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His white linen shirt, unbuttoned halfway down as if just for her, gave her a peek at those tight pecs and the sparse, soft chest hair she loved running her fingers over. His light blue jeans hung low on those lean hips. His hair looked all kinds of rumpled and he looked deliciously ruffled. Just how she liked him.
“Stop terrifying everyone on set,” she said, adopting a no-nonsense tone. “I don’t want any of them to think they can’t be honest with me because of your angry shadow hovering nearby. That young man you just scared away spent hours helping me get my posture and moves straight.”
He looked behind him as if to check if the terrified man was still there. “But I haven’t hovered around you at all. In fact, despite being the man you’re happily engaged to, the man you should be...frolicking with, I never even get a chance to hover around you because there’s always some guy taking my place and doing my job already.”
Zara rolled her eyes, and bit her lip to stop smiling. “You’re a workaholic. Do you even know how to frolic?” It had been like this between them once. She’d always taken herself and life far too seriously and he would come in like a storm and make her smile.
“Ah, now you’re just hurting me, Zara. As you very well know, professional frolicking was a career choice I considered seriously back in the day. But coming back to everyone on the set, I agree, it’s not your fault that you’re so beautiful and lovely that they all want to be near you. I didn’t realize until now you’re one of those people who make everyone else want to be better, do better.”
“Beautiful and lovely?” Zara threw back, even as her heart was doing somersaults in her chest. On the surface, those weren’t compliments she needed. But Virat had always had high standards. The fool she was, she felt as if she’d won some kind of medal because he approved of her. “All these compliments when you’ve barely looked at me these past weeks on set, I feel like the sacrificial goat. You’re here to fire me, aren’t you?”
“Then I’ll have a mutiny on my hands, no? You and Bhai are doing such a good job of keeping everyone calm when I terrify them.”
It always came back to Vikram and her, for him, Zara realized suddenly. Not because Virat mistrusted his brother. But because for his entire life, Virat had been measured against Vikram by their father and found wanting.
Her actions ten years ago had hurt him. Very badly. That much was becoming clear. It didn’t matter whether she’d done it on purpose or not. To him, she’d been the only woman he’d let close and yet, she’d ended up being the one who’d betrayed him.
“Well, it would be nice if you didn’t bark orders at the staff and glower at anyone who looked at me. You’re doing a really good job of making them think you’re gaga over me.”
He scowled. “Has anyone been bothering you because they can’t take it out on me?”
“Of course not,” Zara said, reminding herself that his concern over her was not romantic. More of a basic human decency kind of thing that he’d always been good at. “I don’t want to be...associated with the grumpy bear that they all call you.”
“Ah, but it’s too late to break off your association with me,shahzadi.”
Zara raised a brow. “I’m not the one breaking our agreement already. But I guess I have to give you points for discretion. For not making a joke out of me.”
He frowned. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Sheer frustration made Zara throw the towel at him. Which he caught deftly and threw into the neat little basket nearby. The thud-thud of her heart made Zara realize that the dance studio was suddenly empty.
Everyone had quietly filed out at one look from him. The man had too much power on set, but she refused to be one of the people who were so overwhelmed by his talent that they let him walk all over them. Overwhelmed by the sheer force of the masculinity he was focusing on her right now, though...yes.
“What do you want, Virat?” She checked her watch and frowned. “In fact, how are you still awake? It’s barely six a.m. and you’re a nocturnal creature that doesn’t rise until noon on off-shoot days.”
“I didn’t go to bed at all.”
Zara looked away, a swooping feeling in her belly. First he’d ignored her. Then he had some woman in his room. And yet, she had no right to complain. No right to demand anything from him.
But she wanted more.
The niggling demand was only a whisper in her heart right now. Soon, it was going to turn into a roar and she had no idea how to arrest it. Or how to pretend for another decade that Virat Raawal would always be the man who brought her to life with just one look.
But of course, the blasted man surprised her in this, too. “Ask me, Zara.”
“Ask you what, Virat?” she said on a soft whisper that took everything she had to form.
“Anything. Whatever you want.”
The past hovered between them, like a specter they would never be rid of.
You traded me in...
His words from earlier poked at her. Taunted her. And yet, the last thing Zara wanted right now was to fracture this truce he was offering. Clearly, he’d decided to leave the past where it belonged.
Should she make an effort to leave it, too, when this fake engagement was nothing but temporary?
Should she leave behind the niggling discomfort that if they didn’t address the past, Virat would always look at her as if she’d betrayed him? She should look him in the eye and explain why she’d done what she’d done. He’d understand, wouldn’t he?
