Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors (The Rajes #1)(3)

It wasn’t like Trisha minded the label. She did love her work with the combined intensity of every single star in the sky, as her grandmother loved to say. Problem was, the word genius suggested ease. There had been nothing easy about developing the technology that was going to save Emma’s life. Trisha had spent every waking moment for the past five years thinking about how to operate on tumors growing on brain tissue without damaging the brain tissue. Actually, that wasn’t true. It wasn’t just her waking moments; she spent most nights dreaming about her work too.

Trisha pushed into Emma’s room and was greeted with a far-too-hopeful smile, and a very British “Hullo there, Dr. Raje!”

Emma had always said Trisha’s last name perfectly, without Trisha ever having to help with her usual “it’s Ra-jay just like the bird blue jay.”

Despite the electrodes stuck to Emma’s chest that fed her vitals to machines, despite the fact that she’d been in and out of hospitals for months, energy exploded out of Emma like the profusion of curls spilling from her high ponytail.

From the moment Emma had first walked into Trisha’s office and declared that she wasn’t ready to die, her case had consumed Trisha. Her almost fearlessly detached determination to beat her illness made her unlike any other patient Trisha had ever treated.

For the hundredth time that day Trisha reminded herself that she was going to save Emma’s life.

“I have something for you, Dr. Raje.” Emma’s heterochromatic eyes—one brown and one nearly black—shone with excitement as she pointed to a gift-wrapped package propped against the wall next to the bed.

Someone must have brought the package in, Trisha realized with relief. That meant Emma wasn’t alone today.

“Is your brother here?” Trisha asked, looking around the room in one of those ridiculous reflexes that followed a question like that, even though the room was obviously empty.

Emma had come to Trisha because Emma’s brother was an old friend of Trisha’s cousin Ashna. This happened a lot. Sometimes Trisha thought of her family’s network as an actual fishnet that stretched all the way around the globe. She was constantly seeing patients referred to her by someone who knew someone who knew her family. When Ashna had heard about Emma’s diagnosis from her brother, she had insisted Emma come to see Trisha, believing—correctly so, thank God—that Trisha would be able to help her.

Ashna and Trisha were the only two people in the family who had skipped inheriting the Raje social-charisma gene, so Trisha couldn’t help but be curious about this mythical old friend of Ashna’s. But she had yet to meet Emma’s mysterious brother.

“He had to go to work, but he was here earlier.” Emma always got the fiercest look in her eyes when she talked about her brother.

According to Ashna, when the man had found out about Emma’s tumor, he had actually quit some sort of fancy job in Paris, packed up his life, and moved here. Granted, Emma had been given six months to live by the doctors she had seen before Trisha. But still, there was something insanely noble about making that kind of sacrifice, something crazy large-hearted about setting aside the life you’d built when your family needed you.

There had been a time when Trisha’s own brother Yash would have dropped everything to help her, too. But that was before Yash’s dreams had become the only thing that mattered.

“I can come back when your brother is here.” Trisha picked up the package Emma was pointing at. “And you didn’t have to get me a present!”

“Open it,” Emma said, veritable sparks of excitement shining in her eyes.

Trisha stroked the thick handmade wrapping paper before peeling off the tape with care. Tucked inside was a canvas. Trisha reminded herself that an artist’s sight was no more precious than anyone else’s as she stared at the thickly broad-brushed oil painting and blinked as the vivid strokes swirled and danced forming what looked like . . . oh! Was that a fleshy orchid?

Nope. No. It was something a little more human than that.

Definitely a . . . umm . . . vagina? It was angled to look like lips, but there was no mistaking it, especially not if you’d studied anatomy. And they were . . . well, they were popping the cap off a bottle of Sam Adams.

For a full minute, all Trisha could do was blink at the painting like some sort of buffoon. Her face warmed and her lady parts, well, they did more than just warm—they clenched in the most mortifying way.

Emma grinned. “I call it Vagina Before Head.”

Something like a cough choked out of Trisha. “It’s . . . It’s . . . ”—vivid?—“wonderful . . .”

“It’s inspired by you,” Emma added, humor quirking her lips.

This time the laugh Trisha was trying to swallow burst out. If only Emma knew the truth. Given how much use Trisha got out of those particular muscles, popping anything with them was delusional at best. If not for the few and far between under-the-sheets sessions of surgeon-on-surgeon with Harry, things might have even started to atrophy.

“Thank you?” she said on a gulp, making Emma laugh until she teared up.

And it sobered Trisha. Her fingers stroked the painting, tracing the strength that Emma had harnessed with her brushstrokes. Once you got over the initial shock, it was an incredible piece. Not only had Emma understood and captured the force and mechanics of the action, but she’d topped it off with an almost operatic humor.