Chapter Four

Naina could not believe the brat was ignoring her phone calls. Sometimes she just hated the Rajes. Why the hell was she still stuck with them?

Because whether you like it or not, they are the only real family you’ve ever had.

Well, good thing she was used to living without family.

She still couldn’t believe that bastard Mehta had offered up her funding to Vansh as though it were Halloween candy and Vansh and she were third graders, with Jignesh a teacher giving them lessons in how to share.

Naina’s team in Nepal was already neck-deep in purchasing the land on which they would be building the clinics. The clinics were going to train local women to be midwives and employ doctors to provide prenatal and postnatal care. Right now the maternal mortality rate was nearly two hundred deaths per hundred thousand live births. Seventy-five percent of the deaths were avoidable by increasing accessibility to medical care. It was already too late to pull back on the number of clinics they had committed to.

They intended to use the Mehta endowment only to build. The maintenance and the running were going to be self-sustaining and paid for by the community and gramin banks. Naina had been working on the details of the microfinancing plan with the community leaders for the past six months. Everything was already in motion.

Vansh, with his cause célèbre bleeding heart, couldn’t just walk in here and take clinics away from these women. Not when Naina had been waiting for ten years to find a way to pull her grand plan off.

Call me right now. Because I know where to find you,she texted Vansh.

Her phone rang almost immediately. It was a FaceTime call. She was at her desk, working, so she had to run to the hallway and check herself in the mirror. She pulled off the crab clip holding back her hair and fluffed it. Her hair hadn’t grown back after the disastrous Haircut to Save Yash that had proved to the entire world what a fool she was.

God, she hated video calls.

“Well, good morning to you too!” the brat said as soon as she answered, tone all sunny, as though he were not trying to steal her endowment.

Wait, was he shirtless? “What do you think you’re doing?”

“At this very moment, eating chocolate. Eighty-nine percent cacao.” He chewed. Dear God, he was eating chocolate shirtless in bed.

“You’re in bed. Eating chocolate.” When tongue-tied, say the most obvious thing.

“I often eat chocolate after I brush my teeth. There’s something about how the mint makes the chocolate taste.” From the way his eyes got all dreamy it had to taste pretty darn good.

How was it okay for a man to have eyes like this? There were enough lashes lining the dark caramel brown that he probably needed to brush them a few times a day to take out the tangles. They were even twisted together and flipping around in all directions. Like his hair.

This was why Naina never video-called people; the camera zoomed in on all sorts of details you didn’t have to deal with when the whole person was present and not just their face ten inches from yours.

“There’s something very wrong with you,” she said, looking at the contrast between their faces on her screen. She didn’t mean things like unfair lashes and shiny chocolate-stained lips that looked like they’d been pumped full of fillers. She meant her overworked scowl, which made her look like a frustrated witch, versus his self-indulgent smile, which made him look like a joyful angel. If that wasn’t technology bastardizing facts, she didn’t know what was.

“Can you please put a shirt on?” She hated that she sounded like a scolding auntie.

“Why?” He looked genuinely confused when he looked down at himself, which made the camera slide down his chest. And, well, what the hell? He was manscaped and glossy, and his muscles were cut in places where she’d never seen muscles cut before. At least not this close up and not outside of TV commercials and movies.

When had he gotten a tattoo? Did his mom know?

Okay, enough of this. Enough. “You’ve been ignoring my calls. And you’re still in bed!”

He stopped studying his own body and brought his eyes back to the camera. “Did we have an appointment? Were we supposed to meet this morning?” He scratched the back of his head, which made his biceps, triceps, shoulders, and pecs flex in one choreographed swoop, and it made his tousled bedhead worse.

Who actually scratched the back of their head when they thought hard? Bad actors, that’s who.

Put on a damn shirt!

She could not—would not!—be auntie enough to say it again. “First, it’s past noon. So, if we were supposed to meet this morning, it’s already too late. Second, responsible adults don’t wake up in the middle of the day. Third, responsible adults don’t smear chocolate into their teeth after they’ve cleaned them. It kind of defeats the purpose of the act of teeth brushing.” They also don’t call women while shirtless. Unless of course they thought of the women as not being women. “And finally, you don’t steal a friend’s work. It’s just not something you do.”

“Oof,” he said, his tone miffed. “Say less.”

“Can we not speak Gen Z please? I don’t know what that means.”

He laughed in the most self-satisfied way. “You’re so intense in the morning, Knightlina. Which side of the bed did you wake up on?”

“I don’t remember. It was seven hours ago!” She made every effort not to raise her voice. “Because it’s a Monday morning and I have a job.” That involved bettering thousands of lives.

Instead of getting out of bed, he sank back into his fluffy white pillows. “You sound bitter. It’s not a good look.”

“Wow, are you about to ask me to smile more?”

He reached over—making all sorts of parts flex and stretch beneath glossy skin again—and he must’ve pressed a button to raise the blinds, because when he settled back into those bright white pillows, columns of sunshine fell across his still-in-bed face and made the stubble on his perfectly square jaw glisten. Of course even his facial hair would grow out shiny.

“As a committed feminist, I resent that accusation,” he said lazily. “It’s a gorgeous thing when you smile, but you should smile only when you damn well feel like it. What I meant was you’re the smartest, most selfless person I know, and bitterness is at odds with your true nature.” He sounded like India Dashwood and it got on Naina’s last nerve.

“Stop trying to be charming. I’ve known you since you were in diapers. The point is: I will not let you steal my funding. Not when I’ve worked decades for it. Not when you don’t even have a project to fund.”

“I wish you’d stop calling it stealing. That’s seriously offensive. I’ve never stolen a thing in my life.” He grinned, and the lighting combined with his unshaven jaw multiplied his dimples manifold. Good thing she knew exactly how much he weaponized those dimples. She remembered his unleashing them on all the aunties and melting them into puddles to get away with everything from getting extra cake at parties to getting them to double their donations to his school fundraisers. “Although, it is true that I have been accused of stealing many a heart.”

She made a growling sound, and it made her feel like she was in a theatrical farce—one populated entirely by bitter old ladies. Why was it that every interaction with him these days felt like an off-Broadway production? Up until now he had been the Raje she’d had the easiest camaraderie with. “What’s offensive is that you didn’t say to Mehta: ‘I appreciate your social-ladder-climbing, name-dropping need to work with me, but Naina actually does important, life-changing work and I would rather die than take even a penny away from it.’”

For the first time, his lazy demeanor slipped, and he sat up a little bit straighter. “You think the only reason Mehta wants to work with me is because of my last name?”

For the first time, she was glad this was a video call, because she didn’t have to answer. She just had to raise a brow.

He looked wounded, but she didn’t buy it, not for a second. “If that’s true, then what does that say about why you got the funding last year, Knightlina, and not the year before that?”

How dare he? “Don’t even think about saying what you’re about to say next,” she warned.

He ignored her warning. “So you’re allowed to dismiss me and insult me, but I’m supposed to let you be an ostrich at my expense?”

“I’m not being an ostrich. I hear you loud and clear. You just suggested that I only got the funding because Yash was leading in the polls and I was with him.” Did he have any idea how long and hard she had worked on this? Her entire adult life had revolved around her work.

“Only to disprove your theory that Jiggy-wiggy is offering me the funding because Yash is my brother.” He sounded placating, and for some reason that made Naina even angrier. Must be nice to be this clueless.

“Do you genuinely believe that those two things have any sort of equivalency?”

“Of course they do. I’m not saying it’s fair. But if you want to claim that one is true, then the other has to be.” He had the gall to look like it hurt him to say it.

“Vansh, I’m not doing this with you right now. All I need from you is for you to call Mehta and tell him that you are not interested.” Surely he couldn’t be arrogant enough to think she’d let him get away with anything else.

“I can’t do that. Aren’t you at least going to ask me why I’m still in bed?”

“Do you ever get out of bed before noon?”

“I’m not dignifying that with an answer. But I was checking Hari into a hotel—”

“Your sex life is none of my concern and it only makes things worse.”

“Wow, you really have no respect for me, do you? You’re right, my sex life is not your concern. If it were, you’d know it never makes anything worse.” Of course he had to grin at that. “Hari is one of the guys who worked on Yash’s campaign, and I was checking him into a hotel.”

“What? Are you talking about Yash’s statistics guy? Why were you checking him into a hotel?” Had she missed that Vansh was gay?

“You’re totally trying to figure out my sexuality right now, aren’t you? Naina, Naina, Naina. Well, you can continue to objectify me freely. I am fairly certain I’m heterosexual.”

She would not groan again. “Shut up. What were you doing with Yash’s statistics guy?”

“Ah. So now you’re interested.”

“No, I’m really not.” She had less than zero interest in anything to do with Yash’s campaign. “But if it will get you to the point where you call Jiggy and refuse his offer because you don’t need it faster, then let’s get on with it.”

He was sitting up now and getting out of bed, and she really wished he would put on some damn clothes, because he’d propped the phone on his nightstand and she could now see all the way down to his low-slung pajamas. Which were red with white polka dots. And the muscle-cuts-on-muscle-cuts situation was not restricted to the upper half of his torso.

“Vansh!”

He turned to the phone. And it was like one of those DaVinci Vitruvian Man animations of muscles in motion.

“Naina! I am not going to refuse the funding, because you just gave me an idea. Thank you!”

The urge to sink her face into her hands warred with the urge to shake him. “I’m shuddering here.”

“Dirty girl, you’re making me feel naked.” Since when was it okay for him to talk to her as though she were one of his revolving-door girlfriends?

“You are naked, but I’m shuddering in fear of your idea.”

He grinned with such self-satisfaction she couldn’t tell if it was because he’d made her explain herself like a flustered girl or because he was just thrilled with himself in general. “I thought you’d be happy that I’m agreeing with you. It would be totes wrong for me to take the funding without a project. But I do have a project.”

“Well . . . spit it out. I don’t have all day.”

His brows drew together and his lips pursed, making his dimples dig deep. “Why would I tell you if you’re already dismissing it? Actually, even you couldn’t dismiss this. Even you have to agree that homelessness is one of our greatest challenges in California.”

Her groan came from her toes and burst forth with all the force of someone who really needed a break. Please, could she please catch a break? “What does Hari have to do with homelessness?”

“Well, I’m not at liberty to tell you. Actually, I need you to promise not to tell anyone about this conversation.”

Who did he think she was close enough to that she could tell them she’d talked to Vansh—while he was half-naked—about that asswipe Mehta holding her funding over her head like a bone for a dog? It was too humiliating to share even with herself.

“I’m hardly going to run around telling people you were able to steal my endowment so easily. Do you have any idea how infuriating this is? Not to mention humiliating.”

“Do you have any idea how condescending you’re being right now? You’re treating me like a child and I don’t appreciate it.”

He was a damn child. “Have you heard of Emma?”

“DJ’s sister Emma Caine? The hot artist?” He disappeared for a second, then came back with jeans on and finished zipping them up. Why on earth did he think their relationship was close enough for him to be pulling on clothes in front of her?

“No, it’s a book. The one DJ’s sister was named after.” Trisha’s boyfriend DJ’s name was Darcy James. And his sister’s name was Emma. Evidently their mother had been a big Jane Austen fan. “By Jane Austen.”

“Right, I remember Emma mentioning that. Isn’t Jane Austen that Darcy chick? Isn’t he the one that Brit actor played who all the aunties were gaga over? Colin Farrell?”

Naina did it: she rubbed her hand across her face like someone who needed to erase this entire conversation from existence. “So . . . in the book Emma—which has nothing to do with Darcy, who is from Pride and Prejudice—Emma is an overindulged, albeit well-meaning, brat who is looking for matchmaking projects so she can feel good about herself while filling all that empty time she has on her overprivileged hands.”

He pressed a fist against whatever tattoo was emblazoned across his left pec. Naina refused to stare at his pecs long enough to figure out what it was. “Young lady, are you accusing me of matchmaking?” he said in a bad British accent, sotto voce.

She should not smile, because this was not a joke. “No, I’m accusing you of looking for projects so you can feel good about yourself and relieve your boredom.”

He picked the phone up from the nightstand and held it up. He was pouting and blinking vapidly, but his eyes shone with wounded anger. “Oh good gosh, I think you might have, like, had a breakthrough on my behalf or something.” How had she found his habit of constantly doing voices amusing before this?

And why on earth did she feel like such a jerk? “All I’m saying is that my work is important to me, but it’s also vital to a lot of women who need it.”

“Mine is too. And you’re wrong. This project is important.”

“What project? This is not a game, Vansh.”

“I know it’s not. I need to figure out the details, but letting Mehta’s millions help the homeless in our city seems important too.”

“Figure out the details? Don’t you see, what you’re talking about is an Emma Project. It’s vanity. It’s looking for ways to play with people’s lives out of ennui.”

“No, it isn’t.” Now he looked really angry. “I can’t believe this is what you think of me. You haven’t even heard what it is.”

“Fine. Tell me then.”

A smile spread across his lips but his eyes stayed angry. He blinked, a slow, deliberately vapid blink. “Didn’t you hear me? I think your Emma’s going to, like, y’know, tackle homelessness in San Francisco.” He used a high-pitched voice that was quite frankly offensive to every woman alive. With that he hung up, and Naina had not a clue how much of what he’d said was meant to be facetious and how much was going to screw up her life.

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