Chapter 2
CHAPTER 2
VEER
D iya and Dheer’s mother swarmed towards him, full of questions about his grandmother’s condition, but I had eyes only for the woman standing next to him. The bane of my life. The thorn in my side. And the woman who drove me to madness with lust, anger and guilt in equal proportions. His sister, Isha.
By rights, she should have looked gutted. Her grandmother had collapsed right next to her in the middle of a restaurant. Any other woman would have thrown a hysterical fit. Not her, though. Isha had arranged for a doctor before she called her brother.
I’d often wondered what she was made of. She put up with all the hatred I shot at her without batting an eyelid. I used to feel like an ogre for lashing out at a woman who was all soft curves and an even softer heart. Well, she shattered that illusion nicely when she began to give it back to me in spades, and I realised that all her softness hid a titanium-plated core. That still didn’t explain why Isha looked as if she was walking on air.
This was supposed to be a grieving household, but I had yet to encounter a single grieving soul. If anything, they all looked relieved. Which spoke a lot more about the deceased than the living.
“You’re here again?” asked Isha, her face souring at the sight of me.
“Isha!” said her mother sharply. “Apologise at once! To Veer and to Diya, for being disrespectful to her brother.”
My loving sister just rolled her eyes in response.
“He probably deserved it, Ma,” she said, with a snigger.
“Still, he’s a guest in our house,” snapped Padmini Aunty.
“I’m sorry, Your Highness,” said Isha stiffly, her eyes shooting sparks at me.
I smiled at her sweetly, knowing it would only serve to piss her off even more. I was right. She bristled like an angry cat, her curly hair almost standing on end with the force of her fury.
“That’s alright, Aunty. I know it’s the grief talking.”
I waited until Padmini Aunty stepped away to speak to Dheer before I turned to Isha with another sweet smile.
“And the guilt, of course. I mean, I know you drove Dadi Sa to the brink of a heart attack on a regular basis, but you could hardly have expected her to go over the edge like she did.”
She drew in a sharp breath and I could swear she was ready to launch herself at me. I braced myself for the impact, but Diya spoke before Isha could react.
“That’s too nasty even for you, Veer. I’ll help you hide his body if you want to gut him alive for that remark, Isha. Just saying,” she declared, with a disapproving glance at me.
“Eh, no worries. We could always knock him out and feed him to the hyenas that live on the edges of the villages around here,” replied Isha.
I studied her cautiously. She had to be kidding, right? Right?
“Are there hyenas in Trikhera?” asked Diya, with what I considered far too much interest.
Isha nodded without taking her eyes off me.
“They call them daakan ra ghoda - the horse of the witch. They are quite useful in disposing of trash and keeping the villages clean.”
Ouch!
“Do you keep yours in the stables?” I asked sarcastically because if ever there was a witch in real life, it had to be her.
Isha took one slow step closer to me, and then another, until we were toe-to-toe. Then she went up on her tippy toes and leaned forward to whisper in my ear.
“Fuck around with me and find out. I dare you,” she whispered.
A shiver ran down my spine at the feel of her warm breath on the skin beneath my ear and at the challenge in her voice. Any sane man would back down and leave her alone, but I had never been sane at the best of times. Why begin now?
“Challenge accepted,” I whispered back.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” hissed Diya angrily.
I waited for Isha to respond, but when she merely raised her eyebrows at me, I realised my sister was speaking to me.
“Uh…”
I had no response because I had asked myself the same question for years. What the fuck was wrong with me? Why did I go after Isha the way I did? I was nice to most people, but I had been an utter asshole to her from the day her brother broke my sister’s heart.
Isha Shekhawat was not for me, and if I had any sense, I would stay away from her. Far, far away. I had tried just that for the past nine years, but it was surprisingly difficult because she was my sister’s best friend. And their friendship had survived Dheer’s betrayal of Diya. Which meant that I was forever bumping into her, and no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t keep my distance from her.
For the past nine years, I had hated the Trikheras. Unlike my sister, I wasn’t capable of hating them selectively. I hated them all for the pain that Dheer had caused Diya. And my conflicting feelings for Isha made life even more difficult for me. Was it any surprise that I snarled and snapped every time I set eyes on her?
What made it worse was the fact that I knew exactly how much I was hurting her. Like I said, I could read every emotion that crossed her beautiful face. And it was all I could do to not take her into my arms and soothe the pain away. I was a vicious brute and sometimes, I wished she’d just slug me hard. It would make both of us feel better. But I used to think Isha wasn’t capable of violence. That she was far too gentle. Far too kind. Until she dropped her polite mask and showed me the fire-breathing dragon that lived under it. Who knew getting singed could be so addictive?
I was such a fucking idiot.
“I’m sorry. I was out of line. Please accept my condolences for your loss,” I said stiffly.
Was it my imagination or did Isha look a little disappointed as she stepped away from me? Damn the woman! She brought out the snarly, gnarly beast in me, and she didn’t even know that it would follow her around like a puppy at the crook of her sexy little finger.
I needed to get out of here. But there was talk of the old lady getting a formal state funeral, which meant that I couldn’t leave until it was all over.
I wished I didn’t have to be here at all. I mean, I loved meeting my sister, but my relationship with her husband was… complicated, to say the least. Diya might have forgiven him for his betrayal, but I hadn't. Because he had betrayed me as much as he had betrayed her.
I understood why he had to stay away from Diya, but he hadn’t given me the courtesy of a simple explanation. It wasn’t as if I’d have held him to his promise of marrying her once I found out what he was going through. It hurt like hell to know that he hadn't trusted me with the truth. That he hadn’t trusted me to stand by him, no matter what.
We were more than friends. We were brothers, damn it! The Jai and Veeru of the adjoining princely states of Trikhera and Jadhwal. We were at school together, first boarding school in India, and then at Eton. It hurt to know that it meant nothing to him. He had left me out of the most important decision of his life.
But I wasn’t here to bond with Dheer. I was here to meet Kirorimal Talati, the man who had practically become Dheer's fixer since he just started unravelling the mess his father had left behind. From what I’d heard, if there was anyone who could get me what I wanted, it was Kirori Ji. It galled me to be indebted to Dheer for anything, but I had jumped at his offer to speak to his fixer on my behalf because my dreams were bigger than my grudge. I’d make a deal with the devil if it got me what I wanted. And right now, I wanted only one thing.
“This state funeral is turning into a three-ring circus,” grumbled Dheer, walking up to us.
My sister finally stopped glaring at me and turned to comfort her husband. This was a family matter. I wanted to step away and leave them to it, but I suddenly had the uncomfortable realisation that Dheer and his family were now my family by extension. I had to stay and support them as much as I could.
“How can I help?” I asked reluctantly.
Diya beamed at me. Dheer stared at me in surprise because I hadn’t had a kind word for him since he blew back into Diya’s life like an ill wind. Isha, meanwhile, stared at in suspicion.
“Why are you being nice?” she demanded.
I pretended not to notice how my sister nudged her in the ribs immediately.
“I’m always nice,” I pointed out.
“Not to us,” she retorted. “Never to the Trikheras.”
A wave of shame and guilt washed over me for the disgraceful way I had behaved with her. Dheer deserved everything I dished out, but not Isha. She was blameless, and yet, she had borne the brunt of my hatred for her brother.
“Better late than never,” said Dheer diplomatically. “Thanks for the offer, but my team will take care of all the arrangements. Meanwhile, Kirori Ji will be here soon. Trust me, Veer. He will get you what you want, no matter what. That man knows everything that goes on in our state even if he pretends to be a lowly Sarpanch. He’s a kingmaker if ever there was one.”
He was right, I realised a few hours later, as I met Kirori Ji in Dheer’s study. He was a slight, unassuming little man, dressed in a simple white kurta-pyjama and a multi-coloured turban.
“Khamma Ghani, Hukum,” he said bowing his head first to Dheer and then to me.
His sharp eyes raked me up and down, and he must have liked what he saw because he smiled warmly.
“Why is the princeling taking such a sudden interest in politics?” he inquired as he blew on his steaming hot chai.
“Because there’s no other way to get what I want,” I replied.
“And what is it that you want, Hukum? Money? Land?”
“I want power,” I replied, leaning back in my chair.
His eyes cooled a bit and he studied me thoughtfully.
“You’re a rich, educated royal, Hukum. Power, you already have in spades.”
I shook my head.
“Not enough to stop the land mafia, Kirori Ji.”
“And what would a playboy prince even know about the land mafia?” he asked in surprise.
“I know enough to want to stop them,” I replied coldly.
I was getting sick of this narrative about me where everyone thought I was nothing more than a pretty playboy royal with no substance. I might not have faced the hardships that Dheer had faced, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have a vision.
“Kirori Ji, we do our best to provide education, healthcare, clean water and rations to the villages around Jadhwal through the family trust, but the local land mafia has formed a nexus to strangle any development in the region because they need safe channels to expand their arms and drugs smuggling. If that happens, our villagers will be homeless with nowhere to go because the mafia will drive them away and grab their lands,” I explained.
“I understand what you’re saying, Hukum. But you’re trying to mix true philanthropy with politics. You might know a lot about the former with all your fancy new fundraising efforts, but you know nothing about politics,” he pointed out. “It’s a completely different game, and a dirty one at that.”
“I’ll learn,” I replied grimly. “And I won’t be starting at the bottom. I intend to start right at the top.”
“You mean you want a party ticket?”
I shook my head and smiled.
“Aim higher, Kirori Ji,” I drawled.
He sat upright and set his cup on the table with shaky hands.
“You don’t mean…”
“I want to be Chief Minister,” I replied.