Rebel Hard (Hard Play #2)(48)

25





Raj Declares an Ab Moratorium





Nayna only lasted an hour before switching her phone back on. She didn’t want to be out of touch in case of an accident or emergency among the people she loved. Strangely, once again, she had no messages from her family. That was not a natural state of affairs. It had to be Raj. No one else would have the kind of stubborn will to go up against her father and win.

Raj, however, had sent her something: Another picture of his abs, but this time he’d blacked out that part of his body as if it were a censored image and written: No more abs for you.

Her lips trembled where she sat on the bus she’d taken from Christchurch, where her plane had landed. She missed him. Unbearably. But she didn’t reply, couldn’t reply. Not until she had more inside her than need and confusion.

After arriving at her cabin on the edge of Franz Josef Glacier Village late that day, she holed up, watching bad reality television deep into the night hours. She just needed something to occupy her brain so it wouldn’t go around and around in circles, a dog chasing its own tail.

Part of her kept screaming what are you doing? And what was she doing? Raj was the most incredible man she’d ever met. She should grab on to him and never let go. Only… being with her would savage his dreams. He’d never turn his disappointment on her, was too good a man for that, but she’d know and it’d break her. And making his dreams come true would destroy hers.

Yet the idea of walking away stuck like a stone in her gut, unpalatable and brutal.

At least she had time to figure out what the hell she was going to do.

Franz Josef was a resort town of a kind. In the sense that it was near a spectacular glacier and had thermal baths you could luxuriate in, and restaurants and cafés that served world-class food. That was where it ended. The village was pretty much one street surrounded by verdant native forest and looming mountains. Those mountains were beautiful in the morning with the hovering mist a light blanket.

As for the glacier, it was a wonder of blue ice frozen in the midst of what looked like an enormous waterfall, movement forever captured in place.

Since Nayna had a lot of time on her hands—even reality TV could only take up brain space so much of the time—she got a ride out of town several times that week, then hiked across the rocks to the foot of the glacier. She’d made a spur-of-the-moment purchase of proper cross-training sneakers and a light jacket in Christchurch, and they came in handy. Her canvas trainers were just not supportive enough for the rugged environment, and it could get cold in the national park.

It was a good walk, the glacier at the end her reward.

To mix it up, she did a number of the other short hikes through the park, sticking to the well-posted paths—she had no intention of ending up lost in the wilderness.

She also met several lovely people—hikers, tourists, and locals. The bakery a twenty-minute walk away from her cabin recognized her as a regular by the third day. She’d never had such delicious baked goods in her life. Or maybe she was overcompensating with carbs. She didn’t really care. Cream doughnuts with raspberry jam were the best doughnuts.

But as she lay in bed on the ninth day since her self-imposed exile, Nayna admitted her intense loneliness. She missed the constant buzz of life in a family home, missed sitting up drinking chai with her grandmother, teasing her mother about the soap opera’s latest twists and turns, even missed her father’s dry comments from behind his newspaper and Madhuri’s giggles when she dropped by.

She missed Raj most of all.

He’d messaged her a photo every day, the fiend. The man was getting very good at shockingly sexy selfies that didn’t show his abs. A shirt partially unbuttoned. A towel held casually to block the view. A shot of his back taken in the mirror. More pictures of him reading, along with an update that made her laugh: Mr. Darcy is finally not being a dick. I might like this guy after all. Tino at work is reading it too now. Mostly in public, where women can see him.

Nayna saved every single photo and message but didn’t reply except for a message every forty-eight hours confirming her status as alive: The local possum gang hasn’t swarmed me yet.

Lord help her, what was she going to do?

It turned out she was going to switch on the television and watch reruns of a home-renovation show full of men in hard hats. Outside, the quiet darkness shook its head at her, clearly judging her choices.

When her phone lit up with an incoming text, she grabbed it in grateful desperation.

It was ísa, who Nayna knew was currently camping with Sailor and his family: How’s the whole ‘running away to the jungle’ thing going?

A freaking jungle would’ve been noisier than this, Nayna replied in the midst of the cocoon of silence that surrounded her. They have baboons in the jungle, right? And baboons are noisy. It’s so QUIET here I keep expecting to hear ghostly wails and rattling chains. She’d never realized how much of a city girl she was until this trip—where were the sirens in the night, the neighbor on their other side blasting his music too loud, or the car backfiring and turning into a drum in her dreams?

ísa’s reply came quickly: I am currently suffering from the curse of peace and quiet and nature as well. Do you think the ghost will come with a dashing duke to rescue you?

I’m more into the stubbled-jaw, blue-collar man these days, Nayna admitted. Do you know what I’m watching right now? A rerun of a home-renovation show full of construction types. Every time one of them picked up a hammer or began handling lumber, she’d imagine Raj doing the same, his muscles flexing, and then it was all over. I hate myself.