Rebel Hard (Hard Play #2)(89)

Her hair flew back in the sea winds, knotted and wild.

She looked so very alone that Nayna’s anger broke under the power of the love she felt for her mixed-up, beautiful mess of a sister. “Will you wait here?” she asked Raj, who’d caught up to her.

A nod. “I’ll see if there’s anyone else in the cottage.”

Leaving him to the task, she took off her shoes and socks and left them on the edge of the sand. That sand was soft and sparkling between her toes when she started the short walk to Madhuri, the grains yet warm from the sun. But the sea air carried enough of a chill that she regretted not bringing a cardigan.

Taking a seat beside Madhuri, who looked at her with a devastated face, her beauty buried under shadows and darkness, Nayna just opened her arms. Her sister fell into them, wrapping her own arms tight around Nayna and sobbing. She tried to speak, but her words were unintelligible. Nayna just held her, stroked her back, and waited.

Finally, when she’d cried herself out, Madhuri raised her head and, voice tear-rough, said, “Sorry about the mascara stains.”

“I’ll survive.” She wiped her thumbs under her sister’s eyes. “Are you truly in love with someone else?”

Fisting her hand in the sand, Madhuri watched it slide through her fingers. “I was stupid,” she said. “Bailey messaged me. I hadn’t bothered to tell him about the engagement, and he asked if I wanted to come out here for a good time.”

Nayna frowned. “You hadn’t seen him until all this?”

Avoiding the question, Madhuri said, “We were never serious, only friends with benefits.” Her lips twisted. “I don’t know if we were actually friends either, or just bed buddies.”

Nayna didn’t interrupt, though she was unable to see how a text from an ex had led to Madhuri breaking up her engagement.

“After he messaged, I called him, and I told him about Sandesh.” Another fistful of sand, Madhuri watching the grains fall with too much attention. “And Bailey, he was jealous. I got all… I don’t know.” A shrug. “I went to him. And we had a night together.”

“Was that last night?” Nayna asked, a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Madhuri shook her head. “It was two weeks ago,” she admitted, shame writ large on her features.

“Maddie.”

Her sister kicked at the sand, squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again. “Other than when we drove here, I only saw him two more times.” She began to draw in the sand. “He’s always been charming. Charming and funny and full of ideas. And Sandesh… He’s so staid, so solid.”

“I thought those were the things you liked about him.”

“I got blinded, Nayna.” Madhuri drew a heart in the sand, and in that heart she wrote M Loves S. “The shiny and the sparkly. That’s who I am. No substance at all.”

Frowning, Nayna took her sister’s hand. “Those aren’t your words. Who said that to you?” Who’d been so cruel to her sister?

“Vinod emailed me. Can you believe it?” Huge, tear-drenched eyes. “He heard I was getting married and wanted to congratulate me. I saw his name in my inbox, and all at once, I had his voice in my head, screaming at me for being useless and stupid. And I thought of how smart Sandesh is and my chest went all hot and painful, and then Bailey got in touch.”

So help her, Nayna would punch Vinod if he ever had the misfortune to appear in her path. “Maddie, you can’t let that bastard destroy your future. You make Sandesh laugh, and I’ve never ever seen him do that with anyone else. You give a joy to his life that he never before had. That’s a gift.”

Madhuri’s lower lip trembled. “Ma and Pa will never forgive me for this.”

“They don’t know,” Nayna told her sister. “Sandesh came to me.”

Two more tears leaked out from Madhuri’s eyes. “Do you think he could ever forgive me?”

Nayna considered her words with care. “I think that man would forgive you almost anything,” she said quietly, “but if this wasn’t a one-off mistake you made because of how Vinod hurt you in the past, if you aren’t sure you can be faithful to him, you need to walk away.”

She held her sister’s eyes, no give in her voice this time because they were talking about a good man’s happiness. “He’s not the kind of man who would bounce back, do you understand? He’s forty-eight years old, and this is the first time he’s fallen in love. It’s probably going to be the only time.”

Her sister swallowed hard, her voice shaky. “I need help, don’t I? Like from a counselor or someone?”

“Yes, Maddie, I think so.” Nayna’s heart squeezed at seeing the depth of the wounds on Madhuri’s psyche. That her sister had also caused wounds on others, that didn’t negate her own hurts. “I think the one thing Sandesh knows how to be,” she told her sister, “is loyal. But don’t break him, Madhuri. Because I really think you could.”

Her sister began to cry again, and Nayna took her into her arms. This time, however, it was short, and then Madhuri leaned her head against Nayna’s shoulder and said, “I kicked Bailey out an hour after we arrived. He’d spent that entire hour chatting about how, now that I was free, we would have fun like before. No strings, no drama.”