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“Shut up! I’m talking and you’re not. Understood?”
A corner of his lips tipped up. Seeing her glower, he straightened his face.
“My dad did something in the past,” she began. “I have to tell you about it and then we can end this nonsense once and for all. Maybe, I ought to have told you this immediately when I heard it.”
He opened his mouth to say something, but her angry glare silenced him.
“I thought of telling you so many times,” Tiya said. “But I kept thinking I needed one more day to live with you, to be happy with you, and I kept delaying it. I was so afraid of losing you. But what was the point of it?”
He raised a hand in the air, waving it eagerly.
She scowled. “What?”
“Your dad already had that conversation with my brothers and me.”
“He did?” She pressed a hand to her mouth. “Oh God, Dad already told you everything. You’re not going to hold anything against him, right? I won’t let you.”
“I know everything, Tiya, and I don’t hold any hard feelings for him. How can I? He’s your dad and you love him. But why did you keep this from me?”
“I should have told you, but I just couldn’t bear to lose you. I thought… I worried you’d end things once you heard my dad’s truth. That night of Jash’s wedding, I’d finally made up my mind to lay the truth out in the open, but then everything happened. I really should have told you sooner and accepted the consequences. I wish I hadn’t been too much of a coward to tell the man I love the most in this world that unknowingly, my dad may have had a hand in what happened to his family.”
Vihaan’s face split into a wide grin.
She frowned. “Why the hell are you smiling?”
“You said ‘the man I love the most in this world’.”
God! She was so stupid. Her mouth and brain lost all coordination when he was in front of her. Why had she said that?
He took a step forward. “I love you, Tiya. I fell for you that first moment I saw you, fighting with a guy twice your size. Please give me a chance to explain.”
“N…no. I can’t do this again.”
She tried to spin away but he caught her hand in his. “It was you or my family, Tiya. He made me choose. That night, atClub Poseidon, I was ready to make it real with you and then I stupidly accepted that bet with Dev Luthra.”
Bet? What bet? She recalled how his behavior had changed after their run in with Luthra that night.
“I want to hear everything,” she said.
He told her everything from the beginning, even how he’d wanted to woo her to enter into her life to get close to her dad. But she’d made it easier by taking his name in front of her mother. He didn’t leave anything out.
“Days passed, and you and I got closer. I fell in love with you,” Vihaan confessed, “and just when I realized that, Avi barely missed a run-in with him.”
Tiya gasped. Oh God! This was the worst possible thing to happen, and for sure, it was Vihaan’s worst nightmare.
“Neil had just rushed past him,” Vihaan continued. “I didn’t know what to do and I had a choice to make. I could get Luthra to go away from our lives if I broke up with you.”
“And you chose to leave me? How dare you?” She vibrated with fury. “Did I mean nothing to you?”
“You mean the world to me.” Vihaan linked her hand with his. “I chose to give up my happiness, to give you up, for Avi and Neil’s safety and to keep Myra’s child safe from him. You saw how Myra was that first day she’d learned about her pregnancy. Shaurya and she were terrified about how they’d keep their baby safe from him. They didn’t want Dev to ever use their child in this war he has against my family. I had to try and save them all the agony, because Dev had promised to go away from Dubai if I broke your heart. So, that night at the wedding, I told him everything he needed to hear to go away and leave my family in peace. And I told you everything that you needed to hear to let me go. To hate me.”
He lifted her fingers to his lips. “You could do so much better than me, Tiya. But I’m selfish enough to want you back. I’m humble enough to accept that I made a huge bloody mistake. I can’t live without you. Please come back to me.”
His words, the extent of his sacrifice, broke away the tight hold she’d kept on her emotions. This brave, strong man had given up his own future and happiness for the well-being of his family and her. Her tears came down in a sweeping rush. She slammed her hands over her eyes.
Vihaan wrapped his arms around her, pulling her against his chest.
“I’m sorry, hellcat.” He kissed her hair. “I didn’t choose you when I should have chosen you first. To be honest, I’ve always been scared to make you a part of my life, but you pushed through all my walls and broke them down. You made me accept that I love you when I was scared to do so. You made me feel whole again. A part of me died that night when my parents got killed and Avi got hurt. I was broken but you fixed me. You healed my broken pieces and put me back together. Allow me in, please. Give me a chance. You’re the one who’s taught me to let people in. That I need to take a chance on others. I told your dad everything, you know? Your mom knows now too. I let them into my life. I trusted them with our story because of you, Tiya.”
