Shweta continued as if he’d said nothing. “The condition expires in a couple months.”
Farzana stiffened. “So unless he marries . . .”
“Immediately, yes, he will be left without a single dime of our family’s fortune. I could give him money, of course, but he’s frighteningly stubborn and won’t accept it. Even though he depleted most of his own savings paying his late brother’s debts. Rohan had a thing for horse racing, sadly.”
He tossed his napkin over his uneaten cake. “Aji, I think we need to stop—”
“Dev and I will think about it.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“WHAT WERE you thinking?”
That was a question Jia had gotten a lot in her life, but this was the first time Dev had directed it at her. He delivered it with gentle curiosity, like she hadn’t just agreed that they should get married tomorrow in front of both their families.
He closed the door to the dining room, where her parents and Shweta were politely arguing the pros and cons of their immediate marriage, with Adil Uncle and Ayesha watching aghast.
There was no point in pretending she didn’t know what he was talking about. “It seemed like a decent idea. I was being honest.”
He gave her a long steady look. The sun was dying outside, and it streamed through the windows, warming his brown skin. “I don’t think your parents agree with you.”
“Yeah, actually, I was surprised they don’t.”
He glanced away. “Is that why you said it? You wanted to please them some more?”
“Nope.”
“Then why?”
“Your grandma’s sick, Dev. If she genuinely doesn’t have much time, then we should do it now rather than later.”
“I’m not convinced she’s sick.”
Jia raised an eyebrow. “Way harsh, Dev. That would be taking the meddling auntie shtick a little far, wouldn’t it? No one cares that much.”
“She does. If I lose the inheritance, the money will revert to my grandfather’s sister—whom my grandmother hates.”
“Is this will even legal?”
“Maybe not in America.” He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t want the money. She taught me how to act, I can spot her tells. That was a manipulation tactic, nothing more. What’s your motivation, is the bigger question.”
“I genuinely think it would be a good idea. It’s what my gut is telling me.” Also, now you’re getting something tangible out of it.
Another woman might worry that a man had a literal fortune to gain upon their wedding, might think he was marrying her for wealth, but given Dev’s resistance to getting hitched before the deadline, Jia wasn’t too worried about that. The truth was, despite how much Lakshmi had empowered her, she couldn’t banish all her insecurities in a matter of days, and Dev having something to gain from marrying her other than herself actually put her at ease.
This was a curveball to their plan, but she was going to react to it and adjust and be flexible. This was what she was good at.
“Has your gut never led you astray?”
“Not yet, not when I feel like this.”
He was silent for a beat and her heart sped up, so fast it was like a jackrabbit in her chest. This was a weird, bizarre way to tell someone she had feelings for them, she supposed.
“You want to . . . marry me?”
Her heart froze. She stiffened. “You don’t have to say it like that, like it’s absurd. We already said we’d give the engagement a shot.”
“An engagement is different. An engagement has an out.”
“I mean, technically, like you said, marriage has an out. Not that I’m going into this expecting a divorce. We can have a prenup. I don’t want your money.”
“There’ll be no prenup.” Dev hesitated. “I feel like I went from convincing you to you convincing me.”
“You didn’t have to work too hard to convince me before. I was on board from jump. You’re kind and practical and handsome and generous. The longer we wait, the more rumors there’ll be, the more we’ll have to finagle our families. I’m sick of the drama, let’s just do it.”
Dev shook his head. “I don’t know if any good marriage started with let’s just do it.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I mean, our engagement started with you saying I wouldn’t mind it.”
“That bothered you?”
She pursed her lips. There was no need for him to find out how annoying her insecurities were before they got married, yet she couldn’t lie. “Yeah, it bothered the hell out of me.”
“I’m sorry. I tried to clarify, it was more than that.”
“And this is more than that. There’s other reasons to get married tomorrow.”
“Like what?”
“Like . . .”
Tell him.
The words bubbled up in her throat, and she tried to beat them back. The same spontaneity that he said he liked about her—that had been what had forced her to make that declaration at the dinner table, even though she’d known it would complicate everything. “I like you more than a lot. And . . . what I’ve learned over time is that we don’t have much time. If we want to get married, we should do it now. Even if we didn’t have all these zany factors pushing us together, I’d still say we do it now.”
The silence dragged on for so long, she almost threw up. She would have, if he hadn’t reached out to hold her hand. Dev moved closer. “I watched all your videos, you know. I couldn’t stop. Perhaps that’s why I feel as though I know you so well.”
She gave a breathless laugh, flattered. He’d watched all her content? The highest of compliments. “I wish I had a cheat sheet like that for you.”
Dev stroked his finger over her cheek, the most intimately he’d touched her yet. She stilled, out of fear he would stop. “You knew me before you met me. You read my words.”
What? She wrinkled her nose. “Oh, you mean your dialogue.”
“Yes. But I wrote it. I did a lot of the writing for my own character on Kyunki Mere Sanam Ke Liye Kuch Bhi. I wrote some in English. Rohan and Arjun translated the rest from Hindi. Poorly, I might add.”
“So . . . I was talking to you?”
“So to speak.”
It was like a hundred butterflies exploded in her chest. “Dev. You should have told me. Also, I want to throw more milk in Arjun’s face. But this is very romantic.”
His chuckle was wry. “In a certain light, I suppose.”
“You’re a good writer! And you’re a romantic. Those were some mushy lines.”
He ducked his head. “Only on paper, I fear.”
“You can be mushy in real life, too. That Scrabble win made my heart flutter.”
Dev lifted her hand to his lips. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Her whole hand tingled. What would it feel like when they kissed for real?
His thumb played over her knuckles, like he knew. “Jia?”
“Yes.”
“We can’t get married right now.”
His words were a splash of cold water, halting all tingling. “What?” She pressed her hands against his chest, and he backed up. “You’re going to say all those beautiful things and then reject me?”