He stopped at the door. Her head was already bent overher phone again. “Eat as many cookies as you want tonight, okay?”
She looked up and a flash of humor crossed her face. He took it and tucked it away in his heart. “I will.”
Dev scrolled through his contacts for Arjun’s number as he walked to his room. He should have put his cousin’s full name as Arjun the Asshole.
The phone rang and rang without going to voice mail. Dev hung up and called again. Just when Dev thought Arjun may not pick up, a sleepy voice came over the phone.
It didn’t matter that it was daytime in Mumbai right now. Arjun slept about fourteen hours a day, snug in his lavish, too-ornate bedroom in their grandparent’s mansion. “Hello?”
“Arjun.”
“Yes?”
Dev walked into his bedroom and closed the door. It was a testament to his restraint that he didn’t slam it. “Tell me something... why did you do it? What pleasure did you get out of lying to this poor woman?”
Arjun yawned. “What are you talking about?” Sheets rustled. “You’re becoming rude living in America, Dev. No how are you doing, no—”
“Shut up, Arjun.”
Arjun actually shut up, probably shocked. Dev was too. He’d never uttered that kind of snarl. Even at his angriest, he kept a cool head. “It had to be you. You must have seen the messages in Rohan’s phone. Or perhaps he even told you about this little prank. What possessed you to use my oldscripts? You couldn’t even be original?”
I’d cross the ocean for you.
Season seven, he’d said that to his wife on the show, when she was going abroad for a cooking show competition... the actress had actually been pregnant and too big to hide her belly behind large pots any longer. He remembered it vividly, because he’d written the dialogue.
He’d never wanted writing credit. The show runners had been more than happy to defer to him, at first for his name, and later because the audience liked what he came up with. He’d written or ad-libbed most of his own dialogue, and shaped a good number of the arcs as well.
Which was why he could spot the lines, even in another language. “Answer me.”
“I don’t know what—”
He almost beat his phone against the dresser. “This was a real person you lied to and misled. She is hurt. I cannot bear to think my own family could do this to anyone.”
Arjun went silent for a second. “You met her?”
Confirmation. It didn’t taste as sweet as he’d hoped it would. A yawning pit of guilt opened in his belly. “I did.”
“What did you think of her?”
“I— What the hell does that matter?”
Another long beat. “Rohan never meant to hurt anyone, ever. Sometimes he just didn’t think.”
More confirmation. Another avalanche of guilt. He rubbed his temples. “I’m sure he meant to hurt me,” he said thickly. It was an admission he wouldn’t have normally made to hiscousin.
“Um, I have to go. The connection is terrible.”
“It’s fine.”
Arjun made a scratching, yowling noise, clearly from his own mouth. “I cannot hear you.” More hissing. The man wasn’t exactly their family’s best actor.
“Arjun, don’t you—” But Dev was talking to dead air. He fruitlessly tried calling back twice more. “Damn it.” He sat on his bed, stymied. Arjun may as well have confessed, but what was he supposed to do with that? He couldn’t go running to their grandmother. She’d probably tell them to stop squabbling like they were children and avert her eyes from her youngest grandson’s atrocious behavior.
Dev was a fixer, and he had no idea how to fix this.
He considered the various possibilities. He could lie, tell Jia he had no idea who had done this to her, and they could both move on.
He could tell her everything and humbly apologize and beg her forgiveness.
