There was the derision again. Tani’s back stiffened but she said nothing. If her father secretly disapproved of her choice of husband, then her brother openly did so. And right now, Tani didn’t have the energy to corner either of them on it.
She caught another glance of her unkempt reflection in the mirror.
Kabir was coming home.For her wedding.
Pain sliced through her already hurting heart. So, he could come home to watch her marry another man but he couldn’t find the fucking balls to admit what they both knew. That the only man she should be marrying was him. That the only man she wanted to marry was him.
Well, she’d be damned if she’d leave her heart at his feet for him to trample all over anymore. Tanisha swept past her mother and brother and into the shower, slamming the door behind her. She didn’t have time to waste. She had a wedding to plan.
CHAPTER 3
KABIR
He staredat himself in the mirror of the empty airport bathroom. Dark circles ringed his eyes, bags hanging under them from endless sleepless nights. He’d gelled his hair into submission before cramming a baseball cap on it. Between that and his weeks’ worth of stubble, which was more of a beard now, he was pretty sure no one recognised him. For an additional level of dissociation, he’d dressed in beige chinos and a formal blue shirt with a white pinstripe. Clothes he wouldn’t normally be caught dead in. They had the added benefit of covering up the sleeve of tattoos he had running down his left arm.
“Incoming,” Rahul called out softly from the entrance of the bathroom.
Time was up. Kabir pulled the cap lower, as people started to wander in. He kept his gaze on the floor as he walked past them and out of the bathroom, Rahul falling into step beside him. They’d already finished with immigration and collected their baggage. All they needed to do now was leave. He could feel the weight of people’s eyes on his back and tensed automatically but most just shook their heads and left, unable to place the vaguely familiar man strolling past them.
Rahul was on the phone to Kim telling her where they’d stand for her to pick them up. But when the car pulled up, it was a very different person who erupted out of the Thar and ran full tilt towards Kabir.
Rehan threw himself at him in a man hug that almost landed Kabir on his backside.
“Bro!” he shouted enthusiastically in Kabir’s ear, almost deafening him. “You’re home finally!”
Kabir grinned, hugging the human equivalent of a golden retriever, and hustling him towards the car. All the noise Rehan was making was drawing too much attention to them. From the driver’s seat, Kim aka Kimaya Kashyap aka Kabir’s baby sister and resident pain in the ass, smiled at him.
Kabir paused in the open car door. “She’s driving?” he asked Rehan.
“Shecan hear you,” Kim replied caustically. “Get in or I’ll leave all of you behind.”
Resigned to dying in the near future, Kabir got in with Rahul, Rehan calling shotgun and diving into the front passenger seat.
“Couldn’t you have brought one of the bigger cars?” Kabir groused as he tried to fit his long legs into the slightly cramped space.
“I like this one,” Kim retorted, leaving the airport, tyres squealing like she was in the latest version of the Fast and the Furious.
Kabir leaned over to pull her braid affectionately. “Brat.”
“Ass.”
“As scintillating as this conversation is,” Rehan interrupted with a heavy sigh, “can we get back to talking about what’s important?”
Kabir tensed. “And that is?”
“ME!”
Rahul laughed, not looking up from his phone screen where he was attending to the million emails and messages that had piled up while they were in the air.
Kabir leaned back in his seat, flexing his muscles and trying to ease the stiffness that had set in from the long flight. First Class or not, he was always happy to get off a plane and step onto land. He preferred to be standing on something that didn’t move.
Which was why when his sister took a turn on to the main road at full speed a squeak escaped him. Rahul looked up startled as Kim continued to weave through the manic Mumbai traffic like a Formula One racer on steroids.
“Umm-“ Rahul glanced at Kabir for direction.
“Pray,” Kabir told him.
When Kim swung into a U-turn to the accompanying screech of horns and abuse, Kabir’s antenna twitched.
