A Change of Heart (27 page)

I know
, she wanted to say
. God, I know.
But there were no words. For this. There were no words.

33

 

—Dr. Jen Joshi

 

 

T
he last thing Rahul needed right now was another confrontation with Kimi. He knew she was angry with him. Knew that he deserved it. But he just didn't have the time for this today. Somehow someone above him had decided that he needed to have every single inconsequential, paperwork-heavy case dumped on his head. He'd been working twelve-hour days wading through red tape and then trying to find time to hunt down the Jess Koirala trail. Kirit showed no signs of relenting about the case. Which made sense, since Rahul still had absolutely no hard evidence.

Kimi stormed into his office, her blond-highlighted hair hanging down to her waist, her jeans so tight, he could imagine every
hawaldar
and officer rushing to help her when she walked in, until of course they realized who she was.

His intercom buzzed. “Sir, Kimi-madam's here to see you,” his assistant's voice said just as she pulled off her sunglasses and rolled her eyes at Rahul.

“Send her in,” Rahul said drily.

She didn't smile.

Her eyes looked tired and he choked back the automatic response of panic that rose up inside him. He reminded himself that she was no longer sick.

“Sit,” he said.

But of course she didn't listen. She just jumped right to it. “You need to get Papa off my case. He has God knows how many bodyguards trailing me.”

“You told me not to and I'm not. I swear.” His fingers almost pinched his throat. Their secret code when they had sworn silence as children. Of course she noticed. Her mercurial eyes widened for a second with such sadness, he almost apologized again.

She held up a hand, cutting him off before he did any such thing. “Actually, I want you to tell him you'll do it. Tell him you'll follow me around and watch me like he wants you to.”

“Kimi . . .”

This time her eyes flashed anger. All that sadness gone. “Don't worry, I'm not actually asking you to put up with my presence. I know how abhorrent you find it.”

He squeezed his temples, but he couldn't get into how he felt about her again. “I just want you to tell him you're doing it. You don't actually have to do it.” Hurt flashed through the anger for a moment, but she set her jaw against it. “He'll trust you. And I won't have to keep dodging all those idiots he's got tailing me.”

“I'm not going to lie to Kirit-Sir, Kimi.”

She put both hands on her hips. “Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot. I'm the one you save your lies for.”

“I never lied to you.”

“Whatever.” She paced his office, studied the medals. He remembered taking each one of them to show her after he'd won them. Remembered her delight at each and her tears of pride. “What if I try and talk to Papa about your girlfriend's case? I can threaten to do a piece on it to get him to let you go meet with her husband.”

Okay, now she was just trying to press his buttons. “Jen was not my girlfriend and you know it. Can you show some respect?”

She rolled her eyes again, but it had none of her usual good humor.

“Please don't interfere in this case, Kimi.” Kirit would shut down even more if she got involved.

“Okay. I'll stay out of it. But you know what you need to do.”

He groaned.

“Get those bodyguards off me.” With that she was gone, leaving nothing but the scent of her perfume behind. Tuberoses and mint. Her two favorite things.

He sank into his chair, not even fighting the sense of loss he felt every time he was subjected to her distant anger. If she had come to him for help, she had to be at her wits' end. Kirit must really have her surrounded.

Question was, why was the minister so terrified for her safety suddenly?

34

 

—Dr. Jen Joshi

 

 

N
ikhil was fast asleep, but she still turned on the faucet to drown out the sound before taking the phone into the shower stall and dialing.

The text from Naag had been ominous. A fitting punishment for what she'd just let happen.

He wasn't quite as cryptic when she called him on the phone. “You've been there for two weeks. You think I paid for a ticket so you could holiday in America?”

“You have my son under threat in Mumbai, and you think I'm on holiday?” she almost said.

Her tongue might've loosened far more than it needed to with Nikhil, but she hadn't entirely lost her mind yet. The usual silkiness of his voice was stretched tight today, and it twisted into a noose around her neck.

“I texted you. We've been searching through all of Jen's things. I swear.”

“Seems to me like you're particularly enjoying searching through one of her things.”

Her heart froze. Did he have someone watching her here?

“So I'm right then,” he said, recognizing her silence for the admission it was.

“I have no idea what you're talking about. Jen just did a really good job hiding it.”
Because she knew bastards like you would go to any lengths to undo her work.

“Really? And it looks like I did a really bad job in choosing you. I gave you the diary six months ago. You've had a chance to pore over it for six months. Anyone with half a brain would have figured out where Dr. Joshi put the evidence from that alone. You're in her home with her husband, and you want me to believe you can't figure it out?” He sounded unusually desperate today. Something was very wrong. Whatever he had at stake was in danger. She couldn't afford for him to feel threatened. When powerful people felt threatened, people like her got shot down in the crossfire.

“I swear I'm trying. I'm close. I can feel it. Her husband is really looking now. I know it took me long to get him there. But he is now. We'll find it.” Nikhil really was searching in earnest now. She wished she didn't know this. She wished she didn't know all she knew about him.

“Then you better get back to healing the good doctor
saab
. I didn't pick you for your brain. That body should pull him right out of his stupor.”

Every inch of skin Nikhil had touched burned.

She felt sick. Helplessness churned her insides. But Naag hadn't picked her for her body. He'd picked her for her vulnerability. Joy.

“I'm doing everything I can. I swear. If the evidence is here, we'll find it.”

“You better make sure that you do. Oh, and I'm off to Calcutta to see an old friend. Maybe I can look up some of your old friends while I'm there?”

She slid down to the floor of the shower stall. The water so loud in her ears, she lost him for a moment.

“What? You're so touched, you lost your voice?”

“I told you I'll find it.”

“So sensitive about Calcutta. I wonder what that's about.” He waited, but she could barely breathe, let alone respond. The idea of Joy ever finding out was unthinkable. She would commit murder to prevent it. Do anything.

“If you even think of double crossing me, remember this—if your son disappears, no one will even bother looking for the little bastard's body. You understand?”

“Why would I double cross you? He's my son.”

“So asking your faggot friend to disappear with your son isn't double crossing me?”

All she could manage was another stunned silence. And he read it like a book.

“You think I'd invest all this money in you and not even tap your phone? How stupid do you think I am? I know what's happening with him and that male TV star he's fucking. I'll have them both thrown in jail if he tries anything funny. I personally have nothing against people fucking whomever they wish to fuck, but our law sees these sodomizing bastards as criminals, and I'm more than happy to help our executive branch get them off our roads.”

“I told you. I'll find it. Nikhil is cooperating. I've worked him over like you said. Please don't bring Sweetie into this. Please.”

“That's better. You have one more week. I'm tired of waiting.”

She tamped down on the panic and rose to her feet. His desperation had been a live thing today. She felt it in her gut. If he was really going to Calcutta to track down her past, she was out of time.

When he had taken Joy and explained to her what she needed to do, she hadn't had to think about it for even a moment. She would have done anything to get Joy back. Letting them carve a scar into her chest was nothing. Cheating an innocent man was nothing.

The yearning to speak to her baby boy was so strong, she had to force herself not to call him. It was too late in India and he was probably fast asleep.

Plus, suddenly, she felt dirtier than she had ever felt, and she couldn't speak to him until she found a way to be his mamma again, not this woman who had let her body ruin everything again.

She splashed her face with cold water and tried to towel off her burning neck. Her too-sensitive skin, despite Nikhil's gentleness, was marked where he had kissed her, sucked on her. Between her legs was a soreness that had felt intimate and warm when she'd snuck out of bed, taking care not to wake him, reminding herself not to linger and stare like some desperado. Now it felt dirty. The marks on her skin felt shameful, like tattoos they branded whores with in a bygone era.

What kind of mother had sex when her child was under threat? When her child was alone and unprotected? What kind of mother let hope and dreams seep into her heart when there were monsters with their guns pointed at her child?

She scrubbed her face on the towel, refusing to let tears mingle with the water beaded on her skin. No more tears.

She'd gone into the bathroom with her heart full. When she let herself out she was a paper doll, a balloon animal, thin membranes filled with nothing but air and space. A prick away from deflating to nothingness.

* * *

Nikhil listened for her. His senses tuned in to every little sound that came from the bathroom. But all he heard was the water she had turned on the moment she went in there. Other noises had also started up in his head from the moment she had turned the water on.

He glanced once more at the boxes, at the closed laptop. These were the last remaining places where he could hope to find the evidence. To do right by Jen. To keep his promise to Jess.

Jess.

He could still feel her skin against his, her breath, how she had bared everything, her trust, her courage. The force of her will as she fought to leave her past behind.

With Jen, their lovemaking had been fun. A sport—wild, fast, adventuresome—with Jen always the victor and him a grateful teammate.

With Jess, with this girl in whom his wife's heart lived on, with her, words deserted him. With her touch had been a disturbance so deep it had altered him.

His hands, hands he had prided himself on for their skill, hands he had wanted so badly to use for something that made him matter and then given up on, those hands felt alive again. They craved touching her, feeling all those new and unexplored reactions with her. Craved it with such ferocity, he had to stop himself from knocking on that door she'd been locked up behind for so long.

He had never felt so out of control. Not even as a hormonal teenager. She took his control. She had taken his ability to hold back last night. Stripped him to the bone. No, with her sex was not play, not sport, not banter. It was living, breathing, being. It was pain as much as pleasure. It was a tearing up of all he was and of putting it all together again.

This new him was a strange amalgam of guilt and gratitude, calm one moment, raging with restlessness the next moment.

He started to file through all of Jen's stuff one more time, a horrible awareness of what he had opened himself up to descending on him in a crash. As he touched the many things his wife had touched, he knew with absolute certainty that he didn't have it in him to bear loss again.

By the time he was on the last box filled with useless shit, with the sound of the water in the bathroom booming in his ears, he knew he had to find the damn evidence. He had to find it fast.

The windows overlooking the lake were frosted at the edges, the temperature was falling again today. Jen had loved this view. More than anything else in the condo, she had loved what she saw when she looked out these windows. It was who she was.

And just like that, he knew that the evidence wasn't here. Everything in these boxes really was useless shit. None of it meant anything to Jen, and she wouldn't care if someone threw all of it away. So, where was it?

It was the single worst time for the bell to ring. Nikhil strode to the front door and found the last person he wanted to see right now. Seeing Vic in Jen's condo was such a déjà vu moment that for a beat they were both silent.

“Hey, man,” Vic said finally, thumping Nic on the shoulder and pushing past him into the living room.

“What are you doing here?” Nic asked, following him.

“I was at a client in the city so I decided to stop by.”

“Or Ria and Aie sent you to check up on me?”

Vic met his eyes. For a moment he looked like he was done with that tiptoeing thing he'd been doing. “You didn't tell anyone where you were going or how long you'd be.” His eyes skimmed the white sheet-covered room and filled with sadness. But only for an instant. God forbid the ever-stoic Vic would break down, even though he was the one who had swathed all that furniture in white sheets. Suddenly, Nic didn't want to be here surrounded by the white sheets.

On the heels of that thought came a blast of guilt.

Vic started thumbing a message on his phone. “Hold on, just letting them know I found you.” He didn't make it sound like it was a reprimand. But it was one, and it blew the guilt into a storm.

“While you're at it, let them know I don't need a babysitter, will ya?”

Vic looked up from his phone. “Don't you think you're being just a little bit unfair?”

“Unfair? I'm the one being unfair here? Can't I have some damn space? If I need to do this alone, can't I fucking do it alone?”

“But you're not doing it alone.”

And there it was, the real problem. “Perfect. Let's make this about Jess.”

“Nic, listen. It's just a little strange, okay? You've come home after two years. You're here for the first time since Jen died. And you've brought someone with you.”

“Wow, you can say her name. I thought you had forgotten how to say it.”

“You think I've forgotten Jen?” Vic looked so angry, it was like he wanted to punch Nic in the face, and it felt fantastic. He needed Vic to stop dancing around him like he was made of glass.

Vic squeezed his temples and shielded his eyes. “I'm sorry. But for two years you've shut us out. None of us could reach you, and suddenly you show up with some teenager you barely know.”

“She's not a teenager, she's twenty-five years old.” Shit, that made her ten years younger than him.

“And then you cling to her as if you're a smitten teenager yourself. How the hell aren't we supposed to be worried about you?”

“I what? Are you fucking nuts?” Nikhil ran his fingers through his hair, and anger rose in him at having let it grow out. His family thought he'd moved on. Somehow that felt like betrayal. “You think I'd forget Jen so easily?”

“Nic, there's nothing wrong with moving on. Jen would've—”

“No. Shut up. Don't tell me in one breath that you think I'm cheating on Jen and then act like you understand.”

“I never said you were cheating on Jen.”

“Yes, yes, you did. It's exactly what you implied. And you know what, fuck you. You're right I'm banging the shit out of her. But it's just about the sex. That's what I am now. Someone who needs to fuck to feel alive.”

But Vic wasn't looking at him anymore. His gaze was frozen over Nikhil's shoulder.

He realized with a dull thud of horror that the sound of the water in the bathroom had stopped.

He spun around.

Jess looked like he had stabbed her in the gut with a blunt knife and then done it again, harder. Not even a speck of color on her skin, her palms pressed to her belly, where the knife had pierced.

She didn't meet his eyes.

She looked at Vic instead. “Hi.” Her lips did a weird stretching thing, but she couldn't form them into a smile. “Is Ria okay?” A tiny cough that hollowed out Nic's insides escaped her. “Is everything okay?”

Vic went to her and patted her shoulder so kindly she relaxed a little, and suddenly Nikhil didn't know why he had been so angry with him. “Everything's fine. I just wanted to make sure you guys didn't forget about the
dohal jevan
. It's today. Nic wasn't answering his phone.”

She gave a hint of a nod. “We were just going to leave. Right?” The question was for Nikhil, but she was still struggling to meet his eyes while gathering up all that damn composure.