She didn’t care if it was pathetic; she needed a piece of him, needed his scent around her.
Lost afterward, she almost reached for her phone and called ísa. But she wasn’t ready to talk about this, wasn’t ready to put this horrible sense of loss into words. Stuffing some money into her pocket, she walked out the door and toward Franz Josef town instead.
Sugar and carbs would help.
Wouldn’t they?
* * *
Raj returned to the cabin to find it empty. He wasn’t exactly surprised.
Leaving the cabin, he didn’t try to call Nayna but decided to walk into the town instead and see if he could spot her. While it wasn’t a tiny place, it was small enough that he could theoretically find her if he went in the right direction.
After reaching the edge of the commercial area, he saw that the restaurants and cafés were bustling. Plenty of people, most of them tourists and hikers. Way more people than he’d expected, but none of them a slender woman with sleek black hair and subtle curves, her eyes sparkling and her lips generous.
A moment’s thought before he went with his first instinct and aimed himself toward the bakery he’d seen as he drove in. Its sign—painted a bright pink—stood out against the dark green of the forest all around them. Nayna said he didn’t see her, didn’t know her, but Raj listened to everything she said—and the things she didn’t.
He found her seated outside, finishing off a mug of frothy chocolate. When he slid into the seat across from her, she gave him an unreadable look.
“So, when are you leaving?”
Raj’s gut clenched. “I’m not that easy to get rid of,” he said, ready to battle for her.
Lower lip quivering, she ducked her head and his heart, it kicked hard.
“Nayna, jaan.” Ignoring the others around them and driven by raw protectiveness, he moved faster than he’d ever before done. He hauled her up into his arms and cradled her tight, one of his hands cupping the back of her head and his other arm locking around her.
“Don’t cry. Please, Nayna. I’m sorry I left like that.” He’d apologize for anything she wanted if she’d just stop sobbing against him as if he’d walked on her heart with steel-toed boots. “I won’t ever do it again.” He’d been protecting himself, and in so doing, he’d hurt her. “I’ll stay and fight with you.”
A shuddering sniff, words mumbled out against his chest that he had no hope of understanding, she was still crying so much. Raj held her even tighter, shielding her from the curious gazes of others walking in or out of the bakery. It wasn’t too busy, but he didn’t like anyone seeing his tough Nayna brought down so low.
“I told you to go,” she said, and this time he heard. “I was being self-sacrificing.” A hiccup, more tears. “It was stupid.”
Wrecked though he was, he felt a smile burn to life on his lips. “You don’t want me to go?”
A fierce shake of her heard. “I want to keep you forever.”
With those words, she sealed the break in his heart, made it stronger than new. That was the only thing he’d ever needed from her. “Then we figure this out,” he rasped against her ear, stroking his hand over her hair. “We make it work. Our way. No one else’s.”
Another sniff, Nayna rubbing her face against his T-shirt. “I can’t walk through town like this.”
“Just tuck yourself against me. I’ll protect you.” Always he’d protect her.
* * *
Nayna’s ravaged face ripped at him when they reached the cabin.
She took one look at his own face and said, “One minute” in a voice that had gone husky as a result of the emotional storm.
A few steps and she closed the bathroom door behind herself.
When she emerged, he was seated in one of the lived-in armchairs in front of what looked to be a gas fireplace but might’ve been electrical. He hadn’t ever put in one of these models on a project, didn’t know the brand name. But he’d worked out how to turn it on, and it was running when Nayna stepped out of the bathroom, as, despite it being summer, the rainforest air was cool.
She’d washed her face, brushed her hair back, and looked bright-eyed.
For him. Because she’d seen what it was doing to him to watch her in distress.
Lifting an arm in invitation, Raj said, “Come here.”
She came, curling onto his lap, a small armful of woman who fit him perfectly. The fire crackled next to them in an excellent imitation of a wood-burning unit.
“This cabin is very well built,” he told her, finding his anchor in the familiar. “Look at how carefully the beams have been placed, the metal brackets they’ve used. It was done by a master carpenter on-site, not prefabricated in a warehouse somewhere.”
“I’ve been here over a week and I never noticed any of that,” Nayna murmured. “Tell me more of what you see.”
So he did, and she asked questions that told him she was really listening and appreciating his point of view. He’d never actually thought about the conversations they might have after marriage—when he’d been hell-bent on marriage—but he should have; Nayna was a white-collar professional, Raj a blue-collar tradesman at heart. He ran the family business, but his passion was in the work itself.
“It doesn’t bore you?” he asked.
“Are you kidding?” Nayna smoothed her hand over his pecs. “I failed woodworking class in intermediate school. My custom jewelry box fell apart.” Laughter in her words. “I’m in awe of your ability to build things from the ground up.”
Running his hand over her hair, Raj said, “Do you enjoy your work?” It was something he hadn’t thought to ask until she’d yelled about who she’d have become without Madhuri’s shadow over her life.
“I’m an accounting nerd,” she said. “I like it. But… the firm mostly has established clients. I’d love to work with a start-up of some kind, help build it, you know?” She sat up in his lap, her eyes shining. “It would be a risk, with no guarantees, but the idea of being part of the genesis and growth of a company, that excites me.”
Raj thought of his parents’ words the night of the introduction, how Nayna could work for the family business. That wasn’t going to happen. Theirs was a strong, stable company, but the accounting work was steady and nothing exciting. Great for them, but stultifying for an intelligent woman who wanted to make her mark.
“Have you investigated possibilities already?” he asked, considering who he knew that might be able to offer her information that could help.
Shaking her head, she leaned one arm on his shoulder. “My parents would’ve flipped,” she murmured with a lopsided smile. “Giving up a good paycheck for uncertainty.” Dropping her voice into deeper tones, she said, “We bring you up right, we give you room to study, and this is how you thank us? By throwing away a good job for this rubbish-schwubbish start-up that pays you in peanuts?”
Raj chuckled at her impression of her father. “What else do you dream of?”
“Hiking in the Amazon, climbing the Great Wall of China, spending a night in the Sahara Desert.” Laughter spilled out of her. “I want to taste the entire world, Raj!”
A sense of unease fought to settle in Raj’s gut, but he nudged it out of his consciousness.
Spotting a strand of hair sticking to her cheek, he pulled it gently away—and Nayna leaned in to nuzzle her nose against his. Her kiss was tender and unexpected, the way she cradled his face in her hands the sweetest touch. Sinking into the armchair, he wrapped her up in his arms and surrendered.
Slow, soft kisses on his mouth, across the heavy dark of his stubble, down along his neck.
“Nayna,” he groaned, fisting one hand in her hair.
She slid her hands under his T-shirt, pushed up.