Chapter Six
NUSH STARED AT the beautiful diamond ring set in a princess setting and a simple platinum band, a boulder a hundred times the size of the twinkling diamond lodging in her throat.
If only the ring had been big and garish...
If only she hadn’t described the exact same style to Yana once at a jewelry store, which meant Caio had asked Yana what she’d like...
If only she hadn’t wished, with all the fervent hope of a fourteen-year-old, that she’d find a man exactly like Caio to marry one day...
If only she hadn’t let Yana persuade her to dress in a knee-length, ivory-colored sheath dress that made her look too much like a blushing, hopeful bride...
If only she hadn’t let Mira convince her to have the ceremony in the backyard of her grandparents’ house, just in case her mama wanted to attend.
If only Mama had stuck to her obstinate, hardheaded will and refused to attend.
If only all of them hadn’t been convinced that they had to at least make it look real and romantic with Peter Huntington Sr. spreading vile rumors about Caio’s supposed dark, wicked seduction of poor, innocent lamb that was her—because God forbid she could think for herself...
If only Caio hadn’t worn a black suit that made him look like her every fantasy come true...
If only she wasn’t a naive, impressionable, sorry idiot whose heart took dangerous flight when he stared at her with a thoughtful glint in his eyes when she arrived to stand by him...
If only her skin didn’t tingle every time he touched her even innocently...
If only she’d realized that sneaky universe granted your wishes if you weren’t careful—but not in the way you’d hoped for...
If only she hadn’t acted on her desire and kissed him and didn’t have to live with knowing how he tasted against her lips...
So many if onlys that should’ve stopped the fake ceremony from becoming all too real.
Until the moment when Caio had slid the ring onto her finger, she hadn’t pondered too much on how the moment would land.
How many real dreams she’d woven around finding that special someone who’d always want her, love her, need her in return.
How much she didn’t want to end up like her mom—angry and distant with a brittle self-sufficiency that had never served her or Nush well.
How much shifting Caio into this new role in her mind and in her life made her feel anchorless, all of a sudden.
How much of a raw, vulnerable and tangled mess a simple kiss could make of everything.
Was that her fate? To always want people in her life who in turn wanted to never let her in? To be abandoned by anyone she got attached to?
God, now she was feeling sorry for herself, and that was something she truly hated.
No, she couldn’t let it go to her head or her heart. She had to stop giving away pieces of herself to Caio.
This arrangement of theirs had a shelf life.
After an hour of a placid, vacant smile, her cheeks hurt.
Her scalp hurt from the complicated knot Yana had twisted her hair into and her feet hurt in the four-inch stilettos that she wasn’t used to.
And more than anything, her heart hurt—raged at the understanding grimace/smile Laura Huntington had cast Caio.
Commiserating with him over the big sacrifice he’d made by saddling himself with an unwanted bride, all for the good of OneTech.
It didn’t matter that it had been Nush’s own plan. That she’d seen the satisfaction in Caio’s eyes when everything had been signed and transferred, that she needn’t worry about the vision Thaata had held for the company.
With one pitying look, Laura reminded Nush that for Caio this was an unwanted wedding. An arrangement he’d been cornered into by circumstances. And it was the hard reminder Nush very much needed.
By seven in the evening, Caio had been locked up in his study with a team of lawyers and the executive team of OneTech—Laura included.
Yana had kissed her on the cheek before she’d disappeared.
Nush ended up dancing and chatting endlessly with Peter Jr. of all people, who seemed to have decided she needed looking after while her new husband ignored her.
After seeing her mom safely into the chauffeured car, she’d had enough.
The changes she’d wanted to make in her life didn’t have to stop at owning her responsibilities with OneTech. Fake marriage or not, her life was still hers to live. Clinging to Caio for the few crumbs of his attention would only bring her back to square one.
Caio was knocking on Anushka’s closed bedroom door when Mira found him. Her calm, placid gaze flicked to the dark violet velvet box in his hands and then back to his face.
“Where is she?” he said softly. Agitation thrummed through him after he’d spent three quarters of an hour looking for Nush.
Mira shook her head.
When he glared, she sighed. “I only know she wanted to get out of here.”
Caio waited, knowing that Mira had more to say. Out of the three sisters, Mira was the one he understood best, the one who was the most like him. She’d gone through a lot as a child, with a mother who’d abandoned her and an alcoholic father who left her to his parents to be raised.
Mira understood responsibility, duty and that some wounds would never heal. All you could do was to make sure the poison didn’t seep out and ruin the people around. It was guiding his behavior with Nush.
But the damned woman challenged every one of his good intentions.
He’d planned for them to have dinner with some of his closest associates, to show her his appreciation for helping him achieve his life’s goal, though she was unaware of it.
He’d planned to spend the evening with her.
Only when he’d emerged from his meeting, Nush had disappeared.
Did she think her responsibilities to OneTech, to him, ended with her signature?
He hadn’t missed the smirk on Peter Sr.’s face when he’d failed to locate his “wayward bride,” in the older man’s words.
The older man was already spreading the vile rumor that Caio had taken advantage of the poor, clueless Reddy heiress.
And that it was far too close to the truth grated on him like nothing else had ever done.
“Mira?” he prompted with little patience.
“I’m betraying my sister’s confidence by discussing her with you.”
“Anushka has no secrets from me,” he said, wanting it to be true more than it really was.
“Yana said something happened between you. Did she tell you then?”
Now it was Caio who felt as if he was betraying the woman he’d spoken vows to this morning.
They should have been simply words. Meaningless.
Trite. Even taunting. Instead he’d found a strange solemnity to them as he looked at the woman who had always given him her trust, whether he’d deserved it or not.
Who’d always looked at him as if he were a sunbeam that had brightened her day.
Who reminded him of the man Papa had hoped Caio would be one day.
That look in her eyes was an addiction he couldn’t shake.
She’d looked achingly beautiful, and yet out of place in a dress and makeup she never wore. And when he’d seen her distress, her eyes widening at the profound gravity of the ceremony, he’d felt that conflicting war within himself.
He wanted to give Nush the world—answer the desire he’d felt in her trembling form when he’d kissed her cheek—and he also wanted to protect her from himself.
Damn it, what the hell did he want? Why was he so upset that she’d abandoned him an hour after their wedding?
“I think the whole ceremony...the way it went down...freaked her out. Then there was Laura Huntington.”
Caio frowned. “What didn’t she like? And what about Laura?”
“You have such a razor-sharp brain when it comes to business and politics, but you are just as dense as any other man when it comes to women. I thought you knew Nush better.”
She was upset that Laura was there. Caio repeated the words to himself. Because she thought Laura and he were together? Because she’d assumed he couldn’t do without Laura even for an evening? Because they’d been buried in his study for hours straight after the short ceremony?
“I needed Laura there. There was something I needed to push through the board before I...” He stopped, knowing that he was explaining himself to the wrong woman. “So she disappears instead of asking me about it? And she says the way I see her is outdated.”
“Did you expect her to make a scene?” An uncharacteristic hardness twisted Mira’s mouth.
“Nush never pushes, never demands anything of others, is too happy to push herself into a corner in someone’s life, content to be there.
She spends hours waiting outside of her mom’s room at that home every weekend hoping she’ll see her, wanting her to know she’s there.
She keeps bringing Dad home after one of his episodes, begs him to shower, eat, looks after him as if he were a child for days after.
She dropped the idea of going to college in New York in some stupid bargain with Thaata so that he wouldn’t throw Yana out of the house after she pulled another of her stunts. ”
“Of course Rao had manipulated her.”
Mira let out a laugh. “She’ll fight you if you even say that. That’s how unconditional her loyalty is. Thaata loved us but yes, you and I know he was also a master manipulator.”
And yet, Nush had told him that she was attracted to him. She’d taken the risk of kissing him. She’d come back after he’d told her she wasn’t grown up enough for him, to save the company.
He hadn’t appreciated how far out of her comfort zone she’d gone. How much courage it must have taken to walk back into his office. For all of five seconds, he felt utterly inadequate to be the recipient of such...pure emotion, whatever it was.
A part of him flinched, wanted to run far from it.
He pushed a hand through his hair as another piece fell into place. “So Rao knew that she...” He couldn’t put it into words. Suddenly, everything Nush had given him felt like a gift he didn’t deserve.