There was still more he wasn’t saying.
But maybe that was okay.
“Where is your grandma?”
“Dadi is in India,” I replied, my voice thoughtful but tinged with sarcasm. “On an unyielding mission to find a ‘suitable match’ for me. The day I return, she’ll probably invite all the eligible bachelors from around the world and have me married by the very next day.”
“Sounds like a plan,” he said, breaking the intense stare and moving toward the kitchen counter.
“I don’t want to get married.”
“Are you gonna break Dadi’s heart?”
“I have to go back for her ninetieth birthday, and she’s summoned the entire Randhawa family—like,everyone.”
I’ll have to face a disaster: my dad and his rejection, my stepmom and her ‘perfect’ life choices, my cousins with their endless teasing, my aunts who live for gossip, my friends with their sickeningly romantic soap-operalives—and top it all off, the millionaires and billionaires my Dadi hashandpickedas potential suitors for me.
He tilted his head, his smirk softening into something more thoughtful. “I think you’d survive.”
And why, why is he laughing?
“Marriages are not that hard…” He was scratching that stubble-cutestubble.
“I don’t want an arranged marriage—I’m a romance writer!”
“Romance writer, huh?” he said, stepping closer.
I barely had time to blink before he leaned in, caging me between the counter and his body. His hands planted firmly on either side of me, his warmth enveloping the small space like a storm front I didn’t see coming. His eyes locked onto mine—steady, unreadable, dangerous.
“Yes…” I managed, though it came out more like a squeak than a word.
“So…” he murmured, voice low and lethal, “how many romance writers exist in this world who don’t know how to kiss?”
God. Why does he have to lookthishot while beingthisinfuriating?
“I already apologized for that night,” I muttered, looking down, pretending to be fascinated by my own fingers, which were now fidgeting with the edge of my shorts like they had a purpose. They didn’t. Neither did I.
“You never had enough boyfriends to teach you?”
“No,” I whispered. My cheeks burned. And I still couldn’t look at him.
“Why?” he asked, his voice softer now—but no less intense. The proximity, the way he hovered just inches from me, his presence folding over mine like heat—my thoughts were fraying fast.
“I just… I was a busy girl.”
“Doing what?” he asked, amused. “Writing about kisses without ever having one?”
“Manav…” I warned—or tried to. It came out breathless, more plea than protest.
“How do you explain something in your books if you’ve never experienced it?”
“My books are doing just fine, thank you very much,” I snapped, trying to cling to the last shred of my dignity.
“I know,” he said with a half-smile. “But I’m curious.”
“Oh? Do crime and thriller writers commit murders for research?”
He tilted his head. “How would I know? I don’t know many.”
