Rebel Hard (Hard Play #2)(5)

And Raj was after something else altogether. For a man who’d been abandoned by his biological mother at four years of age and adopted two long years later at six, family meant everything. The bonds of history and tradition, they anchored him. Where others might rail against those bonds, he embraced them. And it wasn’t as if his family was arranging introductions with utterly unsuitable women.

All the women he’d met so far had been sweet and intelligent. But Raj kept saying no. He didn’t just want a wife. He didn’t want a woman for whom he was just an acceptable choice. He wanted a lover who saw him and who would become his in the deepest possible way, a lover with whom he could create a family of their own—a family she wouldn’t mind dedicating herself to loving and raising.

His younger sister called him a throwback, but Raj was open in his desire for the traditional setup, in wanting his children to have a parent around when they came home from school. His mother had been his father’s right hand in the family business, but as they’d run it out of their home all through Raj’s childhood, he’d had her there always.

To walk in to be hugged in welcome, it had mattered to a boy who’d been unwanted for six formative years. He wanted that same sense of security for his children. Which was why his parents had been seeking out smart but traditionally minded women for him; the last thing Raj needed was to end up with a woman who found his desire for home a regressive imposition. He’d make her miserable, and she’d do the same to him.

One thing you could say about parental matchmaking—it was honest. No setting up disparate types in the hope opposites would attract. That was for the movies and for books. In real life, it was better to lay all your cards on the table.

And Raj’s cards said tradition, family, domesticity.

Other people could chase fiery passion and wild adventures. Raj was planning on stability and loyalty.





4





Nayna & Raj & Champagne





They’d arrived.

Opening her door, Nayna glanced over at ísa—whom she’d picked up on the way to the party. Her gorgeously curvy friend looked at her, swallowed, then gave a nod, the red of her hair vibrant against the rich cream of her skin. She looked stunning, but those same curves, hair, and skin had made her life a misery as a teenager. The queen bitch of their high school had made it her mission to torment ísa with a side helping of meanness doled out to Nayna.

“Nerd No Tits,” that had been Suzanne’s loving way of addressing Nayna. Nayna knew ísa was infuriated at the fact that her chief tormentor and the major-league asshole who’d dumped her in such a cruel fashion in college were getting a happily-ever-after, but personally, Nayna saw no happiness in either one’s future. Cody was a sniveling slimeball with no concept of loyalty, and Suzanne was pure, black-hearted evil.

Nayna wished them an eternally hellish life together.

Meanwhile, she and ísa were going to paint the town red.

Together they stepped out into the balmy night air. December in Auckland was the start of true summer, with the heat building to a searing burn by February. It could still be a little chilly at night this time of year, but they were currently having a run of near-January weather.

The two of them giggled as they walked, neither one used to such thin heels. Nayna caught ísa trying to tug down the hem of her strapless dress of sequined blue, found herself doing the same.

ísa’s shoulders shook before she hooked her arm through Nayna’s. “Devil women,” she said. “That’s what we are tonight.”

“Wild, wild devil women,” Nayna replied. “Definitely not good girls who do what their families want.” She felt a primal desperation inside her that she knew was dangerous, but she didn’t care. Tonight could well be her last night of freedom. Her parents had stepped up the speed with which they were arranging introductions—the Sharmas were serious about making sure their youngest daughter settled down.

Sooner rather than later would walk in an eligible man who ticked all the right boxes and didn’t alienate her parents, and then Nayna would be stuck.

“I dare you to kiss a random guy tonight,” ísa whispered wickedly. “A gorgeous, ripped guy you’d never normally approach.”

“Dare accepted,” Nayna said without pause, though she’d never propositioned any man, much less a gorgeous, ripped one.

Liquid courage might be the order of the day. Enough tequilas in her and maybe she’d turn into a siren, luring men to their doom in her arms. Or—more likely—she’d pass out comatose at the feet of the hunk she was attempting to kiss. New plan: she’d just pretend she was someone else and go hell-for-leather.

“Since we’ll never again see each other,” she said to ísa on the topic of the poor, ripped man she was planning to accost, “who cares if he thinks I’m a crazy woman?”

A tiny frown between ísa’s brows, as if her friend had picked up on Nayna’s true level of crazy tonight. “Just tell me if you’re going to go off with someone so I don’t worry.”

“You do the same.” Stopping by the open front door, Nayna took a deep breath. “Let’s go do bad-girl things.”

ísa, at least, had gotten a start on that with her make-out session with a blue-eyed gardener. Nayna still couldn’t believe her buttoned-up and often self-conscious best friend had gotten wild with a man whose name she didn’t even know, but she was taking inspiration. If ísa could jump a gorgeous guy in a school parking lot, surely Nayna could find a likely suspect at a party?