Rebel Hard (Hard Play #2)(58)

The staff served everyone with equal cheer under the orange-gold evening sunlight.

“Does this count as a date?” Nayna asked after they’d ordered, her chin propped up on her hands. “I’ve never been on a date.”

Raj bracketed her feet between his sprawled-out legs. “After what you did to me in that cabin, Nayna with the sundar nayna, it can be whatever you like.” He was no poet, but she gave a delighted smile at his play on the meaning of her name.

“No one’s ever said I had pretty eyes before.” She batted her lashes.

“I think you mean ‘fine eyes.’”

Her smile turned into a grin at his reference to her favorite book, but their server returned right then with their drinks, and the next minute or two was taken up with getting the drinks placed on the table and taking sips.

“Raj.” Nayna’s tone had become solemn. “If you support me in moving out, it’ll turn my parents against you.” A hard swallow. “They love you right now.”

“Let me deal with that.” Raj had taken on tougher opponents than Shilpa and Gaurav Sharma—and his priority was Nayna. “The most important thing is to make sure you come out of this unscathed.”

Nayna’s face fell. “Never going to happen.” Raw words, not the least bit flippant.

Because Nayna Sharma loved deeply and unconditionally.

Raj wanted that fierce force of love in his life, wanted to be able to take it for granted. Not as her family did, abusing her generous nature. But in a way that was his anchor. Never worrying, because it was a constant.

Until then, until she trusted him enough to give him her heart, he’d hold her declaration about wanting to keep him always, at the surface of his thoughts. No old demons would get between him and Nayna; Raj wouldn’t allow it.

“My father will never forgive me for disrupting his plans,” Nayna added. “And my mother… she’s his wife. She’s always stood with him.” A deep breath. “Aji will stay in touch, I’m sure.” She gave a shaky smile. “She’s having a love affair of her own.”

Raj tried to imagine the pure-Hindi-speaking, white-sari-clad elderly lady he’d met having a love affair and hit a mental blank. Until he thought of what Nayna might be like at that age, and suddenly it wasn’t such a hard thing to visualize. Because Nayna would still be as lovely, as brilliant.

“The first thing we have to do is find you a place,” he said as their fish and chips arrived on the table.



* * *



However, getting into an apartment proved easier said than done. The rental market in Auckland was well beyond capacity. Laptop open in front of her as she sat in bed after dinner, Nayna called up landlord after landlord, only to be told there was already a waiting list for the advertised rentals.

Raj, who’d slipped down to lie on his back with one arm bent behind his head and his eyes on the screen of her laptop, frowned. “That’s too far out,” he said when she pulled up another listing. “It’d add two hours to your commute every day.”

“A long commute might be the only realistic option.”

Raj was silent for a minute before saying, “I have an idea.” After asking her to pass him his phone, which he’d left on the bedside table beside her, he called a number and said, “Ping, how’re you doing?”

Nayna listened as he asked the other man about a property that Ping had been rehabbing. “Is it ready for a tenant?” He listened while his friend spoke. “Yeah, I’ll vouch for her,” he said after about thirty seconds. “That’s all?” Another pause. “You give her the place and I’ll finish up the job for you at no cost.”

The deal was done two minutes later.

Hanging up, Raj said, “You have a one-bedroom unit in Epsom. Two-story place, internal garage below, everything else above. Entire complex only has eight units overall, most of them occupier-owned, and the landscaping is neat and easy-care. Good-sized lounge, tiny kitchen, approximately a ten-minute drive to your office.”

Nayna’s mouth was dry, her pulse skittering. “What did you promise your friend?”

“Nothing major.” He put the phone down on the bedside table on his side. “The deck’s unfinished. I can polish off the job on the weekend. Officially, you won’t be on the rental agreement until that deck is finished, but the house is safe and sound and warm, and Ping’s a professional. You won’t have to worry about a creepy landlord.”

Nayna put down the laptop. “I’m doing this,” she whispered, the reality of it coming down on her head like a ton of bricks.

It was time to see the sword fall.



* * *



Raj watched Nayna sleep that night and knew he might be the architect of his own heartbreak. The Nayna she was now wanted him, but the Nayna she became as she found her wings… that Nayna might decide a man so rooted in tradition and culture wasn’t the man she wanted by her side.

It was possible that she might never fully trust such a man not to turn on her with rules and boundaries and demands that stifled her spirit. Nayna was a woman heading off into the unknown, excited and invigorated by what she might discover… while Raj needed roots, needed an unbroken line from the past to the future.

His chest ached, but he could no more stop helping her fly than he could stop breathing. “I love you, Nayna Sharma,” he whispered, the words a secret he couldn’t say to her when she was awake.