Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors (The Rajes #1)(111)

BY THE TIME she got to her patient rounds, she was feeling human again. As she spoke to patients and their families, the storm inside her stilled. Was it really obnoxious to know you were good at your job? To love it so much it actually helped soothe your broken heart?

As she strode down the hallway, she thought about DJ in Nisha’s kitchen, arranging delicate, thinly sliced pieces of chicken as though they were butterfly wings. Her steps faltered.

He was right, the obnoxious part wasn’t loving her own work; it was seeing other people’s love for their work as somehow less important.

That first day she’d seen him he’d used his bare hands to straighten a boiling pot. It had seemed crazy to her then, but she understood it now. Had she known the magic he made with food, she might have risked her own hands for that caramel, too. Oh, what she wouldn’t do to turn the clock back to that day.

Her response had been to ask him if he knew how valuable her hands were. God, what the hell was wrong with her?

I’ve never dated anyone who hasn’t been to college.

He had gone to college with Ashi! How the hell had that slipped her mind? She knew how hard Ashi had worked to get into Le Cordon Bleu.

No wonder the man thought her self-absorbed and arrogant.

She wrapped her arms around herself. Squeezing herself tight did nothing to stem the leaky pain inside her. The truth was, he was right about many things—things she could change, like how she treated people. He was also wrong about a few—things she could not change, like who she was.

Emma’s room was not on her way to her office, but her feet, stupid as they were, took the scenic route. And scenic it was, because as she approached Emma’s room, she saw DJ’s tall form looming over the nurses’ station. Seriously, if you cooked food the way he did, you had absolutely no business looking like an athlete. That was what was obnoxious.

He started to turn and without thinking about it, she dived into a random room. Yes, she was hiding again, because once you lost your self-respect, you realized it was a burden in the first place.

Actually, it wasn’t. She would very much like it back. But that battle was lost, because she peeped out of the thankfully empty room and watched as DJ made his way to Emma’s. Maybe it was the fact that she hadn’t slept in twenty-four hours, but the sight of him made her want to weep. All her exhaustion gathered inside her in one fell swoop. He looked so incredibly sad, and beautiful. All she wanted was to go sit by him, hold his hand, tell him everything was going to be okay. And maybe smell his neck.

A long, deep, incredibly pathetic sigh emanated from her. It was time to take herself home. Thinking about home made her want to weep even more. Had her father really banished her? In so many words this time. Wasn’t banishment outlawed when electricity was invented? She needed to call her mother and beg. No, not beg, but yell at her for never standing up to HRH’s high-handedness. She for one was done with it.

WHEN TRISHA FINALLY left the hospital, she could barely feel her extremities, from exhaustion and sleep deprivation. Fortunately, the drive home was less than one mile.

The longing for her bed, her beautiful bed, was a physical ache. Before she got to her car Aretha belted out of her phone.

Nisha.

Trisha hesitated a moment—she’d be home in a few minutes—but something made her answer.

“I’m at the hospital,” Nisha said, and Trisha started to jog through the parking garage.

“I’m on my way. Are you in Sarita’s office?”

“Yes. But I’m fine. I thought I had contractions. I tried to call you. But you were in surgery. So I called an ambulance.”

Oh God. “I’m so sorr—”

“No! Stop it! Do not say that word. I’m fine. It was just me being paranoid.”

“You were being safe. Safe is good. I’m picking you up.” In another five minutes, she found her sister waiting for her outside her OB’s office.

Trisha was so exhausted she could barely keep her eyes open. So she gladly let Nisha take the wheel.

“Sarita says I need to stop hiding out in your condo and start to move about. She wants me to be brave.” Nisha laughed while saying it but with sleep trying to wrap itself around Trisha as she fought it, the sound felt distorted.

“Are you high?” her sister asked.

“Have barely slept a few hours in the last forty. It feels like an acid trip.”

“When did you do acid?”

“Well, I feel like I’ve done it now.” She was definitely slurring, and her words tasted slurpy. “Neel came to my office. Sarita is right. You should be brave.”

Nisha swerved into a parking spot across the street from Trisha’s condo. Which was not a good place to swerve into given that it was a parking spot. “What the hell do you mean Neel came to your office?”

Trisha scratched her head. “I think I mean he came to see me.”

Her sister was probably giving her the Glare of Elegance. She couldn’t tell because her eyes wouldn’t open. She lifted them with her fingers. “He wanted to know where you were. Can you carry me up to bed?”

“He already knew where I was. Or he knew where I was supposed to be. What are you not telling me?”

“Nothing. He was just concerned. He wanted to make sure you weren’t gone because you were upset.”

Nisha didn’t respond and this was not a conversation Trisha could fall asleep in the middle of, so she sat up and tried to blink her eyes open. Her sister was crying again and trying to pretend like she wasn’t. Trisha wiped her cheek clumsily.