Page 46 of The Surprise Bollywood Baby

“By the time Bhai found me looking at the bloopers from the movie, like a drunken Devdas raving about his lost lover and I’d recovered from the hangover, I was already late for the flight to Switzerland. And once I was there... I couldn’t leave until I finished the postproduction work on my docuseries.

“I only arrived back home a few hours ago. Zara—”

She had no idea what he’d been about to say, because an avalanche of reporters descended on them and Zara forced a smile and walked up the path with him, arm in arm.

The premiere of the biopic showed to rave reviews. Zara and Vikram’s performances were off the charts and Virat was being lauded once again as the most brilliant director of their generation. The movie was already being touted as one of those once-in-a-century intersections of commercial and creative storytelling.

It was the biggest night of Virat’s life. And yet, it had nothing to do with the movie. In fact, he’d found his attention wandering again and again to the woman sitting next to him in the dark theater, the scent of jasmine in her hair winding through him.

All day, he’d felt jittery. He’d thought he’d calm down once he saw her.

When she’d stepped out of her car, that beautiful silk sari draping perfectly around her growing belly, he’d nearly fallen to his knees. He’d wanted to beg her right there and then for forgiveness. For acting like a thick-skulled fool.

But that wasn’t him. What he wanted to share with Zara was private and intimate and bound his very soul to hers. The three hours of the movie, and the two hours on top of that, meeting and greeting critics and reviewers and peers alike, had felt like torture.

And now, with her head lolling around on his shoulder in the moving car, the drive toward his grandparents’ old bungalow felt like the longest of his entire life.

Zara came awake slowly when her head lolled onto a hard shoulder. First, she closed her mouth since she knew she must have fallen asleep with it open, like a fish. This falling asleep whenever and wherever was really one of her least favorite things about being pregnant.

This and the feverish dream she’d had that the scent filling her nostrils and lungs was Virat’s. It was there now, too—a deliciously familiar cocktail of sandalwood and the cigar he smoked when he was nervous—filling her with that achingly desperate longing.

She fluttered her eyelashes open and found his dark eyes looking into hers. There was that look that she loved—as if she was his past, present and future. The look he gave her only when he made love to her. Or when he thought she wasn’t looking.

“You fell asleep in the car.”

Zara nodded. “Yeah, I sleep about sixteen hours a day now,” she said, just to say something. He was carrying her, she realized, her other senses slowly coming awake.

Carrying her over the threshold of a huge bungalow she’d visited only once. Or twice.

His grandparents’ bungalow. And it looked all dressed up. There were strings of lights over the arched entrance and flower garlands hanging everywhere. Strains ofshehnaicame next and Zara fidgeted in his arms. “Put me down, Virat,” she barked, feeling as if she was walking through her favorite dream.

Or her worst nightmare, if one looked at it in a certain way.

“Almost there,shahzadi,” he whispered, and then they were in the inner courtyard where there was a small raised dais in the center. All dressed up with lights and more flowers, like a weddingmandap.

And there were people standing around, watching them with curious eyes. Vikram and Naina—with expressions almost like trepidation in their eyes—and Virat’s grandmother, with a soft smile, and Anya Raawal next to her. On the other side stood Virat’s best friend, AJ, and his wife, Zara’s friend Anna. And beaming at her was her mother in front of themandap, with Virat’s parents a little distance away. Avidly gazing at both of them.

It was the wedding party she’d planned for. On closer inspection, Zara realized there were exactly the same flowers and music and decorations she’d picked. She looked down at herself and realized it was, of course, the same sari that she and Naina had chosen from a designer’s catalog.

Zara’s heart might have catapulted out of her chest if Virat hadn’t gently brought her down to her feet and enveloped her in his arms. As though shielding her from prying eyes. She felt the tension in him when he embraced her tighter. Almost as if he were a tuning fork vibrating to someone else’s frequency.

Hers, she realized slowly.

“Will you marry me,shahzadi? Today? Now?” he said and Zara felt as if she might burst into tears.

“Why?” she muttered through a sob half-ready to erupt from her chest.

Virat went on his knees and pressed his face into her belly. When he looked up at her, shock and wonder and so many emotions filled his eyes that Zara had tears in her own. “Because I can’t live without you. Because you were always the woman for me. Because I never stopped loving you.

“You were right, Zara. I was a coward. I didn’t trust you. And I didn’t trust myself, either. I...thought becoming successful in my own right would prove to you and myself that I was enough. But you showed me that I was already enough.

“You bring out the best in me,shahzadi. I understand exactly why you felt you had to leave me ten years ago, and even when you did, you still gave me direction in life. Let me show you how much I love you now, Zara. Let me be the father of our child. Let me be the man my Queen deserves.”

Zara buried her hands in his hair, tears falling freely onto her cheeks. “Why wait two months to tell me, Virat? Why... I thought you’d really abandoned me. I thought you were punishing me for leaving you ten years ago.”

“God, no, Zara. This was about me needing to face up to my own insecurities. My own cowardice. I had a lot to work through...needed to take a long, hard look at myself. I needed to be sure that I would never hurt you like that again. That I wouldn’t repeat past mistakes.

“Say yes, Zara. I will spend the rest of our lives showing you how much I love you. How much I deserve you.”

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