Rebel Hard (Hard Play #2)(87)

“Just before I drove here from my office.” Sandesh turned his icy gaze on Nayna. “Did you know?”

“Sandesh.” Raj’s tone was harder than stone. “You do not talk to Nayna like that.”

The doctor flinched, clearly unused to being addressed in that tone, but it seemed to get through. “No, I shouldn’t. I’m sorry.” The anger cracked, exposing desperation and hurt. “Why would she do this?” The words were a plea this time. “Did you know there was someone else?”

Having drawn several deep breaths in the interim, Nayna could think again. “No,” she answered. As far as she was aware, Madhuri hadn’t seen the surfer since her engagement. “She gave you no clue?” Anger began to simmer in her, that her sister would take such a damaging and impulsive action a second time around.

And to do it now? Only two weeks before her wedding?

“Nothing, and we had dinner just last night.” Sandesh paced the narrow space. “I took her to the revolving restaurant in the Sky Tower because she likes to watch the sunset from there.” His fingers trembled as he thrust them through his hair. “Afterward, we went for a walk along Mission Bay. It was fine. Everything was fine.”

Nayna knew Madhuri and the doctor hadn’t yet been intimate, so she didn’t ask if they’d spent the night together. Sandesh Patel was old-fashioned in his courtship, and Madhuri seemed happy with that. She’d told Nayna how much she loved how he treated her. It just didn’t make any sense.

“Have you tried to call her?” Raj asked.

“I set my car’s system to dial her the entire way here. But she won’t answer.”

Digging out her own phone, Nayna sent her sister a message, figuring Madhuri was more likely to reply to that: Are you okay?

The answer came within seconds: I’m safe.

After passing on the message to Sandesh, Nayna typed another: I need to talk to you, Maddie. What’s going on? I’m going to call you.

No response to the message or the call. Not then, and not in the frustrating quarter hour that followed as Nayna touched base with Anjali and Jaci. She had to be delicate about what she asked, because if Madhuri hadn’t shared her plans with her friends, then Nayna wasn’t about to betray her and have the information spread.

“Hi, Anj,” she said with forced cheer. “Is Maddie with you? I’m trying to track her down to show her the cake topper I finally found, but I think her phone might be flat.”

“It must be if she hasn’t called you screaming in excitement” was Anjali’s laughing response. “She’s determined to have that topper and that topper only. Anyway, I haven’t talked to her today.” A child’s cry in the background. “Got to go. Send me a pic of the topper if it’s the one Maddie wants. I can’t wait to see it.”

Jaci said much the same.

By the time Nayna hung up from that call, otherwise stiff and contained Sandesh Patel was close to going to pieces, but he remained unwilling to give up on Madhuri.

“I didn’t go to your parents for this reason,” he said. “I knew they would feel so much shame. I don’t want that between me and my in-laws when Madhuri and I get married.”

His voice broke, and Nayna could see him pulling himself together with conscious effort of will. “I thought, she’s your sister. Maybe you can talk sense into her before this gets out. The wedding can go ahead and no one will ever know—I can understand if she’s having jitters. I know she had a bad first marriage.”

Yes, this man was very much madly in love with Nayna’s sister. “I’ll try to track her down,” she promised. “But you have to understand, if she really is in love with someone else and doesn’t want to come back, I won’t force her.” Angry as she was with Madhuri, they remained sisters, and Nayna’s loyalty had to be to her.

Lines of strain on Sandesh’s face, but he nodded. “No force. I waited a long time to marry, and I want a happy married life. But I need to understand why. Why did she say yes? Was it only because I’m rich and respectable? Did she ever care for me?”

Nayna felt the same need for answers and said so to Raj after he returned from driving Sandesh Patel home. Neither one of them had trusted the other man behind the wheel of a car in his current emotional state. His dark blue Mercedes was parked on the street in front of Nayna’s apartment and should be safe enough in the residential neighborhood.

“This is what your sister did before.” Raj’s words held no judgment. “Do you think she’d repeat her mistake?”

“Before today, I would’ve bet everything that she wouldn’t,” Nayna said, her mind awash in memories of her conversation with Madhuri the night Sandesh and his family had come over—her sister had been so peaceful, so determined to put the past behind her. Not only that, but she’d displayed a distinct attraction to the doctor.

“Obviously,” she added, “I don’t know her as well as I thought I did.” Nayna thrust a hand through her hair. “I called my parents and asked if Madhuri was there—Ma said she was off visiting out-of-town friends and wouldn’t be home for a couple of days, but when I called the hotel Madhuri said she’d be at, they had no guest with that name.”

Anger bubbled in the pit of her stomach. “She lied to my mother, she broke up with her fiancé by text message, and now she isn’t answering my calls or messages.” Nayna folded her arms, her hand squeezing her phone. “What possible explanation can she have for acting this way? If she wanted to call off the wedding, fine, but do it like an adult. Why cut and run?”