by Dani Collins
* * *
A few nights later, Vijay took Oriel to meet Kiran and Jalil at one of Mumbai’s most exclusive restaurants. The pair had been over to visit twice already, and Vijay had been going to work, but Oriel had been staying in the penthouse while she acclimatized.
They’d also been making love nonstop because they couldn’t seem to help themselves. He had no complaints about that, but he did suspect they were expressing themselves physically because they didn’t know how to do it verbally.
He was still disturbed by what she’d said about wanting the “big” love. The one. He had known there was a romantic hidden deep inside her, but he hadn’t appreciated how fragile her heart was. Her amazing front of confidence hid any hint of insecurities. He was glad she had spelled out for him where she struggled, but he was also—very hypocritically—frustrated that she had developed her own inner guards to protect herself. It made it that much harder for them to be sure of one another.
It would all come with time, he assured himself. For now, she was feeling cooped up, and he was eager to show her his city and show the world his wife.
Of course, she caused a stir the minute they hit the street.
It was more annoying than anything. They had a security detail. He wasn’t concerned about her safety to any serious degree, but he suspected this would wear on her long-term.
At least the restaurant was used to catering to Bollywood celebrities and other high-profile clientele. It was candlelit with glinting reflections dancing off glossy floors and mirrored tiles in the wall mosaic. Partial walls of wooden slats absorbed sound and formed partitions that created pockets of privacy.
Heads turned as they were shown to their table, but Oriel seemed unfazed.
“You’re taking this in stride,” Vijay remarked as they settled at their table.
“The attention? I forgot it was for me,” she said with a blink of bemusement. “The same thing happens when I go anywhere with Maman. I’ve learned to ignore it.”
They all chuckled, and it turned into a pleasant, relaxing meal. They were finishing dessert when Kiran’s smile stiffened.
“Someone must have posted that we were here. Why else would she show up?”
“Who?” Oriel asked.
Vijay knew without looking and stiffened, watching for Oriel’s reaction as his past literally caught up to him.
“Vijay, Kiran.” Wisa’s voice was a smug purr. “What are you two doing in this part of the city?”
“Wisa. Madin.” Vijay rose to greet his ex-fiancée and his ex-best friend, determined to be nothing but polite. “Please meet my wife, Oriel. And our good friend, Jalil Dalal.”
“Ah, yes. Such a colorful story. It’s everywhere.” Wisa’s gaze widened on Oriel as though she was an exotic animal, a curiosity, but something to be dismissed. “You do have a way of making headlines, don’t you?” she said pithily to Vijay.
It was exactly the sort of sly, denigrating remark she and everyone else had made when he had refused to look the other way over his father’s transgressions. Anything to put him down.
He was about to set her in her place once and for all when Oriel spoke up.
“Would you like a photo?” She sent a friendly nod to someone beyond Wisa.
They all glanced to see that an elderly woman in a saree was watching Oriel with a delighted smile of recognition.
“I’ll come there.” Oriel rose and brushed past Wisa, saying, “I don’t want to offend her.” She paused and set a delightfully possessive hand on Vijay’s shoulder. “This would be a good time to make an escape, or I’ll be here all night. You should buy their dinner, though.” She nodded at Wisa and Madin. “Make it up to them that we can’t stay.”
“I’d love to.”
The look on Wisa’s face was worth whatever they charged to his credit card.
“That was savagely brilliant,” he said when he and Oriel were in the back of his car on their way home.
“It’s from my mother’s bag of tricks. I felt petty resorting to it.”
“You shouldn’t. The family at the other table was happy.” They’d been over the moon that their grandmother had been singled out and fussed over by a celebrity. “Wisa will think twice before driving across the city to make things awkward for us ever again.”
“Holding on to a grudge like that suggests she still has feelings for you.” She glanced across at him, eyes wary and watchful.
“Her uncle had to pay a fine and narrowly missed going to jail. I imagine she believes I still deserve punishment for that.”
“Why? Her uncle was the one who broke the law,” she muttered impatiently.
“Thank you.” He reached across to squeeze her hand, so moved that his chest felt tight and he had to swallow a lump from his throat. “Anytime I have to revisit that episode in my life, I feel sick. I thought I was a law-abiding, principled sort of man and had to decide if I really was. It was sobering to be put to the test, and when I stood by what I thought was right, I was vilified and abandoned. It means everything to me that you didn’t give her a chance to spit poison in your ear.”
“I should have thanked her,” she mused. “If she hadn’t been so self-interested, you’d be married to her, and I wouldn’t have you or our baby or know any of this about myself.”
Neither would he, Vijay realized with a catch of fierce possessiveness for her, their baby, and the life they were starting.
Recognizing that flashed a fresh light on all he’d been through, searing away much of his resentment and anguish. His ever-present shame died a final death, becoming cold, flaky ashes. From now on, it would be a bitter and sooty memory, but not one that still had the ability to scorch and burn him.
“But honestly?” Oriel said with annoyance. “She was kind of a bitch. ‘What are you two doing in this part of the city?’ Like she owns it. I don’t actually feel bad for snubbing her.”
He chuckled and tugged her across the seat, into his arms. “I felt great about it.” In fact, he felt as though he was falling in love, and he wasn’t that unsettled by the prospect.
CHAPTER NINE
AS THE DAYS turned into weeks, Oriel had to concede that she and Vijay were very well-matched. Sexually, their compatibility continued to be an A-plus, ten out of ten. They could hardly keep their hands off each other.
They also complemented each other in broader ways. They began adding personal touches to their home by way of art and sculptures and were always in agreement. They hired a housekeeper and cook with minimal discussion and already knew what they wanted in a nanny.
She and Kiran got on as if they’d known each other all their lives, laughing and enjoying each other’s company whether Vijay was in the room or not. He even brought her into the office to introduce her around. Everything was in disarray due to merging with TecSec, but she was fascinated and enjoyed seeing that side of his world.
In the hours when the rain let up, Vijay drove her to different parts of the city to help her get her bearings, and into the mountains, where everything was lush and green. They took a day trip to see the caves with rock carvings on Elephanta Island, and because it was mostly tourists there, they enjoyed one of their most relaxing, incognito days ever.
He worked a lot, which made her conscious of the fact she didn’t, but he chided, “Your job is to build our baby. That’s work.”
So far being pregnant wasn’t that hard. Her nausea had passed once she’d caught up on her sleep. Today they were having a scan, but it was purely routine.
“I have to go to Delhi for a few days,” he said, reading his phone while they waited.
“When?” She instantly felt a pang of separation anxiety. It wasn’t that she was emotionally dependent on him. She was genuinely falling in love with him and hated to be apart from him.
“Tomorrow.”
“Can you tell me why? Or is it someth
ing confidential?” She was getting used to the fact that he sometimes couldn’t talk about certain things.
“Dangerously boring reasons. There’s a problem with wiring in the building we’ve leased and some HR issues that need massaging. I’d ask you to come, but I won’t have time to show you around. You’d be stuck in a hotel room.”
“And I would miss my language class.” She was going three times a week and practiced diligently with Kiran and their housekeeper. The classes were more than a determination to explore her roots, though. It was a nice reason to get out of the house, something she did for herself that wasn’t wrapped up in her husband, and she was making some pleasant friendships with the eclectic expats she was meeting.
The ultrasound technician arrived, greeting them cheerfully. As Oriel stood, the young woman made a noise of amused surprise, then consulted her notes.
“Eighteen weeks? Is that a typo?” She made a perplexed face at Oriel’s still flat middle.
“I’m very tall,” Oriel pointed out defensively.
She had already had a small lecture from one of Kiran’s well-meaning friends about ensuring her calorie intake was high enough. No one seemed to realize how thin she’d been when she’d gotten pregnant. The amount of weight she’d gained was right on target, and she was actually thickening around the waist and showing fullness in her breasts and face.
Plus, “My waist is long. There’s lots of room for a baby to hide in here.”
For one second, Vijay’s expression seemed arrested, but he shook it off so quickly, Oriel wasn’t sure if that had really been a moment of suspicion coming into his head.
“We’ll confirm your dates,” the woman assured her.
I know when I conceived. Oriel bit back the words.
A short while later, her affront was forgotten as the blurry image of their baby appeared with its heart pitter-patting.
Her eyes filled with tears, and so did Vijay’s. As they touched their trembling smiles together, she was so happy at having this little miracle inside her, she almost told him she loved him. Because she did. And she didn’t know which made her heart overflow more, their baby or him.
* * *
New Bride with an Old Flame?
Vijay stared at his screen, annoyed by the unsavory headline, but more bothered that his team was taking this seriously enough they’d forwarded it.
They had a team who filtered through all the false sightings, many of them easy enough to disprove when they claimed Oriel was in New York and she was clearly here, but this one was from the days shortly after Vijay had met her in Milan.
It was a photo of Oriel at a restaurant table with a man who had a healthy head of dark hair and the shoulders of a thirty-year-old.
The shot was actually a screengrab from a selfie video posted by someone visiting New York and dining at an upscale restaurant. As Oriel’s notoriety had risen, this tourist had realized she had inadvertently caught a celebrity in the background of her vacation vlog. Now the woman was claiming her ten minutes of adjacent fame by circulating the shot on the gossip sites.
In it, Oriel was leaning in, smiling playfully while delivering a flirty look through her long, thick lashes. It was unmistakably her. Vijay knew that curve of her cheek, the ripple in her hair that caught the light. He knew that adoring expression and had started to believe she only ever showed it to him.
He checked the date stamp and was further irritated to see it had been taken in the days after they’d been together in Milan. He told himself he had no right to the soul-eating jealousy that was trying to consume him, but he had a right to the truth. She had told him she hadn’t been with anyone except him since Milan. And that the “old friend” she had lunched with had been a man in his seventies.
There was also that niggling moment at the ultrasound the other day, when the technician had remarked on Oriel not looking pregnant enough.
Back in Cannes, Oriel had been offended when Vijay had suggested the baby might not be his. Of course it would be yours. Don’t be rude!
But she had gone back to New York after Milan. Had she seen—he read the caption—Reve Weston, New York billionaire, while she was there?
“Sir—”
“I need a few minutes.” He abruptly closed the door of the empty office he stood in, cutting off the babble of voices down the hall.
He wanted to jump on a plane back to Mumbai, but things were still in disarray here in Delhi. He couldn’t wait and wonder, though. He called Oriel for a video chat.
“Hi!” She was in her yoga clothes, hair bundled messily atop her head. “How’s it going there?”
“Terrible. I’m sending you a photo.”
“Of?”
“You. Having lunch with a man. In New York.”
She frowned. The screen briefly went black. “What? Mon Dieu, that’s not me.” She came back onscreen. “Or it’s been altered to make it look like it’s me.” She was frowning with concern, but not guilt, as far as he could tell.
“You don’t know him?”
“I know who Reve Weston is. Every straight woman or gay man in New York does. He’s one of those wealthy tycoons everyone dreams of catching. Is that what I’m up against now?” Her mouth twisted with annoyance. “People putting my image into photos to manufacture clickbait?”
“I ran it through Kiran’s program, Oriel. It hasn’t been edited. It was taken a few days after we met in Milan.”
“Vijay.” There was enough shock and hurt in her tone to cause him a trickle of compunction. “I thought we were past this.”
“I’m not angry.” He was trying not to be. He was trying to give her the benefit of the doubt. “I just want you to be honest about it. Tell me if you had a relationship with him and saw him again when you went back. Either time.”
“Either...? Are you asking if I went on a date with an old boyfriend after you and I were married? No, I did not. I have never had lunch with Reve Weston. Ever. Or dinner. Or breakfast the morning after a night before. Please tell me you are not accusing me of getting pregnant by another man and passing it off as yours!”
“I’m just trying to get to the bottom of this.”
“We are definitely hitting rock bottom if we’re here,” she snapped. “I’m sitting here eating my heart out, missing you because I love you so much, and you call to accuse me of that?”
His heart lurched. I love you. They were words he had told himself he didn’t want or need to hear. His scorned self from years past warned him she might only be saying it to throw him off her affair, but his gut told him that was wrong. She meant it.
“You’re punishing me for Wisa’s infidelity,” she accused, expression contorted with hurt.
The last thing he ever wanted was to hurt her, but he said, “I’m simply asking for an explanation for what is right in front of my eyes.”
“I can’t explain it,” she cried with frustration. “But the fact you jump to the worst possible explanation tells me what you think of me, doesn’t it?” She ended the call.
It was as though she’d stabbed clean through the screen and jabbed a hole in his chest. Vijay swore and pocketed his phone.
* * *
Oriel hadn’t spent much time looking herself up online. She knew that way lay madness, and Vijay had people screening all of that, but in her hurt and fury, she began going down rabbit holes on Lakshmi fan forums. She found threads by dozens of people claiming to also be the product of Lakshmi’s illicit liaison and therefore entitled to her fortune. Some of the posts were clear fakes, others credible look-alikes.
Some of it was very unsavory, but so was being accused of infidelity by her husband. She kept searching and came across another photo that claimed to be of her, this one more recent. It showed three frames in which she supposedly had an altercation with a photographer that ended with the man clutching his bleeding nose.
Cuvier Clocks Cub Reporter for Catching Her Canoodling
“With who?” she cried.
The woman in the photo was a really good double. She had a streak of pink in her hair, but her face and body were uncannily similar. The shocked, fear-filled look on her face was what really got to Oriel. She felt that other woman’s emotions as if she was staring at her own reflection in a mirror.
Disturbed, she went back to the photo of the woman with Reve Weston and started searching for more of the couple together. She didn’t have much luck until she stumbled across a list of guests from a gala that said Reve’s plus-one had been someone called Nina Menendez.
When Oriel searched Nina’s name, she discovered the woman’s social profiles had been locked down. The only thing she was able to turn up was—weirdly—from a fashion degree program at a college in New Mexico. Nina appeared in a video from four years ago.
Oriel’s skin broke out in goose bumps as she listened to Nina speak. She sounded just like her!
“I go for my first job interview on my twenty-first birthday next Thursday. No matter how that goes, I plan to have my first legal drink after. Wish me luck.”
Oriel glanced at the date, and her heart nearly came out of her mouth. Nina’s birthday was the day after Oriel’s, but Oriel had been born a few minutes before midnight. She knew because she’d been going through all the paperwork on her adoption with Jalil.
She and Nina were essentially the same age.
“Mon Dieu, mon Dieu...” she heard herself muttering, her skin going hot and cold as she hurriedly read the rest of Nina’s bio on the college website.
She was barely able to make sense of it. Nina mentioned her father’s military career as inspiration for some of her designs, adding that her father had been stationed at one of the bases in Germany when she had been born.
Oriel shakily opened another tab on her browser and punched in the distance between the air force base and the small village in Luxembourg where she’d been born.