First Comes Like (Modern Love #3) - Alisha Rai Page 0,75
of his parents’ claim of instant love. Until, perhaps, now.
This could be infatuation.
No. He’d never been a man given to infatuation or fantasy. He didn’t know what falling for someone felt like, but he imagined it was something like this. This calm certainty in their presence. Certainty, except for the part where he didn’t know how she felt about him.
She looked like she wanted to kiss you.
That could mean anything. Kissing wasn’t a declaration of love nowadays, if it had ever been.
“Good morning,” she murmured.
“Good morning.” He turned the car keys in a circle on his finger. “Do you want some breakfast or coffee before we leave?”
“No, I’m fine.” Her gaze skittered away, which made his stomach drop.
“Jia—”
“Should we head out then?” she asked brightly.
He nodded and went to the car to open her door. She slid in, placing the bag on the floorboard, and settled her hands in her lap.
They were silent for the first fifteen minutes after they left town, and Dev finally cleared his throat. There was no way they could stand this awkwardness for two and a half hours. At some point, they needed to address that almost-kiss.
His phone beeped with a message, but he ignored it. “Jia—” His phone started ringing, and he cursed and tapped it to silence it. “I suppose we have reception now.”
A chime came from her camera bag. “I suppose so,” she said, smiling ruefully.
“I think we should talk about—” Another beep, from her phone. “That is, I think of you very high—” Another beep.
“Ignore it.” Jia turned toward Dev, as much as the seat belt would allow. “Continue?”
Best to do this quick. “We almost kissed last night, didn’t we?”
She bit her lip, and nodded. “It’s okay. I don’t take it personally, that you didn’t want to.”
Except she’d gone rigid. He cast her an incredulous glance. “Of course I wanted to kiss you. I’ve wanted to do that since the minute I met you.”
“You did?”
“Yes. But we were in the middle of nowhere, we hadn’t had a discussion yet about our future or physical affection, there was only one bed . . .”
“Yes, yes, the one bed.”
“I only thought we should talk first. Away from the bed.”
“Probably a good thing you’re less impulsive than me,” she murmured. “I might have gone in for the kiss.”
He shifted in his seat, suddenly warm. “Ah.”
“I always planned on waiting for marriage to have sex, but that plan was a lot easier to stick to when there was no one I wanted to make out with.” Jia scratched her head. “Is this what teens feel like? No wonder they can be volatile.”
He nearly choked. “You, uh, want to . . . I see.”
“Don’t you?”
“Yes.” Was that answer too quick? “I mean, of course. But I am fine with waiting, as well.”
Jia interlinked her fingers. “So you, like, see that in our future? Marriage?”
He tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “Yes. The truth is, I like you. Very much. Romantically. I’m willing to wait as long as you like, but my end goal would be marriage. It doesn’t have to be right away. We could spend more time getting to know each other, see if we suit.” Dev didn’t need more time. He was frighteningly ready. But he wanted Jia to have the option of time.
She opened her mouth, but her phone started chiming in rapid succession. “Argh. Hang on. Let me just turn it off . . .” She leaned over and fumbled in her bag, then pulled out the phone and stopped, half hunched over.
“Jia?”
“Oh my God,” she whispered. She straightened and started scrolling through her phone. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”
“Jia? What’s wrong?”
“Oh my God.”
The car drifted into the shoulder for a second, before he corrected it. “What?”
She turned the phone toward him. He glanced at it, but he was too careful a driver to take his eyes off the road for very long. “I can’t read it. What does it say?”
“We’re engaged.”
Chapter Seventeen
“HOW COULD you do this,” Dev hissed into the phone.
Chandu was unfazed. “Dev, I had no choice.”
Dev ran his hand through his hair. He’d been trying to call Chandu for hours, for the whole drive back to Jia’s home in Santa Barbara.
His head ached from lack of sleep and the emotional roller coaster of the morning. While their phones continued to blow up from friends and her family, she’d read him the highlights.
Dixit’s grandson is set to tie the knot with an American!