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“Are you saying that you were a jerk to me because I upstaged you?”
“What? No! I’m saying that you took me by surprise. And that I was a jerk to you because you always find a way to throw me off-balance. It’s very exhausting to fight that.”
I tried to pull my fingers away.
“Then stay away from me,” I snapped.
Aryan linked his fingers with mine and pulled me closer.
“That’s the trouble, Jessie. Try as I might, I can’t stay away from you,” he whispered.
* * *
ARYAN
For once in his life, he had rendered Jessie speechless.
Her throat worked as she stared at him suspiciously.
“Are you yanking my chain, Dr Sharma?” she bit out.
“Excuse me?”
“Is this payback for all the years that I tortured you?” she asked furiously, trying to pull away from him.
Aryan let go of her and put his hands up to show that she was free to move away. She glared at him and took a step back.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about this sudden about-turn of yours. Since when can you not ‘stay away from me’?” she asked putting air quotes around his words.
“Since the first time I set eyes on you, you crazy woman!” he yelled.
Jessie stared at him dumbfounded, and Aryan flushed brightly. Great! Now she’d know that he was the biggest idiot in the world.
But Aryan could never forget the day he’d realised that Jessie was special. Many, many years ago, when he was just a kid.
“It was a few days after your father died. When your family held a prayer meeting for his departed soul,” he said softly.
Her eyes went wide with surprise as he told her all about it.
He had watched Nivy wind her small hand around Jessie’s and had wished he could do the same. They were sitting on a sofa opposite a makeshift stage, as the important people of Devgarh made speeches about all the people that Jessie had lost a few days ago - her father, her uncle and her aunt. Her uncle had killed his wife and then turned the gun on himself. Jessie’s father, the Maharaja, had died of a sudden heart attack when he discovered the bodies.
Aryan was sitting on the sofa behind theirs, and he couldn’t take his eyes off Jessie. She looked so small and lost. He had always ignored her, much as he ignored his sister. But from the moment he had heard about the triple tragedy at the palace, things changed. For the first time in his life, he wanted to take care of someone. To protect them from the bad things that fate seemed to throw at them. Even if that someone already had a whole battalion of people to care for her, starting with her brother, the new Maharaja.
There was something very tragic about Jessie that made him get up and move to the front row. He sat down next to her, ignoring the surprise on Nivy’s face, as he grabbed hold of Jessie’s other hand and held tight. She didn’t react. At all.
Aryan had wondered if she even noticed that someone was holding her hand. She was lost in her own world. He began to feel foolish, especially when he heard a soft snigger from the sofa next to theirs.
When he turned his head to see who was horrible enough to find anything funny in the current situation, his eyes had met those of Prince Deependra Dogra of Tejpur, who shot him a snide smile. His older sister, Princess Anika, had looked at Aryan as if he were a worm.
He had flushed a bright red as he realised how presumptuous he had been, thinking he could comfort this beautiful princess who lived in a world far different from his. So what if his sister was her best friend? That didn’t give him the right to get close to her.
Aryan was overcome with shame, and he tried to get up and leave.
Only, he had forgotten the hand he was holding. It had tightened its hold on him as he tried to pull away.
He had looked down to see Jessie looking up at him with those big brown eyes.
