She dropped onto the couch.
He dropped down next to her.
“I guess that’s what I’m trying to figure out. How to believe in it,” she said. “How can you still believe after that?” How did one betray someone over their grief? “Isn’t sticking around for the hard stuff the heart of it? Not one person I’ve been matched with has made me feel anything but terrified for the human race. Yesterday a guy told me his opinion matters more than mine because he’s a billionaire.”
She’d been matched with an entrepreneur, for obvious reasons. They’d gotten into a political debate about taxing businesses, and finally, when he couldn’t come up with an argument to change her mind, he’d told her that he was a billionaire, so he knew what he was talking about better than her.
Rohan started laughing so hard he choked, and she had to thump his back. “Did you not tell him you were the legendary Cullie Desai, the creator of Shloka?”
“You mean the unimpressive Cullie Desai, who’s hit the ripe old age of twenty-five with only one app to her name?”
He touched her cheek again, the pad of his thumb skimming her skin as though he couldn’t help but do it. “That’s not what I meant. If there’s one word to describe you, it’s impressive.” There it was again, the sincerity that made her want to slide closer to him.
But he pulled away again, and she got up and went to the desk and grabbed one of the notebooks.
He was at her side in a moment, taking it from her before she could open it and pressing it to his chest so possessively that the feelings that had been swinging wildly inside twisted together.
She reached for it again, but he stayed her hand with his. “Cullie, don’t.” His body was touching hers. The smell of him that had flooded through her like relief the first time they met swept through her. “Please.” The whisper landed on her hair, dislodging a lock.
“Why? What are you working on? Is it something salacious?”
He laughed. “You wish.” His filterless eyes filled with restlessness. “It’s the opposite of salacious.” He turned away from her.
Something about the set of his shoulders sent alarm ringing through her. She walked around him.
“Rohan, are you crying?”
He sniffed. “It’s my grandfather’s journal.” He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again, storms raging inside. “It’s his account of a love affair from his youth. He gave it to me on the day of his death.” A tear slid down his cheek, and she wiped it, then stepped close to him and wrapped her arms around him.
He didn’t wrap his arms around her in return, but she felt the pain inside him, tried to soak it up.
“I’m guessing it wasn’t with your grandmother.” The muscled warmth of his chest was shockingly comforting. It might make her forget her prejudice against gym rats.
“No.”
She waited for more, but he said nothing and just stood there as though he wanted to put his arms around her but couldn’t. She took his hands and placed them around herself.
He pulled away. “God, Cullie, please. Please don’t make this—”
It should have been humiliating. It should have sliced her ego in half, but something else was going on here, and it surprised her how clearly she knew that.
Is this what you mean, Binji, when you said to be vulnerable?
“You don’t have to tell me. I understand your loyalty to your grandfather. I’m sorry I intruded. I would not break Binji’s confidence for anything. I would kill to protect her.”
Instead of easing him, her words seemed to make things worse. “It has to do with the documentary I’m working on. It’s too important. I can’t talk about it yet.” He stepped close again. “It’s not that I don’t trust you. I do. We’ve only known each other a few weeks. But I . . . I’ve never felt this easy, this comfortable, with anyone, ever. Our . . . we . . . I just want you to know that, okay?”
“You sound like you’re about to say goodbye. If you run away in the middle of the night, I will hunt you down. Unless, of course, you’re married. In which case I hope your wife kicks your ass for doing this.”
“Cullie, please.” He sounded so helpless. “I won’t go anywhere without telling you. That’s the one thing I can promise you. I won’t leave without saying goodbye. I can’t go anywhere until I figure out how to . . . how to get this person to meet me.”
“Why don’t you just show up at her door. I’ll bet she won’t be able to resist your charm.”
He didn’t smile. Not a bit of his cockiness was anywhere in sight.
“Can I help? Maybe I could call this woman, appeal to her on your behalf?”
“You’re already helping me more than I deserve. But can you . . .” Why was this torturing him so much? When he unabashedly asked her to help with all sorts of other things.
She waited.
“Can you . . . am I still invited to dinner? I’m really missing home.”
“Of course.” She started laughing. He was just so darned adorable, her heart might melt from it. “I can’t wait for you to meet my family.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
ALY
It was what Rajendra Desai would demand in return for paying me off to release Bhanu from the film that scared me. That’s why I did what I did. Or maybe I was just jealous of him having what I couldn’t.
From the journal of Oscar Seth
Aly needed her monthly Mediterranean dinner date with Bindu today. A tradition they’d started after the divorce, when Aly had done a piece on the best Mediterranean restaurants in the area. Cullie usually flew down for it. Which was a bit excessive, but being so successful so young had to have its advantages.
Just as Aly left work and was getting into the car, she saw a missed call from her mother. Aly had been avoiding her, because all Mummy wanted was to ask how Ashish was and where he was and why Aly wouldn’t see sense.
Not calling her mother back when Aly was on her way to a dinner she was looking forward to would be the sensible thing to do. But she just couldn’t do it.
“One of these days you’ll call your mother because you want to talk to her and not because you have to.” Mummy always had the best openers.
Usually Aly would lie and say what her mother wanted to hear, that she didn’t call her only out of a sense of duty. Actually that wasn’t a lie. She did want to call her mother. She wanted to tell her about Meryl and the fact that she might lose everything if Bindu’s connection with Richard Langley came out. She wanted to laugh with her about her naked-statue date.
“Isn’t calling the important part, Mummy?”
“Are you driving? You know I don’t like you talking to me when you drive.”
Aly held back her groan. “Things are really busy right now. If I didn’t catch you on my drive, I’d miss you. How does it matter that I’m driving?”
Mummy drew a breath. “You don’t understand. Ravina’s daughter died while driving and talking on the phone. You always misunderstand what I say. Maybe if you tried to understand people, you’d see why Ashish has come back to you.”
Aly let out that groan, but not without hitting the mute button. “I always use the speakerphone when I drive.” She would never tell Mummy that her cousin’s daughter had been under the influence of enough drugs and alcohol to qualify as an overdose when she’d died in that car crash. Ravina had suffered enough with losing a child. She didn’t need the family’s judgment and blame.