Chapter 14 Daksh
DAKSH
The problem with pretending to sleep was that it was really hard to decide when to stop faking. He listened as she tapped away at her phone, made hissed phone calls to her team and paced the small patch of beach in front of his lounger. And the entire time, his mind ticked away at the problem.
Daksh knew his family. He knew them all too well. That high pitched, squeaky note in his brother’s voice bothered him. What was the little fucker up to? Finally, when his back couldn’t take his pretend sleep posture anymore, he faked a yawn and stretched, slowly opening his eyes.
Vedika had her face right above his and was giving him the evilest of evil eyes.
“Gaaahhh!” Daksh screeched. His brother’s high pitched note had nothing on his in that moment.
“What the hell are you doing, woman?” he asked, scrambling back from her and only just about managing not to make the sign of the cross to ward off evil.
“I knew it,” she said triumphantly, hands on her hips. “You were faking it.”
Daksh laid a hand on his chest, his heart galloping beneath it. “Fucking hell,” he cursed, pushing up from his lounger. He signalled the waiter to bring him another beer. “I’m going for a walk.”
Vedika looked at him, her arms crossed in front of her ugly dress. Even though he knew it was a mistake, he softened enough to nod, silently inviting her along.
“Would you like something to drink?” he asked, waiting for her to ask for water like she always did.
But Vedika hesitated, and after a moment, she asked the waiter to bring her a coconut water. The waiter returned with a coconut the size of her head. She looked briefly horrified but took it without complaint, thanking the man.
Daksh slung his camera over his neck, hooked the neck of his beer bottle between his fingers and followed her out onto the sand.
The sun was a fiery ball dipping below the horizon in the distance.
He raised his camera to his face and took a few pictures.
His bottle clinked against the camera frame and he lowered the camera so it wouldn’t get damaged.
A slim hand appeared in the periphery of his vision, taking his bottle from him.
“You don’t have to do that,” he told her, startled.
Vedika shrugged. “I don’t mind. Take your pictures.”
“Are you sure?” he asked her as she turned away from him, walking down the beach and towards the lighthouse in the distance. In response, she waved him on and kept going.
He took a few, quick shots of her as she stopped, a little distance away, to look at the sun setting. The wind blew her dress back, giving her thin frame definition and teasing unruly strands of hair out of her braid. A woman unravelled, he mused, the caption writing itself in his head.
She took a sip from the massive coconut in her hands and he laughed softly as he clicked the expression of bliss on her face. So, she did enjoy things that tasted good. So, why the weird diet then?
She turned to look at him and noticed the camera pointed in her direction. She frowned and he clicked. She glared and he cluster shot it. The Mouse and her moods.
Vedika shook her head at him and walked away.
He followed at a slower pace, keeping an eye on her as the light faded from the sky and the stars winked into existence.
A raucous shout from a nearby shack had Vedika stopping, turning to watch the commotion, a soft smile on her face.
His camera was up and clicking even before he registered what he was doing.
Daksh’s phone rang. He glanced at it and saw that it was his brother.
He silenced it, slipping it back into his pocket.
That idiot could wait. Up ahead, Vedika found a relatively private stretch of beach and sat down, her slippers and coconut by her side, her toes digging into the sand.
She pulled out her hair tie and unravelled her braid, running her hands through the now wavy strands.
It was glorious…that waterfall of thick, soft, silky hair that fell around her shoulders and to her waist, framing her small, pensive face perfectly.
Daksh swallowed hard, dropping to the sand beside her, keeping a respectful distance between them.
“Doing okay?” he asked.
Vedika raised her knees, rested her chin on them and looked out on to the ocean. She nodded, exhaling slightly as if allowing the stress to leave her body.
“Do you ever feel like leaving everything behind and running far away, never coming back?” she asked, still not looking at him.
His gaze traced her delicate profile lined by the rays of the setting sun. “That’s exactly what I did, Mouse. I ran and kept running.”
“I wish I could,” she said with a deeper sigh.
“What’s stopping you?”
She turned her face to look at him, cheek resting on her bent knees.
“Family. Job. Fiancé.”
When she fell silent, he prompted, “And?”
“Fear,” she said quietly.
“What do you fear, Vedika?” It wasn’t the first time he’d used her name but there was something in the tenor of his voice and he saw the fact register in the widening of her eyes, the slight parting of her lips, the intake of breath.
She met his gaze, her big, dark eyes pools of emotion.
“Everything,” she whispered.
Daksh fought the instinctive urge to probe further. For some reason, every cell in his body told him to stay quiet, to wait, to allow the frightened little mouse to come to him.
“I wasn’t always like this,” she said, turning her head to look away from him, to look at the ocean.
“Repressed?” he asked, teasingly.
A small grin tugged at her lips but she didn’t immediately bite his head off so he took that to be a good sign.
“Judgy?”
She shook her head and rolled her eyes, still fighting the smile that was spreading across her face.
“Righteous?”
She reached over and pinched him hard. Daksh yelped, rubbing a hand over the stinging spot on his forearm.
“Even the smallest of prey, like mice, have teeth,” she murmured, finally allowing her smile to take over.
Daksh brought the camera up to his face and clicked a close up of that slice of laughter on her face, something he hadn’t seen since he’d met her.
And then the devil riding his shoulder took over and he leaned close enough to her to whisper, “And even the fiercest predators know fear.”