Page 78 of Hard Limits

“He has ways of forcing people to do things. And I may be an adult, but in his eyes, women are property. Unmarried, I belong to him. When I’ve got a ring on my finger, I’ll pass into the ownership of my husband.”

“That’s archaic.”

“Yes, but it’s also how things are. My brothers are the same. Raj married four years ago, and he already has three kids, all girls. You can’t imagine how annoyed he is about that. His poor wife—she just has to keep going until she gives him a boy.”

At least Indi was talking now. Brax hated every word she was saying, but he still wanted to hear it.

“What if the boy never comes?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. Maybe he’ll get a new wife?”

“He didn’t marry for love, then.”

“No, his wife came from a good family in Mumbai. It was a strategic match. She’s everything I’m not—homey, subservient, family-oriented. Oh, and she can cook. I can’t cook, not at all, which is weird because my mom’s an excellent chef, but… Never mind.”

“You don’t want children?”

“Maybe? Someday? I just hoped to establish myself in a career first, and… Why are we even talking about this?”

“Too early for the ‘kids’ discussion?”

“Don’t you understand? I can’t stay with you, no matter how much I might want to. I don’t have Meera’s passport, only her driver’s licence, so I had to book the plane ticket in my own name. My little brother’s a cop, and he’ll have me on some kind of a watchlist, I know he will. Then they’ll catch up with me and drag me home to marry Karam, who’s a self-centred asshole, by the way. He wants me to have breast augmentation surgery before the wedding so the photos will look better.”

“There’s nothing wrong with your breasts.”

“You don’t think they’re too small?”

“Any more than a mouthful is a waste.” Interesting though this discussion was, it still didn’t answer the airport question, and they were on a deadline. Brax had less than half an hour to persuade her to stay. “Where are you flying to, Indi?”

“To find Meera. She’s disappeared. I kept telling myself it would be all right, that she’d just met a guy and lost track of time, but it’s been over a week, and she hasn’t been in contact once. Her phone’s turned off, and her social media accounts are dead. She always posts every single day. It’s part of our cover story.”

“Your cover story? For hiding from your, what? Your fiancé? Did it get that far?”

“We had a huge engagement party. It was excruciating. But Meera needed a cover story too—her family isn’t as bad as mine, but they didn’t like her boyfriend, and the two of them wanted to spend a year backpacking around Europe, working on environmental projects. Her family, especially her grandfather, wanted her to—and I quote—stop messing around with trees and get a respectable job. He threatened to leave his house to a cat sanctuary otherwise, and while cats are very lovely, I’m sure, do you know how hard it is to buy a house these days if you don’t have family money?”

Now Brax was starting to piece things together. “So Meera and the boyfriend went to Europe to hug trees, and you fulfilled her familial obligation?”

“To plant trees, and they were engaged, but yes.”

“So working for me counts as a respectable job? I take it you didn’t tell her about the sex club?”

“Uh, I might have mentioned it. Please don’t be mad at me.”

She turned to look at him, and when she bit her lip, how could he be angry?

“Did you give her any details?”

“No, I just said it was super fancy.” A shy smile. “She kept asking when I was going to head down there and find myself a hot man, but it turned out he was sitting in the next office.”

Brax reached across the centre console to squeeze Indi’s hand, and when she didn’t snatch it away, he had to take that as a good sign.

“Then I’m not mad. Why do you need to go and look for her? Where’s the fiancé?”

“Lisbon, I think. Three weeks ago, he dumped her for a girl he’d just met and left town.”

“And people think I’m an asshole?”

“If the tattoo fits… Sorry, I’m so sorry.”

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