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Her brows shot up. Good God! Everything he said always seemed to revolve around her. She had so many questions to ask him, but doing that would be like opening Pandora’s box, and she wasn’t sure she was entirely ready to peep into it.
“And no women?” she asked, changing the subject.
His lips curved slightly, and the indent at the corner of his lips appeared. “I like that you’re interested to know about the women in my life.”
She forced her eyes away from that dip at the side of his lip.
“Don’t make more of it.” She flipped her long hair over her shoulder. “You’re constantly asking me about the men in my life. So what if I asked you the same question?”
“Or you could be honest and say you’re curious.”
“Whatever. Are you going to answer or not?”
She sucked on her lower lip. Instantly, his attention fell on it. He leaned forward as if mesmerized by her mouth. She immediately stopped sucking on her lip.
He angled his head, looking directly into her eyes. “None of those women mattered. They weren’t important in the least.”
The heat swirling in his gaze was a clear indication that she shouldn’t ask her next question. But she was too tempted to not do so.
“Why?” She asked. “Why weren’t they important in the least?”
“Because none of them wasyou, Avantika.” He shrugged. “Those women were just a means to show my dad that I’d moved on in my life and that I wasn’t stuck on you; that I never was stuck on you. After his death, that pretense also ended. In recent times, I haven’t been with any woman.”
Her heart began to pound. His dad passed away four years ago. Was he saying that he hadn’t been with a woman since then? Why was that knowledge causing her stomach to flutter?
She scolded herself for being curious. She should never have asked him about the women in his life. She ought to have known that he’d make it about her. With him, she was beginning to realize, everything always boiled down to her. Whether his interest in her was false or bordering on obsession, she knew not, and she didn’t care. She didn’t. Not one bit.
She rose to her feet. “Since you’re clearly going to shadow me wherever I go, let’s go for a walk.”
He left some cash on the table for the waiter and followed after her. They strolled down some busy streets until they reached the entrance of Hyde Park and walked inside it. They walked through the tree-lined walkways, passing families playing with their kids and couples strolling hand in hand until they reached the lake.
They stopped there, watching the little kids beside them feed the ducks in the lake. The weather was cool, and the happy sounds of the kids and the birds were quite pleasant. She clicked a few pictures with her camera. She raised the camera and caught Dev through the lens. He was standing by the side, hands in his pockets, face tilted up, looking at the lake, the sunlight falling on him.
Without thinking, she snapped a picture of him. Her fingers flew on the camera as she adjusted the lens and clicked a few more pictures of him. She checked the pictures on the camera screen, and they were just…perfect. He looked gorgeous in every one of them, with the golden rays of the sun dancing on him and his chiseled face in a sharp outline.
She blinked. God! What was she doing? Why was she ogling him like a fool? Why was she clicking pictures of him? Annoyed with herself, she lifted her finger to delete his photos when a loud squeal caught her attention. She looked up and saw a kid trying to feed a duck, but each time the duck came closer, the little boy would put his hand behind, hiding it. The boy was too cute.
Dev laughed. The sound was throaty, husky, and once again hit her in the center of her chest, reminding her of times in the past when they had laughed together. Her head turned in his direction. He was also staring at that father and kid duo, a smile painted on his lips. She willed herself to look away from him and focus on the little boy they both had been watching.
Eventually, the father convinced the boy to drop the bread crumbs into the lake for the ducks to eat. The kid shrieked in happiness when the birds flocked toward where he’d dropped the bread crumbs.
“Have you ever thought of having kids?” Dev asked quietly.
Her throat dried at his question, and she felt her head and heart go numb.
“Have you thought of having kids?” she countered, refusing to reply to him.
Dev tucked his hands in his trouser pockets, his golden gaze still on the children playing in front of them.
“I would have loved to have kids,” he said in a soft tone. “I used to dream of having a son to play football with, to teach him—” He paused. “Not all dreams come true, I suppose.”
They began to walk again.
She forced herself to speak despite the tightness in her throat. “You could still have kids someday.”
He gave her a sideways glance. “In all my dreams and imaginations, the mother of my children was always you. Onlyyou, Avantika. I doubt I can settle for anyone else.”
Her heart sputtered and fell to her feet. When he said things like that… She shut her eyes, refusing to imagine him, her, and Neil together. If circumstances had been different, they could have been a family. He would have been there to teach her son to play football. A visual of Dev and Neil walking together down this very lake formed in her mind’s eye. For years, she had avoided imagining scenes like this one. But now, the image in her mind was so real that tears burned in her eyes. She forced them away, breathing out.
