Chapter 2
TANISHA
“Tani!” Her father’s roar had her jolting out of bed. She heard her mother murmur something to her father but whatever it was, it didn’t work. A sharp knock sounded on her bedroom door a second later.
“Tani?” His voice was softer this time but no less sharp.
She winced as she called out, “Yeah?”
The door opened a second later, her father’s frame filling the door. Behind him, her mother hovered, a worried look on her pretty face. Tani smiled wanly at her, her head pounding, and her mouth tasting like a ferret had died in it.
“Hey Pa. Ma!”
“Don’t ‘Hey Pa’ me!” Karam Bakshi’s famous glower made its appearance. “What are you still doing in bed?”
“Umm, I-“
“Don’t lie to me, Tani.” He folded his arms across his chest and glared at her. “You were supposed to meet Aakash and me at Thakkar Headquarters for your pitch presentation. Not only did you not turn up, you didn’t pick up your phone, or answer any of the messages I sent.”
Tani stayed silent.
“What the hell were you thinking? Your mother and I thought you were lying dead in a ditch somewhere!” His voice had gone back to roar decibel level but Tani noticed the tremor in the fingers he was clenching.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
She’d really fucked up.
“We leave work,” her father continued to seethe, pacing the length of her room, “and rush over here to find you…sleeping. Bloody hell, Tani. When did you become so irresponsible?”
Her father’s shoe connected with something, a soft, clinking noise echoing through the room. Tani’s empty bottle of vodka had chosen that moment to roll out from under her bed and collide with her father’s Ferragamo loafers.
This time when he looked at her, she saw disappointment in his eyes. And it broke her heart.
“Pa, I’m sorry,” she rushed to fill the shocked silence that had fallen on the room. “I’ll apologise to Aakash Mamu and reschedule the pitch-“
“There will be no rescheduling,” Karam said quietly, his gaze falling from hers to the bottle at his feet. “You want to get your business off the ground, Tani, you’re on your own now.”
“Karam!” Her mother’s remonstration had no effect. He just shook his head. “No, Shikha. She’s shown us how badly, or not, she wants this. Now, it’s time for her to live with the fallout of that.”
Outraged disbelief slapped Tanisha in her face as she stared at her father’s resolute one. “Pa! That’s not fair!”
He raised one eyebrow. “No? Please explain to me why?”
“B-because,” Tani sputtered. “I missed one meeting! It’s not the end of the world.”
“Then why are you acting like it is?” he asked, his tone inflexible. “You will apologise to Akaash for wasting his time but there will be no rescheduling.”
Her heart sank at that. Tani’s last hope had been convincing Aakash Mamu who normally was putty in her hands. But if her father laid down the law, she was sure even Mamu wouldn’t break it, she thought gloomily.
With a last disappointed shake of his head, her father left. Her mother watched the door slam behind his back before sighing and turning back to look at Tani.
“What’s going on, Tani?”
“Nothing.” Tani pushed out of the bed, dragging her lank, greasy, tangled hair into a ponytail and tying the scrunchy extra tight.
“Nothing?” Shikha’s eyebrow rise could rival her husband’s. “So, you just stay in bed, moping, drinking, and basically acting like a bum for no reason?”
“Acting like a bum?” Even as she echoed the derisive question, Tani caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror hanging on the wall. A bum was putting it politely, she thought.
“You’re certainly not acting like a bride-to-be.”
And there it was. The words splashed over her like a bucket of ice water. A bride to be. In less than a month, she, Tanisha Bakshi, would be marrying Jay Malhotra. A sour taste filled her mouth, and it had nothing to do with the vodka binge she’d gone on.
A knock sounded on the door and they turned to see her brother, Rehan, leaning against the doorjamb, twirling a set of car keys on one finger.
Tall, lean, and cocky, he was everything Tani had never learned to be.
Until she hit her current rebel phase and started to drive her father up the wall, of course.
From rejecting her lucrative job offer at a leading investment banking firm in New York, to getting engaged to a guy she suspected her father secretly despised, to drowning her sorrows in vodka, Tani’s slide from Papa’s princess to slovenly bum had been fast and relentless.
“Where are you off to?” Shikha asked, suspicion rife in her voice as she surveyed her son. She knew, just like Tani did, that her brother was anarchy and chaos wrapped in a relentlessly charming package. The suspicion was warranted.
“I’m going with Kimi to the airport.”
Tani’s heart rate spiked at the words. “Why?” she asked, her mouth going dry.
“Kabir’s coming home.” Rehan threw her a derisive and strangely adult look. “Kimi wanted company for the airport pick up. We’re going to smuggle him out before his fans realise he’s here.”
“Kabir’s coming home?” Tani echoed, her heart going into overdrive now, jackhammering against her chest.
“For your wedding.”
There was the derision again. Tani’s back stiffened but she said nothing. If her father secretly disapproved of her choice of husband, then her brother openly did so. And right now, Tani didn’t have the energy to corner either of them on it.
She caught another glance of her unkempt reflection in the mirror.
Kabir was coming home. For her wedding.
Pain sliced through her already hurting heart. So, he could come home to watch her marry another man but he couldn’t find the fucking balls to admit what they both knew. That the only man she should be marrying was him. That the only man she wanted to marry was him.
Well, she’d be damned if she’d leave her heart at his feet for him to trample all over anymore. Tanisha swept past her mother and brother and into the shower, slamming the door behind her. She didn’t have time to waste. She had a wedding to plan.