“What are you doing?” I growled.
“Wait outside. Adults are talking,” he rebuked.
“Listen here, old man—”
“I warned you, didn’t I?”
I looked to Jahn and his mother. “I’m so sorry.”
“You weren’t sorry while you stole Jay away from my daughter? Seducing him? Defiling him?” Mukesh barked.
“I meant that I’m sorry this senile bigot dragged you into the fictional drama in his head. Look, whatever you’re trying to tell them, they’ve heard it all. Don’t embarrass yourself any further.”
Jay’s mother spoke to him. “Mukesh Bhai, we’ve heard the gossip, and you’ve already spoken to us. I don’t care what you have to say. Liya is a good girl, and we’re pleased that she and Jay have chosen each other.”
Momma breathed a sigh of relief, but Mukesh’s following words cut through her happiness like a blistering knife. “This is something that we’ve kept private, secret.”
My heart spasmed. “Don’t do this.”
“Do what?” Jay asked. He looked at Mukesh with a restrained ferocity, and then at his brother and mother with concern. Finally, he glanced at me, his concern ever deeper.
Mukesh said solemnly, “As much as this hurts me to say.”
“Then don’t,” I responded, my expression stoic, a plea, a warning. This was not for him to tell, to distort and lie about. This was my truth for me to tell my side when I was ready, not in a back room in the middle of my best friend’s reception.
“I don’t care what you have to say. I thought we made this clear weeks ago,” Jay said, his voice rough but calm.
“It’s time to reveal this disturbing truth because you’re making a huge mistake with Liya,” Mukesh warned.
“That’s none of your business,” Jay growled.
“Your manners!” Mukesh said, appalled, and gave Jay’s mother a pitiful look.
“Don’t look at her,” Jay retorted, standing between Mukesh and his mother.
“You should hear this…” Dad interjected.
“What?” I balked. My mouth gaped, my chest splayed open by the ever-deeper betrayal. He had never backed me in these heartrending claims, but to give Mukesh the room, to silence everyone, to be his pillar while removing mine? How could Dad do this to me? He wanted to push me onto Jay. He wanted this alliance. I was his flesh and blood, but he took the side of the viper. Instead of shielding me, he held the venom to my veins and allowed the serpent to sink its fangs into my flesh.
Tears filled my eyes. My body turned to lead. I hadn’t felt this abandoned since childhood, since Mukesh started this atrocity.
I trembled at the thought of telling this room my story, of being forced to relive that day and the years that followed when those who were supposed to protect me broke me.
Jay cast a worried glance my way, but I turned from him and walked past Mukesh. The least I could do was leave, to let this play out without the added mortification of being present. But someone grabbed my arm with a tight grip and pulled me back. I assumed it was Mukesh, and I was so ready to hit him.
Dad’s aging hand gripped my forearm. He yanked me back into the room with another tug. Having caught me off guard, I stumbled backward and glared at him.
“Who do you think you are, handling her like that?” Jay snapped and gently touched my back. “Are you all right, Liya?”
Too many tears flooded my eyes, too many to see through. Once I blinked, they slithered down my cheeks. I could hate Dad all I wanted, but the debilitating pain from his betrayals never lessened. After all these years, he still wielded the power to reduce me to a whimpering child.
“I meant to tell you right after the reception,” I muttered, my chest heaving, my stomach trying its hardest not to puke.
“Tell me what?” Jay whispered, his body turned into my side.
I closed my eyes for a second. “Mukesh—” I began to tell Jay. If I couldn’t tell the room, I could at least tell Jay while he blocked my view of everyone else.
“You all know what sort of man I am,” Mukesh interrupted.
My hands fisted at my sides. “Shady,” I offered.
“Insistent in overstepping boundaries?” Jay added.
“Well, I am a pious man, a religious sort, a man of God,” Mukesh said.
I scoffed.
“Liya,” Dad snapped.
Mukesh went on, “I’m at mandir every day, devout in my worship. I help with all functions, meals, I even clean and cook in the kitchens. Ask any patron, ask my family, your friends, my coworkers, the friends and teachers of my children. And true, I’m a bit forward with this situation, but only because you can’t make this mistake, Jay. Even if you don’t want to marry Kaajal, it’s in your best interest to walk away from Liya. You don’t know her.”
“I know her better than you,” Jay said as he took my hand. His face turned rigid, hard, scary when he glared at Mukesh, but it softened to something so fiercely protective when he returned his gaze to me.
My breathing turned ragged and raspy. “The man who sexually assaulted me, molested me when I was a kid,” I said calmly, quietly, void of all the anger I’d held for the past ten years.
“You’re the one?” Jay snarled, whipping toward Mukesh. His fists turned white as he took a step, but Dad stopped him with a hand near his chest.
“That is the lie she tells herself,” Mukesh replied. “This is why we kept this between us. I’m an elder in this mandir. I’m here to help those who stray, but Liya is a special case that has worsened over the years.”
“You’re the liar,” I said as ire whirled through me, awakening me, pushing me toward the breaking point.
“We all tried to help. Do you dare call your parents liars?”
Dad was a liar, and I’d called him out on it. Momma was…scared. Even now her lips trembled. But then she did something that I didn’t expect. She narrowed her teary eyes. Her terrified expression turned angry, protective. She took a step forward and opened her mouth, but Dad reeled her back, and they fought.
She finally stood up for me? She finally stood up to Dad?
I let out a shuddering breath.
Mukesh had never stopped talking. “This is the truth, Jay. This is for us only, but you’re hearing it because she has seduced you to the point that you cannot see the dangerous, disturbing truth. Your mother and elder brother are here as witnesses, to help protect you against her if you don’t believe the truth. At only fifteen, she managed to get me alone at our home and seduce me.”
“You manipulating, lying piece of crap,” I snapped.
“See! She gets out of control like this all the time. Do you really want to be with a woman as volatile as her? And I’m certain that if you’ve spent more than five minutes with Liya, you’ve seen this side of her.”
From the corner of an eye, Jay studied us, but I couldn’t look at him, couldn’t watch as realization unfurled across his features. Maybe he wouldn’t forsake me, but if there was the slightest chance that he would, I couldn’t bear to see that truth.
“How could I lie in this place of worship? After she tried to seduce me, and I kindly rebuked her, she told her parents that I made advances on her.” He solemnly shook his head as Dad agreed.