Incense and Sensibility (The Rajes #3) - Sonali Dev Page 0,9

to tell him and when.

“He’s out of surgery.”

Usually Yash could outmaneuver his family’s strategizing in his sleep, but he was so not in the mood for that. “How bad is it?”

Before Trisha could answer, his girlfriend came back into the room. Behind her his entire family followed. Could someone please tell him her name?

“You’re awake.” Mina Raje was not given to crying, but her swollen eyes meant she had been.

“Ma, I’m fine.”

Their father squeezed his foot. Other than the squeeze, Dr. Shree Raje was as regally stoic as ever. Yash’s father had been born a prince, and the staff at the Sripore Palace, the Raje’s ancestral home in India, still referred to him as His Royal Highness. It was so fitting that Yash and his siblings had always called him HRH behind his back. The shadows under HRH’s eyes were the only tell of his worry.

Now that they were adults, at least he wasn’t glaring at Nisha and Ashna for crying. And, man, those two were making up for the rest of them. As soon as she saw them, even Trisha’s eyes filled up.

Yash could bet his life having a bullet enter you after hitting someone else made it much less serious. For you, not for the person who’d saved your life.

“Will someone please tell me how Abdul is doing?”

His sisters all looked at one another and refused to meet his eyes. He turned to their significant others: DJ, Trisha’s boyfriend, looked at Trisha, and something passed between them. Something that kept DJ from answering Yash.

Next he looked at Neel, who was married to Nisha, the sister who was also Yash’s campaign manager, therefore also an employee (not that Yash was brave enough to remind her of that). Neel had been one of Yash’s closest friends since they were in diapers, but the traitor did the same thing DJ had done, he looked at his wife and then studied the walls.

Were his sisters puppet masters? Looking at Rico yielded the same results. Rico looked at Ashna, who gave him a wide-eye, and the man promptly turned to studying the many monitors in the room.

“For shit’s sake! . . . Sorry, Ma. Will someone tell me what is going on with the man who took a bullet for me?” Yes, he yelled, and it made him break into a cough, and that made the worried faces multiply their worry twenty times over.

“They don’t think Abdullah Khan is going to make it,” his girlfriend said, impervious to the glares that went flying around the room.

“What Naina means,” Nisha said in her intimidating-mom voice, “is that his condition is critical right now but the doctors are trying their best to save him.”

Naina. Of course.

This memory-lapse thing was annoying as hell. Yash fought to reach for the rush of relief knowing her name should have brought, the hope Nisha’s reassurance about Abdul should have brought, but all he felt was parched emptiness in place of all the emotions he should be feeling.

All around his bed were faces he loved, looking at him with absolute adoration and gratitude that he was alive. A tightly squeezed circle of all the reasons his life was far richer than anyone deserved. He knew this. Logically. Intellectually. Up in his head. In his heart there was nothing.

“I want to see Abdul,” he said, and the circle of faces turned all shades of indignant.

“Let’s have your doctor look at you first,” Trisha said. Then she turned to the rest of them. “Can everyone clear out? We’re not all supposed to be here. He’s fine. Seriously. We’re overwhelming him.”

He was not overwhelmed. He should be. He was not.

That didn’t change the fact that this was a hospital. It was Trisha’s domain and DJ squeezed her hand and headed out. Rico and Neel followed him. It was also their father’s domain, but Ma took his hand and tugged him out. Which meant there was a strategic plan at play. Yash studied the people left in the room and tried to calculate who’d been assigned to manage him.

“Naina, beta, let’s wait outside,” Ma said to Naina in a far kinder tone than the one she used on her own children. It was her children-in-law voice and it was always extra-kind toward Naina.

“Yes, Mina Auntie.” Naina dropped a kiss on Yash’s lips and smiled sadly.

Did he and Naina kiss? Was that part of the deal? Then why did it feel so strange? Did their kissing always feel so . . . so . .