Incense and Sensibility (The Rajes #3) - Sonali Dev Page 0,70
was the truth. And the truth was important.
“Do you ever?” he asked, his voice soft. “Do you ever ask for help?”
Only you could help yourself. When she helped people, that’s what she tried to show them. She pushed the door open and waited for him to leave.
He was smart enough to know she wouldn’t answer. “What you said before about the broken health care system. Does your mom not have insurance?” He always recovered too fast. Always saw too much.
He was too used to pushing until he had his way, but he couldn’t have his way in this. He needed to get what he needed from her and leave. She couldn’t need anything from him.
“I told you, we’re okay.”
“You don’t look like you’re okay.”
That made her want to shove him, and she balled her fists, which made her even angrier at herself than at him. She was no one’s charity case. “This studio is prime real estate.”
Her own words shocked her as they came out and seemed to shake him more than they should have. “This is your home. You can’t be serious.”
Wiping every trace of softness from her voice, she looked at him with all the unyielding purpose she needed him to see. “There is nothing you can do to help except get better so we can both go back to our lives.”
Something about that reached him.
What darkened his eyes this time was too much like shame.
“When is the next time you need to speak in public? Your next campaign event?” she asked, because he was still here, at her door, unable to leave.
“The debate next week.”
It was clear from his face that he didn’t think he could do it.
For all her bravado just now, her heart did a terrible squeeze at how unsure he looked. Before she could talk herself out of it, she reached out and took his phone and held it up to his face to unlock it. She called herself from it and then saved their numbers on both phones.
“Text me and we’ll set up a time to talk.” With that, she dropped the phone in his hand, fingers coming millimeters from his but not touching. Then she turned back to the stairs, wanting nothing more than to go back and let their fingers touch. Just once. “Shut the door behind you when you leave,” she said as she walked away.
Chapter Fifteen
As India left him standing in the lobby of her studio, Yash felt aware of himself in a way he hadn’t been for a very long time. Awareness had wrapped around his nerves as he followed her through the breathing exercises, and it lingered on. Which had made him linger as well, too afraid to leave and return to the coldness he’d been feeling.
He checked his phone to see if Brandy had responded and saw a bunch of texts from Rico, all of which said some form of “Where the hell are you?”
Shit. He’d completely forgotten about his meeting with Rico.
“Hey, man, sorry. I lost track of time,” he said as soon as Rico answered his call.
“Where are you? We were supposed to meet an hour ago,” Rico said with more relief than anger, and Yash felt a jab of guilt.
“I got caught up in something. Where are you?”
“Still at home. That’s where we were supposed to meet, remember?”
Ashna’s house was around the corner and Yash left the studio and started walking toward it.
“Is everything okay?” Rico asked.
“Of course everything is okay.” Nothing was okay. Especially now that he was walking away from India’s studio. “I’m right outside, actually. I’ll be there in a minute. And, umm, hey, did you call anyone to ask where I was?” The last thing Yash needed was to set off the Raje panic dominoes.
“I’m not a fool, mate. Everyone thinks we are in our meeting. You’d actually better be right outside, because Ashna’s on her way home and if she gets here before you, wherever you were that you don’t want to talk about is not going to stay secret.”
“It’s not a secret,” Yash said, but that didn’t mean he was going to talk about it. “I’ll see you in a moment.”
Curried Dreams, Ashna’s restaurant stood at the corner between the studio and Ashna’s house. It used to be his uncle’s, and Yash had avoided it growing up, because his uncle had always made him uncomfortable. It was closed for renovations. Ashna was finally making it her own. About damn time, if you asked him.