Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors (The Rajes #1)(19)

His hands were shaking. Hers had gone back around herself, but they were still.

“Have you lost your fecking mind?” he finally managed. “Has the tumor addled your loaf, Emma Jane? This is not an option. I’m not going to let you do this.”

She grabbed his sleeve, tightening her fist as though she wanted to yank his arm off. “You’re not going to let me?” Oh no, she wasn’t calm anymore. “I am twenty-four fecking years old, DJ Caine! I’m not twelve. You don’t get to make decisions for me. You don’t get to dump me in a boarding school and sod off.”

He got off the bed, her words knocking the wind out of him. “I never dumped you.”

“I know that’s not what you think you did. Because you were thinking only about yourself. When you ran off with those boys, when you let those coppers drag you away. When you let Mum—”

“Emma!” He was breathing hard. She was breathing harder. She’s not herself, he chanted to himself. She is not herself.

For a long moment they said nothing more. They just glared—at each other, at their own helpless hands, at the useless gray walls. The hospital sounds became audible again, coming back into focus one by one. The beep of one machine, the hiss of another, the buzz of the lights overhead. Someone laughed as they walked by. DJ picked each one out, calming himself the hell down. Because, she wasn’t herself. This wasn’t her. This was her trying to wrap her head around everything.

“Listen, Em—”

“I want you to leave. Go.”

“Love, please, I’m sorry. Let’s talk about this.”

Her eyes shone with anger. Chocolate eyes—their father had called their mum that. Emma’s eyes were the exact color as Mum’s and the exact shape as Dad’s, so wide they usually looked like they were filled with wonder. His parents lived on in those eyes.

“There’s nothing to talk about, DJ.” The finality in her voice drove a nail through his heart. “I’m not changing my mind.”

He softened his tone, trying not to overdo it, trying to find balance as the earth beneath his feet crumbled. “Let’s talk to your doctor. Ashna says she can do anything. Let’s run this by her.”

“You’re not listening to me. Damn it, DJ, why won’t you listen to me?” She shook her head. “I want you to leave. Go home. Think about this there. Think about how I’m a bloody adult who gets to make up her own mind about how she wants to live. I don’t want you to come back, not until you’re ready to listen to me. Go!” This time she did scream, that last word, loud enough for it to reverberate inside him.

A nurse rapped on the door and strode right in. “Everything okay here?” She started examining the tubes coming out of electrodes stuck to Emma and the machines that surrounded her, but her attention was on DJ.

“My brother was just leaving.” Emma’s voice was a blade of ice. Who was this person? Where was his little sister? He needed her to be here. He needed her.

The nurse placed a hand on his arm. He met her eyes, begging her to let him stay, begging for something.

“You should leave,” she said, gentle but firm. She sounded exactly like their mother. This is what we have, Darcy. This is all I can give you.

God, he was losing his mind.

“Give her some time,” the gentle-firm nurse, who wasn’t Mum, said.

He threw another look at Emma. “Emma, please, can we at least talk?”

She didn’t even look at him and the nurse’s arm nudged him, more firm now than gentle.

“I’ll be back. We’re going to talk then.” His voice sounded stronger than his legs felt as he forced himself to leave her room.





Chapter Six


For years Trisha had patiently listened to Nisha go on and on about the meetings their mother insisted on holding after every one of Yash’s campaign events. Ma liked to call them “family tea.” But that was factually wrong on three levels. First, they were all, except Ma, coffee drinkers—a habit they had picked up from HRH, who prized his coffee addiction as yet another all-American badge.

Second, based on Nisha’s description, Trisha knew exactly what they were: postmortems. Where the family dissected every aspect of the event and analyzed every conversation in excruciating detail, then turned it all into action items, and then analyzed the ROI for those. Analyzing return on investment was a favorite Raje pastime.

Third, Trisha was part of the family and she had never been invited to one of these. For obvious reasons.

After last night’s dinner, Trisha’s resolve to change all that kept seesawing madly. She couldn’t stop thinking about how right it had felt seeing up close all the support Yash had garnered, seeing him be within touching distance of his dream. To keep herself from thinking about it too much or sliding back into the banishment zone, when a few hours had opened up at work, she had gotten into the car and started driving. As she neared the Anchorage, she called Nisha and announced that she was almost there.

“Where?” her sister asked, sounding infuriatingly baffled.

“At the Anchorage, of course. For the tea.”

“I’m not going to the tea today.” Only Nisha could drop a bombshell like that in such a gentle voice.

“What do you mean you’re not going?” Trisha snapped, rather less gently. “Aren’t you the one who’s been lecturing me about how important these things are?”