Chapter 1
VEDIKA
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.” Ashish’s voice crackled through the phone as Vedika walked through the Goa airport, dragging her suitcase behind her.
“It’s okay.” She sighed as she took in the crowd at the security gates. This was going to take forever.
“Daksh is on the same flight as you,” Ashish’s voice was even more garbled now. Wherever he was, he had shitty signal. “I’ve sent you a picture of him so it’s easier for you to recognise him.” She heard his hesitation before he said, “I know you’re not comfortable with new people –“
“He’s your brother,” she cut him off, joining the serpentine queue for the security check. “He’s coming back for the wedding and we’re on the same flight. It makes sense for me to introduce myself and well,” she swallowed hard and forced the words out, “get to know him a little.”
A brief silence met her reply. “Yeah,” Ashish said eventually. “Look, Daksh is a little…complicated. But he’s always had my back, and it would mean a lot to me if the two of you got along.”
Vedika eyed the line in front of her, the line that didn’t seem to be moving at all. Complicated. Wonderful. Just what she needed.
“Of course, we’ll get along,” she said automatically. “Why wouldn’t we?”
“Right.” Ashish sounded relieved. “You get along with everybody after all.”
She did. Vedika didn’t like friction and conflict, so she made it a point to never have any with anyone.
If someone was particularly unbearable, she just cut them out of her life and moved on.
Of course, she couldn’t cut Ashish’s brother out of her life.
So, she’d just have to like him, whether she wanted to or not.
The line finally started to move and Vedika heaved a sigh of relief. “I have to go,” she told Ashish. “Don’t worry about anything. Your brother and I are going to be just fine.”
“Thanks love.”
“Just don’t forget to send me the picture,” she said, reaching for the tray to put her electronics into. “The only ones I’ve seen of him are the childhood ones your family has up on the wall.”
Static sounded in her ear and she pulled the phone away, grimacing.
The line cut out and she dropped her phone into the tray along with her laptop.
This work trip to Goa had been grueling.
The days were filled with meetings and the nights with work related socialising.
Her own personal version of hell. And now her social battery was well and truly dead.
She walked through security and went through the process of stuffing her electronics back into her bags. When she was finally done, she scanned the airport boards for the information on her gate. Of course, it would be at the farthest end of the terminal.
She stopped outside a Starbucks and bundled her damp, sweaty hair into a bun, pushing her glasses up her nose and squinting up at the menu board. The man in front of her was taking forever to place his order and she shifted on her tired, aching feet wishing he’d just get on with it.
When he finally shuffled off, she stepped up and placed her regular order, an Americano.
No fuss, no frills. She stepped to the delivery side to wait for it.
She needed the caffeine fix desperately.
She leaned on her suitcase, allowing her tired body a brief respite.
The server placed her drink in front of her, and she grabbed for it gratefully.
She grabbed the handle of her suitcase and turned only to crash into a hard object. The steaming hot coffee went flying and the hard object yelled, “FUCK!”
Shock kept her immobilized as she stared at the dark splotch on the t-shirt in front of her. By some miracle, not one drop of coffee had fallen on her. She raised her eyes, up and up and up, until she met angry black ones.
“I-I-I’m sorry,” she stammered.
His dismissive gaze raked over her as he reached over her head for some napkins and dabbed ineffectually at himself.
He was gorgeous, she thought dazedly. All brooding, stormy good looks, the kind that stopped your heart in its tracks while waking up other parts of your body.
Over one shoulder, he had one of those extra-large backpacks that hikers and fitness crazy people travelled with.
He was tall, so tall, she had to crane her neck to look at him.
And boy, did she look. He was very lookable, she thought, her brilliant mind fumbling for a word that described him and finding none.
“I didn’t see you there.” Mortification rushed through her as she saw coffee drip off the ends of his t-shirt and on to his worn, weathered shoes.
He gave her a withering look but didn’t acknowledge this statement either.
At least not verbally. His anger and disdain were screaming through his body language.
He yanked out more tissues before turning and stalking off.
The server called out to him to take his order, but he ignored her like he’d ignored Vedika’s attempts to apologise and kept walking.
She tried to help the staff clean up but they brushed her aside with a smile. Vedika grabbed her suitcase and slunk off, abandoning all hopes of a caffeine fix dispelling her fatigue.
Her phone pinged as she walked through the tunnel of stores and restaurants. Her mind, as always, ran through the humiliating encounter a million times, showing her all the things she could have done differently to avoid it. She groaned as she remembered those angry, beautiful eyes boring into her.
She spotted her gate at the far end of the terminal and sank into an empty chair with a grateful sigh. She pulled out her phone and texted the family group to let them know she was at the gate.
Her father’s reply pinged through a second later.
Pa: Good job on the Banlay deal, sweetheart.
Vik: Yes, good job, sweetheart.
Ma: Vik, if you don’t stop tormenting your sister, I will shave your head while you sleep.
Vedika laughed, a quiet sound as she read through the messages flying back and forth. She loved the calm and steady, but her family was anything but that…and still, she loved them beyond all reason. Loved them but never quite fit in with them.
Her firebrand of a mother was the kind of woman she’d hoped to be, she thought wistfully, but instead she was this weird concoction of insecurities and fears.
Pa: The car will be waiting for you at the airport, Vedu. Look for Angad Chacha.
Before she could type out a reply thanking him, a message from Ashish pinged through.
Oh no! She’d forgotten all about his brother!
In the middle of her coffee fiasco, she’d completely lost sight of the fact that she was supposed to be finding her soon to be brother-in-law in this terminal and spending a little time with him.
She tapped open the photograph that Ashish had sent her and waited impatiently for it to load.
God, she missed wi-fi. The mobile connectivity sucked!
She glanced around her, looking for anyone who might look like Ashish, but she couldn’t spot his doppelganger or even a faintly-resembling-him stranger.
And then the picture finally loaded and she found herself staring into familiar, angry, dark eyes.
Uh oh!