like she had a halo.
“India, umm, do you need help in there?”
An embarrassed laugh-sob sounded on the other side of the door.
“It’s okay. I have four sisters. I’m practically a woman. You can tell me.”
She laughed then, and even across a door something inside Yash shook free. “I’m going to need a safety pin. The . . .”—she cleared her throat—“hook on my halter has fallen off.”
While he had no idea what a halter was, it felt safe to assume she was talking about her blouse. “Okay, I can go find you a safety pin.” He actually had no idea where he could find one.
Asking one of his sister’s meant a million questions about why he wanted one. Which should have been easy enough to answer. India was their friend. He’d heard his sisters talk about her, but he’d just never met her until today.
“Do you know where to find one?” How she knew that he was still standing there on the other side of the door, he had no clue. His breathing did feel different, so maybe she could hear it?
“Not really. But I’ll figure it out.”
“There should be one in Nisha’s room.”
“Thank you. You’ll be okay in there?”
“Why? Is there something I don’t know about this restroom?”
He pressed his forehead to the door, not even sure why he was smiling. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
Inside the house, Nisha’s mehendi ceremony was in full swing. Some two hundred women dressed in all sorts of glittery things (none of which were the exact incandescent white and silver of India’s clothes) filled the great room, where an army of artists piped henna on hands.
A dance floor had been put in for the ceremony and was filled with dancers letting loose as a band of women played the dholki drums and sang wedding songs on a raised stage.
On another platform lined with a thick mattress sat Nisha, flanked by two artists, one on each side, painting both her hands. Her already painted feet were propped on a padded stool. Ashna, Trisha, and Neel’s cousins sat surrounded by a bunch of friends having their hands done as well.
India had probably left them in search of the restroom and then lost her way and found him fumbling with the boxes that contained the surprise gift he’d ordered for Nisha and Neel. Replicas of Kamasutra sculptures from Khajuraho, an inside joke because Neel loved to tease Nisha about honeymooning at the erotically carved caves, much to her horror. Yash certainly did not want their parents to know.
The mehendi was traditionally a women-only celebration. The few men in the house were in HRH’s office, drinking scotch and smoking cigars. Yash had hurried back to the house when the incompetent delivery people left the packages in the middle of the entrance porch. He had needed to hide the boxes before someone found them.
That’s when the most beautiful girl he’d ever laid eyes on had stopped by—almost causing him to lose his toes by dropping the box he was carrying—and asked if she could help.
Before Yash could say, No, thank you, she picked up the second box—the one he hadn’t been able to budge—with considerable ease and asked where they were taking them.
No, with the way he was feeling right now, asking anyone who knew him—especially his busybody sisters, who had no concept of boundaries—where to find a safety pin and telling them why he needed it was out of the question.
Avoiding the gaggle of aunties, Yash made his way up to Nisha’s room. Nisha had spent the past few months talking incessantly about everyone’s outfits for each wedding event. That’s how Yash knew what he was wearing was called an angarkha. For all the complexity of that name, it was simply an embroidered silk kurta with buttons running down one side of his chest instead of the center.
India was right, if anyone in this house was going to have pins that could substitute for malfunctioning hooks on a halter, then Nisha was the one.
He went to her dressing table and started riffling through her cabinets.
“Do you need something?”
Shit. He should have known that he wasn’t cut out for sleuthing.
“Hey, J-Auntie,” he said to their housekeeper. “Did I tell you how lovely you look today?” She wasn’t dressed in her usual severe black-on-black uniform but in a navy-blue sari with all sorts of . . . wait for it . . . sparkles.
“Thank you, Yashu.” Much to his sisters’ chagrin, J-Auntie doted on him and his younger