Incense and Sensibility (The Rajes #3) - Sonali Dev Page 0,88

you a day in your life.”

China smiled such a wide happy smile that India’s heart did a little skip. “Are you . . . are you and Song getting married?” Her eyes slipped to China’s finger. There was nothing there.

Could a smile turn dreamy and pained in the same breath? The yearning on China’s face made every one of India’s big-sister instincts bristle.

“Not yet. I mean, we haven’t talked about that yet. But she has this amazing role she’s been offered. A dystopian time-travel fantasy love story. They’re paying her twice as much as she made for the last one. I think this break really helped her.”

“So Song is taking on a new project, and she wants you to go with her?”

Discomfort flitted across China’s face, then excitement ran riot over it again. “How can I not go with her? The hours I spend away from her here, when we’re in the same city, are hell. I know you’re going to think this sounds impulsive and dramatic, but I feel like I’ll die if I don’t see her even for a day, let alone for weeks.”

It did sound impulsive and dramatic and it was downright false. You couldn’t die from missing someone. Even if the pain gripped you like a chronic burning you pushed away and pushed away and pushed away without relief.

“Has Song asked you to go with her?”

“Of course she wants me to go.” China scratched her forearm. Her skin always itched when she was hiding something. It was her built-in lie detector.

“Oh, Cee.”

“Don’t. Fine. She hasn’t asked in so many words. But I know she wants me to be there. Isn’t love knowing what the other person needs without being told?”

The great white elephant in the room trumpeted for attention. There was a reason Song and China only hung out in Song’s hotel room and here. Song had been very clear with China that they couldn’t be seen in public romantically. China had signed a nondisclosure agreement. Song was quite firmly in the closet.

China herself had justified the nondisclosure agreement as something Song’s PR team had insisted on. Since Song played heterosexual romantic leads in her shows, they believed that her audience wouldn’t be open to her having a lesbian relationship.

“Her culture may not be quite as openly accepting of same-sex relationships as ours is now. Let alone interracial ones,” India said.

China jumped off the couch and stomped to the kitchen. She extracted a carton of coconut water from the fridge. “Don’t I know that? Do we have anything stronger than this?” It was a rhetorical question. India only drank the odd glass of wine when she went out with China and their girlfriends. They only had alcohol if China bought it.

India didn’t understand how China had even considered signing that NDA, given how strong and proud she was about owning her identity. Nonetheless, India had kept her lips sealed on the matter and focused on being happy for her sister. It wasn’t easy, because as far as India knew, Song had never expressed any interest in coming out, and that meant China was hurtling straight into heartbreak.

China downed the coconut water. “I know what you want to ask me, so go ahead and ask.”

“If you know what I’m going to ask, why don’t you go ahead and answer?”

“It’s easy to judge someone from a place of privilege.” China waited for India to respond to that, but she wasn’t getting an argument on that from India.

China grunted, crushing the carton and tossing it in the garbage with a little too much force. “I wish you knew how I felt about Song. If you’d ever experienced feelings like this you would understand. I feel like I’m on fire from the inside out, India!” She looked at India the way one would look at a robot, with equal parts sympathy and envy. “Sometimes all your principles become meaningless in the wake of the sheer force of your feelings.”

Letting China see the unrelenting icy burn tearing at her was not an option. Thinking about how seeing Yash’s hand in his fiancée’s on television had felt was most certainly not an option.

“Principles can never become meaningless. If they do, they aren’t principles in the first place.” You were the beliefs you held dear. If you gave those up, who were you?

Anger sparked in China’s eyes. “How can you think it’s that simple? God, I wish I could be like you. Song loves me. She has the ability to love with such