A girl could hope.
“Yes,” her mother said, breaking into her thoughts. “Your father’s given permission for you two to talk alone for a few minutes right at the start.” A delighted smile as she fussed with the dupatta again. “Gaurav’s very impressed with this young man—he’s running a big family business, and so well that his parents retired early and spend half the year in Fiji! And he’s only twenty-seven!”
“He’s younger than me?”
“Only by less than six months.” She pushed again. “Go, go.”
This was worse than she’d believed. Her parents liked him. Enough to drop the supervision requirement. And he clearly wasn’t stupid if he was running a business, so ísa’s wonderfully devious plan wasn’t going to work. It was up to Nayna. She’d have to pull every trick in the book to nip this in the bud. Maybe she’d pick her nose during tea and snacks time.
Buoyed by the idea, she made her way to the kitchen, then stepped through the doorway between kitchen and lounge. He was standing with his back to her, staring out the large front window. And he was big. Tall. Wide shoulders. Heavily—beautifully—muscled under the simple white shirt and black pants.
He had a body like Raj. And his cologne… it was so deliciously familiar.
Nayna’s throat dried up, her heart hammering.
9
Welcome to the Nightmare of Awkwardness
For a moment Nayna’s head spun. But this wasn’t Raj. White collar was strictly nonnegotiable with her parents. And this man ran a business, wasn’t a construction worker who used his hands to create magic out of nothing.
“Um, hi,” she said awkwardly while continuing to plan how to horrify him. If her parents liked him, she’d have to get him to do the rejecting. It would be tricky to pull off her actions without being spotted by her parents, but she was patient—she’d wait until the elders were engaged in conversation, then put her mind to making the guy run.
“This is difficult, but I don’t want to mislead you,” he said without turning around. “My parents set up this meet last minute before I could tell them I was pulling out of having an arranged marriage because—”
Horror curdled her stomach as his voice, deep and a little rough, sank in… and that was when he turned around. Frozen silence, the air molecules glittering ice.
“I thought your name was Nayna?” It came out a growl, Raj’s big body held with taut control.
“Middle name. Everyone uses it.” Her parents must’ve introduced her using her official first name: Heera. Why they did that, she had no idea—they always ended up explaining that they only ever referred to her as Nayna because Heera was her aji’s name and they didn’t think it was respectful to use it when Aji might think they were calling her by name.
Raj just stared at her, a nerve jumping in his clean-shaven jaw and his shoulders bunched under the crisp lines of his shirt.
Nayna opened her mouth to explain—though she didn’t know what she’d say—when there was a perfunctory knock on the main door into the lounge and her father walked in. “Family time now,” he said with a smile. “You two can have plenty of time to talk later.”
He’d never smiled at any of the others!
Oh God.
Raj’s parents walked in behind Nayna’s father, with her own mother coming in from the kitchen with Aji.
Nayna somehow managed to keep it together through the introductions before squeaking out something about getting the tea and scuttling back to the kitchen. Where she dug out the paper bag she’d thrown in the recycling basket and tried to relearn how to breathe.
* * *
Raj kept his face civil and pleasant through sheer force of will, while inside, his emotions rocketed from one extreme to another. He’d walked into the room determined to be honest and ensure he didn’t create an unintended victim to his decision to not meet anyone until he’d tracked down the temptress who’d left him high and dry on Saturday night.
He’d known she was all wrong for him the instant she’d told him she was a chartered accountant. A woman that qualified wouldn’t want to be a homemaker, wouldn’t want to be the kind of wife Raj had always envisioned having. But he hadn’t been able to pull away from her and the sweet passion of her kiss, the way she’d touched him as if he was her favorite treat in all the world.
He didn’t know her, but he’d wanted to—there’d been a spark of something between them that niggled at him. Pulling the plug on his parents’ search to find him a wife hadn’t even been a question after that point. He’d been determined to find his infuriating mystery woman and… Raj hadn’t known what he was going to do to Nayna, but he’d known he had to answer the question of whether his reaction to her had been nothing but lust… or more. He was too honest to lead on other women while obsessed with one who’d only wanted him for his body.
Fate sure had a warped sense of humor.
His gut clenched… and his cock threatened to twitch. Fuck. He might remain furious with Nayna, but he wanted her as badly as he had that night. A single look at her, a single whisper of her scent reaching him across the room, and he had to fight the urge to haul her into his arms and slam his mouth down over hers.
“Yes, I enjoy my work,” he said, having somehow managed to keep track of the conversation though his eyes wanted to lock onto the door through which his sneaky little rabbit had disappeared. “I grew up learning to build with Dad, and I’ve never wanted to do anything else.”
Mr. Sharma, who’d apparently become friendly with Raj’s father after running into him at a regional soccer game, smiled. “It’s a big responsibility to run such a large company. Your parents are justifiably proud of you.”
Raj was well aware his status as the company boss was the only reason he was considered an acceptable match for their accountant daughter. He wasn’t insulted. That was the way things were—parents tried to match up their kids on multiple levels, including their work. When a cousin of his, a dentist, had gone the arranged-marriage route, his introductions had been mostly to nurses, pharmacists, other dentists, and scientists. Funnily enough, it had been the rogue pick—a lawyer—who’d stolen his heart.
The two were sickeningly happy together. Their happiness was another reason Raj had decided to let his parents have a shot at setting him up with women. But he’d been very open with them from the start—he’d marry the woman he chose and that was nonnegotiable. Raj had no intention of ending up unwanted and unloved ever again. Of course, his folks seemed to have gone totally off script with this introduction.
Not that Raj was complaining: they’d done him a favor. Otherwise, he’d planned to ask Tara about the sexy woman in the skintight dress who’d been a guest at her party. The woman who’d caused him more than one sleepless night and probably a few layers of tooth enamel from the way he gritted his teeth every time he thought about her last words to him at the party.
“Oh, he was running things when he was barely twenty-three,” his father said jovially with a slap to his knee. “Got the business brain.” A tap to his temple. “My side of the family.”
Raj’s heart ached. Never once had Jitesh Sen made him feel any less his son for being adopted. If Raj’s father had his way, the subject would never come up, but Raj had run across families to whom it did matter that he didn’t know his bloodline, or birth date and time, and never would.