by Sonali Dev
“We’ll think about it,” India said when Brandy looked at her for an answer. “There’s a lot to consider. But thank you.”
Brandy nodded.
“Let’s not think too hard, though,” Tara said, all sorts of meaning in her eyes. “It’s okay to do what feels easy and to trust that the universe won’t punish you for it.”
China wrapped her arms around Tara’s waist. “The universe finds a way,” they both said, eyes on India.
“But you can’t cut it off. You have to give it options,” Tara added.
They stared her down, but she wouldn’t give them a reaction. She had no options to give the universe.
China squeezed her arm. “The most important thing is that we won’t have to sell our home. Also, Sharon called me yesterday and I’m going to see her tomorrow about going back to work. I can probably work a good bonus into the deal.”
Only China could come up with that, when she was the one who’d quit without any regard to the bridges she was burning. At least she was smiling again, and that was everything. “I will work my butt off, though. I really miss work.”
“Oh,” Ellie said suddenly, “Tara, are you still okay with me borrowing a sari from you for Nisha’s baby shower?”
All of them slid sideways looks at India, studying her worriedly. She blanked out her face the best she could. It wasn’t like she could miss Nisha’s baby shower. Not only had she promised Ashna and Trisha that she would be there, but she and China were in charge of helping Ashna with the games.
“If you don’t want to be there, Brandy and Ellie can help me with the games,” China said still studying her like a butterfly in a shadow box.
“Why would I not want to be there?” With that, she excused herself and went upstairs, the answer to her own question ringing in her ears.
NISHA’S BABY SHOWER was technically a dohale jevan, a traditional cravings feast for the mother-to-be. Cravings feast just about covered it. Between DJ and Ashna, every kind of food you could dream up was on the menu. If only India could eat with the butterflies crowding her stomach. The white tent, the garlands of lights and flowers strung across the Raje estate, it was all too much of a throwback to a night many years ago.
Ashna had called it a small celebration. So India should have expected the hundred guests. At least the estate was big enough that people were spread out and there was no dearth of places to hide. Fortunately, the man India wanted to see the most and the least was nowhere to be found.
As soon as she finished helping people pin toilet paper diapers on themselves, and guess the baby’s gender from all sorts of unrelated things, she slipped past the crowd heading to the food.
She was no longer worried about running into Yash. She’d been here hours without seeing him, which meant he’d made sure she didn’t have to meet him with a hundred people watching.
Thank you.
She had to stop talking to him as though he were with her.
Since those pictures had leaked, he’d been campaigning relentlessly, but only five of the ten points he’d dropped in the polls after the incident had been recovered. Possibly because the Cruz campaign kept the story in the media. Raising all sorts of doubts about whether or not Naina was even in the country when the pictures were taken. Yash refused to address it. He was protecting her. If they identified the car and then traced it back to India, life as she knew it would be over.
She looked up at the back facade of the house. All those windows. Goose bumps traveled up and down her arms. At least she got to see him on TV when she couldn’t bear not seeing him.
Don’t watch me, it makes it worse, she said silently to the windows that gave her nothing but reflected lights.
“It’s impressive, isn’t it?” A woman India had never met in person came to stand next to her. The woman had the same haircut as India. Short layers in the front and close cropped in the back. She might be an inch taller, but if her fine-boned face wasn’t visible, one might mistake one of them for the other.
Naina.
The sight of her hair, of all things, made rage rise inside India. Rage. She breathed through it.
“It’s really tempting to dream about inheriting all this someday,” Naina said in a voice that was as polished as the rest of her.
India started walking. Engaging with her was out of the question, not with the amount of anger inside her.
Naina followed, her hot pink chiffon sari moving gracefully with her. India was wearing a white-and-silver-embroidered kurta with churidar tights, so if she wanted she could easily outrun her. Actually, she could outrun most people in any clothing. It was an immodest thought, but she needed it right now.
“I can’t believe you had the guts to show up today,” Naina said. Obviously she knew who India was. Yash had probably told her because of the pictures.
“Nisha and I have been friends for a long time.” India kept walking, making her way into the house.
The sights and smells hit her like breaking water on a dive. The very texture of the air wrapped her in a full-bodied hug, a too-tangible reminder of the gray-eyed boy who had run through these halls as a child. He was everywhere. “And I was just leaving.”
Actually, who was she kidding? He was always everywhere. He was inside her.
“Did you want me to be grateful that you’re leaving?”
Among other things. At first India didn’t say it. Then she did.
Naina looked taken aback. “Like what? Having another woman steal what’s mine?”
India stopped and turned to her. Was she for real?
Don’t engage with her.
But the look on Naina’s face was too superior, too entitled. “If indeed one of us is stealing what’s not theirs, it isn’t me.”
That shocked Naina so much she froze. India took that chance to make her escape. She had to leave before the energy of this place seeped into her lungs even more than it already had. She could smell him. She could feel him smiling against her lips.
Where was her coat? When she’d arrived she’d gone straight to the backyard and someone had taken it. Her eyes fell on a sign on a door that said COATS. She ran into the room. It was beautiful. Lined with bookshelves and with a high-frescoed ceiling. A painting covered almost all of one wall: a man in regal finery of blue and gold. He had Yash’s stubborn jaw, Yash’s gentle eyes.
Ram.
The man smiled down at her, the challenge in his gaze boring into her. He’d fought for what he wanted, even when he knew he could hang for it. On a brass plaque in the wide carved gold frame were the words Victorious Through Truth.
He never told a lie in his life.
Hair fell across his forehead and an unholy urge to push it up moved inside India.
“You know Yash and I have been engaged for ten years, right?” Naina said, letting herself into the room. Thankfully there were no other people around.
“That’s a lie,” India said, and turned to the coat hangers on wheels lined up along one wall. She started searching for her jacket.
“Is that what he told you? Yash made a promise to me.”
India spotted her jacket. Take it and leave. Grabbing it, she walked past Naina without answering.
“God, you’re one of those quiet pushover types, aren’t you? Sometimes I just don’t understand Yash.”
India spun around, heart thumping.
“It’s obvious you don’t. If you understood Yash, this would be so much easier.”
That made Naina give a condescending laugh. It was obviously how she processed things, by looking down at them. The exact opposite of how Yash processed things, by coming eye to eye with them. “Yash and I aren’t exactly going for easy. We want to do hard things. World-changing things. It’s not something a yoga instructor would understand. If you don’t leave him alone, your selfishness is going to ruin everything.”
“My selfishness is going to ruin everything for you. That’s a really selfless sentiment.”
That stopped Naina. Suddenly th
e superiority in her gaze turned to something else. Fear? For the first time she looked like she saw India as more than just a yoga instructor.
“You and Yash have done great things with your life. You will continue to. But Yash also deserves to be happy.”
He deserved to be loved. He deserved not to live a lie.
“Yash loves me.”
India pressed the jacket to her chest. “Yes, he does. You’re family to him.”
That made Naina step back. “Don’t you dare patronize me. I don’t need you to tell me that. Yash’s happiness is in being governor of California. Then moving on to even bigger things. I’m the one who will get him there. You’re the one who will get in his way.”
Every time India thought she could walk away without answering, the woman said something that made it impossible. “And you don’t care how you get there? You don’t care that you’re holding him to ransom when all he was doing was helping you? You don’t care that you’ve turned him into a crutch?”
Naina paled at that. India had hit a nerve. But every aha moment fought you. That’s what made the journey so hard.
India pointed the jacket she was clutching at Naina. “That’s my hair you’re wearing. That’s the thing about lies, after a point you stop noticing you’re telling them.”
I don’t want to do this without you. I don’t want to live a lie.
Naina touched her hair. “You think I wanted to cut my hair? I was protecting him from losing everything. That was the promise we made. To help each other. He wanted me to do this.”
That was a lie.
“Yash did not ask you to cut your hair.” The clarity with which India knew this nudged apart the clouds that had been fogging her mind. “You did that without his knowledge.” Her heart started racing. How had she missed this? “You did it because it made the lie too big to be reversible. Too public. Too premedidated.” She pressed a hand to her mouth, covering the laugh that escaped her. “By claiming to be me in those pictures, you made sure any hope Yash and I had was over.”
Naina paled. But she wasn’t the only one who’d been forced to look in a mirror she’d been avoiding.
When those pictures first came out, India had been terrified, but there had also been a spark of hope. Hope for the truth to come out even if it was by accident. Then Naina claiming to be in the pictures had snuffed that hope out. But that hope had been there, and it meant something.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Yash had been watching India from his childhood room. When they’d been setting up, he may or may not have manipulated the placement of the tent so he had the perfect vantage point to watch the baby shower games from his window. Ashna had let slip that India and China were helping with those.
He felt not a whit of guilt for it. Not seeing her for a month was more penance than any man deserved for any crime. Putting her in a position where they came face-to-face with an audience comprised of his entire family was something he would never do to her. Staying in his room had been easy. The family had given up on him spending any time with them and written it off as campaign stress.
Already Naina knew who she was. He’d had to tell her after those photographs. He kept reminding himself that Naina was essentially a good person and wouldn’t hurt India. Her pretending to be India in those pictures had saved India from having her life turned upside down by the media. It had also saved his election. As Naina reminded him every single time they met, which was almost never when he could help it.
As the crowd made its way to the food tent, India headed for the house. She was leaving. The thought came with so much panic, he had to breathe through it. The way she had taught him.
Suddenly she looked up and studied the house. She was searching for him. In that way she had of searching for him with her entire being.
Find me, please. Fight for me.
For a few moments they were talking again, as though their gazes were locked, their bodies full of each other. Then someone came and stood next to her. It was the way India’s body stiffened that made Yash look away from her to who it was.
Shit.
India stepped away from her, but Naina was in one of her belligerent moods. She followed India into the house.
Yash ran out of his room and down the corridor and down the stairs. He ran through the foyer to the entrance and out to the porte cochere. His parents were saying bye to some friends and they stopped him, bombarding him with questions about the campaign trail. Then jumping right to the one thing Indian aunties and uncles never stopped doing no matter how old you got. They reminisced about how small he’d been when they first knew him. In this case he’d already been in college, so the tearing up was a little excessive.
“You okay?” Ma said, holding his hand and studying him in that way she’d taken to studying him all the time.
“I’m looking for someone,” he said without thinking about it. “Did you see Naina come out here?”
“No.” Ma’s examination grew even more focused.
Tugging his hand from hers and giving her what he hoped was a please-stop-worrying look, he went back into the house and pulled the door shut before he started running from room to room looking for India and Naina.
They had turned the library into the coat room. He pushed the door open and went in and was immediately struck by the full-body blow of her voice.
“That’s my hair you’re wearing. That’s the thing about lies, after a point you stop noticing you’re telling them,” India said with all the calm that made her her. Then there was that edge under there. Also all her.
“You think I wanted to cut my hair? I was protecting him from losing everything. That was the promise we made. To help each other. He wanted me to do this.” Naina sounded livid.
“Yash did not ask you to cut your hair. You did that without his knowledge,” India said with absolute certainty. “You did it because it made the lie too big to be reversible. Too public. Too premeditated.” Her hand pressed into her mouth, covering the laugh that escaped her, as though she couldn’t believe that she had missed this. “By claiming to be me in those pictures, you made sure any hope Yash and I had was over.”
She’d had hope?
She’d had hope.
“How were you naive enough to think you and Yash had a chance?” Naina said.
“Because truth has to . . .”
“. . . count for something,” Yash and India said together.
India spun toward him. And there it was, the endless peace of her gaze. Breath whooshed out of him, weight lifted off his shoulders.
“Because love has to count for something.” He took a step closer, and her body sagged, mirroring all the relief he was feeling. “I breathe differently when she’s around. I feel . . . I feel alive in ways I never have.” Her eyes soaked him up, her gaze traveling down his body. She was checking to make sure he was okay.
“You thought we had a chance?” he said to her. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“What is wrong with you, Yash?” Panic tinged Naina’s always-confident demeanor. “You can’t give up everything.” She turned to India. “You’d let him lose everything for you?”
India froze in place at Naina’s words. Only in her eyes could a million emotions flit by in the space of one breath.
“None of it means anything without you.” He fell into her eyes, all those shades of brown, earth opening up for him.
“Yash, beta, what is going on here?” Great, great, great. The last voice he wanted to hear right now was Ma’s.
India studied his expression, her own getting stronger, and he took strength from it. Her eyes moved to Ma, who had to be standing behind him.
“Mina Auntie!” Naina said. “Shree Uncle!”
Holy double shit. Yash turned around and saw his parents looking at him like they had no idea who he was. How much had they heard?
“What do you mean, none of it means anything without her?” Ma said.
India took a step closer to him, moving a
utomatically as though she couldn’t help but be his shield.
“Who is this girl?”
Oh, Dad, please, not now.
“Shree!” His mother had never snapped at his father in front of her children, let alone in front of anyone else, and HRH went utterly still. “You will let me handle this.”
She went to India and took her hand. “Hi, I’m Mina Raje. Haven’t we met?”
“I’m India Dashwood.” India’s voice was as calm as he’d ever heard it. She was breathing through this, and he followed suit.
“Ah yes, you’re China’s sister. Thank you so much for your help with Yash. And with Ashna for so many years. Ashna’s been suggesting I come to you for my knee.”
“I’d be happy to help.”
Suddenly Ma realized what she might have sounded like and looked embarrassed. “I hope that didn’t come across as me being rude. I was just . . .”
“You’re trying to put me at ease. I appreciate it. Thank you.” She turned to Yash. “I have to leave. Will you be okay?”
Yash felt something slash through him. “I’ll take you home. We have to talk.”
Before she could answer, HRH spoke. “Why would he not be okay? What is she talking about? What is going on?”
“Did you . . . are you hiding something from us? Did you break up with Naina and not know how to tell us?” Ma asked.
“Can we talk about this later?” Yash said. “I need to walk India out.”
“No, Yash,” India said, “You need to talk to your parents. You need to listen to what they have to say. Please.”
“Can you stay for just a moment longer?” Ma said, then she turned on Yash. “Did we ever give you the impression that you couldn’t talk to us? I thought our relationship was more open than that.” It wasn’t like Ma to make things about her. She didn’t exactly understand boundaries, but she did understand secrets. “When did you and Naina break up? Why didn’t you tell us? Naina?”
Naina’s jaw was clenched. She looked devastated, but there was also something else in her eyes. Defeat? Resignation? She threw another look at Yash and India, and he had a sense that she saw something she hadn’t let herself see until now.