Incense and Sensibility (The Rajes #3) - Sonali Dev Page 0,107
be here. If you were the kind of person who could be here after making a commitment to someone else, I wouldn’t be here.” He had made a commitment, but of course it wasn’t what everyone believed it to be.
His jaw worked as he tried to respond but couldn’t.
“But you are where you are and we can’t go anywhere from here. So let’s stop this.”
His look said the time to stop things was long gone. “You’re the only person in my life who demands nothing of me.”
“I can’t demand anything of you. I know that.”
“Do you want to?”
“Does it matter if I want to?”
“Yes.” Why did he need to hear it so badly? “I want you to want it. Because I want to give you everything.”
“But you can’t.” At least they were talking about it, and maybe understanding why would help her let him go.
“After Nisha’s wedding, when I disappeared like that I broke a promise. The first promise I broke was to you.”
“You didn’t actually promise to do anything more than try. I have no doubt that you did try.”
“Why are you not angrier with me?”
“Angrier than you are with yourself?”
Instead of answering, he leaned over and kissed Chutney.
Her fingers itched to stroke his bent head. “I was. I was very angry for a while. But something you said to me that night kept coming back to me. You said, ‘Sometimes I feel like my life isn’t my own.’ I knew something had happened that was outside your control.”
He straightened up again. “And you accepted it.”
“One part of it is what you think. That I don’t question the universe. But somewhere deep inside, I didn’t believe myself worthy of that magic. Maybe I wasn’t ready for it. For you. For all the things you made me feel.” Their knees were touching and it grounded her.
“And now?”
“And now it doesn’t matter.”
“Because none of that has changed? Because my life is still not my own?”
“No. Because you still feel like your life is not your own.”
“Aren’t those two the same?”
“No.” This time she leaned over and kissed Chutney. For a while they both sat there, showering her dog with the love aching in their hearts.
“Sometimes I wish I could tell you that I don’t care that your life isn’t your own. That I’ll take whatever I can get. But that’s not who I am.”
“I know. Because trusting the universe is not code for compromise. What you said earlier, you were right. You did make me feel out of control. My feelings scared me. I thought they would distract me from what I knew, what I had been trained to believe I wanted.” He waited for her to respond. But she knew he wasn’t done.
“It wasn’t just the loss of control making me a coward. I was definitely a coward to walk away from you, but there is more.” After that he went completely silent.
The resolve in his eyes was still strong, but it was laced with darkness. Whatever he wanted to say, digging it up wasn’t going to be easy.
She stood. “Will something to eat help?”
“Overnight oats?”
She smiled. He actually sounded enthusiastic. “I thought the nectar pus story might have deterred you from them forever.”
“I do think of them as devotional oats now.” He smiled, then cleared his throat. “Also, I haven’t felt my legs in about a half hour.”
“Oh no. Chutney is heavy. I should have warned you.” She picked the baby off his lap.
Chutney didn’t so much as stir. India put her on the couch and turned back to Yash, who had the strangest expression on his face.
“Do you need help getting up?” She held out her hand.
“I wasn’t kidding when I said I can’t feel my legs,” he said with such self-deprecating misery she wanted to hug him.
“I can lift you up. Standing up and straightening your legs is the only way to get the circulation back in them.”
“You’re going to pick me up?” he said with mock-horror. “Have you no regard for my fragile male ego?”
“Umm, maybe you can grunt and beat your chest afterward?” She walked behind him, tucked her arms under his, and lifted him to his feet.
He made a ridiculously tortured sound as blood rushed back into his legs.
“I know that tickles. Just give it a moment,” she said still holding him up.
Laughter bubbled through his chest as he squeezed her hands and tried to stand and pushed back into her in involuntary jolts.
She was laughing too, because to see Yash Raje like this,