Incense and Sensibility (The Rajes #3) - Sonali Dev Page 0,66

part of their family. He was the one who brought the yogic practice into our lives. My grandma Ramona always said she was in love with him before she knew what love was. But it was illegal for them to marry, and them being together caused quite a scandal. When someone threw a burning torch into the studio, he left, to protect her and her family. He didn’t know she was pregnant when he left. Mom never knew him. But in a way Grandmona—that’s what we called our grandmother—made sure we all knew him.”

The gray in Yash’s eyes glowed with interest, with the unfiltered curiosity that made people feel completely seen when he talked to them. India reminded herself that it wasn’t just her. This was how he was with everyone. A politician.

He looked around the living room as though seeing it for the first time. “That’s the most fascinating history.”

India followed his gaze and tried to see what he saw. Her home was such a part of her that even though so much of it was new now, to her it had made the transformation without losing itself. It looked modern, the recent update obvious, but there was so much time frozen behind it. His gaze picked it all out. One detail at a time. He seemed to fall into its history body and soul.

The fact that saving it had cost them their ability to get Mom treatment without fear of financial ruin made India sick to her stomach.

“So this place has been in your family for four generations?” he said, with the sincerity that had made her forget herself the first time he’d spoken to her. As though the sheer amount of interest he had in her split him in half and threw him wide open in front of her. It had split her wide open too, seized her body with awareness. Now the memory warmed every sensitive inch of her. Her womb, her breasts, her skin, everything buzzed with the life force inside her.

She pulled in a breath, pulling her awareness back to this moment. “The Dashwoods came here from England in the 1930s and never moved.”

“Then a young man from India came into their lives and lived here in the 1940s. Can you imagine what his life here might have been like? My mother tells stories of when she moved here forty years ago, and even that seems wildly brave to me sometimes. The fact that my parents chose to leave their home and come to a place where they were so different from everyone. I can’t imagine leaving California ever.” She couldn’t either. “You said he left. What happened to him?”

“At first Grandmona believed he’d gone back to India. He wrote a few letters, but then the letters stopped and he never responded to her letters telling him about Tara. It turned out that the return address that she used to reply to his letters wasn’t a real address.”

“How did she find that out?”

“My mom went to India looking for him when she was eighteen and never found him.”

For a few seconds they both just sat there, the shock of having shared something so personal hanging in the air between them. This was how it had been the first time they’d met. Breathless. Armorless. She needed to stop thinking about that night, that day. He had made his choice. His being here had to do with a bullet and the fact that someone had tried to end his life. His being here was about processing that and moving on with the life he’d chosen. Over her.

Listening to stories about her family was certainly not why he was here, but every time she thought about her grandparents’ story, her foolish heart got too heavy.

He reached over and touched her hand. Then pulled away almost immediately.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

The awareness of his touch stayed long after. That darned full-bodied reaction burning through her, making her mind and body yearn as one, for just another brush of his skin against hers.

She hated hearing him apologize, and she didn’t know why she hated it so much.

“Let’s do some pranayama,” she snapped, when those were words no one should ever snap.

Without another word, he put his focus on following along as she started the practice.

For the next twenty minutes they focused on breathing patterns. One nostril at a time, anulom vilom; then hard diaphragm breaths, kapalbhati; then rolling the breath into all the various parts of the body to all