Rebel Hard (Hard Play #2)(84)

“But your Raj comes with tradition,” Aji murmured. “As Mr. Darcy did with his great big estate and all the responsibilities it meant.” A gentle smile that reminded Nayna of all the times Aji had watched the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice with her. “To love one part of him is to love the other.”

She closed a soft hand over Nayna’s. “I think this boy, he is a good one. He doesn’t deserve a wife who looks always to the past and mourns what she might’ve had.” Aji wiped away the tears Nayna hadn’t felt herself shedding. “If you can’t go to him with an open heart, then love him enough to let him go.”





43





Avocado-Green Walls & the Time of Disco





Her grandmother’s words were still ringing around in Nayna’s head two weeks later when Jitesh Sen’s health took a sudden turn for the worse as a result of a rare complication that landed him back in surgery. The surgery didn’t last as long this time, but it was exactly as traumatic for the family.

When the medical staff brought him out onto the ward, he looked grayer, more diminished. Nayna knew that would pass, that he’d get his strength back, but she could see her own fear and worry magnified a thousand times over in the faces of his family—and in the faces of her own parents. They had truly come to embrace Raj’s family as their own.

She waited until she was alone with Raj to bring up the subject they’d been avoiding of late. It was the next day, as the two of them walked a wide corridor in a part of Auckland Hospital that was drenched in natural light. Sangeeta Sen and Aditi had been granted permission to sit with Jitesh Sen for the next half hour.

“Let’s get married,” she said.

Raj’s head jerked toward her, his dark hair tumbled and his eyes shadowed by purplish bruises. “It’s not what you want.”

Nayna closed her fingers over his fisted hand. “I told my grandmother that when I look into my future, I see you.” That part of things felt right, so right.

Raj was hers and Nayna was never going to give him up. And she wouldn’t look back. Her grandmother was right—doing that would fundamentally damage their relationship. She’d take this terrifying step into the unknown with hope and faith in what they were to each other. “I want to be your wife.”



* * *



Raj staggered inside at the words he’d dreamed of hearing her say.

Except it was all wrong. She wasn’t running into his arms with all the passionate fury of her nature, was instead walking to him on a conscious decision fueled by her soft heart.

Would he ever have all of her? Or would she keep a small part hidden away? The secret wildness of her. A woman who wore skintight dresses and dreamed of hiking through the Amazon. A lover who’d kissed him under a subterranean sky. A brilliant accountant who struggled against the ordinary and the mundane.

He wanted to tell her no, that they would not marry until she had no more worries, no more doubts, until she looked at him and saw not the walls of tradition… but dizzying freedom. Except that his life and responsibilities—especially now—would make that a lie.

His fist tightened even further.

None of it mattered. His hunger to be trusted that deeply by Nayna was a selfish need—right now he had far heavier priorities. His mother was losing weight at a precipitous rate, unable to eat with his father so ill, and his sister had become withdrawn and quiet, not even messaging with Harlow.

Navin and Komal were locked in their own emotional meltdown, and—despite both staying close to home—neither was currently of any real help.

As for his father, the doctors assured them he’d make a full recovery, but that’s what they’d said the last time.

Everything was going wrong.

“Raj.” Nayna shifted so she was in front of him, putting one of her hands palm-down over his heart. “This is a new adventure—and we’ll go through it together, like we did the cave.” Her fingers rising to brush his jaw, her touch gentle and her scent in his every breath.

Before his father’s illness, he’d been doing everything in his power to seduce her, convince her that marrying him wouldn’t equal walls and stifling expectations, but in the end, none of it had made a difference. Because Nayna was doing what she always did—surrendering her own dreams to help the people important to her.

And the worst of it, the absolute worst of it, was that he couldn’t say no.

This might be the last thing his father ever asked of him—Raj couldn’t refuse the request and live with himself. He just hoped Nayna could live with the choice she’d made.

Cradling her head in his hands, he said, “I will do everything in my power to make sure you never regret being my wife.”

“I could never regret being with you.” Fierce words.

Raj wished he could believe her, but he’d seen her joy in living life on her terms, heard her excitement as she looked up the distant shores she wanted to travel. Raj wouldn’t be traveling anywhere for a long time, not with his father sick, Adi so young, and Navin suffering a personal breakdown.

There was no one to take over the business if he left, no one to ensure the livelihood of not just his own family, but of all those who worked for him. “We don’t have to live on my parents’ land,” he promised her, because that was one thing he could give her. “After my father is on solid ground again, we’ll buy our own plot and I’ll build you a house all your own.”