“Something I don’t know about you. Not about the Haveli.”
She took a moment. “I wanted to be an archaeologist.”
His eyes moved toward her, attentive. “What changed?”
“The Haveli happened.” A small tilt of her head. “But it’s the same thing. Every wall is a dig site. Every corridor hides a story. I never needed a different excavation. I already had the best one.”
He absorbed that in silence.
“What about you?”
“I wanted to build things.” His tone lowered. “I watched Papa build his business in Dubai from the ground up. I wanted the same. To start with nothing and create something real.”
“And you did.”
“Yes.”
Her attention stayed on him. “You never wanted anything else?”
“I wanted exactly that.” His eyes remained on the road. “I just didn’t know what was missing until recently.”
The words settled between them.
She looked ahead again.
The city moved on.
“Teach me Marwari.”
She blinked. “What?”
“Marwari. Teach me.”
“Why?”
“Because when I was being… myself, you used to mutter under your breath when you walked away. In Marwari.” He glanced at her. “I caught fragments. I want to know what they meant.”
She stared at him.
He shrugged. "That is a completely reasonable request.”
“You want me to translate those… words.”
"I want to know what I was dealing with." A quick look at her. "I think I have a right to know what was being spoken about me in my own Haveli."
“It wasn’t your Haveli then,” she replied immediately. “You were trying to sell it.”
"Which is presumably why you were cursing me."
"I was not cursing you."
"Meera."
She pressed her lips together, her eyes bright.
“You were absolutely cursing me.”
A laugh escaped her again. She turned to the window, trying to contain it, failing.
