume you’ll be as fickle and disloyal as her.”
Nayna’s hand clenched around her water glass, her vision red. “Are you offering to marry me despite that stain?”
“Yes. We have excellent chemistry, and the rest we can work out.”
It was a struggle not to throw the water in his face, but Nayna wasn’t about to make a scene. Not for him. “Thank you for your oh-so-kind offer to save me from the curse of singledom,” she said very precisely, “but given that you’ve just insulted my entire family, implied that I’m so undesirable I won’t be able to find a man who wants me despite the ‘stain’ on my family name, and acted with the emotional IQ of a block of wood, I’d rather die a shriveled-up old virgin than let you anywhere near me.”
12
Nayna’s Secret Diary (Angry Red-Ink Day)
Things that happened today:
* * *
I found out Raj is an ASS.
I came home at nine thirty so no one could grill me about that stupid lunch. I should’ve thrown the water in his face, scene or no scene.
Madhuri got two more offers of marriage. “Stain” on our family name, my posterior.
My body still gets wet thinking about him. My body is an idiot.
Oh fuck! I just realized I told Raj I was a virgin. Great. Just great.
13
Someone Is Getting Naked (Oooooooh)
Nayna was still fuming when she met Ísa for brunch on Friday morning, but she didn’t want to put a damper on her friend’s birthday so kept the topic of Raj off the table. When Ísa brought him up, she just said, “He’s an idiot and I’m not ready to talk about it.”
“You sound like you want to bite his head off,” Ísa commented.
Nayna growled under her breath. “No comment. Is Catie all right?” Ísa’s younger sister had ended up in the hospital earlier this week.
“She bounces back like a rabbit,” Ísa said proudly. “Tough as nails, that’s my Catie.” She ate a bite of the cake Nayna’s mother had made. “Since the topic of the hunk is off the table, how about you give me the scoop on that wedding you mentioned.”
“It’s going to be a big, fat, OTT Indian shindig,” Nayna told her best friend, delighted to have an utterly innocuous topic on which to focus. “You know Pinky? You met her at that festival we went to.”
“Gold girl?”
“Yes, that’s her.” Pinky Mehra never left home without layers of gold and diamonds. “They hired a white horse for the groom to ride in on. And there’s a tabla band direct from India.” She drummed against the table using the flat of her hands. “Oh, and the bride’s wedding suit features thousands of hand-sewn crystals—store-bought ‘just wouldn’t do.’ Makeup artist flown in from Los Angeles because ‘no one in New Zealand understands the latest trends.’”
It made the man far too vulnerable.
“You hungry?” he asked gruffly.
They didn’t have a chance to really speak again until they were sitting down with their meals—both of them had chosen sandwiches, though hers was considerably smaller than his.
“Will that be enough?” Nayna frowned. “Don’t tell me that’s all you eat doing such a physical job?”
Raj felt warmth stab at him, and it unsettled him all over again how quickly she was getting under his skin. Nayna was even more dangerous to him than he’d believed.
* * *
“I eat about every two hours when I’m physically on a site.” Raj’s face was unsmiling and hard to read, his words almost curt. “I have to spend one day per week in the office to take care of business matters, but I like working on builds much better.”
Nayna nodded. “It’d be a waste of incredible skill if you didn’t.” She’d looked up their company website, seen the jobs on which he’d been listed as the head builder; as she’d experienced herself, Raj was gifted with his hands.
Her skin tingled, and she had to force herself back from falling victim to her physical reaction to him. Wearing a dusty T-shirt and with tumbled hair, his jaw scruffy again, Raj was bone-meltingly gorgeous; it took exquisite control not to crawl across the table and kiss him with slow, deep intensity. “I thought you’d decided against an arranged match?” she said, her voice husky.
He held her gaze with the penetrating darkness of his. “I didn’t think it was fair to meet other women when I was haunted by a woman in a skintight dress who only wanted me for my body.”
Cheeks hot, Nayna deliberately took a giant bite of her sandwich. Raj didn’t fill the taut silence with words—he was, she thought, a man comfortable with silences. Finally swallowing the bite and taking a sip of water to wash it down, she decided he deserved the truth. “You were meant to be my wild fling before I settled down into marriage with a stranger.”
A raised eyebrow followed by the faintest hint of a smile. “I wouldn’t have thought I’d qualify as a wild fling.”
Now that she knew him, she understood why: he was too intense, took things dead seriously, and oh that was far more intriguing than a brainless hunk. “Trust me,” she whispered, “you qualified for me.”
Their eyes locked again, the air still.
Hand closing into a fist on the table, Raj said, “I want to marry you.”
The stark words reverberated inside Nayna’s skull, leaving her without a response.
“I can’t get you out of my head,” he added, not sounding exactly happy about that. “Marriage would let us explore our physical connection without boundaries.”
Nayna frowned. “Such romance.”
A grim look in return. “We’re adults, Nayna. Romance is for children,” he said in a tone that was as hard as stone. “And you’re unlikely to get a better offer. Your sister’s affair with a postgrad student before she ran off with another man is well known in the community.”
Nayna’s ears burned. The affair with a married man wasn’t something any of them ever talked about, but it lay at the root of all the anguish Madhuri had caused her family. At the time, that master’s student had been a member of the local Indian community too. As had been his wife and toddler son.
It was the wife who’d turned up at the Sharma residence, sobbing her heart out after discovering evidence of the affair on her husband’s phone. Madhuri, a new university student at the time, when confronted about the affair, had yelled that she was in love.
“My sister was eighteen and a half. He was twenty-four. He should’ve known better.” Madhuri wasn’t innocent, had been old enough to make the right decision, but Nayna refused to allow the world to cast her in the role of villainess.
“Agreed,” Raj said unexpectedly. “He was the married one, the one who cheated. But you know how the world works—everyone blames your sister, and that’s a stain against your family name.” His tone remained hard, unbending. “You’re not going to get many marriage offers. It’s not fair, but people assume you’ll be as fickle and disloyal as her.”
Nayna’s hand clenched around her water glass, her vision red. “Are you offering to marry me despite that stain?”
“Yes. We have excellent chemistry, and the rest we can work out.”
It was a struggle not to throw the water in his face, but Nayna wasn’t about to make a scene. Not for him. “Thank you for your oh-so-kind offer to save me from the curse of singledom,” she said very precisely, “but given that you’ve just insulted my entire family, implied that I’m so undesirable I won’t be able to find a man who wants me despite the ‘stain’ on my family name, and acted with the emotional IQ of a block of wood, I’d rather die a shriveled-up old virgin than let you anywhere near me.”
12
Nayna’s Secret Diary (Angry Red-Ink Day)
Things that happened today:
* * *
I found out Raj is an ASS.
I came home at nine thirty so no one could grill me about that stupid lunch. I should’ve thrown the water in his face, scene or no scene.
Madhuri got two more offers of marriage. “Stain” on our family name, my posterior.
My body still gets wet thinking about him. My body is an idiot.
Oh fuck! I just realized I told Raj I was a virgin. Great. Just great.
13
Someone Is Getting Naked (Oooooooh)
Nayna was still fuming when she met Ísa for brunch on Friday morning, but she didn’t want to put a damper on her friend’s birthday so kept the topic of Raj off the table. When Ísa brought him up, she just said, “He’s an idiot and I’m not ready to talk about it.”
“You sound like you want to bite his head off,” Ísa commented.
Nayna growled under her breath. “No comment. Is Catie all right?” Ísa’s younger sister had ended up in the hospital earlier this week.
“She bounces back like a rabbit,” Ísa said proudly. “Tough as nails, that’s my Catie.” She ate a bite of the cake Nayna’s mother had made. “Since the topic of the hunk is off the table, how about you give me the scoop on that wedding you mentioned.”
“It’s going to be a big, fat, OTT Indian shindig,” Nayna told her best friend, delighted to have an utterly innocuous topic on which to focus. “You know Pinky? You met her at that festival we went to.”
“Gold girl?”
“Yes, that’s her.” Pinky Mehra never left home without layers of gold and diamonds. “They hired a white horse for the groom to ride in on. And there’s a tabla band direct from India.” She drummed against the table using the flat of her hands. “Oh, and the bride’s wedding suit features thousands of hand-sewn crystals—store-bought ‘just wouldn’t do.’ Makeup artist flown in from Los Angeles because ‘no one in New Zealand understands the latest trends.’”
