Rebel Hard (Hard Play #2)(65)

Nayna nodded and leaned up against ísa again. “She was born on a farm in a rural part of Fiji, did I ever tell you that? Only twenty-one when she married my father, and her parents took her out of school at age sixteen so she could help out on the farm more. My aji used to tell me how shy and sweet she was, how my father had to go with her everywhere for a while until she became used to the hustle and bustle of the city.”

“That actually sounds super cute,” ísa said with a grin. “Your dad doing that for her.”

“He loves her.” Of that, Nayna had never been in any doubt. “It was arranged, their marriage, but Aji says after five other introductions, my father took one look at my mother and he was a goner.”

Nayna raised her hand to her face. “Apparently she was considered damaged goods by others because of that burn scar she has on her upper cheek, but he told Aji that she was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. And after they got together, he even asked her if she wanted to study some more, and that’s how my mother ended up learning how to be an office manager.” A position she’d held part-time for much of Nayna’s childhood.

“No wonder he’s so discombobulated now,” ísa said. “He adores her. And she’s mad at him.”

“She’s really mad. I…” Nayna blew out a breath. “Like Raj said, this wasn’t in the script.” And it had left her with shaky ground under her feet. “It’s all upside down.”

An engine sounded outside. “Is that another truck arriving?”

“Oh, that’ll be Sailor,” ísa said with a sweetly possessive smile. “He had to check in on a job, but he’s going to help Raj finish up the deck. His brothers are coming over too.”

“The Bishop?” Nayna asked, well aware that Sailor’s older brother was the lauded captain of the national rugby team.

ísa nodded. “Gabe’s picking up their younger brothers on his way in.”

“That, at least, should make my father’s day.” Gaurav Sharma was a huge fan of rugby and of Gabriel Bishop in particular.

Before Nayna could say anything else, her grandmother returned from the restroom. “Come, Ninu, Isshu,” she said, using the nicknames she’d given them long ago. “We must be faster in unwrapping these things.”



* * *



After everyone else had left—post beer and a barbecue—Raj sat down with Nayna’s father on the finished deck. While the other man had turned up today, he’d remained quiet and hadn’t interacted with Nayna at all.

Raj’d had enough. No one would hurt Nayna on his watch. “She’s the most extraordinary woman I’ve ever met,” he said to the older man. “And she’s never been given any freedom. All she sees in the idea of marriage is a trap, a cage.”

Nayna’s father stared straight ahead, a muscle working in his jaw. “I was looking out for her,” Gaurav Sharma finally gritted out. “Madhuri ended up abandoned in a foreign city. What kind of life is that for a girl?”

Raj decided not to point out that Gaurav had curtailed Nayna’s freedom long before Madhuri’s marriage went bad; this wasn’t about point-scoring. It was about ensuring Nayna’s father didn’t hurt her soft heart. “You want to protect her, make sure no harm comes to her.”

“It’s what a father does.”

Pain stabbed at Raj. He wanted children too, but only with Nayna. His wild and blazingly intelligent lover who wanted adventure and a life lived on a sprawling canvas… while Raj was most at home in the familiar and the rooted. “I can’t imagine how hard it would be to let my child go into something that could cause him or her harm,” he said past the reminder of how Nayna was moving farther and farther from him. “But holding on so securely that they can’t breathe… it could break them in the end.”

Nayna’s father didn’t say anything for a long minute. When he did speak, he said, “We should go inside. My mother will want to go home.”

It wasn’t the end result Raj wanted, but at least Gaurav Sharma said goodbye to his daughter rather than simply ignoring her. And when the older man shot Raj a pointed look for not leaving with them, his wife glared at him, and Nayna’s father said nothing—though thunderclouds formed on his brow.

“Well,” Nayna said after everyone had gone, “that was a strange, beautiful day.”

Yes, that was the way to describe it, but for Raj it had also been a terrible day. The day Nayna took her first step away from him. But for now she was his, and he would drown himself in her.

Pressing his hands to the door on either side of her head, he kissed her.

Making a throaty sound, she rose up toward him at once, wrapping her arms around his neck. And the stranglehold of fear around his heart, it eased a fraction.





34





Dreams, Beer, and Ice Cream (Not in That Order)





The following Monday passed by at the speed of light.

Nayna’s firm had a big meeting to work out their plans and aims for the year to come, and once again, Nayna felt an itch inside her to move beyond the steady, familiar work she was doing there. She was good at it, but she’d never given herself the chance to figure out if she’d be good in a position that required more nimble movements and decisions.