by Lucy Monroe
Rajvinder looked at her, like he expected her to say something else.
She didn't know what, so she gave him the truth. "I never thought I'd say this, but I'm glad." She had never been able to even imagine what a wedding night with Dev would be like. Had sort of dreaded it, but she didn't feel that way about Rajvinder.
At all.
"Is that a yes?"
"I don't want to live apart." Which was hard to admit. Because, really? It shouldn't matter. Not if their emotions weren't involved.
But she was too much of a scientist to deny the empirical evidence, which indicated heavily her emotions were indeed engaged.
"Do you have a suggestion?"
She actually wasn't tied to living in India full time. She never actually had. And maybe that was something he had already taken into consideration.
"Even since coming to live with the Singhs, I spent most of my year in school," she mused.
It was only very recently she'd moved back into the Palace fulltime. She'd finished her doctorate and they'd started planning the wedding. Then Dev had died and all those plans with him.
"I am aware," agreed dryly. "I was surprised that even after marriage you expected to live there fulltime."
Well, she had expected the new heir to be taking up residence in the palace and herself, as his wife, to do so as well. "I just naturally assumed that was where we would be living if we married."
"I'm not a slave to tradition," he said mildly.
But she laughed. "No, you are not."
And of course, Rajvinder had considered her years away at school and drawn the correct conclusion that Eliza would be just as happy to visit the palace as to live there permanently. Rajvinder thought about everything.
Whereas Eliza could have acute tunnel vision at times, especially when she was working on her research. Speaking of.
In for a penny, in for a pound. And maybe some more besides. "I don't want to go into medical research."
Rajvinder didn't look even a little surprised at that pronouncement. "There's a place on any of my company's agricultural production projects for you, if you want it. But I think the one you might be most interested in is a new farming cooperative in India."
"Oh, yes." She was a little shocked by her own lack of hesitation, caring nothing in that moment for whether or not nepotism was fair, or even right.
His lips barely tilted on one side, but the amusement was there. "I'm not being generous. You will be an amazing asset to whatever research team is lucky enough to get you."
"You're saying I get to choose what project I want to work on?" she asked, enthusiasm for the idea, especially of the India based project, warring with her sense of guilt at abandoning the path Adhip uncle hand encouraged her to take.
And for the first time in a long while, her own desires won.
"Yes."
"Won't that offend the team leader?" she wondered.
"I've already sent your resume to all of them. The project managers have all expressed interest in having you added to their team, including the new India project." He once again showed he knew the direction her thoughts had gone.
"You're not serious."
"I'm not much for jokes."
"But you couldn't know I'd change my mind about what I wanted to do."
His brow rose, as if mocking her assertion. "You say I read your mind."
"But that's…" Crazy. Scary. Downright terrifying.
"I like California."
"I'm glad."
Living in San Diego would be no hardship. Eliza had been falling in the love with the city in a way she never had the East Coast. It felt like home.
"Each visit to India must last at least a month. If we have children…" And she wasn't at all sure she was ready for that kind of commitment. It seemed much more permanent than marriage to a near stranger. "I would want them to experience life in the palace in a very real way, not as a place they see for a few days a couple of times a year."
"So, you do want children."
"Maybe, some day. Not right away." She wrapped her arms around herself, pushing away the thought of what it might mean to her heart to become a mother. "Do you?"
"My mother would kill me if I said no."
"But do you want children?" she asked, realizing that if the time ever came, she didn't want to be a single parent inside of a marriage of convenience.
"I do, actually. I had excellent teachers on how to parent."
"Your mom and stepfather."
"I'm certainly not going to follow the example of either the Singhs or the Acharyas."
"They're not that bad."
"Says you."
She laughed. "Tradition is just really important, to the older generations especially."
"You don't think Dev was every bit as keen on tradition?" Rajvinder asked, his tone saying he didn't buy it.
She couldn't really say. They'd talked about some things and never discussed others. "He was really supportive of me finishing my education."
"Maybe he wasn't all that excited to get married."
That bit of truth didn't hurt like maybe it should have. "I don't think either of us looked at it as something to look forward to."
"But you were still going to do it."
"Yes."
"And now?"
"Now…" She paused, breathless for some inexplicable reason. She put her hand out toward him as her answer.
He didn't ask what she meant, but flipped the box in his hand to take out the ring and then he slid it carefully on her left ring finger. "You will marry me."
"I will."
"No lovers."
"None." If it came out a little vehement his statement hadn't been any less so.
"Children."
"Someday. Not right away." If they found the contentment in their marriage, a place of stability they could bring children into, then yes.
"I'll let my mom work on you, but honestly, I'm happy to wait for that as well. Children are a bigger commitment than promises between two near strangers," he said, reflecting Eliza's earlier thoughts.
The kiss that followed sent her senses reeling.
***
Vin stopped his car in the circular drive in front of the Mahapatras palace, eager to see his intended bride.
Eliza had returned to India the day after agreeing to become his wife.
Trisanu had insisted on the wedding taking place immediately. Evidently, he didn't trust Vin not to back out of the deal of becoming his heir.
Considering the business and financial control concessions Vin had forced upon the Maharajah, he hadn't been surprised at the old man's need for some kind of assurance Vin would join the family as promised.
His mother had flown out with Eliza, intent on putting her own stamp on the royal wedding. She'd let both Trisanu and Vin know how unhappy she was to have only a matter of weeks to plan the type of Indian royal wedding celebration that usually took more than a year.
The ceremony itself was planned for December 24th. He wondered if the Singhs had even considered the fact, they were planning it for Christmas Eve? He knew his mother had, but more importantly, the date would matter to Eliza and Vin was determined that his fiancée's love of the holiday was taken into account in the traditional Indian plans.
He spoke to his mother frequently on the phone and at least daily to Eliza. Both women shared far more than he expected about the wedding plans, revealing a growing warm relationship that did not surprise him.
What did, was how well his mother apparently got along with Tabish Singh.
The two older women were, according to Eliza, two peas in a pod both bent on making the wedding a ridiculously extravagant event, also according to Eliza, who apparently was not keen on the whole ride an elephant in a parade procession thing, or coming to the wedding dais under a canopy carried by her ten nearest and dearest. Who were, in fact, Singh relatives she didn't know very well at all.
"You do not wish to have any school friends in the wedding?" he'd asked on one
of their phone calls.
"No."
"Why?"
"I don't make close friends."
"None?" Though the investigator's report had said as much, he preferred confirmation of what he believed to be true from her perspective.
"None." She huffed out a breath. "And that doesn't make me pathetic."
"I never said it did."
"I didn't want close friends."
"I believe that."
"Do you?" she demanded testily.
And he smiled. "Yes. You didn't let anyone get too close after losing everything you knew of family within a couple of years."
She sighed. "You're so sure you know me well."
"Don't I?"
"Better than anyone alive," she admitted with her usual candor, if grudgingly.
"Better than Dev," he assured her. "He didn't know you were terrified of letting yourself love anyone."
"Why are we talking about love?" Oh, that was beyond annoyed and right into angry.
"We aren't."
"Good."
Vin didn't need her to admit that he was a better friend than Dev.
Vin knew he was. Not only had he protected her from having her inheritance sacrificed at the altar of Singh tradition and financial mismanagement, but he had taken time to get to know the things that were important to her.
Which was why he had called his mother to make sure that certain elements neither Barbie, nor Tabish would have even considered would be included in the wedding event of the year. Or decade to hear Eliza tell it.
"I don’t remember things being this crazy with Dev," Eliza grumped.
"The family didn't have the same coffers to draw from when they were planning that wedding."
"You're paying for this wedding?" she asked in a tone that he actually couldn't read.
"I am." Anything important to his mother, he would provide.
And if doing so proved to both the Singh and Acharaya families that Vin hadn't needed either one to succeed well beyond anything any of them had been capable of achieving? So much the better.
"You don't mind?"
"My mother wants a Royal wedding, she will have every trapping." The fact that wedding would put a spike in it as far as both his Singh and Acharya relatives were concerned when it came to placing value on Vin was only icing on the cake.
Eliza huffed with clear exasperation. "She and Tabish auntie are exhibiting a level of insanity I had no idea either was capable of."
"Are you unhappy with the plans?" he asked, not sure what steps he would take if Eliza said she was, but knowing his mother's feelings weren't the only ones that mattered.
Which was natural he supposed. He intended to live the rest of his life with Eliza as his wife. Vin would be undermining his own future contentment if he started his marriage off with a genuinely pissed-off wife.
"Not unhappy, just overwhelmed," she admitted with a sigh. "I'd so much rather spend my days in a lab than trying on wedding finery, picking out fixtures and silks for canopies. Those two women have opinions on everything! They're even redecorating the main ballroom for the reception."
Considering the timing, it was ambitious, but not impossible. "I know." He'd had to approve the expenditure after all.
"It was fine the way it was!" she said plaintively.
"Maan said it was dated."
"It's a palace! The décor is traditional, not dated." There was something in her tone.
"You really aren't happy they redecorated?"
"It's just…" A sigh could be heard over the phone. "I used to hide in that room when I needed time to myself. A palace is surprisingly hard to find privacy in. Even my own bedroom suite had servants in and out of it throughout the day."
"So, you went to the ballroom and found quiet?"
"It's only used for the really big functions and kept closed up the rest of the time."
"Did you tell Tabish, or my mother, you didn't want it redecorated?" he'd asked.
"No, of course not. It was important to them."
"It sounds like it was important to you too."
"It's fine. I'm just focusing on little things because everything is so overwhelming."
It didn't sound like such a small thing to her. The ballroom had been her sanctuary. And now it wasn't anymore. But even if they didn't change the décor, the preparations for the wedding would have stolen her refuge for quiet.
"Tabish auntie has me on a diet!"
"What?" he asked sharply.
"She said I need to be at my best, but what that has to do with eating my favorite dishes at dinner, I do not know."
"You are fine the way you are."
"Thank you, but Tabish auntie is on a tear. I'm not going to tell her to leave the rice on my plate."
Vin had no trouble doing so, calling Tabish Singh the minute he got off the phone with Eliza and speaking to her for the first time since his disastrous trip to India at the age of eighteen. He let her know in no uncertain terms that he expected any efforts at limiting Eliza's diet to end. He also told both her and his mother that he wanted Eliza to have at least two hours a day of solitude.
Neither woman had been best pleased with his edicts, but as much as he respected and cared for his mother, Vin had no trouble reminding her, or Tabish, that he was the one paying for the Royal wedding and the free rein given them could end at any time.
Both women had promised to make sure Eliza had the time to herself she needed.
He hadn't told any of them that he was arriving today. He was a few days early, but even with the quiet time he'd negotiated for Eliza, she was sounding increasingly stressed out and exhausted with every phone call.
She'd spent most of her life in the world of academia and he thought coming face to face with the life of a real princess was not to her liking as much as she'd expected it to be. Eliza wanted to read her academic journals and spend time in the lab. She'd admitted how much she was missing her research.
Her texts were growing shorter and less frequent as well.
Vin found he didn't like it. So, he'd made a few changes in his own schedule and here he was.
"Rajvinder?"
CHAPTER EIGHT
He looked up at the sound of his name and smiled. "Eliza."
She rubbed her eyes, blinked at him and then frowned, looking around the front drive to the palace, as if expecting him to disappear any moment. "What are you doing here?"
"I have it on good authority that our wedding celebrations begin soon."
"But you said you were coming in the day before the Tilak."
His mother and Tabish had been hard pressed giving up the Sagai, and truth be told Vin hadn't been thrilled himself. However, the ring ceremony had not been practicable in the rushed schedule they were on for the royal wedding.
Nevertheless, perhaps unsurprisingly, his mother had been particularly insistence on having the groom acceptance ceremony.
She wanted official and public recognition that Vin had been accepted as not only Eliza's husband-to-be, but was also the acknowledged heir of the Mahapatras Dynasty. Both would be formally stated during the Tilak.
"I changed my mind." He'd decided to fly in early and it was a good thing he had.
Eliza looked exhausted, purple bruises marring the pale skin under her eyes, her own smile not as vibrant as he was used to.
He put his hand out. "Come here."
"Aren't you coming inside?" she asked, her tone confused, her gaze latched on to him, but slightly unfocused.
"I'd planned to." He'd intended to put his foot down about the wedding plans that had so obviously gotten out of control. "But I have a better idea."
"What idea?"
"You need to get away."
Eliza came down the steps in front of the palace like she was in a daze, her movements almost jerky. "Get away?"
"Yes." He moved forward, worried in her current state of exhaustion, she might trip on the stone steps that wouldn't have looked out of place leading up to a state capito
l building.
Or a palace.
Which they did.
Unimpressed by their stately appearance and impractical lack of any kind of railing, he surged forward to take Eliza's hand and bring her down toward the car he'd purchased for use on his trips to India. Unlike his vehicle back in the states, this was not a limited edition from his favorite electronic car maker.
It was in fact, even more special. A prototype of the luxury end model for the alternative energy car made at the India based facility he'd invested in the year previous. So far, he was impressed. If their mass production was anything like as pleasing, he would be adding more zeroes to his bottom line.
Eliza was protesting as he led her across the superbly smooth gravel of the extra wide drive that surrounded the entire palace like a dry moat. "But I have a fitting in fifteen minutes, there are arrangements."
"I believe having a bride that does not collapse with exhaustion when we are supposed to be exchanging our garlands would be the most important thing right now."
"What? I'm not going to—" Eliza tripped over nothing that he could see, making Vin's point for him.
Rather than argue any further, he stopped her at the car, leant down and pulled her to him. She stared up at him like she couldn’t figure out what he was doing, both alarming and amusing him at once. His bride-to-be needed a break.
And Vin needed his lips on hers. Yesterday.
Pushing that disturbing thought away, Vin took the kiss he'd been missing since she left San Diego. It felt like Eliza had lost weight, her body too fragile under his hands.
But she returned his kiss without hesitation.
"Eliza! Rajvinder? What is the meaning of this?" a woman he knew only by picture demanded as she stopped and stared in shock at them from the top of the steps. "This kind of display is entirely unseemly."
Eliza went stiff and tried to pull out of his arms, but Vin held her gently, placing a comforting kiss against her temple. "Get in the car, sonii."
The endearment meaning golden one fit her, with her honey blonde hair and even more so because of the light that so effortlessly shined out of Eliza. Even in her current state.
She didn't argue, didn't list the responsibilities she had, or the reasons she couldn’t leave. Eliza simply nodded and, seemingly oblivious to Tabish Singh's squawking, Eliza got into the car.
