by Nalini Singh
Sangeeta relied visibly on her eldest son, her hand clenching on his arm, and Nayna had the feeling Raj was the one who’d made the final calls, taking that burden from his mother. If something went wrong because of a certain decision, he’d bear that too.
“You don’t have to keep up the front with me,” she murmured to him. “I just want you to know that.” She’d had a stark display tonight of the position Raj occupied in his family—the anchor, the one who kept the entire family stable. Whether that meant making the toughest decisions of them all, tracking down his absent brother, or running the family business.
He wasn’t allowed to crumple. He wouldn’t let himself crumple.
She wondered if he’d ever trust anyone else enough to be the vulnerable one, trust enough to share the load. “You’re my rock,” she whispered, “but I can be yours too. Let me.”
Raj shuddered out a hot breath that ruffled her hair; his muscles didn’t relax, but he said, “I’m so fucking glad you’re here.”
Nayna’s eyes burned as his arms locked even tighter around her.
* * *
They found the tea, got enough for the group, and returned with disposable cups that put a little heat into everyone’s bodies. It wasn’t long afterward that Raj’s father came out of surgery. The surgeon, Dr. Jonathan Olivier, was still clad in his scrubs when he came to talk to them—but he had a smile on the craggy lines of his face.
“A triple bypass is always complicated,” he said to Raj and his mother.
Aditi stood between her mother and brother, tucked under Raj’s arm, while Nayna stood on his left, her fingers linked to his. Komal stood on his mother’s right side. A distraught Navin had finally responded, calling Raj to say he was on his way, but that had only been twenty minutes earlier.
“The good news,” Dr. Olivier said, “is that it all went perfectly, and barring any unforeseen complications, Mr. Sen should recover fully.”
Raj’s fingers squeezed tight on hers even as he calmly asked the doctor more detailed questions about what they could expect going forward. The overriding theme—aside from dietary changes on which they’d be further advised by a hospital nutritionist—was that his father would need lots of care and wasn’t to do anything strenuous for a number of months.
“Mr. Sen will also need to manage his stress levels,” Dr. Olivier added. “Stress is terrible for the heart, and speaking from two decades of experience, I can tell you it’ll impede his recovery.”
The doctor, tiredness apparent in his own features, looked around. “Now, I think you should all go home and get some rest. Mr. Sen is in intensive care and will stay there for at least forty-eight hours.”
“Dr. Olivier, my mother needs to see my father.” Raj’s voice was firm.
The doctor took in Mrs. Sen’s tear-worn face and said, “Please come with me. For now, you’ll be the only visitor.” His eyes met Raj’s. “The staff will let you know as soon as the rest of your family is clear to go in. It’ll be immediate family only until he’s out of ICU.”
Raj let go of her hand to take care of the goodbyes with his uncles and aunts, promising everyone updates as soon as he had them. Aditi stayed with Nayna. Komal, meanwhile, kept glancing at her watch, then over toward the nearby elevators.
Raj’s brother walked out of an elevator ten minutes after the extended family had departed. His eyes were hollow. “Bhaiya?” he said, looking at Raj.
“Dad’s fine, recovering in ICU. Ma’s with him.” Raj squeezed his brother’s shoulder. “Komal’s been with us all night, decoding the medical jargon.”
Navin went immediately to Komal, wrapping her up in his arms. The other woman didn’t hesitate to hug him back, and Nayna’s heart sighed.
“Maybe we’ll get a happy ending for those two after all,” she murmured to Raj while Aditi was distracted and collecting her coat from the chair where she’d left it.
Raj took in his brother and sister-in-law in silence before hugging Nayna close. When Aditi came over, the two of them stretched out one arm each and brought her into the embrace. And though Raj held them both, he allowed Nayna to hold him in return. Her big, tough lover let her see his need.
And it smashed another wall in her heart.
40
A Scene Fit for Bollywood
Nayna parted ways with Raj in the hospital parking lot. He was driving his mother and sister home. Komal and Navin were heading out in Komal’s car as Navin—afraid he was over the alcohol limit for driving—had caught a ride in with a friend.
After settling his mother and Aditi in his truck, Raj took the time to walk Nayna to her car. Sangeeta Sen had been in full agreement when he stopped Nayna from going off on her own. “It’s still dark outside,” she’d said sternly. “Aditi and I will lock the truck doors and wait for Raj to return.”
The parking lot was awash in light, but Nayna didn’t reject the offer. Mostly because she wanted to have a moment alone with Raj. “Get some rest, all right?” she said to him when they stopped by her car.
His hand cupping her jaw, his thumb stroking over her lips. “You’ll be okay driving home?” he asked, searching her face. “Not feeling sleepy?”
“I have so much caffeine in my blood that tired is the last thing I feel.” Turning her head, she kissed his palm. “I’ll be fine. And if your mother and Aditi want me to come over tomorrow, just let me know.” She’d work it out with her bosses.
Raj kissed her, the pain in him making her want to give and give—but Raj’s family needed him right now. “When you have time,” she said against his lips, “I’ll be here. Anything you need, Raj.”
Another primal kiss before he released her. “Message me when you arrive home.”
Well aware of how shaken his heart was right then, Nayna said, “As soon as I’m inside.”
Her headlights flashed off Raj’s body as he stood watching her leave, and she felt a wild desperation to go back and get in his car, go home with him, hold him. He might never be a big talker when it came to his emotions, but he spoke to her with his body, allowed his shields to fall when he was in her arms.
But going home with him was simply not an option.
Her parents and his parents might be willing to overlook the fact they were spending considerable time together, but neither party would overlook it if she ended up in Raj’s bed so close to where his family lived. Not even if she just wanted to put her arms around him while he slept.
It’d be considered disrespectful in the extreme, especially in the current circumstances.
Nayna banged her fisted hand on the steering wheel, frustrated with herself. Because the thing was, she would never do that to her parents or his. The freedom to make her own choices didn’t mean spitting in the faces of those she loved and respected.
It didn’t mean throwing dirt on the tradition that was such a core part of Raj.
The color and the joy of their culture, the huge families and the extended relationships, it all mattered to Nayna and always would. She had a hundred aunties if not more, barely one percent of them related to her by any kind of blood. All those women—Batty Auntie included—would drop whatever they were doing if she ever needed serious help.
Despite all that, today she wished that it didn’t matter that she wasn’t married to Raj. She wanted the right to be by his side, to curl up around her rock of a man and hold him through the coldest hours of the night.
* * *
It wasn’t until two more nights had passed that Nayna saw Raj’s father at last. Knowing the doctors wanted to keep Jitesh Sen in as restful a state as possible, she hadn’t asked for an earlier visitation. Honestly, his immediate family were likely the only ones he wanted to see anyway.
However, when she dropped by the hospital that evening with some requested takeout for the younger members of the family, Raj—still in his work gear—said, “My dad was asking about you.”
“Oh.” Nayna put the takeout on a table inside the whānau room—a space designed for families
of patients—then went to stand in front of where he sat in a visitor chair.
She ran her fingers through his hair, straightening the wind-tumbled strands. “That’s good, isn’t it?” Raj had told her that his father had been sluggish and slow for the past couple of days, but that the physicians were telling them it was to be expected after the major surgery.
Wrapping his arms around her waist, Raj laid his head against her navel and let her play with his hair as he exhaled, and her heart, it broke into a million fragments. When it put itself back together, Raj was in every nook and every cranny, the cracks woven back together with his name as the glue.
She loved him. More than she’d ever loved anyone her entire life.
The hole that love put in her defenses, the sacrifices she was ready to make to ensure his happiness, it scared her… but she didn’t stop petting his hair.
“Yes,” Raj said. “He called you my ‘pretty Nayna.’ ‘Where’s your pretty Nayna, Raj? Doesn’t she want to visit a sick old man?’”
“I hope you told him it was on doctor’s orders.”
“I think he’s decided he likes being a cranky patient.” A tightening of his arms around her before he drew back.
Nayna wondered if he could see her heart, exposed and without barriers. “Where are your mum and sister?”
“They’re with him. I was just waiting for you.”
“Are Navin and Komal here too?”
“They spent the afternoon with him while I gave Aditi the task of getting our mother to nap—she’s barely been sleeping.” Raj stood and put his hand on the lower part of her back. “Aditi gained victory by crawling into bed, and, according to her, ‘acting like a needy baby’ so our mother would cuddle her.”
Nayna laughed. “And napdom was achieved?”
“For three hours—for both of them.”
Leaving the food on the table, the whānau room otherwise empty, Raj led her into the room where his father lay recovering. The older man had been given a single room to himself, which would’ve told Nayna the severity of the surgery even if she hadn’t known the details. All the wires and tubes hooked up to him further underlined the seriousness of the heart attack and the emergency surgery that had followed.
Jitesh Sen’s previously healthy brown skin was pallid, his breath shallow and ragged at times. But he smiled when he saw Nayna and patted at his bed. She went around to that side and put her hand in his.
He curled his fingers weakly around hers. “Beta, I’ve been waiting to see you.”
“I didn’t want to intrude,” Nayna began.
“Intrude, schrimtrude,” the older man said. “You’re family. Isn’t she, Sangeeta?”
Raj’s mother smiled and nodded while Aditi said a cheerful “Yep.” Both mother and daughter were seated in visitor chairs by the bed, though Aditi had somehow managed to create the full teenage-sprawl in hers.
“I have something to say.” Raj’s father looked at Nayna, then Raj. “I know you young people have your modern ways, but I’m an old man and I might not have a lot of time left.”
“Don’t say it, Papa,” Aditi cried out, straightening in an alarm of arms and legs.
“The doctors are confident you’ll make a full recovery,” Raj added, touching a hand to his father’s shoulder. “There’s no need to worry.”
The older man nodded but said, “Maybe, maybe. Or maybe I have only five years. Or maybe I have only one year. We don’t know—I could get hit by a car tomorrow.”
Raj’s mother was nodding, clearly knowing where this was going. Aditi had her head in her hands, her curls bouncing every which way as she shook her head in slow motion. Nayna meanwhile was starting to have a strange prickling on the back of her neck. Because she’d seen this scene before—in a hundred Bollywood movies. She just couldn’t believe it was happening to her.
She glanced up at Raj and saw that he was frowning. Her lover needed to watch more Bollywood movies. She’d make that a part of his education stat. But right now she could do nothing but listen as destiny careened toward her at the speed of light.
“What I’m saying,” Raj’s father continued after taking a sip of juice, “is that I know you two want to take your time before marriage, but I’d like to see my eldest son married and settled… Just in case.” He pressed his free hand to his heart, his fingers trembling. “We don’t know what the future will hold. Son, I want this happiness for you. And maybe, if we are very lucky, I’ll get to see my grandchild before…”
Raj’s eyes connected with hers, realization having dawned dark and heavy. “Dad,” he said, “we—”
“No.” Sangeeta Sen’s voice was firmer than Nayna had ever heard it. “There’s no problem in this, what your father’s asking. He still has to recover, so it won’t be a super rush like with Nayna’s sister’s wedding. You’ll have time to prepare, have a proper wedding, invite all your friends. Four months’ time, don’t you think?”
“The venues will all be booked out,” Aditi piped up, a small warrior fighting for Raj and Nayna, who were both shell-shocked. “Madhuri only got a spot because Dr. Patel knows someone.”
“Adi, meri rani, did you forget that your uncle owns an entire golf course and the club building?” Sangeeta Sen smiled at her daughter. “He will find us a date in that time. Four months.”
Raj’s father nodded, his hand weak when it squeezed Nayna’s hand. “I think I should be healthy enough by then.” A smile. “I look forward to dancing at your wedding, son.”
41
Aditi Speaks the Truth
Raj and Nayna stared at each other across the table in the waiting room.
“What the hell just happened?” Raj said, shoving his hands through his hair.
Nayna, her head yet ringing from the shock, opened up the bag of takeout and pushed over the burger with all the fixings that she’d gotten him. “Eat first. Your brain needs fuel.” He had to be starving by now, given the physical nature of his work and the fact he’d come straight from the site to the hospital.
Picking up the burger, Raj ate in silence. It didn’t take him long to demolish it. Nayna passed over sweet potato fries, then the chicken-bite things she’d picked up, along with a pot of coleslaw.
He was just finishing up when Aditi wandered into the room and dropped into a seat that put her to Nayna’s right and Raj’s left
“Okay,” she said after grabbing a burger for herself from the bag, “did you guys seriously just get told to get married in four months’ time or Dad will drop dead?”
Nayna almost choked on the water she’d been trying to drink.
But Aditi wasn’t done. “I mean, it’s a gold-medal guilt trip even by Indian-parent standards.”
“He’s probably just worried because he’s come out of surgery,” Raj said, sounding far calmer than he had at the start of the meal. “I’ll talk to him again after he’s healed a bit.”
Mouth full of burger, Aditi shook her head. After finally swallowing down the huge bite she’d taken, she said, “No, they’re serious. Ma’s in there talking to Uncle Dhiraj, and before that she was chatting on about caterers and even the type of cake. The wedding hammer, it’s a-fallin’.”
* * *
Raj’s eyes connected with Nayna’s.
“Um…” Aditi stopped chewing. “You want me to go? Because you guys are getting all intense.”
His heart squeezed when Nayna reached out and tugged on one of his sister’s curls. “No, stay. We can talk about how this has turned into a masala picture.”
Aditi’s dimple popped out, his sister smiling in truth for the first time since their father’s heart attack. “Oh. Em. Gee!” she said. “You’re right! This is so Bollywood drama! The part where the dying father asks a couple to get married so he can see the event?” She shook her head and stuffed a fry into her mouth, talking around it. “All we need now is for Raj to be in love with someone else but feel forced to marry you because he doesn’t want to break his father’s heart.”
; Aditi’s head swiveled toward Raj. “Nope, that plot point won’t work—he’s clearly crazy over you.” Another fry inhaled. “The good thing is the father always survives in those and there’s a big happily-ever-after.”
Catching the hitch in his sister’s voice, Raj brushed a fist against her cheek. “I spoke to Dr. Olivier while I was waiting for Nayna. He says Dad has a great outlook—he doesn’t smoke, doesn’t have diabetes, does have huge family support. A little care and he’ll be around to create a Bollywood drama when it’s your turn to get married.”
“Babita auntie’s husband had a quadruple bypass ten years ago,” Nayna added. “He’s in excellent health. Just complains a lot about how he can only smell ghee and not eat it.”
Dimple flashing again, Aditi relaxed. “I can totally see Dad doing that. Especially since Ma’s started a notebook full of heart-healthy vegetarian recipes. He’s already trying to bribe me to smuggle him sausages.”
Raj chuckled at his sister’s words, glad to see her spirit returning. Aditi wasn’t the quiet type, so to see her go so silent and hollow-eyed had been heartbreaking. Now he watched as Nayna drew her into a cheerful conversation about their favorite Bollywood movies, with Aditi nodding eagerly when Nayna suggested a movie date for a sweeping historical epic set to release in a month.
“Are you gonna make Raj bhaiya come?” Aditi asked, cheeky as a monkey. “Last time he took me, he fell asleep during the most amazing dance number by Hrithik.”
“Sacrilege.” Nayna gasped, her hand on her heart. “We’ll just have to work on him until he sees the beauty of lip-syncing in the Swiss Alps in the middle of winter while wearing a sari.”
Aditi snorted with laughter, and for the moment, Raj’s world was okay… on the surface at least. Because even as Nayna gently took care of his sister’s heart, he knew her mind had to be spinning, her thoughts a roar.
