Sued-ed in Mumbai (Mumbai Hearts Club #4)

Prologue

“Left from here.” Aditi held her Google Maps up.

“Right,” Zubin pointed, poking at the back of her head.

She slapped at his wrist behind her but he had already taken his hand off, enjoying the sight of her fighting thin air in the middle of a busy European street.

Zubin came around and pressed a noisy kiss to her cheek before jumping back.

Her slapping hands were his honeymoon’s highlight.

“It’s left, Zubin! Just shut up and walk.”

“You are holding your phone wrong, it needs recentering.”

“Your brain needs recentering!”

“Clearly, it was sleeping when it agreed to the idea of going to a strip club with you.” He rolled his eyes. “In broad daylight.”

“I want to go!”

“I know!”

“And you are trying to throw me off so that the show ends before we reach.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because it’s a male strip club.” She grinned.

He smirked, grabbing her hand and pulling her closer — “When did you become so tharki, Doshi?”

“Since I married you, Daru.”

His arm went around her shoulder, meshing in her hair, “I have a better idea.”

“What?” Her brown eyes turned bottled honey, ready to sizzle up because she clearly knew what he would suggest. “Daru, no. I am not going to give up on the strip club… I want to experience everything since we’ve paid our whole year’s salaries for this honeymoon!”

“Uh huh?” He pulled off his wayfarers, tipping his chin down to her — “How about I make you experience it?”

“No thank you, I’m bored of the hotel room.”

“Who said anything about the hotel room?”

“Huh?”

“Come, come,” he pulled her down the street and towards the park he had seen on his Google Maps.

“That’s a forest…” she tried to stop him.

“With hiking routes and caves and lots of awesome corners to open my strip club!” He jeered back at her, running, making her run with him.

“You will get us arrested, Zubin!”

“Didn’t I tell you before we married? I’m a lawyer, I’ll also get us out.”

“Fuck off!”

“That will also happen, patience, it’s a process…” He screamed as she tried to knee him, left her hand and ran up into the park.

————————————————————

“Jogging!”

“Walking.”

“Jogging, Zubin, let me jog in peace, it’s allowed.”

He came and stood in front of her, arms and legs stretched out — “Nahiiiii!”

“Take your Nirupa Roy somewhere else, I need to burn the stress off.”

“Exactly! You don’t need to take stress and then no need to jog. Walk like normal people.”

“I am abnormal.”

“I knew it! You hid it from me before marriage…” “Since I married you!”

“Aditi,” he caught her shoulders, gentling his tone. “You cannot run while pregnant. Please.”

She glanced from him to her belly. Then ran a hand over the flat surface — “You mean the pregnancy we confirmed this afternoon?”

“Yes,” he rolled his eyes. “That pregnancy.”

“Were you there when the doctor said that mild exercise is ok, even healthy for the baby?”

“Were you there when the PT sir said that walking is mild exercise, jogging is strenuous exercise?”

“I am not jogging fast.”

“No, you are not. You are jostling like a rattling truck.”

“My hormones are about to fluctuate, stop talking.”

“What will you do if I don’t?”

“I will jog even faster.”

Zubin turned and looked at the jogging track of their high-rise’s garden. And smirked. The clock had struck 6 and now it was full. Just what he wanted.

He graciously stepped aside, opening his arm in a flourish — “The track is all yours.”

Her gaze went from him to the fast-filling track, all the health freak workaholics coming home from work and attacking a workout at 6 as was their daily routine.

“You argued and wasted my time!”

“Aditi,” he took her hand, smiling down at her — “Since when do you jog?”

“I do jog!” Her lips wobbled.

“Every quarter before filing taxes?”

She grunted and snorted and looked up at him angrily, pouting. “I have to keep doing what I was doing before the pregnancy.”

“And you were walking more than jogging. Let’s start there.”

“Zub…”

“Come on,” he tugged her hand gently. “I’m walking with you. I am also doing what I was doing before this pregnancy.”

“You go to the gym, you can still go to the gym!” She chided, walking with him as he kept her path open between running bodies.

“I can stop going, but then our baby will be born to a fat, waddling Papa with a double chin and a…”

“Fine, fine, go. I am going to become fat enough for the two of us.”

“And you are also going to be stupid enough to think I care about it.”

“What did you just call me?”

“Fat, stupid, which one did you mean…?”

“Stupid is my word for you.”

“So you are ok if I call you fat?”

“Try it when I am not in the mood and see what I do.”

“Can’t wait.” He tightened his hand around hers, grinning, finding that returning grin from her even as she walked slow and steady with him.

————————————————————

“Aara,” she said.

“Zoovie,” he fought back.

“Sheee.”

“Don’t call my daughter’s name sheee.”

“I am two hours out of labour, don’t make me explode.”

“More than you actually did there?”

“How dare you call me giving birth to your daughter exploding?!”

“I meant explode on me, not that…” his gumption fell.

Zubin’s mouth curled in an awed, thrilled, still-a-little scared smile.

He had freaked out and would have peed his pants at what had gone on in that labour room.

Thank god for Aditi and her mother. And thank god for his years of courtroom face.

She would never know how ready he was to faint after bawling his eyes out.

“You did well,” Aditi’s soft voice made him startle. “You were everything.”

Her hand reached out to him and he immediately took it like he had in that room. Zubin held it tight, and she squeezed, just like she had as their daughter had been born. He kissed it, kept his lips pressed to it. It smelled of hospital things, the best smell of this day.

“I was wrong,” Zubin whispered to her hand.

“Look how becoming a father has matured you. About what, Advocate Daruwala?”

“That you argue the best.”

“I do argue the best.”

“But you give birth even better.”

“That’s so absurd.”

He vibrated quietly, feeling his eyes prick. The hospital floor blurred a little.

“Look here.”

He did, and her scowl was now a smile. His mouth stretched too as he felt tears slip down from behind his eyes and into his throat.

“Come here,” Aditi tugged at his hand and he went, taking her under his arm as he sat down beside her.

“You do give birth the best,” he pushed his nose into her temple. “Fucking hell, Doshi, I can’t even say I’ll compete for this. Even if I could, I wouldn’t.”

She burst into a laugh and then winced.

“What happened?!” He shot to his feet.

She was vibrating, pressing her lips together, still smiling — “The stitches. Don’t make me laugh…”

“Knock knock…” the nurse called. “Look who is awake.”

They glanced up in unison as the nurse opened the door, pushing the cot, their baby packed in a bundle in her grandmother’s arms.

“Aara.” “Zoovie.”

“Aara!” Aditi scowled at him.

“Zoovie is a cuter girl nickname.”

“Kids,” Aditi’s mother whisper-shouted. “Stop. Don’t fight in front of her. What will she learn?”

They shut their mouths.

“Now you are both parents, become responsible. Here…” she leaned down and pressed the baby into his arms. Zubin looked into his baby girl’s sleeping little face, a tiny pink cap pulled over the tiny head that he knew was full of dark hair. He smiled.

“Aara,” he called her. And her tiny mouth opened in a yawn mid-sleep.

“She responded!” Aditi let out a watery laugh beside him, pushing her face into his bicep.

“She did,” he was rocking her, eyeing his mother-in-law and seeing the proud glint in her eyes. He looked at Aditi, and she had gone all soft; that rare, soft, melty Aditi.

“Aarzoo Doshi,” Aditi piped up.

“Aarzoo Daruwala, it’s already gone on her birth certificate.”

“Doshi…” She was going to fight him just for the thrills, but her mother cleared her throat. And she stopped.

They looked at each other, stared for a moment, and then burst into identical chuckles.

“You will make your Mumma and Papa stop fighting when the whole world, including Justice Deshmukh could not, Little Daru?” Zubin cooed, using the pad of his forefinger to caress his daughter’s tiny chin.

“What is this language? No Daru-Daru anymore in front of her. Aditi.”

“I didn’t say it, Mummy.”

“Zubin.”

“What?” He held his daughter up, close to his face. “Look at her, isn’t she a little Dar…” he trailed to a stop at the narrow-eyed stare his mother-in-law seared him with. “Sorry.” He popped.

His daughter let out another cute yawn and the room, including the nurse, burst into laughter.