Well…
All right. This was a definite testament to my stubbornness. Had this been any other situation in the entire world, I would’ve accepted with a laugh. Who didn’t love themselves an Indian sweet? But not today. I shook my head.
I wasn’t going to avert my gaze first. Keeping my stare locked with his, the mature part of my brain told me to apologize.
I let out a small sigh. Liya Thakkar was a brutally honest person, but she wasn’t brutally brutal. My lips parted to apologize, but then two things happened.
One: He spoke again, “A very tempting way to meet, huh?”
What. The. Hell? Tempting how? Like I literally threw myself at him? Did he know? Well, of course he did! Why he wanted to meet me suddenly made sense. Play me to see if the rumors were true? I knew no decent, traditional man would want to marry me, but to use traditions to test those rumors was vicious.
Two: He smiled at me. The audacity! And not a kind, pardon-the-awkwardness-this-wasn’t-how-we-intended-to-meet smile. But a flashy, charming, cocky as hell smile. The kind that made women drop their panties in a split second. The kind he probably expected would make me drop my panties. Yep. He’d heard the rumors all right.
As I pushed myself off my suitor, the thin scarf around my neck practically choked me and yanked me right back against him. My chin hit his toned chest.
“Do you mind?” I grumbled, verbally smothering his laugh as he moved and lifted the arm that pinned the end of my scarf to the ground.
I snatched it to my chest and rose as Dad opened the front door and shot eye daggers at me. His lips pressed tightly together, and his hands bunched into fists at his side. His words weren’t audible, but he was most definitely hissing my name, demanding that I get back into that house while he helped my suitor up.
I did what I had to do. I rolled my eyes at the man flicking grass blades off his dress pants and waved at Dad—an eff-you salute—before hopping into my car. The flare of anger that lit Dad’s face was priceless, worth it, but in the back of my mind, I knew that this embarrassment wouldn’t go unpunished.
I drove off and eventually parked my car outside my building and rested my head against the steering wheel. More times than not, I was happy to come home to an empty apartment. Peace. Quiet. Freedom. I didn’t have to answer to my parents or some man, or hurry to make dinner for anyone. I bought and owned everything to my liking, no compromises.
Ugh. The twenty-minute drive hadn’t calmed me as much as I’d have liked. Having someone in my life who reduced me to this emotional mess was not healthy. If not for Momma and my girlfriends, I’d leave Houston forever. That very opportunity had presented itself two weeks ago. A lab position for a giant corporation in Dallas. The offer made my insides tingle. Decent pay, and a reason to leave Houston and all of its hideous memories behind.
I’d mentioned it to my current boss, Sam. He had convinced me to stay because he saw management in my near future. I had taken that chance and it had paid off in big ways at my current company. I was actually putting my MBA to proper use. Perhaps I’d suffer for another year here and land a management role elsewhere once I had this experience under my belt.
I took the elevator to the tenth floor and walked to my loft. I kicked off my boots in the foyer, tossed my dirty socks in the hamper, and quickly dropped onto the couch with a glass of red wine. Time to unwind and prepare for the workweek, but first, I answered a group call from Reema, Preeti, and Sana.
“Hey, Liya! I wanted to see if we could meet the girls at mandir on Saturday?” Reema asked as I put the group on speaker.
The idea of going to the temple sent chills up my spine. It was the place where draconian aunties gathered and vicious gossip made or broke reputations. But for Reema, I’d do anything. “Sure.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Usually, you have something to say.”
I put on a smile, because people often said that they could tell if one smiled over the phone, and explained, “Girl, you would not believe what my parents tried to pull today.”
“What?”
“Dish!” Preeti and Sana blurted at the same time.
“You know how I’d told them I wasn’t interested in meeting suitors?”
“Yeah…” Reema said.
“They invited this guy and his mother over anyway!”
“No! Stop! That’s why they asked you to go over to their house?” Preeti squealed.
“Hey, don’t be so quick to snicker, lady. You’re next.”
“Oh, boy. That time is near,” Preeti replied, her enthusiasm suddenly vanishing.
“Is there a guy?” Sana asked, moving the conversation toward Preeti, who, unfortunately, volleyed it right back to me.
“First, let’s talk about Liya and her stud! Was it a big Bollywood meet-cute where your dupatta got stuck to his suit and it was googly-eyed love at first sight?”
I could not laugh harder. Anger drained out of me like fat draining out from sizzling bacon in a hot pan. Speaking of bacon, that sounded like the perfect thing to have for dinner. While I relayed the entire stunt to the girls, I pulled out all the fixings to make bacon and jalapeño mac and cheese from scratch because, contrary to popular belief, I could cook.
Chapter Two
Jay
I lurched up in bed and hissed from the pain that slashed across my back. Drenched in sweat, I shoved off the covers and grabbed my shoulder as my eyes adjusted to the darkness. My heart beat to an insane rhythm, and my body blazed hot like I was surrounded by fire.
Hold on. Wait. I was at home. In bed. Not engulfed in flames.
“Son of a…”
I stomped into the bathroom and splashed cold water onto my face. My eyes were sunken and my lips downturned. The nightmares came and went, fewer and fewer every year, but they were still there. The worst part wasn’t the pain or memories, but seeing Dad’s face. Smeared with cinder, partially burned and red as he stretched out his hand to push us away. Embers danced around him, grazed his hair, illuminated his eyes. Watery eyes. The kind that spoke immensely about love and life and sacrifice. He made the ultimate sacrifice, and I had not, to this day, forgiven myself for that.
Dad died because of me. Ma kept saying that I deserved a full and rich life, which was why she tried so hard to find a good woman for me. But the truth was that I didn’t deserve anything, much less a life. Not when Dad sacrificed his life for mine. But how could I ever tell her that?
I was not really the traditional or religious type. I didn’t particularly enjoy going to mandir every week, nor did I entertain the notion of settling down. But I would never be the cause of another stress for Ma after Dad’s death. He was the love of her life, a kind and compassionate man. I would never leave her side, but how could I tell her that I didn’t deserve the happiness that she wanted for me?
Shaking my head, I twisted and looked at the scars raked down my back. “You’re a grown man. Get control of yourself.”
Unable to get back to sleep, I pulled out a skillet and made eggs and toast. As I ate, I read over a few legal files for Reinli BioChem, the company I’d recently been assigned to, and sent out email reminders for my first meeting with them for Monday. This was not exactly the type of work I’d envisioned myself doing, but it was what I had in Houston. To do anything else, I had to leave this city, which meant leaving my family, the people who sacrificed everything for me since Dad’s death. And that was not about to happen.