Page 34 of The Art of Taking Second Chances

“I hate myself for hurting you,” I said before breaking down and lining his fancy jacket with my tears.

“It’s okay. We’re in this mess because of me.”

His hands slipped under my hair and touched my bare back. It was an accidental touch, and I felt him hesitate, but the next instant, I heard him inhale a quick breath against my cheek. His fingers dug into my skin and clutched me tighter, my breasts pressing into his hard chest. His warm breath landed on my neck, his smell reaching deep inside me and turning my knees to jelly. Wrapping my arms around him, I sank deeper against him and felt his lips draw closer to my cheek. I held my breath. I was ready. I knew what I wanted.

“Sameer, I—” It was a gentle tremor from his jacket that stunned me into silence.

He pulled out his phone. “It’s Aarti. She’s at my place. I should go.”

Like the fool that I was, I stayed in his arms a moment longer than I should’ve before I stepped out and wiped away my tears.

“Will you be alright?”

“Yes.”

“We should talk, Tara.”

“There’s no need. You just made your decision very clear.”

“Tara…”

“Leave.”

He hesitated at the door but left anyway, and I crumbled on the couch.

Chapter 11

Sameer

Ihad heard Tara weeping before she came to the door. Her tears smudged her makeup, and I saw the pain on her face. The same pain that now stabbed at my heart as I drove back home. I’d just had a glimpse of how she must have hurt when I left her years ago. All I wanted was to stay with my face nuzzled in her neck, holding her in my arms.

Instead, I was driving back to Aarti. Why? Because I had promised her. And because I was too much of a coward to come clean to either woman. I should’ve broken it off with Aarti the moment I realized Tara still harbored feelings for me. And I should’ve trusted Tara with my past.

But there was more at stake. After our disgraceful exodus from India, breaking up with Aarti would make my family a social pariah again. For Dad, my marriage promised the merger of our fortunes and the linking of our family name with theirs. It meant security and status. Aarti’s family didn’t care about that. They didn’t need to. For them, I was the trophy partner who looked really good on Aarti’s arm. That I wasn’t a major-league asshole was what had clinched this relationship for them.

The Bhatia name held a lot of clout in the region, especially in the South Asian community. A single misstep would ruin me, cutting me off from every important social and economic connection I had cultivated. Years of my hard work had grown the company larger than it had ever been. It would cost me more than the stigma of a failed relationship if I messed this up, something I couldn’t do to Mom again. I banged my hand on the steering wheel as I cursed aloud in the privacy of my car.

Everything I had done since that fateful night, every single decision I made, had been with the sole intent of protecting Mom. Within a span of twenty-four hours, she’d lost her home, her wealth, and her name. All on account of the man who was her husband. He’d shattered her entire world in a blink, and she’d deserved none of it.

Mom was a queen in looks, grace, and demeanor. Her family wasn’t exactly royalty, but they enjoyed the wealth and lifestyle that would make blue bloods green with envy. Life in a palatial haveli in Punjab with numerous servants bustling around, catering to their every whim and fancy, was her normal. Her wealth was ancestral, and Mom remembered her childhood as decadent yet disciplined before they settled in Delhi, where her father had set up his businesses.

As the youngest child and only sister to three brothers, she was doted on by everyone around her. Her oldest brother had moved to the U.S. in the 1970s for higher education, fell in love, and settled into a life here. But when they lost the two brothers between them—one to a road accident and one to heart disease—he brought Mom over. He had no children and raised Mom like his daughter. By the time she graduated with a master’s degree in finance, she was also a U.S. citizen. But unlike her brother, she missed having her parents around, and much to his displeasure, declared her intention to return to India. To appease him, she promised to retain her U.S. citizenship and to confer it on her own children.

Upon her arrival in India, Mom had only one condition for marriage: she wanted an educated man. She had seen enough women in her family smothered by the weight of wealth and traditions. She wanted someone who’d see her as a partner, not merely a wife or an asset. And Dad did that, initially at least. He had the trifecta when it came to arranged marriages. He was educated, handsome, and comfortably rich, the founder and owner of a small but successful pharmaceutical company. Mom thought she had hit the jackpot and unhesitatingly pumped all her wealth into his business. Success worshipped them, and they took the company public around the time I was in middle school. Dad was appointed CEO, and we moved into the echelons of the Indian super-rich. This change in fortune accounted for much of my cockiness growing up, until it all came crashing down like a house of cards.

Mom’s brother saved her grace. Uncle invited us to the U.S. and shared his wealth with a generosity we didn’t deserve. He paid for my education and trained me at his firm, then sent me to business school. I worked hard, attending college in the morning and working with him in the afternoon. I had no friends and no social life. I severed all ties with my former lifestyle, surviving on the wages he paid me, which were comparable to others employed at the same level. When Uncle bought a monstrous mansion for my parents, I insisted on renting an apartment I could afford on my own, opting to live in a community that housed graduate students and newly employed young people struggling to start a new life like me.

My uncle offered me access to whatever I wanted, but I wouldn’t accept what I hadn’t earned. Through the years, Tara remained the standard against which I measured myself. I wanted the dignity and respect she commanded. Tara had been right in her accusations. I had inherited the company and the wealth, but this time, I had earned it, made myself worthy of it.

Six years ago, after his wife passed, Uncle became severely depressed and gradually handed me the reins of his company. The keys to the firm, however, came with responsibilities. The professional ones I grasped quickly and conducted competently, but the social burdens caught me off guard. My visibility demanded the apropos performance of success in clothing, cars, and behavior, cultivating the right kind of accent, maintaining the delicate balance between my Indian and American identities. I couldn’t be too Desi, especially because I grew up in India, but I also couldn’t come across as so American that I couldn’t be trusted to be a good Indian. I had to be a good son to be viewed as a good person. But I had to display enough independence from my parents to be considered good husband material.

I changed myself to become the man I had never imagined I’d be. Amar was the achiever in our family, I was a lost cause. My only worth would’ve been to inherit Dad’s wealth. Until there wasn’t any.

But my attempts to rebuild our life did little to heal the scars on Mom’s heart, especially when Dad resisted making the effort. He wallowed in conceit and complacency, refusing to mend the cracks he left when he shattered her life, punishing her for my offenses. So now it was up to me. I had to redeem myself by reinstating Mom’s life to its former glory and give her back the social stature she once enjoyed before he besmirched her name.

As the elevator dinged for my floor, a strange realization hit me. None of this would matter if I had Tara. None of this would matter to Tara. As the memory of her sweet face drenched in tears resurfaced in my mind, I realized she was right. I had left her for money.

The elevator doors opened and closed twice before I could bring myself to exit. Then I stood outside my apartment, preparing to slip into the role of the loving boyfriend. Killing the uneasy clog in my chest, I unlocked the door and stepped inside.

---