by Kaye, Nikky
“Sharma asked me to take some candids. Why don’t we show him what you can do, too?”
“Me?” The idea that Dierks thought my shots could compare to his threw me.
“Good, he found you!” Dev sat down in the chair next to mine and reached for my mango juice. “I hate these kinds of things.”
Could have fooled me. “You’re so good at it, though,” I said.
He made a face, but I wasn’t sure if it was at the juice or the compliment.
“I was just telling Audrey that she should shoot all of this.”
“Oh?” Dev pushed the glass away, his jaw clenching. Was he angry?
I fell back into my chair at his side and put my phone down. “If you think it would be okay. It’s just… it would give me something to do.”
“I’m neglecting you, aren’t I?”
“Yes,” Dierks said.
“It’s okay.” I glared at our German friend and put my hand over Dev’s. “It’s your job, I know.”
“I’m sorry. It’s not always—”
“I know,” I interrupted him. Could I explain this? “But when I take pictures, I kind of feel like I’m part of your job, too. I guess it helps me understand you better, or how the world sees you.”
It was different from how I saw him, but I’d realized that taking pictures was like a bridge between the two. It probably sounded silly to him, I thought as my gaze went to the tablecloth. Dev reached over, picked up my phone, and held it up between us.
When I looked him in the eyes, his expression softened. “I’m sure it’s fine. Just don’t post pictures of people, okay?”
A squeal of excitement popped out of me, and I leaned forward and kissed him. “Thank you thank you thank you!”
“You can thank me later—naked,” he murmured against my lips.
The rest of the evening flew by as I clicked on candles and clothes and drinks and designs and a blur of colors and lights. Every picture I took had a unique filter of its own, and I didn’t stop until my battery died.
By the time the actual wedding day came around, I was a lot less irritable. My earlobes were red and sore from ornate, heavy earrings, and the high heels I needed to wear with my long skirt were turning my toes numb—but my phone was charged and I had a backup battery pack in my purse.
At least I’d thought to look up the details of the Hindu ceremony online beforehand, or I might have been more confused. As it was, I blinked a few times when the groom appeared on an elephant, proceeded by drummers and a band like a New Orleans funeral.
“This is fucking crazy,” I murmured to Dev, who stood beside me with his hand in mine. I hung on tight, worried that he’d vanish into the crowd and leave me alone with the circus.
He grinned down at me, looking very handsome and exotic in his own elaborate tunic. “At home, people use white horses. Elephants are hard to come by in Minnesota. I knew one guy who arrived in a white Mustang convertible for his baraat.”
That made more sense. I spotted Dierks in the crowd, a light meter around his neck and an assistant trailing behind him with a garland of cameras. Just seeing someone who knew my name made me feel better and reminded me I had a purpose myself.
Having read the cheat sheet ahead of time, however, didn’t make the ceremony any more comprehensible, or shorter. It was so unlike any wedding I’d ever been to, that I had a hard time pinpointing the actual moment when the bride and groom were legally bound together.
Oh, I knew when they were literally bound together—someone tied them to each other with a long sash at one point. When the tethered bride and groom then had to walk around an open fire again and again, it surprised me that nobody tripped and fell in.
“How many times?” I asked Dev, making a roundabout motion with my finger.
“Seven.”
“Like Dante’s circles of hell,” I muttered, trying to remember my high school English class. There were many days I regretted not going to college. This was one of them.
If Dev and I got married, would we go through all of this?
Wait a minute—was I really thinking about us getting married? Engaged for real?
My head spun, and I fought the bizarre sensation of falling down while I was already sitting. I clutched Dev’s hand but ignored the quizzical look he shot me.
The figures in red and white and gold up front under the canopy flashed before me like a kind of waking dream. Maybe I could have it all. A new future.
At first, this was kind of a joke. I’d gone into this arrangement as a favor to an old friend. My big brother’s best friend. My teenage crush. The Internet’s hottest model.
I’d gotten something in return, sure—a million air miles and a chance to discover a passion I didn’t know I had. Okay, two passions. It was crazy how you could arrive at the truth and be deceitful at the same time.
Had I fallen for the lie? Or was I just lying to myself?
Fake engagement.
Real ring.
Fake intentions.
Real love.
I was in love with Dev Sharpe, and he was in love with me. It was time to stop doubting and start living. My heart swelled in my chest.
“Audrey?” Dev squeezed my hand and whispered, “Baby, you okay? You look kind of—”
I bent over and puked into my skirt.
27
Dev
On the plus side, chaos was the norm for Indian weddings. So while Audrey throwing up caused several people to move away, the main event kept going.
“Oh god,” she moaned.
“Put your head between your knees—wait! Don’t do that!” She’d end up with a face full of vomit.
Fuck! I honestly didn’t know what to do. My experience with throwing up at weddings was mostly after one too many drinks at the reception.
“What happened?” Dierks wedged himself through the crowd, landing at my side.
“I don’t know! She just got sick.” I put my hand on her forehead, then her cheek, like my mother used to do when checking my temperature. Of course, I didn’t have a clue what it was supposed to be, but Audrey’s pale face felt cool and clammy.
“Get me out of here,” she begged me, her eyes filling with tears. She clutched her long skirt in her hands, holding the evidence in a makeshift pouch made of beaded satin.
“Can you walk?” Dierks asked.
She looked down at her bundled up skirt and nodded miserably. “Yeah, but not gracefully.”
Our German friend moved to her other side, and we carefully helped her up.
“Are you going to be sick again?” I asked her as she stumbled.
“I don’t think so. I want to die, but I think I’m done throwing up.” Her face had gone from a sickly pale to flushed with humiliation.
In an adjacent area tables and chairs were setup for people to eat. There was always food being served at the same time as the ceremony—a fact that threw Audrey at the beginning, when the wedding began and a few hundred people got up to go get snacks. We sat her down as far away from the food as possible. Hopefully, the smells wouldn’t set her off again.
“Do you think there’s a doctor here?” Dierks asked me.
I couldn’t help rolling my eyes. “It’s a wealthy Indian wedding with literally a thousand people. I can guarantee you there are doctors here.”
Audrey held up a hand. “Don’t need a doctor.”
“I’ll get her some water.”
I nodded at Dierks and held my girlfriend’s other hand. She looked better than she had a few minutes ago, but as far as I knew she hadn’t been sick like this since—
“Do you think it was something you ate?” It was just like Goa, all over again.
What we needed right now was a clothes fairy or something. Audrey could keep her blouse on, no problem, but she had to lose the skirt.
A middle-aged man about Mr. Sharma’s age came over to us with a concerned look on his face. “Can I help? I’m a physician. Is your wife ill?”
Damn, not a clo
thes fairy. I smiled politely. “She’s just…” I trailed off.
“Just a little nauseated,” Audrey said.
The gentleman took her wrist, feeling her pulse. “Do you feel pain anywhere?”
Dierks was on his way back with water and what looked like a wet cloth. “I’m going tolook for something for you to wear,” I said, pushing away from the table.
I needed to escape for a few minutes. I’d been about to correct the man, telling him Audrey was “just my fiancée,” but something stopped me. Being mistaken for married, rather than engaged, didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. There was no harm in letting him believe she was really Mrs. Dev Sharpe, right?
I stopped in my tracks when I realized that it wasn’t the “fiancée” part that bothered me, but also the “just.” There was nothing simple or ordinary about my relationship with Audrey. “Just my fiancée” wasn’t enough.
Did I want to marry Audrey—for real?
When I returned, she was pasty-faced again and Dierks looked between the two of us with an unreadable expression.
“I recommend you see your own doctor as soon as possible,” the gentleman said. He turned to me. “Your wife should lie down and rest, somewhere cool and quiet.”
“Thank you, Doctor…?”
“Patel.”
“Thank you, Doctor Patel.”
“My pleasure.” He smiled at me, then Audrey. “Good luck, young lady.”
As he went back to his friends, Audrey asked weakly, “Did you find anything for me to change into?”
“Nope.” I unbuttoned the front of my kurta then lifted my arms to pull the knee-length tunic off. Gasps and giggles rose around us as I stood there naked to the waist with just some thin drawstring pants hanging off my hips. “Stand up, baby.”
Dierks held her arm as she stood and then he helped me slip the kurta over her like a long dress.
“Wait,” she said as she held it bunched at her waist. “Can you undo my skirt?”
With fumbling fingers, I unzipped the back of her skirt and let the reeking, sodden mess drop to the ground at the same time as the tunic fell down her legs to skim the floor. It was a stealth costume change worthy of any public photo shoot.
Audrey sucked in a breath as she sank back onto the chair. “My purse. My phone.”
“I’ll get it,” Dierks offered.
“Thanks, man.”
He scooped up the lengha and deposited it in a nearby trash bin before going to hunt down her purse.
I held the folded cloth he’d gotten earlier to the back of Audrey’s neck. Her hair was done up in a twisty bun thing, but tendrils had fallen out and clung to her skin. “You feeling a bit better, now?” I asked her.
What the hell had happened? Food poisoning? An allergic reaction to the henna, like she mentioned? Did I need to request the hotel doctor on call when we got back to the room?
“A little,” she said.
Her expression was not very convincing, and the ivory material of my tunic made her creamy skin look sallow. At least there was no need to button it back up again since her choli blouse showed through the gap. This was not the time to mention it, but she looked pretty damn cute wearing my clothes.
Dierks reappeared, thrusting her purse into my hand. “You want help getting her back to the hotel?”
“No, I think we’ll be okay. Baby?”
Audrey nodded again, looking at the ground.
“You still okay for tomorrow?”
I blinked a few times at our photographer friend until I remembered that there was a small photo op scheduled in the morning. “Fuck.” I went to face palm, but whacked myself in the eye with the beaded purse instead. “Fuck.”
She went to stand, but braced herself against the table as she paled further and wobbled. “Whoa! Who moved the floor?”
Fuck this. I shoved the purse back at Dierks and swept Audrey up into my arms.
The creamy silk of the kurta she wore flowed over my arms like a wedding gown. More gasps and murmurs surrounded us as she rested her cheek against my bare chest. No doubt this would end up on social media, but I couldn’t care less at that moment.
“Dev, you’re making a scene again,” she hissed, reminding me of when I held her like this in Las Vegas.
“Are you going to ask me to put you down?” I stalked to the door, my muscles straining and Dierks close behind us.
Her hands went around my neck as she held on. “No.”
“Good, because I will not let you go.”
* * *
Audrey was quiet the whole way back in the cab, leaning against my chest. My arm tightened around her, and I didn’t let go of her until we got into the room.
“You want a shower?”
Again, she nodded wordlessly. I helped her pull the tunic and her blouse off then watched her walk into the bathroom in her pink bra and panties. Because I was a jackass, my body responded to the sight of her beautiful body. These goddamn pants hid nothing.
Uncomfortably, I sat on the bed and sent a quick text to Dierks, letting him know we got back okay and that Audrey was in the shower. Checked my email. Flipped through my phone. Audrey was still in the shower. She hadn’t closed the door completely, so I peeked through the crack.
“Baby, you okay?”
I heard a choked noise in response. Frowning, I stepped into the bathroom. My gaze moved past her bra and panties lying in the large empty bathtub to the separate, oversized shower stall. There, Audrey sat huddled on the floor, her back pressed up against the glass wall and her knees pulled up to her chest.
Oh god. My heart just about stopped, but the rest of me moved quickly.
I yanked open the door, steam pouring over me. “Did you fall? What—?”
She looked up at me, her nose red. Dark smears of makeup smudged the creamy skin under her eyes, clear evidence she’d been crying. Correction: she was crying; it was obvious even under the spray of the shower. That, itself, frightened me more than an injury.
Her shoulders shook with sobs as she buried her face in the cradle of her arms on her upturned knees. Without even thinking about it, I stepped right under the showerhead and squatted on the floor beside her.
“Does something hurt?” Shit. I knew I should have called the house doctor as soon as we got in, but I thought it was just ‘Delhi belly.’
She shook her head but didn’t raise it to meet my gaze again.
“Audrey, what is it?”
She mumbled something into her knees, but I couldn’t understand.
I scraped back the wet hair falling over my forehead. Trying to get out of the spray, I moved around on my knees to her side. My light pants were now soaked, clinging to my body and practically see-through, but I didn’t give a damn.
My girl was in distress, and I didn’t know what to do.
When I tried to pull her into my arms, she resisted for a moment before sagging against me. What the hell was going on?
“Baby, you’re scaring me a little, here. Please talk to me.”
I put my fingers under her chin and gently lifted her face to mine. My chest was tight; I was damn close to crying myself. She met my worried gaze.
“Deep breaths, okay?” I told her. That goes for me, too. “Just look in my eyes and breathe, in and out.”
Audrey nodded, her chest moving up and down more slowly. Her blue eyes were like wide, stormy seas, but focused on me. Within a minute her crumpled expression had smoothed out, but she still reminded me of a piece of balled up paper taken out of the garbage.
“Now,” I said calmly, “what’s going on? Do you need me to call the doctor?”
She hesitated before shaking her head.
“Do you need me to call Brett?”
Another shake.
What on earth ha—my stomach suddenly dissolved with fear. I’d left her alone a lot the past several days. Something could have happened. “Do you… do you need me to call the police?”
Her eyes widened. “No!”
&
nbsp; Thank fucking god. I wiped a hand over my face. “Then whatever’s wrong, it’ll be okay. I love you.”
Her lip wobbled for a fraction of a moment before she bit down on it. “I might be pregnant.”
Breathe in.
Nope, can’t breathe.
“You might be what?”
It felt as though the hot water just ran out in the shower.
Fresh tears welled up in Audrey’s eyes. “Probably not. I mean, my doctor before told me it was unlikely to… just happen, but then that doctor today—”
“Doctor Patel.”
“He asked me some questions, and it made me think maybe it’s possible that…” She trailed off.
It wasn’t clear if I pushed her away or she slipped out of my arms. Either way, there was a new distance between us—and it wasn’t just a couple inches of glass and tile.
I sat there, stunned. This wasn’t happening.
“Dev, please say something.”
My hands curled into fists as I fought my inner asshole. Everything that came to my mind was a knee-jerk question or accusation that made no logical sense.
I thought you said you couldn’t get pregnant!
This isn’t what I want.
Your brother’s going to kill me.
“Dev…”
Shit, she’s crying again. Harder. I couldn’t look at her. Woodenly I said, “You’re probably getting cold.”
I rose on my knees and reached for the tap. I turned off the shower, but the water still echoed in my ears as I looked down at her. Her gaze swept over me, from my wet hair to the clothes plastered to me.
“Oh, right.” I tugged the drawstring at my waist loose and let the pants fall with a splat to the tiled floor. Now I only stood in wet boxer briefs. Automatically, I held my hand out to Audrey and helped her up.
As soon as she was standing she threw her arms around me and buried her face in my chest. “I’m sorry!”
Holding her made me whole, but right now I felt like there was a gaping hole in my chest. I wanted to hug her and tell her everything would be okay, but I didn’t know that for sure. How could I make that promise?
