Pain flashed in his eyes but he buried it in the next second, his jaw clenching.
“I trust him Kabs. He cares about me. He loves me. He wants me. He chooses me. And,” she swallowed hard, “he will be good for me.”
Kabir’s hands clenched into fists at his side.
“I love you, Kabs. I have never not loved you.”
He stared at her, heart in his eyes but silence on his lips. When he finally spoke, it wasn’t words she wanted to hear.
“You need to forget about this nonsense, Tani.”
“Why?” Her lips quivered with suppressed tears.
“I’m not good for you, Bug. I’ll never be.”
The ghost of the conversation hung in the air, tainting everything they’d had, everything they’d ever been to each other.
“You can’t tell the family what you think,” she said hoarsely. “Please Kabs. It’s not like you have proof!”
If her father even heard a whisper of a suspicion about something like that, he’d toss Jay out on his arse so fast and it just wasn’t fair, because it wasn’t true!
Kabir’s eyes burned into hers. “You’re sure,” he asked her finally, his voice sounding like crushed glass.
Tani nodded. “I am.”
Kabir stepped closer, his hands going to cup her face. “You said he was good for you. But is he good to you, Bug?”
Her hands went up to curl around his wrists, eyes closing with the strength of the emotions welling up inside her. She nodded, unsure if she would be able to form the words to respond. A single tear escaped her closed lids and slipped down her cheek.
His forehead dipped to rest on hers, his eyes closing in defeat as if the emotion filling him was too much to contain.
“And this is what you want? What you truly want?”
Her eyes opened, tears shimmering in them as she looked into his turbulent ones. “You know what I want, Kabs. You knowwhoI want.”
His hands fell away, dropping to his sides, fingers trembling. “I can’t give you what you want, Bug.”
“Then stop questioning the choices I’ve made in the absence of that. You forfeited the right to look out for me, Kabs. You need to let it go. Let me go.”
He nodded, his head dropping, his face averted from her as he stepped back, away from her. She stepped around him, her feet feeling like they were weighed down by cement blocks as she walked away from him.
And he let her go. He always let her go.
CHAPTER 9
KABIR
“Kabir!”
He scrubbed his hands over his face, smoothing his expression out before turning to see who was approaching. Yash walked over, his intent gaze seeing more than Kabir wanted him to.
“What are you doing all the way over here?” Yash asked, coming to a stop next to Kabir.
“I was…” Kabir looked around, floundering a bit, before landing on, “Looking at the potatoes.”
Yash glanced at the neat, orderly, rows of tomato plants. “Right,” he murmured, straight faced. “The potatoes.”
After a moment of awkward silence, he said, “So, Kabir, I actually came out to ask you for a favour.”
