His gaze traced her delicate profile lined by the rays of the setting sun. “That’s exactly what I did, Mouse. I ran and kept running.”
“I wish I could,” she said with a deeper sigh.
“What’s stopping you?”
She turned her face to look at him, cheek resting on her bent knees.
“Family. Job. Fiancé.”
When she fell silent, he prompted, “And?”
“Fear,” she said quietly.
“What do you fear, Vedika?” It wasn’t the first time he’d used her name but there was something in the tenor of his voice and he saw the fact register in the widening of her eyes, the slight parting of her lips, the intake of breath.
She met his gaze, her big, dark eyes pools of emotion.
“Everything,” she whispered.
Daksh fought the instinctive urge to probe further. For some reason, every cell in his body told him to stay quiet, to wait, to allow the frightened little mouse to come to him.
“I wasn’t always like this,” she said, turning her head to look away from him, to look at the ocean.
“Repressed?” he asked, teasingly.
A small grin tugged at her lips but she didn’t immediately bite his head off so he took that to be a good sign.
“Judgy?”
She shook her head and rolled her eyes, still fighting the smile that was spreading across her face.
“Righteous?”
She reached over and pinched him hard. Daksh yelped, rubbing a hand over the stinging spot on his forearm.
“Even the smallest of prey, like mice, have teeth,” she murmured, finally allowing her smile to take over.
Daksh brought the camera up to his face and clicked a close up of that slice of laughter on her face, something he hadn’t seen since he’d met her.
And then the devil riding his shoulder took over and he leaned close enough to her to whisper, “And even the fiercest predators know fear.”
CHAPTER 15
VEDIKA
A strange shivercoursed through her at the feel of his breath against her neck. And then it was gone. He was gone. Back to his spot in the sand, a handsbreadth away from her. A restless craving took root inside her, one she had never ever felt before. She had the bizarre urge to grab him and pull him back to her, to ask him to…to what?
Mortification rushed through her at her thoughts. She was marrying his brother in less than a month! And yet, she’d never felt this way for his brother. She snuck a glance at Daksh. He really was ridiculously good looking. Maybe that’s all it was? A reaction to his blinding good looks. She was pretty sure every woman who looked at him felt the same way. Tingly, shivery, and breathless.
There was no larger predator than him. Not to her.
“What do you fear?” she asked, huskily, her gaze determinedly on the horizon. “Failure?” It had always been her biggest burden. Aakash and Kanak Thakkar’s daughter did not fail,couldnot fail.
“My family labelled me a failure when I was fifteen.” His quiet words floated over the air even as he stared out at the ocean too. “After that, there was no fear of it.”
“Why would they do that?” Bewildered, she looked over at him. She’d seen his parents with Ashish. They were nothing but loving and kind.
“It might have had something to do with the fact that I actually failed my tenth board exams.”
