"He would absolutely not. He'd just—" she gestured. "Position himself between Aryan and any conceivable threat and look at you like you were stupid for not noticing sooner."
Samarth laughed, and she felt it through his chest.
Two years of this—of his laugh, of his arms, of knowing that when she leaned back there would be something solid there—and it still moved through her like something new.
"Your family is here," he said.
"I know. Bhai arrived twenty minutes ago. He brought the chocolate from Singapore again."
"Aryan doesn't eat chocolate yet."
"It's for me." She turned in his arms. "Don't pretend you don't also eat it."
He looked at her with the expression he'd developed over the past two years—the one that was specifically for her, that existed nowhere else in his considerable range of expressions.
"Happy?" he asked.
She looked up at him. At the man who had been a stranger and then an adversary and then a reluctant husband and then, through some alchemy she was still writing the explanation for, the absolute center of her life.
"Catastrophically," she said.
He kissed her forehead. "Good."
The Shahs Arrived at Eleven
Devraj Shah had aged into something almost gentle, though Nimisha suspected that was mostly grandchildren. He'd held Aryan for forty minutes at last month's visit and returned him only when the baby had made his desires about lunch unmistakably clear.
Her brother Abhay arrived with his wife and two daughters, and the daughters immediately attempted to claim Aryan for their own purposes, which Aryan found interesting and Bruno found concerning.
"He's not a toy," Bruno's positioning seemed to communicate, inserting himself neatly between the enthusiastic five-year-old and the birthday boy.
"He's fine, Boo," Nimisha told him.
Bruno's look suggested he was reserving judgment.
Abhay appeared beside her, his eyes tracking Samarth across the garden where he was currently accepting his son fromShaurya's arms with the practiced ease of a man who had, after initial uncertainty, taken to fatherhood with characteristic thoroughness.
"He's good with him," Abhay said, something careful in his voice—the older brother who had worried and watched and was cautiously updating his assessment.
"He's extraordinary with him," Nimisha said simply. "He talks to him. Explains things. Takes him on walks at six in the morning because Aryan thinks dawn is an appropriate time to be awake and Samarth refuses to let the staff handle it." She watched her husband settle their son on his hip with one arm, completely at ease. "He read four books on infant development in the third trimester. He argues with all of them."
Abhay was quiet for a moment.
"Are you happy, choti?" he asked.
"I told you I was."
"You always tell me you are."
She looked at her brother. "I mean it now," she said simply. "That's the difference."
He looked at her for a long moment, then exhaled slowly, and something that had been held in him for two years released.
"Good," he said, which was insufficient and which they both understood was the only word required.
The Ranawat and Shah families occupied the estate with the slightly cautious ease of two groups who had learned, gradually, to exist in the same room without the political weight of the treaty pressing down on every exchange.
Raghbir and Devraj had found common ground in business and grandchildren, which had surprised everyone.
