Sejal was silent for a moment. “You’re lucky. My mom sucks.”
“Indeed she does,” Krish agreed, which brought a smile to her lips. Since she’d opened the door, he walked through it, curious to know more about her, too. “Or at least, that’s what I’ve gathered. You thought she was dead for most of your life, right?”
Her lips twisted. “Yeah. I woke up one morning when I was like five, and my dad told me she was gone. Then he left me and my sister with my aunt for days while he went on a bender.”
Krish leaned forward, hating the hollow look in her eyes. “I’m sorry. What a horrible way to be told something like that.”
“Luckily I was a very hardy kid.”
“It must have been a shock when she turned up alive a couple years ago.”
Sejal took another sip of her Coke, then put it down. “Not really. I knew she was alive before she was arrested.”
He mentally ran through the timeline of events that he’d put together from Avi’s notes. “You did?”
“Yeah. She kidnapped me.”
He paused mid-sip. She’d said the words so casually it took a second for them to sink in. “Like,kidnapkidnap?”
“Like, two men pulled up in a van, threw a bag over my head, and dragged me off to a hotel room for a few days.”
“What?”
She huffed out a humorless laugh. “Never mind.”
“How soon before her arrest—”
“Speaking of digging into deep, dark wounds, I’d rather not talk about it.”
He thought of how blank Sejal’s eyes had been when she’d thrown that knife at him in her apartment in New York. His stomach clenched. Of course she’d been panicked. Anyone would be, but he’d also exacerbated her existing trauma.
At the time, he’d been under the assumption that she was a hardened career criminal. He had been wrong.
He leaned closer to her. He placed his hand on top of hers on the table and looked down at the top of her head. “I don’t like this wig,” he blurted out, which was odd, because he wasn’t a blurter.
She tilted her chin up. “No?”
It was like he’d taken a step outside his own body. That was why it felt so natural to brush his hand over her cheek, pushing the fake strands back. They did feel waxy, not like the soft silk he’d touched earlier. “I like your own hair.”
“Oh.” She breathed out a little sigh, like he’d said somethingprofound instead of a clumsy compliment. Her lashes were so long. As far as he could tell, she hadn’t put on makeup during her little shopping spree, so those must be her natural lashes. He hadn’t properly noticed before how they framed her dark eyes. Eyes that were endless dark brown pools he could sink into.
Beautiful.That was right, that’s what she’d called him. How ridiculous. She was beautiful. And warm. Her breasts rose and fell under her wine-colored dress, and he thought about stripping that dress away and cradling them in his hands, pushing them up, and then bending over to taste them. He bet she tasted perfect, like the first blackberries on a summer day.
“Burgers and fries, and a Caesar salad to share. Sorry to interrupt you two lovebirds.”
Krish blinked, the bartender’s words the equivalent of cold water thrown on him. Slowly, the sounds of the pub came back to him, creating a roaring in his ears. Had he almost... kissed her? In public? Sejal turned to face the other woman, her smile looking as wooden as his felt. “Thank you.”
Suzy deposited the plates on the table. “Thanks,” said Krish.
As Suzy left, he shuffled the playing cards. “One more game.” Because his curiosity was definitely piqued now.
She hesitated, which was odd for someone who had been chomping at the bit to grill him. “We should eat.”
“It won’t take long.”
She nodded. He won the game in a few minutes flat, tricks stacking up next to him. Sejal crossed her arms over her chest. “Did you just hustle me?”
“I’m good at this game.”
