Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors (The Rajes #1)(121)

Finally, Yash spoke. “Are these for my party?”

DJ nodded.

“That’s an awful lot of tomatoes to waste.” He pushed off the counter he was leaning on. “I’ll see you in two days at the dinner. Trisha will be back from Malawi that morning. I suspect you two will have a lot to talk about.”

He was halfway to the door when he turned around. “I believe you are well acquainted with my other sister, Nisha? Her husband makes it a habit to climb on and off balconies to impress her. It seems to me like the most ridiculous thing to do. But both my sisters seem to find it inexplicably endearing.”





Chapter Thirty-Four


Trisha was hiding out in the bathroom of the Astoria. There were many reasons for this, but the only one that mattered was that DJ was working his magic in the kitchen and she needed to keep from making her way there and embarrassing herself. As promised, Yash had taken care of things and kept HRH from firing him. Trisha hadn’t been involved in the event planning after Neel and Nisha’s supermushy reunion—who would have thought ten years of a good marriage needed an ex to make it even better? But Nisha was feeling well and had taken the reins back fully.

Trisha had been relieved.

Yes, she had.

She’d spent the past two weeks in Malawi performing surgeries and training surgeons from around southern Africa. When Ma had convinced her that HRH had “forgiven her” and asked her to be at the fund-raiser, Trisha had thought about canceling her trip. But her little brother had talked her into taking the time for herself. “There’s no place like Africa to set your head straight,” Vansh had declared, and Trisha had been in just the mood to test out his wisdom. Plus, her head was in desperate need of being set straight. Along with her heart after DJ had looked at her the way she’d always wanted to be looked at and then walked away from her.

“Don’t be a damn tourist,” Vansh had said. “Don’t try to see Africa. No one can ‘see’ Africa in ten days. Just stay put and do your work and be.”

Being was good. Being had been very good.

But she was glad to be back home.

The first thing she’d done after coming back was go see Emma. She’d been by herself. She was doing remarkably well and was ready to be discharged in a few days. Her balance and orientation were slowly getting normalized. Jane had been spending a lot of time with her and there had been a veritable forest of, ahem, phallic sculptures in the hospital room that they’d been “testing some new clay on.”

“How accurate are they?” Emma had asked her.

“I’ve never really seen one bent at quite that angle, but I’m no expert,” Trisha had answered.

“Bloody hell,” Emma had said. “That’s exactly what DJ said.”

As entirely useless information went, that had been good to know.

Trisha wiped her hands one more time, possibly setting a record for the longest time spent wiping hands in a bathroom, when J-Auntie walked in, her tight bun tighter than ever. But she was wearing a salwar kurta instead of her usual slacks and shirt and something about that tilted Trisha’s world a little bit.

“You look lovely, J-Auntie,” Trisha said.

“You think so?” Instead of her usual stiff nod, the older woman smiled and patted the beaded chiffon of the kurta. “Thank you,” she added when Trisha nodded. “You too, beta. As always.”

Trisha had the oddest urge to cry.

“His Highness is looking for you,” she said before disappearing into a stall. “He’s waiting outside.”

Trisha pushed out of the ladies’ room and sure enough, HRH was perched in the pretty alcove outside the restrooms, in all his HRH glory, making the wing chair look like a throne.

“Join me.” His tone was imperious but there was something in his eyes from a very long time ago. Trisha sank down into the chair next to him.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said a bit gruffly.

Wait, were those violins wailing or was that the sound of her head exploding? “Wouldn’t miss it for all the threats in the world, Dad.” No, she didn’t say that. Well, she did, but she left out all the threats in.

He grinned. Actually grinned at her for the first time in years. “Good job with the dinner.”

“I’ll let Nisha know.”

He leaned forward and patted her cheek. She almost passed out from his display of affection. “I heard what you did. You worked with a caterer for Yash.” There was genuine wonder in his voice.

“Have you seen the caterer?” she wanted to say. Instead she met his eyes. “You shouldn’t be surprised, Dad. There’s very little I wouldn’t do for Yash.”

He nodded. “I can see that. And I should never have doubted it.” His eyes were heavy with exhaustion and Trisha’s heart squeezed a little. This truly was the culmination of a lifetime of work for him.

“Yash’s speech was something, wasn’t it?” Her brother had completely outdone himself. He’d opened with the story about their Animal Farm book, making everyone laugh with the moralistic adages that had become woven into their personalities. Then he’d led into all the things that had made him who he was: growing up in the Bay Area with Ma and HRH’s activism and uncompromising standards, walking again after every doctor had deemed it impossible, being with the same woman for twenty years. Then he’d gone there and talked about family values, and what that really meant to him. Was it just having a picture-perfect family that went to church? Or was it loyalty and fidelity and taking care of all the generations of your family, and loving your significant other enough that you respected her wishes to follow her own dreams? To everyone’s dismay, Naina hadn’t flown in for the event. Yash had shown no pain, and he’d spared no punches. What had sealed the deal and driven the crowd insane was his declaration that right and wrong were not nebulous concepts, they weren’t based on political agendas. Right was right and wrong was wrong and he planned to bring that back into governance.