I had to know. This was a door that had been left open.”
“And you had to know where it led?”
“No, no! I had to close it. Once and for all. So I did. I’ll never see Darshan again. I made certain of that. I brought some of his gifts into our marriage. It was foolish, I know, but I… When you and I married, I just wasn’t ready to let him go, Rishi, I’m sorry. Now he has them back, every one. And I told him if he ever contacts me again, I will tell Padmini and his parents everything.”
“He still wanted you?”
She looked down at her feet, deeply ashamed of her own actions and Darshan’s assumptions. This was the hardest part, but she owed Rishi a full explanation.
“Not as his wife. Never as his wife. As we talked, I realized he and Padmini had made certain of that together. Marrying me was not advantageous enough, so he made sure our betrothal would end. But he still wanted the things that come with marriage. He’s a very bad person. I’m so lucky he’s gone from my life.”
“Truly gone now?”
She looked up. “Forever. If I were a better person, I would even feel sorry for my cousin, who probably doesn’t know what she has ahead of her.” She paused. “But I’m not that good.”
He touched her cheek. “Why have you told me, Janya? I never would have learned this.”
“Because we’ve made a fresh start, but you didn’t know we had, and you needed to.”
He smiled. Gravely. “And what kind of start will it be?”
“The kind we should have made at the beginning. The kind where our pasts are forgotten and our future can be created together.”
“Americans believe in love at first sight.”
“Americans are not always right.”
“Until I met you, I thought it was silly, too. You were just one of the women my aunt and uncle thought I should consider, but I knew the moment you walked into the living room of your parents’ home that I had found the one I wanted to marry. I know it was different for you, that you were still caught up in a part of your life that had ended. I was warned to choose someone else because you would always yearn for the man you had lost, but I hoped someday you would put the past behind you and feel what I felt that afternoon.”
She was touched, as she had been earlier, but with much more than sympathy now. She really was happy to be standing here, enveloped in the deepening August twilight with Rishi, to know that he accepted her as she was, that he cared about her in a way no man had ever cared before. And he would care for her always, without reservation.
For the first time since their introduction, she thought their marriage might bring them both happiness.
“I’ve had love at first sight,” she said. “This time, I’ll try love that grows steadily, the kind that comes from building a life and a family together. The kind that’s taking root here now, Rishi.”
His eyes said it all.
She was the one who moved first, who slipped her arms over his shoulders and brought him closer. Behind them, the waves lapped at the shore, as if searching for purchase. Seabirds squawked and called to each other as they scanned the beach for perches for the night. Janya wished them well. For the first time she understood what it was to feel truly at home in her new country and life. She had found safe harbor.
chapter thirty-two
“Air freshener?” Tracy said as Wanda held up the package she’d just delivered to Tracy’s house. “Nanny cam air freshener? I’m never going to feel safe again. Never going to scratch or pull up my pantyhose or pick my nose anywhere in the whole world.”
“You never once picked that debutante nose of yours.”
“Well, I’m definitely not going to start now.”
“This is the most expensive air freshener in the world, and it doesn’t freshen a darn thing.” Wanda removed a slotted plastic box about the size of a deck of cards, which looked a lot like the ones plugged in at Alice’s house wafting lilac fumes through the air. “What do you think?”
“I think we’ve got a good shot.” Tracy took the device out of Wanda’s hand and turned it over. It looked completely innocuous. “And all I have to do is plug it into a socket?”
“It’s the easiest way to go. It’s got a built-in motion