“The one I rented.”
Dev massaged his temples. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Would you rather I stay in a hotel room when I visit? Like a peasant? Expect to see me there in three days. That’s as soon as I can get away. You will bring the girl, and her parents if possible. They’ll know of me, of course, but they should get to know me properly.”
She said that like anyone would come running to see her if he merely said her name, and she wasn’t totally wrong. Jia’s parents no doubt grew up on Shweta Dixit movies.
The offhand way she referred to Jia set Dev’s back teeth on edge. “Her name is Jia, and I’d rather you not come—”
“Dev.”
The single word silenced him. He wasn’t hungry for his grandmother’s approval like his brother and cousin, but his mother had drummed a strong sense of respect toward his elders into his head. It was hard to counter that programming, even when his grandmother was being objectively ridiculous.
“Unless you can give me one good reason why your own grandmother should not meet the girl her grandson is serious enough about to send her passionate love notes, I will be there soon.”
He was silent. No, damn it, he couldn’t give her a reason, because it’s all fake even though I wish it wasn’t wasn’t a good reason. Or at least, not a reason he wanted to divulge to his grandmother.
“Goodbye,” Shweta said. The phone line cut. How on earth was he going to tell Jia about this?
He turned around slowly and spread his hands in front of him. “So.”
“I didn’t understand the language, but going by your tone, that did not sound good.” The beautiful Black woman sitting next to Jia leaned forward. This was Rhiannon, Dev had learned, and she was as sharp as Jia had described her. Katrina sat on the arm of the sofa, her fingertips touching Jia’s shoulder. She’d been touching Jia in one way or another since they walked in, her face soft and empathetic. It was a shame Dev wasn’t meeting Jia’s friends under better conditions. Say, a triple date, not a crisis-handling meeting because he and Jia were accidentally engaged.
He quickly recapped the phone call, his voice trailing off when he finished explaining that his grandmother was arriving in a few days and expected to meet Jia. “So it is as we suspected. The messages leaked—”
“By your idiot cousin,” Katrina said.
“I can think of better words than idiot,” Rhiannon remarked.
“My agent claims that the messages were part of a mass phone hack. The tabloid would have no reason to lie, so it’s possible. But also very probable my cousin leaked them,” he added in a rush.
“We’ll have Jas secure your phone, in case it was yours that was hacked,” Katrina assured Jia.
“In any case, after the messages leaked and Chandu couldn’t get ahold of me, he decided to come up with a narrative that would defuse things as quickly as possible but also allow us to continue seeing each other. Because he assumed those texts were actually between Jia and me, because why would there be any other explanation.” He heaved a giant sigh. “My God, Jia. I’m so sorry.” The guilt and regret he’d been feeling since Arjun’s actions had come to light were increasing at exponential speed.
Jia lifted her chin. Her face was pale, and she looked much younger than her almost thirty years. “Your grandma’s coming here. To meet me.”
Dev shifted his weight. “Yes.”
“To vet me for your bride.”
He sighed. “Yes.”
“Because she thinks we have a romantic relationship already.”
“Yes.”
“Because the texts your cousin sent me became public.”
With every word, Jia’s roommates bristled, but he welcomed their accusatory stares. He felt guilty enough on his family’s behalf to be raked over the coals. “Yes.”
She dropped her face into her hands again. “My parents and sisters have called me fifty times. What am I supposed to tell them?” Her phone gave a faint vibration, and she gave a half laugh that sounded vaguely hysterical. “Fifty-one, probably.”
“We can fix this,” Rhiannon said soothingly. “We release a statement. We flatly deny that any part of this is real, say the texts and photos are made up or doctored.”
“My parents would know I lied about Dev then,” Jia pointed out.
Rhiannon recalibrated. “Then we can say it’s true, but you’re not engaged. It’s not the 1900s. There’s no scandal in two healthy consenting adults dating.”
Dev shoved his hands in his pockets and he met Jia’s eyes. How to explain this to people who were so far outside his culture? “Your Hollywood-famous families have no comparison to ours. My family occupies an odd space in society, where the public feels like we . . . belong to them. I was able to avoid too much public scrutiny for years, because the rest of my family was so much more high profile than me, but now I’m one of the few left.”
“So they feel entitled to knowing about your life,” Katrina summarized. “But that doesn’t mean they get to have a say in it.”
“It’s not fair, but they’ll have an opinion. It was one thing when no one knew who Jia was, but now that they do, they’ll scrutinize and judge her.”
“You see it all the time in internet fandoms, or with the British royals, where the fanbases are passionate. It doesn’t help that we’re so obviously different from each other,” Jia said haltingly.
“I don’t care about any of that.” Just in case she had any doubt. He rubbed his thumb over his palm. “Chandu wasn’t totally wrong. If we’re engaged or married, I can protect Jia from the worst of it. I don’t like the way this part of the world works, but it’s reality.”
“What are you saying? That you let the engagement stand?” Rhiannon drew herself up. “That’s ridiculous.”
Dev took a step forward, then glanced between Jia’s annoyed roommates. “Rhiannon and Katrina, would you mind if I have a moment with Jia?”
“If we leave you alone, how else are you going to turn this into some soap opera?” Rhiannon asked. “Will you knock yourself on the head and get amnesia? Turn up with a secret twin?”
He deserved their ire, so he answered her sarcasm seriously. “Not at all. Please, I need to speak with Jia.”
Jia lifted her head. “It’s okay, guys. Dev and I have important things to discuss, like where we’re registered.”
He wasn’t the only one relieved Jia’s sense of humor was intact. Both Katrina and Rhiannon relaxed. They shot him warning looks and left them alone. He walked closer, then stopped, not eager to crowd her.
“Jia—”
“I know, you’re sorry.” Jia looked up at him. He was relieved to note that while her eyes were red, she wasn’t crying. “Can you sit down, my neck hurts.”
He’d do literally whatever she wanted right now. “Of course.”
She played with a thread on her shirt, twisting it around her finger. “I screwed everything up. These texts, that selfie of me at the beach. I should have been more discreet.” Her eyes grew wet, and whatever relief he’d felt quickly evaporated. “I can’t do anything right. Everyone’s going to know that now.”