16. Naina
Chapter Sixteen
NAINA
Someone knocked on the door and Kash asked them to come in, never removing his eyes off me. The door opened behind him and Grayson stepped in.
“She’s here, sir.”
How many people had he invited to this wedding? I hadn’t even told my best friend and I wasn’t even sure how she would react. Knowing Kat and her romantic nature, she would be thrilled to some degree.
“Thank you, Grayson. We will be right out.”
With a nod, Grayson left and closed the door behind him.
“Are you ready to get married?” Kash asked. There was such finality to his words.
“I’ve come this far.”
Kash’s eyes moved over my face, trying to gauge the meaning behind my words. There wasn’t anything hidden behind them. The sad truth was, I didn’t have any other choice and Kash was offering me a way out. It was like he just said, sometimes making a choice was a choice.
“One day, I’m going to find out all your secrets, Naina,” Kash said.
My smile dropped, my palms growing clammy. My secrets were exactly what I didn’t want him to find. That way lay disaster and ruin.
“Is that what you’ve been trying to do for the last six months?” I teased, surprised my voice sounded so normal when my heart was pounding.
“You haven’t made it easy,” Kash admitted, stepping closer until we were toe to toe. “Now that you’re going to my wife, there is no place for you to hide where I wouldn’t find you.”
I swallowed. Like a distant memory frozen in time, my body still recalled the feel of his pressed against it. I wanted to fall into him even though I knew better. I couldn’t let my body betray me, no matter how much it wanted.
“Is that a threat?” I asked.
Kash’s fingers played with the dangling bits of my jhumka , dancing along my jaw and down my neck in a teasing glide. Shivers erupted across my body. Kash leaned in, close enough to kiss, our noses brushing. His hand wrapped around the back of my neck, holding me in place.
“Sweetheart, we’re beyond threats now,” he whispered. “It’s a promise.”
His eyes burned like twin blue flames. And in that moment, I knew I was what he wanted to consume.
“Kash, Augusta says if you’re not out there in two minutes she’s leaving because she has a meeting with the mayor.”
Vera stopped short, eyes bouncing between Kash and me and the lack of distance between us. She wrinkled her nose, eyes narrowing on Kash.
“This couldn’t wait till after you’re married? If Augusta leaves no one is performing this wedding.”
With that, she turned around and left, the skirt of her dress swishing dramatically. I found that I liked her.
“She’s right, there will be plenty of time for this later.”
I excused myself to go to the bathroom, where I removed Kash’s jacket and adjusted my saree so it fell perfectly. I caught my reflection in the mirror and for a moment, I didn’t even recognize the person looking back at me.
What would my parents think of this situation if they were alive? Then again, if they were alive, we wouldn’t be in this situation. Maybe I would still be practicing law. I could have moved to San Francisco, lived a whole different life in which Kash Sutherland wasn’t a threat or my savior.
I looked at my wrists, adorned with the two gold bangles Samira had given me this morning.
“You should wear these,” she said. I’d looked at our mother’s bangles and my stomach roiled. In my mother’s family, it was tradition for married women to wear bangles like that.
“I don’t think I should,” I said.
Sami had sat down next to me on the couch, her search for the perfect dress forgotten.
“You’re getting married and you know Ma would have wanted you to wear them.”
It wasn’t a real marriage. Not like that. Yet, I understood what Sami was saying. If we were going to pretend to have a whirlwind romance and like Kash swept me off my feet and we eloped, I would need to really sell it. The hang ups were mine. Wearing my mother’s bangles would at least show that I was in it.
I hope my parents understood I was doing this for us, Sami and me. Not because I had given up.
Squaring my shoulders, I slipped out of the bathroom and Kash looked up, heat flaring in his eyes as they tracked over my body.
“Christ,” he breathed. “You’ve been wearing that under my jacket the whole time?”
The saree wasn’t the fanciest. I’d originally bought it for a cousin’s wedding celebration but never got around to wearing it. The blouse was a modern concoction, dipping into a v in the front and back with long, bedazzled sheer sleeves. The tattoos on my right arm peeked through. The saree had the same silver bedazzling along the border.
“Let’s get married.”