Page 4 of Married in Vengeance

“Excited?” Veda asked, squeezing his arm.

Ram met his gaze in the large floor length mirror at the end of his room. Happy? No. He couldn’t answer that question honestly, but this one…Was he excited to marry Aadhya and make her pay for her betrayal? Was he excited to finally have the woman he’d craved for years now in his bedroom and in his bed? Was he excited that vengeance would finally be his and he could use this lifetime to make her pay?

“Yes,” he said out loud, not meeting his sisters’ perceptive gaze. “Yes, I’m excited.”

Two

AADHYA

“A ghunghatwith a silk saree looks silly.” Varalakshmi Reddy, Aadhya’s mother, looked irritated and mildly scandalized.

“I like it Amma,” Aadhya said, adjusting the soft, gold net over her head and shoulders so it fell just right.

“Youlike it,” her mother grumbled. “What about your in laws? Will they like it?”

Aadhya shrugged. “It’smywedding day. Not theirs.”

“Aadhya!” Her mother’s scandalized cry made her grin. “You’ll be divorced before the month is over if you talk like this. Marriage is about compromise and the woman only has to compromise for the peace of the family. The sooner you understand this, the better.”

“Amma please.” Aadhya got to her feet, turning away from her mother. “I don’t want that lecture right now.”

Her mother fell silent for a short moment. “Aadhya,” she sighed. “You said no to every marriage proposal Nanna and I brought but you said yes to this one. There must be something about this one that you liked, no?”

Ram, Aadhya thought. That was what she liked about this one. Ram Gadde. Righteous, stick in the mud on most days but the most sinful craving between the sheets. Not that she could tell her mother that. And it wasn’t only the ridiculously, flammable sex they’d had in the past few months. It was more. She liked more, felt more, wanted more from Ram.

Throughout their clandestine, no strings attached fling, Ram had constantly told her that they had no future together. They were not good together. They could never be together because they had nothing in common.

She was the antithesis of the woman he wanted in his life. And yet, she was the woman he wanted in his bed.

And so, he’d sent a proposal of marriage to her home. He hadn’t even done the romantic thing of getting down on one knee with a ring in his hand. No, Ram Gadde hadn’t bothered with any of that. He’d sent his parents instead to speak to hers with a formal offer of marriage.

So, why had she said yes?

Because she wanted him, and she’d take him any which way she got him. Maybe all she got right now were scraps, but Aadhya knew how to upcycle scraps and make it gold.

She met her clear, blazing gaze in the mirror across from her. Ram may only want her now but soon he would love her. Like she loved him already. Aadhya closed her eyes against the sudden burn of tears.

Three months of dancing around the blaze of their attraction, three months of giving herself over to the pleasure she could only feel in his arms, three months of loving this man and watching him walk away from her.

Three months and no more. Today, she would marry him and then he would be hers forever.

“Aadhya?” Her mother was still waiting for a response.

“Yes Amma,” she answered quietly. “There is something I like.”

“Then keep that in the front of your mind and make this marriage work. Don’t go in like a bull in a china shop like you always do, destroying everything of value.”

A bull in a china shop. What an apt description. Aadhya shook her head, trying to get the image of herself rampaging through a cutlery shop out of her head.

A knock sounded on the door and her brother, Aarush, walked in. “It’s time for the ceremonies to start," he said, smiling his easy smile.

“Shall we?” He tipped his head towards the door.

Panic swelled inside her, a trumpet issuing its clarion call. What was she doing? Was she really going to marry Ram?

“Aadhya?” Aarush’s brow furrowed with concern. “Are you coming?”

She glanced past him to the window that overlooked the hundreds of acres of farmland owned by her family, the venue for her wedding. A Mercedes came to a rolling stop at the end of the avenue of trees and the Gadde family spilled out of it. Her gaze searched for him but didn’t find him. As she watched, a jeep pulled up behind the car.

---