Incense and Sensibility (The Rajes #3) - Sonali Dev Page 0,62
the goop in her hands.
“Mango chia overnight oats.”
He tried not to, but he blanched.
“What?” His reaction made an amused smile push at her lips, and that made the sense of lightness that had wrapped around him when he came up those stairs return.
“That’s a lot of pressure on the mango,” he said seriously, making her amusement lean into delight.
She waited for an explanation, as though she didn’t already know exactly what he meant.
“Well, mangoes are delicious. But can they really help those other things go down?”
She mock-frowned, trying hard to keep the amusement from dancing in her eyes. “I’ll have you know that this is my signature dish. No one who’s eaten it doesn’t love it.” She pulled out another bowl and spooned some into it and pushed it toward him.
No way! He jumped back. “Um, that’s terribly generous of you, but I’m not here to impose.”
Naturally she didn’t buy that and stood there, arms crossed. “No imposition. Try it.”
Over my dead body. “I had a big lunch. Really big. I’m full.” He touched his belly in that way a bad actor would if he were trying to convince someone that he was full.
When she narrowed her eyes, her cheeks had a way of pressing up and crinkling them. “Seriously? You won’t even take a bite?” What are you, two? She didn’t say that last bit, but her tone did.
“I . . . um . . . oats make me gag.” Frankly, he didn’t understand people who ate them voluntarily. Even the word made him gag.
“When was the last time you ate them? Have you ever had them soaked in yogurt and not cooked?”
A horrified tremor went down his spine. And, damn it, she saw that too.
“Who would’ve thought?” she mumbled, reminding him of J-Auntie when she had to clean his room, a tone that could only be described as abject disappointment, if not horror. Then she took the bowl to the stairs.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he called to her back.
“You had donuts for breakfast, didn’t you?” she threw over her shoulder.
“No!” he said with all the indignation of a liar. And hell if he didn’t make it worse by trying to sound imperious, like HRH when their mother caught him bypassing the salad and he denied it. India was wrong. He hadn’t eaten a donut. He’d eaten a croissant. So what if it was chocolate-filled?
“But it was some sort of sugary pastry.”
Without his permission his spine lengthened, giving off more of that imperiousness. “I was shot. Cut me some slack.”
“Ah.” Balancing the bowl in one hand, she scooped Chutney up with the other, making the entire thing look like a ballet move. Then she ran up the stairs to her mother.
What on earth was “Ah” supposed to mean? He didn’t like that “Ah” one bit. He had nothing to be ashamed of. Hardworking people deserved their treats.
“Ah,” he imitated, and turned back to the kitchen island.
The bowl of orange goop taunted him from the tiled countertop. He ignored it and moved his attention to the ceramic jar filled with incense sticks. Pulling one out he smelled it. The strong sandalwood scent reminded him of the Sripore palace and the childhood summers he’d spent there. Before his mind drifted to the week of Nisha’s wedding when Naina had fought with her father and come to Yash for help, he turned back to the mango chia overnight oats.
It was still taunting him. He glared right back at it. Then he checked over his shoulder and leaned over and smelled it. It smelled like . . . like, what was the word he was looking for?
“It won’t bite,” India said behind him, and he pulled away and straightened up. An action that was impossible to execute with any sort of dignity.
“I was just trying to figure out what that smells like,” he said, giving up on dignity.
She had a particular smile she smiled when he was honest. Her reward smile. She raised a brow. “And what did you come up with?”
“It smells, well, it smells”—he made a face that couldn’t quite capture the undesirability of the smell—“fruity, but not in a good way . . .” Like Skittles, he wanted to add, but he wasn’t an idiot. “It’s a little too, um . . .” Cloyingly healthy?
“Perhaps the word you’re looking for is fresh? Wholesome? Unprocessed?” But her eyes were dancing, so he’d take the disappointment writ large in the way she was shaking her head. “You sure you won’t even