‘I don’t get it. One minute you’re working at the reception, the next you’re at Riya’s Lounge. Where do you actually work?’
‘It’s complicated,’ Gavin said.
Neel laughed.
‘What?’ Gavin asked.
‘That’s what Kaavi and I say when people ask what’s going on between us.’
Gavin grinned. ‘Sounds about right.’
Neel sighed.
‘I take it she’s not going back with you tomorrow?’ Gavin asked.
‘Nope,’ Neel said.
‘Did you ask her?’
Neel took a long sip of his beer. ‘Okay, here’s what I don’t get, Gavin. Kaavi hasn’t said she loves me. Not once. I’ve said it, more than once, since we met again, but she’s never said, “I love you, Neel.” Not even close. Isn’t that… weird?’
‘You’re asking the wrong person,’ Gavin said, lifting his glass. ‘I’m the guy who bought a bar for his ex-girlfriend.’
Neel turned to face him, eyebrows raised. ‘About that…’
Gavin sighed. ‘It’s not what you think. I’m not in love with Riya. It’s a long story. It goes back to something that happened when we were teenagers. Anyway, this isn’t about me.’
He looked at Neel. ‘What’s really holding you back from asking Kaavi to go home with you?’
Neel let out a breath. ‘She’s got a job offer in Miami. A big one. I can’t expect her to give that up, and I know she won’t. She’salready said yes, basically. She didn’t even pause to think about me.’
Gavin winced. ‘Yeah. That’s rough.’
Neel nodded. ‘It is.’
aavi pressed ‘send’ and sat back. She didn’t feel a flicker of regret about turning down the Miami offer. Modelling was behind her. She wasn’t going to dwell on it. Not now. She had bigger things to think about, like what her life had turned into.By tomorrow morning, Neel would be on his way back to Johannesburg. She’d have to sign the divorce papers. That chapter of her life? Also over.
After leaving Neel’s hotel room, she’d stopped at Come in Carmen and bought two huge slices of chocolate cake to go. She hoped the waitress would assume she was sharing. She wasn’t.
Back home, she devoured both slices and collapsed on the couch. She picked up her phone. No missed calls. No messages. Then she replied to the email.
It was just after 7.30pm. She yawned. She was so sleepy. A 28-year-old woman, supposedly in the prime of her life, was ready to get to bed before 8pm because she was dodging heartbreak and reality.
Kaavi dragged herself to the bedroom and stepped out of her denim skirt. She was in no mood for a shower. She reachedunder her T-shirt, unclasped her bra and flung it across the room before she collapsed on the bed, still in her T-shirt and panties. She shut her eyes tight and tried to picture his face. Just his face. She didn’t want to think about what he felt like. She didn’t want to think about him at all.
But then she sat up and reached for her phone on the nightstand. She tapped the screen and scrolled. She found the photo from the day they’d got married. Damn, Neel was hot. Correction: Neel is hot, she thought. But it wasn’t just that. He was kind, thoughtful, loving and just amazing.
She groaned. Loudly.
She did not want to do this to herself.
When she left him, Neel probably thought she had simply moved on with her life, easy as that. But she hadn’t. She’d thought about him every single day. She’d mourned them and missed him achingly.
Now it was starting all over again. The gut-punch feeling, the loss, the need and the heartbreak were back.
They’d returned the rental car and were now sitting at the gate, waiting to board. Natara sipped on some fancy iced coffee. He stuck to a bottle of water. Neel didn’t tell her about the night before, how he and Gavin had way too much to drink at the bar, how he’d stumbled back into the hotel room, nearly in tears, drunk and spiralling, thinking about Kaavi. He took another sip of water and kept quiet, pretending his stomach wasn’t doing somersaults.
Natara pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose, which was really a warning sign. That little move always meant she was about to say something that would get under his skin. It was just how they were. As twins, they were fiercely loyal to each otherand forever in each other’s corners, but they were also brutally honest with each other.
