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“I’m sure they’re all going to pray that I have the power to make you stay with me. Really, Virat, of all the things I expected from you, this wasn’t—”
He leaned forward on the table and Zara felt the force of his attention like a laser beam. “And what is that,shahzadi? What were your expectations of me? I’ve been waiting for a long time to hear them.”
The intensity of his softly spoken words played on Zara’s skin. Maybe he wasn’t a completely different man. Maybe he’d just learned to mask all that emotional turmoil better. “Playing games with powerful men’s innocent twenty-year-old wives...that was the last thing I expected of you.”
Fury flared in his eyes but he banked it with an ease he hadn’t possessed before. “Of all the shortcomings I attributed to you,shahzadi, hypocrisy wasn’t one of them.”
“I’m not moralizing to you, Virat. I’m just—”
“You and I both know innocence is not a measure of age, Zara. You had no problem having wild sex with me when I was barely twenty.”
“That’s different. I’m only five years older than you and you were never simply an innocent, and...” Zara said, flushing at the blunt way he put it. “I...you...we meant something to each other.”
“Did we?” Again, two soft words but with a wealth of emotion brimming beneath them. “Have you revised our entire history together into some romantic fairy tale, Zara?”
His question contained a strange mixture of contempt and pity. Again, Zara had the feeling she was walking through a minefield. Blindfolded. “It did mean something to me. It meant a great deal,” she replied, refusing to look away. As if she’d done something wrong. “And I’m not going to sit here and let you twist and manipulate our past into something lurid and dirty. This will never work if you make me out to be some vampy villainess that...”
Whatever his earlier comments, he surprised her into silence by taking her hand in his, the pads of his thumbs more abrasive than the rough grain of the solid oak of the table, from years of playing stringed instruments. The man could strum women with the same ease. “You’re right. The past is done with.”
Zara fought the urge to pull away, and raised her brows in question.
The very devil danced in his eyes, sending a shiver down her spine.
“So we’re agreed, then?” he asked now, all politeness and easy smile. “We’ll announce our engagement, maybe tomorrow at the awards show. And then arrive at Bhai’s wedding together next week.”
Zara nodded, a strange cocktail of apprehension and excitement swirling through her belly.
“Should we practice, then,shahzadi?”
“Practice what?” she whispered.
“A little intimacy. If you’d like, I can script it for us.”
“And how would that go?” Zara whispered, some devil in her goading her on. For the life of her, she didn’t want to back down now. And she had a feeling that was what the rogue wanted.
In one smooth movement, he was standing before her. His sharp features in shadow, only that plump curve of his lower lip illuminated, his intensity tugged at Zara. Then he bent from his great height and his fingers were mere whispers away from her mouth. “A little touching. Followed by some light petting. And then maybe, if we both can stand it, one kiss?”
CHAPTER THREE
ZARADIDN’TJUMPabout like a scalded cat through sheer willpower. So the devil meant to torture her for the next few months. For what reason, she had no idea. She traced the veins on the back of his hand lightly. “You change moods like Mumbai’s monsoon, Virat. One second, you’re ripping into me and the next, touching me as if you can’t stop.”
“There’s a man with his cell phone camera trained on us behind the bar.” His voice was a husky whisper over the rim of her ear. “Look at me as if you can’t get enough of me,shahzadi.”
Zara’s belly swooped on a wave of disappointment. But if he thought she was going to act like the scared mouse she’d been ten years ago, he was in for a shock. And if her memory served her right, Virat had been such a cynical soul even back then that he’d adored anything that could shock him.
Zara leaned forward on her barstool, pressed her hand to his chest and looked up. With his jacket discarded, the fabric of his shirt was no barrier to the thud of his heart or the warmth of his body under her palm. “Should this give him the perfect clip of us, do you think?” she whispered, all wide eyes and angelic compliance.
The dark laughter in his light brown eyes made her want to shout in delight. Long fingers grazed her bare shoulder, and then he was leaning down. “I should apologize for any doubts I had about you seeing this through, Zara. In this moment, I might be forgiven for thinking you truly want me.”
There was no way Zara could miss the bite of scorn in those words. Especially since he was right. She did want him. And that want, that vulnerability made her angry. Not ashamed. She’d never again be ashamed of her desires or her dreams again—Virat himself had taught her that. But she was angry that it took no more than an hour in his company for the floodgates of her desire to open up. For him especially. All this frantic need under her skin was to please him. To see true desire for her reflected in his eyes.
Something rose up inside her at the calm humor in his gaze, some wickedly desperate need to knock him off balance. To make him acknowledge that her presence in his life was not some willingly tolerated headache.
“So am I allowed to take complete advantage of this moment, Virat? Am I allowed to show them why my heart’s not broken over Vikram’s impending wedding?” she threw back.
“Do your worst,shahzadi,” he retorted, all laughter gone. His fingers tightened over her skin just a fraction. “Or is it your best that I should demand?”
That was all the nudge Zara needed. She pushed off from the stool and landed in front of him. With the high table digging into her back, she was neatly wedged right up against him. And in front of her was the challenge simmering away in his eyes.
