Page 34 of Trapped By the Maharaja
It wouldn’t be long. He knew it with the certainty of a man who always took what he wanted.
Soon, he would claim her as his.
CHAPTER 15
Sanjana sat hunched over her desk, medical textbooks spread out in uneven stacks, highlighter clutched between her fingers. The exam was tomorrow morning, and she had promised herself she would finish revising for the third time before midnight.
The first tap against the window made her pause. She frowned, ignoring it. Probably just a tree branch in the wind.
The second tap-tap-tap was sharper, deliberate.
Annoyed, she dropped her pen and pushed her chair back. It had to be her roommate’s boyfriend again. Last week, he had thrown pebbles at the wrong window and nearly gotten them both caught by the warden.
She yanked the window open, ready to snap. “Wrong room again, you fool—”
The words froze in her throat.
It wasn’t her roommate’s boyfriend standing below to sneak out his girlfriend.
It was him. The guy with the rusty, old jeep who had driven without question to the hospital to save an injured child.
Ram.
She had tried to pay him money for getting blood in his jeep, but he had refused. Now, he was outside her hostel room, as though he had every right to be there. In the dim glow of the hostel’s courtyard light, he looked just as handsome as she remembered.
Her heart stuttered, then raced with equal parts annoyance and something she didn’t want to name.
She reminded herself of her long-held dream. She wanted to be a doctor, not get distracted by handsome faces.
“What are you doing here?” she hissed, gripping the window frame.
“Came to remind you,” he said. “You owe me a coffee.”
Her mouth dropped open. “You… how do you even know where I stay?”
He tilted his head, a slow smile spreading on his face. “I enquired at the hospital who registered the injured boy and got your full name and address.”
Her pulse jumped. He had gone that far to find her? The thought both infuriated and, to her horror, thrilled her.
“You’re insane,” she said, crossing her arms. “Go home before you get me expelled. This is a girls’ hostel!”
“Not leaving.” He leaned back against the jeep, arms folded across his chest. “Not until you agree.”
Sanjana’s nostrils flared. “Absolutely not.”
She slammed the window shut and marched back to her desk. For a moment, she forced herself to stare at her notes, but her eyes refused to move past the same sentence.
Then came another tap-tap-tap. Followed by another. And another.
Her shoulders slumped. With a groan, she stalked back to the window and flung it open. Ram was looking up at her, stone already in hand.
“Fine!” she whisper-yelled. “Fine, I’ll take you out for coffee. Just stop throwing stones before the warden shows up and I get into trouble.”
The stone dropped from his hand as his grin softened into something far too satisfied. “Tomorrow morning,” he said softly. “Don’t make me wait.”
And with that, he slipped away into the night.
Sanjana shut the window, pressing her forehead against the cool glass. Her heart thudded wildly in her chest.
