Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors (The Rajes #1)(45)

If Neel or anyone else decided to question Sarita, she was not going to be able to keep the secret.

“Neel leaves tomorrow. So first you have to help me find a way to stay in bed until then without him canceling his trip.”

“You could pretend to have the stomach flu. He already thinks you might have it.”

“Yes, but if I’m sick, he might not leave.”

“It’s his ten-year reunion, and you know how important that whole Rhodes scholar thing is to him. No way would he miss it. Especially if I stay with you and promise to use vacation days and not leave your side.”

“No. Too much. You know the lawyer brain. You have to sell it subtly, otherwise he’ll get suspicious.”

Great. And as if lying to Neel wasn’t hard enough. What were they going to do about the rest of the Animal Farm? “Do we have to not tell the Farm? What about Esha?” Crap! Esha probably already knew.

“Especially not Esha. I don’t want visions. No matter what happens, this baby is not going anywhere. I don’t want anyone telling me otherwise,” she said fiercely.

Message received.

“It would be so much easier if you could just tell Neel that you were going to DC or LA for campaign work. But then you’d have to take Yash, Ma, and HRH into confidence.”

Nisha grabbed Trisha’s arm, with surprising strength. “Can you not hear me? I cannot. Can. Not. Do this in public view again. I cannot watch everyone get invested, I can’t manage everyone’s pain. Can’t manage Ma’s overprotectiveness. Please. I need to focus on this on my own. I can’t be brave for anyone else right now. My baby needs me. Please.”

Trisha’s eyes stung. She stroked the hand that was cutting off her circulation and swallowed the painful tightness in her throat. “Okay. No one finds out. That’s not an option. Got it.”

“And,” Nisha said, “there’s another problem.”

“Of course there is.” The look on Nisha’s face did not bode well for whatever this next problem was.

“Yash’s fund-raiser,” Nisha said with all the gravitas of a person who believed that their brother’s campaign was her life’s work. “The dinner is in San Francisco in a month. For the most part it’s all planned—so do not freak out”—which was the last thing to say to someone when you did not want them to freak out—“but I need you to take care of things.”

Trisha jumped off the bed. Take care of things? What things? Fund-raiser things? What? How? Oh, freaking out was building inside Trisha with the force of a pressurized hose.

She could find a way to lie to their family—although every one of them had a lie meter like a stealth missile detector. She could deceive her utterly brilliant brother-in-law—who was a blasted judge! But to expect her to take care of an event like this? An event. An Event. With food and guests and food-and-guests together. Was Nisha crazy? Did her sister not know her at all?

Trisha could barely plan her own meals. She lied about cooking to get men to date her. Which reminded her, she needed to cancel her dinner with Harry again tonight. The food she’d mooched off Ashna was sitting in her freezer mocking her inability to do anything with food except scarf it down. She was the last person to take care of something like a f . . . f . . . fund-raising d . . . d . . . dinner. She didn’t even know what something like that involved! Oh my God, what did something like that even involve?

“I said don’t freak out, Shasha.” Her sister glared at her as though the full blast of panic in her chest was something she could control by how much she widened her eyes.

“Too late. I’m freaking out. And I’m not doing it. I can’t!” She started pacing.

Her sister intensified that glare. “I thought you wanted to be included in Yash’s campaign? Or is HRH right, that you don’t really care if Yash gets elected.”

Did Dad actually say that? It was her turn to glare. What the hell was it with all this emotional blackmail? Nisha had always been Ma’s little mini-me. But this was going too far. “Of course I want to be included. That doesn’t mean throwing me straight into the snake pit. I meant start with involving me in . . . things and stuff—small things!” And stop treating me like the Evil Witch of the East whose very presence will destroy Yash’s dreams. “Actually, I was wrong. Forget everything I’ve said until now. The banishment is A-okay. Really.” She plopped down on the bed.

Her sister sighed. “Trisha, you realize you don’t actually have to cook for this event, right?” Her sister switched strategies and, instead of glaring, tried a calm, amused look. “You work with a caterer and with an event coordinator at the ballroom.”

Trisha’s hands turned cold. She rubbed them on her shorts. “You are not helping. The only thing I know how to do with a c . . . caterer or an e . . . event coordinator is to remove tumors from their brains.” Panic was rising again, hard and fast.

Her sister smacked her arm. “Stop it. If you put your mind to it, you can do this better than me and you know it. This is for me and for Yash. What is wrong with you?”

Trisha felt her cheeks warm with shame. “Make me walk through fire, I’ll do that. Please can I do that instead?”

Her sister rolled her eyes. “No. So, the chef who’s catering the dinner—”