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He laughed, softly drawing her into his arms, the moonlight above cutting a pale silver swathe through the garden, so her dress sparkled like fairy dust.
‘It was barely a kiss,’ he reminded her. ‘Just a chaste sign of affection.’
‘Nonetheless, it will be all over Twitter by now.’
‘Perhaps.’ He shrugged, beginning to move in time to the music, his body’s rhythm captivating hers, so she was dancing along with him even before she realised it. His eyes were the most fascinating shade of brown, and she found her gaze drawn to them, her mind solely occupied in the cataloguing of the flecks of gold. It was tempting to relax into the moment completely, but there was danger in letting down her guard with Khalil, so she forced her brain to keep working, her mind focussed.
‘Why did you break up?’
He stiffened, his movements stopping for a moment, earning India’s fascination. But at least he didn’t ignore the question.
‘It would never have worked.’
‘That tells me precisely nothing.’
‘As I intended.’
India considered that. ‘Why? Is it a secret?’
‘It is something I prefer not to think about, let alone discuss. And it is part of a past that doesn’t affect us—nothing good can come of bringing it out into the open.’
It was India’s turn to miss a step, so Khalil’s arm tightened around her waist, offering necessary support.
‘I believe most things benefit from being brought into the open, in fact.’
‘Then let’s talk about you,’ he quietly cajoled, his words just a whisper in her ear. To anyone looking, they would have seemed like a couple so in love they couldn’t stand to have any distance between them whatsoever, but for India, their proximity was a convenient necessity—only at this distance could they speak so frankly without risk of being overheard.
‘My response hasn’t changed since the first night we met, you know. My life story isn’t particularly interesting.’
‘Let me be the judge of that.’
‘Fine,’ she sighed. After all, they were getting married. Of course they should spend time talking, getting to know one another better. Except, India had the strangest feeling that she already knew Khalil, even when there were clearly still so many secrets in his past. ‘What would you like to know?’
His response was lightning fast. ‘How did someone like you end up doing what you do?’
‘A woman like me?’ His hand lifted to the flesh at the top of her back, his fingers trilling over her spine slowly, so every cell in her body began to quiver with awareness.
‘You are smart, India. You are clever, too, and yet because you are beautiful, you took a job that trades solely on your looks. Why?’
‘That’s a mischaracterisation, for a start. Making conversation with strangers from varied walks of life is not easy,’ she responded with a tilt of her head.
He swayed her sideways, and though there was a crowd of people at the event, she was conscious only of Khalil; his overwhelming charisma absorbed her completely.
‘For you, I think it would be.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘For the reasons I enumerated already. You are smart and clever.’
Pleasure spread through her, the compliment disproportionately pleasing. She had to remind herself that tiny compliments from Khalil did nothing to erase his enormous insult.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured, her fingers toying with the hair at his nape on autopilot, so she wasn’t even aware she was doing it.
‘Who were you going to marry?’
He lifted a brow. ‘I thought we agreed not to discuss my ex-fiancée,’ he said with quiet determination.
‘No, you decreed that we wouldn’t discuss her, and because you are used to saying one thing and having it be obeyed, you think that counts as “agreement”,’ she said calmly, unaware of the way his lips curved in a quick, appreciative smile that he flattened almost immediately. ‘But I didn’t mean her, anyway. You have to marry before your coronation. I presume there was someone else you had decided to propose to, before this...situation...unfolded?’
