Page 43 of The Surprise Bollywood Baby

He’d simply nodded and left. And for a few seconds, Zara had wondered at the deep wounds still pulsing below the surface of the man he showed the world. At the shadows she saw in his eyes whenever the subject of the Raawals came up. And wished so hard that she hadn’t played a part—even unwittingly—in transforming him from that spontaneous, full-of-life twenty-year-old into this hard man who refused to look into his own heart.

And the fact that she was irrevocably in love with even this incarnation of him was simply a fact she was going to have to get used to.

She had just finished talking to her mom on the phone when Virat walked into their sunroom where she had been lounging about, taste-testing different samples of desserts a caterer had sent her to pick from.

She was definitely going to have to order thegulab jamunfor their reception. The syrupy, gooey goodness had melted on her tongue. “Will you be mad at me if I tell the caterer you’ve demanded to taste thegulab jamunbefore we put in an order and then I eat all of your share when they come in?” she said, wiping her fingers on a napkin and looking up.

It only took one look at his face to know something was very wrong. A prickle of nervous apprehension ran down her spine.

“What is it, Virat? What’s happened?” She said, looking up from the cozy armchair where she’d been reclining and watching a rerun of an old movie.

He didn’t answer her but paced the expansive room, a restless energy radiating from him.

For a few seconds, Zara simply took in how the afternoon sun kissed the rigid line of his jaw, lovingly traced the breath of his wide shoulders. The dark denim clung to his hips and buttocks, and she had to swallow the instant need to touch him, claiming him for herself.

“You said no more lies, Zara.”

She jerked her gaze to his and the fury she saw there sent a tendril of fear to blossom in her belly. “I didn’t even know you were back in town,” she said, buying for time. “I thought you were flying in tomorrow morning.”

He shook his head, seeing through her ploy. “Don’t play games with me, Zara.”

“I am not,” she said defensively.

He sighed and sat down on the armchair far away from where she was sitting. Zara hated the distance he was imposing between them. And knew he’d done it on purpose. For all the control he exerted on himself, Virat’s fury was something to see.

He buried his face in his hands, and a long, harsh groan escaped his mouth. Though the sound was muffled by his hands, Zara heard the anger and frustration in it. It made her want to hold him, more than anything else, but she also knew he didn’t want to be touched right now. His body language made that much clear.

“I wanted to surprise you tonight, with an engagement party.” He checked the time on the Rolex she’d bought him not two weeks ago, and rubbed his face again.

“Your mother’s supposed be flying in in an hour. Bhai was going to bring her to my grandmother’s house. Naina helped me plan it.”

Zara stared blankly, having had no idea about it. She leaped up from the chair and reached him, laughing. She thought she might burst with joy.

But something in his gaze stopped her at the last moment, just as she was about to touch him. Something so hard and flat and so resigned that her heart kicked in her chest.

“I invited my mother and father, too. What you said the last time we talked...about our child growing up as a part of a family, it stayed with me. Despite all the drama my parents created, my grandparents and Bhai and Anya saved me. They...kept me sane and going. I wanted that future for our child.

“So I decided, in that magnanimous way of mine—” his laugh was full of scorn “—to at least try and forget the past, even if I couldn’t completely forgive it. I decided that it didn’t matter if my mother had a hand in you leaving me. If my father continued to reject me as his son to his dying breath.

“I was a Raawal in all the ways that mattered. So I’d give my child the pride and belonging I had always deserved but was denied. I’d start a fresh slate with my mother, too. She was, of course, overjoyed and couldn’t stop singing your praises all morning.

“Then she announced—in that melodramatic way of hers—that admitting to all her sins would absolve her and my father of years of dysfunctional parenting. Would undo all the damage they’d wrought on Bhai and me and Anya.”

Zara felt as if a lead weight was sitting on her chest. She knew now where this was going. Her stomach turned over.

“As part of this new awareness,” Virat continued, his tone dripping with contempt, “she told me that she had lied to me ten years ago. About you. That she had driven you away. Because, of course, in her twisted mind, driving away the only woman who saw me for who I was, the woman who made me see myself in a new light, was an act of motherly love. Because, in her opinion, you weren’t the right woman for me.

“Because she was looking out for me. Because she wanted me to have a wonderful future. Forget all the early childhood trauma she put me through by staying with a man who continually rejected his own child.”

“Virat, please listen to me—”

“Apparently, she got rid of a pesky brother-in-law for you, who was determined to prove you were a murderer.”

Zara felt as if she was caught in a nightmare of her own making. “Saleem, my first husband, killed himself after I finally worked up the courage to tell him I was leaving him. His controlling behavior had spiraled until he was locking me in my room and refusing to let me out. Yet his younger brother decided I was responsible for his brother’s death and was going all out to punish me for it, even if he had to lie to do it.

“Your mother offered to use her power and reach to make the case he was going to lodge against me disappear. I knew that if any of it came out in the press, the chance of me pursuing a career in acting and landing decent roles with that sullied reputation would be nil. And if Saleem’s brother had his way, I might even have ended up in prison.

“So yes, I accepted her help. But I thought it had been offered in good faith! I didn’t know that she was going to lie to you about it, make me out to be the villain.”

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