Page 4 of The Promise of a Traitor

Chapter Two

Aastha

Shock swam through her system as she stared into dark, intense eyes that she knew all too well.

Adi. Her Adi.

She hadn’t bothered to look at the details her mother had sent her, not caring whom she was being shackled with. The shock of seeing him stole the breath from her lungs. Her gaze roved over his lean, sharp face, so intimately familiar, and yet when she met his gaze, she knew she was looking at a stranger.

“You grew a beard,” she said, dazedly, still trying to process what was happening.

For one furious moment, she thought he was going to turn on his heel and storm out but then the anger cleared from his face and a cool, calculating mask slid over it. Adi and calculating? She was definitely looking at a stranger.

“You’re the girl my mother set me up with?” His voice was frigid steel.

“It looks like it,” Aastha said, relief moving through her. She’d thought she was getting stuck with a random creep but this…this changed everything. “Adi, I-“

“Shall we sit?” He cut her off before she could complete her sentence.

Aastha’s voice stumbled to a stop, and she followed him mutely to an empty table. Adi put his coffee down on the table and waited for her to take a seat before sitting down across from her.

“What would you like to drink?” he asked, in that voice laced with ice.

“You know what I like to drink, Adi,” she said softly.

Something dark and dangerous flared in his eyes. “I thought I knew everything about you, Aastha,” he replied, “but I was wrong. So, I’ll ask again, what would you like to drink?”

“You don’t understand.” The words left her in a rush. “Adi, I-“

“Nothing then?” he interrupted her again, taking a deliberate sip of the filthy, black coffee he loved so much as he watched her.

Aastha fell silent, her heart hammering against her chest, unease swimming through her. He didn’t want to hear her out?

She looked at him, really looked at him. The new beard made him look older, more intense. The gold rimmed spectacles that framed his eyes were a new addition. At least now she knew he wouldn’t be leaving his contacts case everywhere he spent the night. A pang went through her at the thought of him spending the night somewhere else, in someone else’s arms.

Not hers, she reminded herself. Not anymore.

Gone was the sweet, introverted boy she’d fallen in love with. The boy who’d looked at her like he couldn’t believe his luck in being chosen by her. The man watching her now…he looked like he was disgusted by her. And he probably was, she thought, as her heart burnt to ash in her chest, her heartbreak a blazing inferno.

“So,” he said, taking a sip of his coffee, his hard gaze on her. “An arranged marriage…why?”

“I could ask the same of you,” she said, quietly.

“My mother guilted me into coming.”

For a moment, she considered telling him everything, allowing the toxic truth to spill through but she saw no chance for forgiveness, no hope of understanding in his eyes. She couldn’t tell him, she realised, so in the end, all she said was, “Same.”

“And now?” His lips twisted in a hard smile. “Do you like what you see?”

Aastha’s gaze dropped to the table. “I always did,” she whispered.

“Just not enough to stay.”

There was really nothing she could say to that, not without opening up a can of worms that deserved to be buried six feet under. She looked away from him, her eyes taking in the familiar, cutesy décor of the café that contrasted directly with the ‘angry, young man’ vibe her companion was radiating.

She should go, she thought, the weight of his glare feeling unbearably heavy.

“So, shall we get to know each other better then?” he asked, his lips twisting bitterly.