am a liar, his eyes said when he couldn’t say the words. There were too many things he wanted to say but couldn’t. Which was exactly why she had to say the words.
“I kept my end. I went to the hospital with you. Now it’s time for you to keep your end of it.”
“Okay.” But he didn’t move.
For a while they stood there, something larger than themselves looming between them. Two bugs stuck in glue. A physical bond holding them together even as it kept them apart.
Turn around and walk away. You can do this.
The way he looked at her meant she couldn’t. He had more to say. Maybe if he said it, they could both leave.
“I made a promise. I don’t know how to break it.” He was no longer talking about Abdul, or the election, or the promise he’d made to the people of California. He was talking about them. Him and her, and Naina, who stood between them.
Those words were what gave her the strength to step away. He did the same, then turned away from her and started down the street.
Pressing her back into the glass-paned door of her home, she tried to stop herself from calling after him. And failed. “Yash.”
He spun around, face overrun with relief at getting to see her again. She knew exactly how he felt, and it made her livid.
“You’re already breaking it. You being here.” She moved her hands between them, tracing the thing that danced between them. “This. You’re already breaking your promise. A promise isn’t what you say. It’s what you do. Otherwise, you’re just Yudishtiring it.” With that, she let herself back into the studio.
Chapter Seventeen
Why everything in a hospital cafeteria smelled deep-fried and unhealthy, Yash would never know. Why he had never before noticed this, he had no interest in digging into. Grabbing his food from the smiling cafeteria server, he took the bowl to a corner table. The lunch rush had finally passed and the cafeteria was almost empty. For the past two hours, Yash had taken selfies and shaken hands and talked to the staff about the issues that were closest to their hearts. His own heart had stayed even keeled, no racing about, no emulating a cardiac episode. India Dashwood had proven worthy of the trust his sisters had placed in her.
He hadn’t met Trisha for lunch at her hospital in years. The fact that being in the hospital reminded him of having his body pressed against India’s should have set off alarm bells, but everything reminded him of that. Of that moment when she’d held him and everything had felt right.
It had been a week since he’d seen her, but the smell of sandalwood-laced incense wouldn’t stop tapping at his senses. For Yash physical attraction had always been accompanied by discomfort and the urge to suppress it. Now desire wouldn’t stop sparking like electricity through his veins at the memories of holding her. Of her pressing into him, her arousal tangible in her breath as it kissed his throat.
You’re already breaking your promise. A promise isn’t what you say. It’s what you do.
The sense of loss in her eyes when she’d said the words was the reason he had to stop this. He’d walked away once without thinking about what it would do to her because he’d been able to convince himself that she hadn’t felt what he’d felt. Now her eyes left no doubt about how wrong he’d been.
More than anything he wanted to tell her that the promise he was breaking wasn’t what she thought, what everyone thought. The only promise he’d ever made to Naina was that they would always keep their arrangement to themselves. He’d never promised her any part of him. He’d never had the urge to promise all of himself to anyone until now.
None of that changed the fact that he’d promised India that he’d leave her alone.
“Congratulations!” Trisha said, sweeping into the cafeteria and wrapping her arms around him so tightly that she freaked herself out. “I’m sorry, did that hurt? Ugh, I’m such a knob.”
“Knob? Are we all talking like your boyfriend now?” Trisha’s boyfriend, DJ, was as English as they came.
She punched his arm, the unhurt one, obviously.
“Okay, now, that did hurt. So, I won’t argue about the ‘knob’ thing.”
She punched him again. “So, oh my god, the debate. You usurped that stage the way the Brits usurped our ancestors.”
“Trisha, beta!” he said, imitating their mother. “Does your tongue have no bone?” And