by Lucy Monroe
That, more than anything else, confirmed to Vin just how important it was to get her away from the palace for a while.
Tabish was headed toward them, not rushing, because that would be unseemly, but the glare on her face said she was not happy with them kissing out on the front drive for the world to see. The litany of things Eliza was supposed to be doing hadn't let up either.
Vin shook his head. "Eliza will not be available for any of that. You'll have to make do without her."
"Make do? Without the bride? That's impossible." That was his mother's voice.
He smiled at her graceful walk down those same steps, confidence in every line of her body, like she belonged there. She always had.
But that didn't mean he was going to let her, or her cohort, run Eliza into the ground before the wedding.
"I would have been happy with a civil ceremony in San Diego," he reminded both women in a tone that had them stopping and looking first to him and then at each other. "I told you to give her time to herself. Eliza is an academic, not a wedding planner."
"We have a planner," his mother said with credible affront.
Vin wasn't falling for it. "I am willing to indulge your desire for a formal wedding—"
"Surely you understand that cannot happen in the timeframe allotted to us without considerable effort on the part of everyone involved," Tabish said. "As it is, this unseemly haste is already giving rise to gossip."
"The haste is on your father-in-law, not me." Trisanu wanted all the legalities done as soon as possible for Vin's taking over in the role of his heir, but had been insistent that the wedding happen before the final document was signed.
At first, Vin had surmised the old man thought his illegitimate grandson would be easier to control if he was married to Adhip's ward. However, after the latest information report from Hawk Global Investigations & Security, Vin suspected another motive. Whatever Trisanu's reasoning, Vin looked forward to disappointing the current Maharaja.
Vin would never be controlled by anyone, but especially a Singh or an Acharya.
And he would never allow the past to repeat itself.
The wedding that never would have happened if both he and Eliza had not agreed to it wasn't going to change that.
"I will have her back the day before the Tilak," he promised, with what he considered monumental patience, as he opened the driver's side door.
Tabish's eyes widened and then narrowed. "What? No. Absolutely not—"
"You’re here early, we can put together a small ring blessing," his mother said, interrupting, giving Vin a look of parental appeal.
He might have been moved by it if he couldn't see Eliza out of the corner of his eye, slumped in the passenger seat of his car and looking far too fragile. "No. We agreed. There is no time for a Sagai."
"But that was before you were able to get here early."
"I put off important meetings because with every phone call, my concern for Eliza grew."
"Do not be dramatic, Rajvinder, all brides become tired coming up to their wedding days. There is much to do."
Vin gave his mother a look that he rarely used on her. She was after all, the one person in the world he acknowledged loving. But even she would not convince him to allow the current situation to continue. "You will have to finish the preparations for the event without her."
He took a breath and counted backward from ten.
Both older women must have realized just how close he was to losing his cool, because neither spoke while he did so.
"We have both given you free rein."
"As is custom," his mother pointed out.
"Really, Maan? You want me to get into a discussion about custom right now?"
His mother's lips sealed, her own expression not as friendly as it usually was.
"You may continue with the plans we have agreed to, but Eliza and I will not be here. Any truly important questions will come through me, but be warned if I don't think they are important enough to interrupt my time with my intended, my answer will be no. No to the elephant. No to the canopy. No to the pre-wedding rituals."
As much as he himself wanted those trappings, Vin meant what he said. He always meant what he said.
"Really, Rajvinder, I did not raise you to be so intransigent."
"You raised me to be strong."
His mother sighed. "I did that."
"To believe in my own value."
He got an almost smile for that.
"You also gave me a healthy dose of stubborn and there's no point denying it."
That wiped the smile from her face, but she didn't look angry.
"I have made only a couple of requests in regard to the wedding, but now I'm make a demand. Deal with it. All of it. If you need to hire more staff, do it, but my bride is coming to our wedding rested and relaxed."
"Taking her away for a honeymoon before the wedding is only going to feed the gossip," his mother pointed out, while Tabish nodded her head in agreement.
"I could make it a straight up elopement if you would rather?" He had no intention of anticipating his wedding vows.
His entire damned life had been marked by the timing and circumstances of his conception. There wasn't a single chance in hell of Vin allowing the same thing to happen to his own child.
Neither his mother, nor Tabish Singh had anything to say to his last sally, so Vin turned without another word and got into the car.
"Are we really leaving?" Eliza asked.
With the press of a button, he turned on the car. "Oh, yes."
"Okay."
"You don't care where we are going?"
"Anywhere has to be better than here." Considering the affection she held for the palace, those words said a great deal how truly overwhelming his academic was finding the preparations for a royal wedding.
Tabish Singh may have tried to raise Eliza to be a princess, but nothing was going to change his fiancée's basically introverted nature.
"We will go to one of my favorite places."
"Okay, but I don't have any clothes." She didn't sound worried, just tired.
The conviction he was doing the right thing taking Eliza away right now grew in Vin. "Call favorite number three on my phone, tell her your size, preferred colors and style of clothes you want. Tell her to have them delivered by tonight to..." He named the hotel he liked best in Agra with amazing views of the Taj Mahal from every suite.
"We're going to the Taj Mahal?"
"We are going to Agra and only the Taj Mahal if you are up to it." He wasn't sure how others responded, but he hoped Eliza would be like him and find just looking at the elaborate mausoleum destressing.
"I've always wanted to see the inside."
"If you're well rested the day after tomorrow, then we'll go." He negotiated the road, used to the craziness that was India's traffic. "Agra's not so far from the palace. Why haven't you ever gone to the Taj Mahal?"
"Too touristy." She yawned and then settled more deeply into her seat.
"For the Singhs you mean?"
"Yes."
He wasn't surprised. It was easy to take even national treasures for granted when you lived close to them and saw them as part of your home landscape. "When you speak to my Executive Assistant, have her arrange for my usual suite at the hotel too, if you don't mind."
"I don't mind," Eliza said on another yawn.
Vin wished he'd taken the time to pair his phone to the car, then he could be making this phone call on voice command. But he'd been in too much of a hurry to get to the palace.
Eliza pressed the phone to his fingertip to unlock it before doing as he'd suggested. Her discussion with his EA was brief, but he knew his instructions would be carried out without a hitch.
When she was done, Eliza put the phone down and asked, "You don't mind just buying me a bunch of clothes?"
"What I do mind is how exhausted you look."
"Your mother and Tabish auntie are indefatigable."
"They are d
oing what gives them joy, that gives them extra energy."
Eliza sighed. "I hate wedding preparation."
"I was beginning to get that impression."
"Does that make me abnormal?"
"No. It makes you Eliza, introverted academic who happens to also be a princess."
"Not officially. Not until we're married."
He smiled at her slurred words. He liked the thought of making her a princess. "Honestly? I know we both want to fulfill tradition." Which was a little odd for him, but Vin had never denied how proud he was of his Indian heritage. "But if I had been here, I probably would have exploded about two weeks ago and insisted on a civil ceremony with a very long honeymoon."
"We've never even discussed the honeymoon," she said in an unhappy tone.
"Did you want to?"
"Not really, no. I don't want to think about the wedding, or our wedding night, or anything else, right now," she said with more candor than he expected.
Her exhaustion had decimated her brain-to-mouth filters. And as much as he didn't really like knowing the wedding night was stressing her out, he couldn't fix something if he didn't know it was broken. He wanted her to rest.
"It's about an hour's drive to Agra. Sleep."
"I don't want to sleep. I want to talk. I haven't seen you in weeks." Her eyelids drooped even as she made that pronouncement.
He pressed a button on the steering wheel and soft jazz filled the car.
"Okay, maybe just a little nap."
She slept through the drive and arrival at the hotel. In fact, she never even woke up when he carried her inside and up to their suite. Vin laid Eliza on the bed and removed her shoes. The temptation to remove the rest of her clothes was strong, and later, when they were lovers, he wouldn't hesitate to make her comfortable like that when necessary.
But for now, he contented himself with looking his fill at the beautiful, if obviously exhausted woman fully clothed and sleeping on the bed.
In a matter of days this woman would be his wife. The satisfaction he felt at that knowledge was stronger than he expected it to be, but not unwelcome.
She was smart, kind, and loyal. Qualities he admired very much. She fit him in ways, he would not have expected, but even her bleeding heart was a good counterpart to his more ruthless nature.
His mother was convinced Eliza would soften Vin. If only Maan knew his plans for the Mahapatras Dynasty once he was married and his role of prince was legal and unassailable.
The old man was going to lose his mind, but it would be too late for Trisanu to continue his rejection of the illegitimate heir.
With one last glance at his sleeping fiancée, Vin went back into the living area to get some work done.
***
Eliza woke, light playing against her eyelids, warmth bathing her face from the wrong side of her bedroom.
Her brows drawn together in confusion, Eliza opened her eyes and blinked to adjust to the bright sunshine coming in from floor to ceiling windows across the room.
A room that was definitely not her bedroom back at the palace, though it was every bit as luxurious, if in a very different way. Looking around the swank, airy room, the bright colors she associated with India conspicuously absent, white the predominant color of the decor, she inventoried her situation.
Eliza was under a sheet and duvet covered, summer weight down comforter. Her shoes and jewelry were gone, but the rest of her clothes were rumpled from sleeping through the night in the strange hotel bed.
What was she doing here?
The louvered closet doors in one wall were no more familiar than the overstuffed white chairs arranged beside a beautiful teak occasional table. What she had thought were windows were actually glass doors that led to a white plastered balcony with wrought iron furniture and greenery planted in large, elegant planters.
Where was she?
Where were Tabish auntie and Barbie? They should have sent someone to wake her hours ago and no doubt had dozens of tasks for Eliza to complete before nightfall.
Not least of which was the physical workout Tabish auntie insisted on to "make sure Eliza was at her very best" for her wedding day.
Memories of the day before flashed through her mind. Rajvinder showing up days early, that look of real irritation in his eyes when he saw how tired she was.
Weird. But sweet. And unexpectedly welcome.
Had they really run away from the wedding? Eliza's current situation said yes.
But where was Rajvinder now? The depression in the second stack of pillows on the oversized bed indicated he'd slept there as well.
Right next to her.
Even though she was fully clothed, indicating nothing untoward had happened between them, heated awareness washed over her at the thought.
She wasn't sure if she was relieved, or disappointed that nothing had happened last night, her first one alone completely with the man who would be her husband.
One thing she did know. Eliza felt better than she had in days.
She was hungry, but even more than food, she wanted a shower. Eliza got up and went into the bathroom, needing a good hot shower without interruption more than she needed answers. Besides, she needed some time to shore up her defenses before seeing her fiancée.
The man had made it past all the walls around her heart and had somehow become important. No one was ever supposed to be important to her heart again. Eliza had spent the last two decades keeping her every soft emotion in check.
She knew the crushing agony of loss, could still remember the pain that had finally drowned the girl who believed life was good and safe and right.
Losing the grandparents that had been nearly as close and every bit as doting as her parents had devastated her, but when her parents had been taken from her such a short time later, Eliza had known that loving someone came with a terrible price.
One she had been determined never to pay again.
Her world would never again be torn asunder by loss.
Only somehow, every phone call with Rajvinder had become increasingly necessary. Her days grey and dismal until that first text and brightened further when he called to check on her, as he always did.
Even worse, every time she talked to Rajvinder, Eliza revealed more of the true self she hid so completely from others. He knew how much she wanted children, but how terrified she was to become a mother. That the possibility of losing a child, like she'd lost her parents, was the specter that haunted her hopes for a family with ghoulish power.
How she was even more terrified of putting a child through the same loss she'd suffered.
Therapists would probably call the awful nightmares and terror she experienced something clinical and pathological, but all Eliza knew was that she'd shared those fears with Rajvinder. And far from dismissing her emotional concerns as unimportant, Rajvinder had promised her that they would not lose their children. That they would never leave them.
She'd told him he couldn't make those kind of promises.
He'd said, with his customary confidence, "I just did."
And no matter how illogical, or irrational, Eliza had found herself believing him.
It made no sense. Not in the face of her own past. But it didn't matter. She did believe him. Rajvinder was her hero and he would protect her from the pain of the past.
She'd never trusted anyone to do that.
Not Adhip uncle or Tabish auntie. Not even Dev.
Rajvinder had also assured her there was no hurry to get pregnant. That no matter how the Singhs saw life, they were not the English royal family and could wait for Eliza and Rajvinder to provide progeny.
That promise had made it possible for Eliza to breathe again and only then did she realize how incredibly stressed she'd been, how this specter of motherhood had preyed on her subconscious since her promise to marry Dev when she was sixteen.
If she didn't know it was impossible, because Eliza would never allow herself the emotional indulgence, she would think she was f
alling in love with Rajvinder.
CHAPTER NINE
After a very long shower that did nothing to settle her racing thoughts, Eliza came out to the bedroom, luxuriating in the thick hotel robe and drying her hair with a towel only to stop short at the sight of her fiancé.
He wore only a pair of pajama pants and nothing else. She was pretty sure those were for her sensibilities. His sculpted chest was on display and her mouth went dry as the desire she'd only ever experienced with him washed over her.
Despite the casualness of his apparel (or lack thereof), his aura was no less commanding than usual. Power and confidence exuded from him, inexplicably quieting her chaotic thoughts.
"Good morning." He eyed her critically. "You look better than yesterday, but I think you could use another day of sleep."
The words should have sounded critical, but they didn't. Eliza felt cared for.
When he said he wanted her at her best, he meant what was best for her, not the best she could give in any particular moment.
No one had cared for her with such single-minded intensity directed on her happiness since her parents' deaths.
It was both comforting, but also more terrifying than the prospect of jumping out of an airplane without a parachute.
Eliza sloughed off her thoughts and his concern with one raise of her shoulders. "Planning a wedding that usually has a year, or even two to prepare for, is not for the weak, or so your mother and Tabish auntie keep telling me."
"With the resources at their disposal, there is no reason for you to personally see to so many of the preparations," he said with a frown and a shrug that was more controlled power than negligence.
She wished it were that simple. "I need to go back." It was a matter of family pride, or so both women said, that Eliza play her part.
"No." He indicated the big glass doors. "Breakfast is ready on the balcony."
"What? You can't tell me no?" And why did that sound more like a question than a statement? She completely ignored his mention of breakfast.
She was so hungry, but Tabish auntie would be furious if Eliza ate like she wanted to.
His smile was deadly. To her common sense. "Usually, I would agree with you, but you have shown you are not going to protect yourself, so I will do it for you."