Rebel Hard (Hard Play #2)(14)

No way to remove her makeup without letting on that she wasn’t making an effort on purpose, but she’d “forgotten” to wear any jewelry and her hair was in a bedraggled bun. She’d also thrust on the black-framed reading glasses she used at home.

“Ugh! Why aren’t you showing your pretty hair?” Her mother unraveled her bun before Nayna could stop her and quickly brushed the strands down to the middle of her back, then nudged her out the bedroom door. “Take off your glasses.”

“No, I feel better with them on.”

Giving up, her mother said, “It’s too late to change. Don’t keep him waiting.”

Nayna resisted. “Him?” Usually the two families met first, the male sitting in and the girl coming out with tea and snacks at a certain moment. A few minutes of privacy would be offered the couple later on if the initial meeting went well.

A dance with which Nayna was intimately familiar.

Today’s snacks included seinas her mother must’ve fried. Her mother and grandmother made and steamed the rolls every so often, then froze them so they were easy to pull out, slice, and fry for unexpected social events. ísa called the savory the “spicy Swiss roll” because it looked so much like the cake except that it was created of taro leaves and a specific lentil paste mixed with spices. Every time Nayna took a batch into work, they were gone within the hour.

Her mother had also magicked up slices of vanilla cake from a neighborhood shop. If Nayna was lucky, she’d be rejected out of hand for not making every morsel.

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.