My heart skips a beat at the sight of him. Even now, with all the doubts swirling in my head, I can’t deny what this man does to me.
If only that were enough.
In isolation, our story is the ‘perfect’ love story. If the curtain had fallen on us that night he texted me to join him in the stairway for our first kiss—if that had been the end of our story—it would have been so easy. Or even if that same curtain had fallen that day in the hospital, when I gave birth to our boys, it would still have been a happy ending.
But that’s not how life works. There is no ‘ending’. Well, I mean, there is, but I don’t want to go so dark. Even if we were to divorce, our story doesn’t end.
It only gets a lot harder. And lonelier.
Karan’s dark brown eyes fixate on me right as he closes the door.
“When did it start snowing?” Surinder asks from his seat on the couch, looking up from the newspaper he’d been reading. “Looks like you got dipped in a snowbank, Beta.”
Despite his father’s comment, Karan doesn’t shift his focus away from me. He pats snow off his shoulders and starts undressing himself, painfully slowly. First comes off the hat, liberating his silky black hair tied back in his usual bun. I picture myself running my fingers through it. A shiver runs down my spine.
Next, he shrugs off his winter jacket. The way his shoulders ripple through his shirt… is obscene.
What is even happening?
I blink and look around, double-checking to make sure that we really are at this cabin with his family, and that I’m not having a mental breakdown. But when I look back at my husband, there’s nothing obscene about the way he’s unlacing his boots.
Well. Not on the surface.
Damn. We haven’t had sex in a long time, but I hadn’t realized the impact this dry spell was having on me. Here I am, in broad daylight—or rather, broad moonlight—salivating over Karan like a college girl.
A hand waves in front of my face.
“Earth to Rachel,” Suresh says.
“Huh?” I break away from staring at Karan and turn to Suresh. “Sorry, did you say something?”
He points at my feet with a chuckle. “You dropped the cutlery.”
Shit. I look down at my feet and see the evidence sprawled on the floor.
Wow. What is wrong with me?
“Still recovering from your nap?” Karan asks, immediately making his way over to me.
Before I have a chance to bend over and pick up the stray forks and knives I dropped, there’s my husband, on his knees.
Just how I like him.
Snap out of it!
The heat from his gigantic body radiates to my shins. I swallow and watch him pick up my mess.
“I could have done that,” I say with a voice less steady than what I hoped.
He looks up at me, his thick lips twisted into a crooked smile. “I know. But you don’t have to do everything.”
Before I have a chance to reply, he stands, towering over me. “I’ll get clean ones.”
My gaze follows him as he walks over to the sink, dumps the utensils I dropped, and grabs fresh ones from the drawer.
He holds me in a daze.
I make it through dinner without too much trouble, though I’m still partly in a daze. Somehow, I manage to do a good job ofblending in, participating in conversation where I can without too much mental effort.
