“Here.”
“For the better quality of life?” He smirked.
“And the free cook.”
“500 rupees per month. You cannot keep stealing all my payments.”
Her eyes were shimmering. “I am not sure about children, Nilay. It’s going to be difficult, maybe even impossible. Think hard, we don’t have to do this right now…”
“Ritu.”
Her throat worked a swallow. He tightened his hand on hers.
“I don’t know if we will have children or not, but a life with you, with or without them, will be amazing. A life withyou, give me that. The future I have been seeing every time I look at you… Give me that, Ritu.”
She nodded. He cradled her hand in both of his, then brought it to his mouth and pressed a kiss. His eyes rose from the back of her hand.
“Mills & Boonsy enough for you?”
She chuckled, looking at him with two big sparkles in her brown eyes.
“What?”
Her shimmering, sparkling, full-of-everything eyes beamed at him — “In true Mills & Boons fashion, tell me when.”
“When what?”
“You said you have read Mills & Boons, don’t you know that at the end of every book the man tells the woman when he fell in love with her?”
“I never said I read Mills & Boons. But,” he bent down and kissed the edge of her hand. “I can tell you when.”
She started to sit back but he pulled her wrist until she was leaning down, their noses touching.
“When you drove like a maniac at killer speed across Mumbai.”
She giggled.Giggled. Shoulders vibrating and all. A sound he never anticipated from this uptight doctor. Nilay pressed closer to her, pushing his nose to the edge of hers — “When you cared about my heart even more than your own fallen niece,” his voice softened. “When you hated an obnoxious asshole like me and still made him a salad.”
“It was a sad salad.”
“I agree.”
Her mouth dropped open.
“Your turn. When didyoufall in love with me?”
He felt her face stretch in a smile — “I don’t even know.” Her lips puckered and pressed to the edge of his cheek. She held his face between her palms, her forehead grinding against his, eyes closed — “All I know is that I spent all these months holding myself back from falling in love with you, in the end, finding myself right here. And nothing has felt better than this.”
Her mouth pressed to the corner of his mouth. Nilay sighed.
“Now, Doctor, again — Mills & Boonsy enough for you?"
She pulled back — “You don’t have that big, bad diamond ring.”
“You would make me return it for a gold bond, you kanjoos,” he laughed.
“That I would,” she grinned.
“But I will get it for you nonetheless.”
