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“Like what?”
“Like you’re pining over her.”
Rajiv grimaced. “It was one meeting, Vihaan. That’s it. And before you ask, she was…she was something else, yes. But it’s not like I’m going to meet her again, so let’s forget this topic and move on.”
“I need a name,” Aaryan pressed. The look on his face, actually on both their faces, was unrelenting.
“Sheena Sehgal.” Even saying her name aloud caused a prickle in his chest.
“Fuck,” Vihaan swore. “Of all the women in the world, you developed a thing for the Sehgal Princess?”
Aaryan stared at him. “Talk, and don’t leave anything out.”
Sighing, Rajiv began to speak. Even detailing his first encounter with Sheena Sehgal made his heart beat a little faster than before.
“She’s ballsy, I must say,” Vihaan remarked after Rajiv was done talking. “I’m impressed.”
“And she’s studying for a doctorate. Impressive,” Aaryan pointed.
“Oh, I’m more impressed by the way she not only held a knife to Rajiv’s throat, but she also managed to escape him by head buttinghim,” Vihaan added.
“I was just distracted, okay!” Rajiv clarified. “Both times.”
Vihaan chuckled. “Of course, you were. Seems like you’ve been distracted ever since you met her.”
“Fuck off,” Rajiv swore.
Vihaan laughed.
Aaryan, the quietest one of them all, continued to study him. He finally leaned forward in his chair. “It’s clear she’s left some sort of an impact on you. What if she’s the one for you?”
“She’s not,” Rajiv said with more force than needed. “You know she can’t be.”
Aaryan crossed his arms over his chest. “Why?”
He glared at him. “You know why.”
“What we know,” Vihaan began, “is that you’re single and most definitely not committed to anyone. You should go after Sheena Sehgal if she’s who you want.”
Rajiv pressed his lips together. “And doing that will mean breaking a promise I made to someone else.”
“A promiseshe’s never accepted from you, till date,” Vihaan pointed out. “You are not bound by it. You know that.”
“Yet, you know I won’t stop asking her to marry me,” Rajiv said. “It’ll be that time of the year soon. Like every year, on her birthday, I will propose marriage to her again.”
Aaryan shook his head. “You needn’t do it, Rajiv.”
“Marrying me will give her, and you all, the protection you need. You will be safe from everyone once it’s known that I am standing in front of you. You can live freely, out in the open. You won’t need to hide anymore. No one, and I mean no one, is bold enough to challenge me.”
Except for one beautiful dark-haired, dark-eyed woman. He sucked in a breath. He was not thinking of her. No.
“That’s just it, Rajiv,” Vihaan began. “You’re already standing in front of us. You are already protecting us and keeping us safe. It is thanks to you that we have made it this far in life, and we are living freely in Dubai. You don’t need to sacrifice yourself anymore.”
Aaryan shifted forward. “You’ve done so much. Sacrificed so much for us. You’ve constantly lived under the limelight ever since you started sheltering us. You present this awful, carefree, responsibility free, playboy image to the world so that no one can suspect that you could be hiding us, that is, on the off chance our enemies don’t believe we are dead and are looking for us. You ensure you’re seen time and again publicly with some woman who means nothing to you. We know all these women, and this image is just a charade because no one would ever believe that I’d entrust the safety of my family to someone who seems as flippant asyou.”
“I agree,” Vihaan concurred. “You go out of your way to make sure you feed that lie to anyone and everyone who knows you, even though you hate being photographed or interviewed. Have you ever truly enjoyed the company of even one of those women you parade around town?”
At Rajiv’s silence, Vihaan shook his head. “We all know that you don’t allow anyone other than us into your life. You don’t trust anyone to get close to you, and you have no friends other than us. And you continue to do all this just so that no one can find us through you, even by the remotest of chance. You’ve done enough, my friend.”
