Page 46 of Claiming His Bollywood Cinderella

She looked so forlorn that he took her hand in his and pressed his mouth to the soft skin at her wrist. Her pulse moved through him like a song, sending his heart into overdrive. “You have a lot to think on. I...don’t want to persuade you in any way. And if I stay, I will.” He cursed and she looked at him with those wide eyes. “I will use the hunger I see in your eyes to persuade you to do anything.

“And I don’t want to. So even as it kills me, I’m going to walk away, Dream Girl. Come to me when you’re ready.

“Come to me, be my wife and I’ll lay the entire world at your feet.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

NAINATWISTEDTHEknob on the door and went in without knocking. It hadn’t been more than a few hours. She hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep and she knew she wasn’t going to.

When she’d seen dawn paint the sky a brilliant pink, she’d given up and gotten out of bed. It wasn’t as if she had to think and decide. She wasn’t like him. She already knew her heart. She knew that while he would never say the words she longed to hear, this was enough for her. What he could give was more than enough.

He wasn’t sleeping either. He was sitting upright on a huge bed in the center of the room holding the latest version of the script, bifocal glasses perched on his face, looking utterly cute. Bare shoulders and lightly haired chest on display made her swallow.

She stood like that, with her back pressed to the hard wood, her hands folded at her midriff. Suddenly, she felt strangely shy. For all that they’d been so intimate with each other at the ball, it had been in the dark of the night. In a way, it had even been easier. Easier to shed her inhibitions, easier to live in that moment, because at the end of it, she’d known she was going home alone. There had only been pleasure.

This intimacy, however, was different. This had vulnerability and awkwardness and tenderness and the slow burn of desire. Of anticipation.

When his gaze swept over her from her hair, into which she’d slathered that awful conditioning oil, to her bare feet, she realized she still had on her old oversized T-shirt and she’d taken her bra off as always. Thank God she’d at least washed her face and was blessed with good skin.

He put away the script and took off his glasses. Pushing up on the bed, he folded his arms behind his head and gave her the once-over again. The sheet slipped downward to reveal the happy trail on his abdomen and the waistband of his pajamas.

God, she could just lick him up when he looked like that.

“Are you planning to stay by the door all night?”

“I barged in to tell you my decision.”

“And?”

“I realized belatedly that maybe I should have dressed up for the occasion.”

“Dressed up?”

“Not formally, I mean. Just worn something silky and not applied this oil thing to my hair.”

His mouth twitched. “Do you own silky somethings?”

“Not really.”

“Is that oil thing so repellent?”

“Of course not. It doesn’t have any scent at all. Don’t you dare laugh at me, Vikram. My curls go haywire if I don’t tame them at night.”

“I wouldn’t dare laugh at you, Naina.” He sighed. And that broad, hard chest flexed impressively. “You...every time I think I know you, you surprise me some more. You make me laugh, Dream Girl. Now how about you tell me what’s going on in that head?”

“I’m saying yes. To your proposal. I want to be your wife. I couldn’t sleep and I really wanted to come in here and tell you. And now, now I feel like I should’ve worn something sexier or put makeup on or just...you know, done something to mark the occasion as special.”

“You make everything special, Naina. Haven’t you got that yet?”

Naina shook her head. She knew she was being stubborn, but she couldn’t help it. “It’s not every day an ordinary girl gets proposed to, is it? You’re the stuff of dreams, Vikram. I have this...crazy, overwhelming urge to make this night different for you. When you’re a crotchety ninety-year-old man, I want you to think back on this night and go...yippee!”

A wicked light shone in his eyes. “So what I’m getting is that you really want to wow me?”

She nodded.

“Take that T-shirt off, then. Only if you’re comfortable, that is. You always have to tell me what is okay and what is not, Naina.”

Vikram had barely finished his sentence before she caught the hem of the tee and pulled it up over her head. The movement loosened the clip in her hair and even in their tamed state, her curls framed her face.

---