Page 16 of The Promise of a Traitor

“If you don’t want to marry me, you’re the one who is going to have to say no.”

“I can’t,” she snapped. “My parents won’t let me.”

“Well then.” He shrugged, stepping away from her, trying to ignore the intoxicating scent of her that flooded his senses, making it hard to think. “I guess you have a problem.”

“Why are you doing this? You don’t want to marry me! Why are you putting us and our families through this?”

Advik smiled, starting to enjoy himself. “You’re wrong, sweetheart. I do want to marry you. I’ve always wanted to marry you, remember?” His smile sharpened, a shark with its prey in sight. “This is my dream come true.”

Aastha stared at him, grief, shock, and an unsettling awareness flooding her eyes.

Advik stepped closer, looped his arm around her waist, and pulled her against him. Dipping his head to hers, his lips a scant inch from hers, he felt her shiver as his breath feathered over her mouth. "And your nightmare," he murmured.

Chapter Ten

Aastha

“What’s happened to you?” she whispered, her gaze tracing the hard lines of his face.

“You happened to me,” he replied casually, turning away from her to pick up his phone and scroll through something. A subtle dismissal that she had no intention of paying heed to.

“Adi-“

“Advik,” he cut her off, not bothering to look at her. “I don’t think we’re in the phase where we call each other by our pet names, do we, Aashika?”

She flinched. “I don’t use that name. Other than my parents-“

“I don’t really care,” he cut her off again. “If there isn’t anything else, I’m really tired and would like to-“

Whatever he’d been about to say disappeared into the ether when his bedroom door swung open and a tornado of noise and chaos swirled in.

“You’re getting married??” The loud question came from the boy in the front with the tousled hair that looked unkempt but was surely the work of long minutes of styling.

“And you don’t think you need to tell us?” The striking girl beside him shouldered him out of the way, propping her hands on her hips and glaring at Advik.

“Guys.” The third voice was soft but the other two paid attention to it. The woman with the pretty smile and kind eyes glanced her way. “I think we’re interrupting something.”

The other two swung around, spotting Aastha for the first time. A wicked grin spread over the guy’s face. “Really, Adi? Sexy times under your parent’s roof? This is –“

“None of your business,” the girl with the pretty eyes said. “Let’s go.”

“No, please, don’t go.” Aastha hastened to stop them. “I was just leaving.”

“Leaving?” The first girl sidled up to her. “Why? I’m Kimaya by the way, Advik’s cousin.”

The guy shoved her out of the way, planting himself in front of her. “She’s not important. I’m the only one worth knowing. Rehaan,” he grinned.

Aastha blinked under the full weight of his dazzling grin. This one was trouble with a capital T. “Another cousin?” she guessed.

“There are way too many of us for a first meeting,” the kind eyed girl said. “I’m Vedika.”

“Vedika, of course!” Aastha exclaimed. “Advik talks about you often.”

“He does?” She laughed. “All good, I hope.”

“The best,” Aastha said warmly, ignoring Advik’s stiff, brooding presence in the corner of the room. Her mind flashed back to nights spent curled up in Advik’s bed, whispered conversations in the dark, loud laughter over breakfast in her café, and so much more. She’d known everything about him, his family, the loud, extended network of cousins who were really siblings of his heart, and Vedika, the other quiet one at the center of their madness.

“Would you look at that?” Rehaan marvelled. “Adi talks!”