Rebel Hard (Hard Play #2) Read online

  This was war.

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, she rubbed her damp palms over her pale pink tunic top. The color, which reminded her of the lotion her mother had slathered on her when she had chickenpox as a child, did awful things for her dark complexion. That was why she’d specially dug out the salwar kameez from the back of the closet where she’d shoved it after a relative gave it to her as a gift.

  Her mother, usually keen for her girls to treasure any gifts, had taken one look at the salwar kameez and sniffed. “You’d think she didn’t like you. Probably she’s just used to her fair daughters. Not my beautiful Nayna who shines in jewel colors and looks like a queen in gold.”

  God, she loved her mother.

  Shilpa Sharma bustled in right then, all beaming smiles… until she set eyes on Nayna. A muted shriek. “Why are you wearing that ugly thing?” Shilpa threw up her hands before running over to fix the long pink dupatta Nayna had slung carelessly around her neck; usually she’d have pleated and neatly pinned the gauzy scarf over one shoulder.

  No way to remove her makeup without letting on that she wasn’t making an effort on purpose, but she’d “forgotten” to wear any jewelry and her hair was in a bedraggled bun. She’d also thrust on the black-framed reading glasses she used at home.

  “Ugh! Why aren’t you showing your pretty hair?” Her mother unraveled her bun before Nayna could stop her and quickly brushed the strands down to the middle of her back, then nudged her out the bedroom door. “Take off your glasses.”

  “No, I feel better with them on.”

  Giving up, her mother said, “It’s too late to change. Don’t keep him waiting.”

  Nayna resisted. “Him?” Usually the two families met first, the male sitting in and the girl coming out with tea and snacks at a certain moment. A few minutes of privacy would be offered the couple later on if the initial meeting went well.

  A dance with which Nayna was intimately familiar.

  Today’s snacks included seinas her mother must’ve fried. Her mother and grandmother made and steamed the rolls every so often, then froze them so they were easy to pull out, slice, and fry for unexpected social events. Ísa called the savory the “spicy Swiss roll” because it looked so much like the cake except that it was created of taro leaves and a specific lentil paste mixed with spices. Every time Nayna took a batch into work, they were gone within the hour.

  Her mother had also magicked up slices of vanilla cake from a neighborhood shop. If Nayna was lucky, she’d be rejected out of hand for not making every morsel.

  A girl could hope.

  “Yes,” her mother said, breaking into her thoughts. “Your father’s given permission for you two to talk alone for a few minutes right at the start.” A delighted smile as she fussed with the dupatta again. “Gaurav’s very impressed with this young man—he’s running a big family business, and so well that his parents retired early and spend half the year in Fiji! And he’s only twenty-seven!”

  “He’s younger than me?”

  “Only by less than six months.” She pushed again. “Go, go.”

  This was worse than she’d believed. Her parents liked him. Enough to drop the supervision requirement. And he clearly wasn’t stupid if he was running a business, so Ísa’s wonderfully devious plan wasn’t going to work. It was up to Nayna. She’d have to pull every trick in the book to nip this in the bud. Maybe she’d pick her nose during tea and snacks time.

  Buoyed by the idea, she made her way to the kitchen, then stepped through the doorway between kitchen and lounge. He was standing with his back to her, staring out the large front window. And he was big. Tall. Wide shoulders. Heavily—beautifully—muscled under the simple white shirt and black pants.

  He had a body like Raj. And his cologne… it was so deliciously familiar.

  Nayna’s throat dried up, her heart hammering.

  9

  Welcome to the Nightmare of Awkwardness

  For a moment Nayna’s head spun. But this wasn’t Raj. White collar was strictly nonnegotiable with her parents. And this man ran a business, wasn’t a construction worker who used his hands to create magic out of nothing.

  “Um, hi,” she said awkwardly while continuing to plan how to horrify him. If her parents liked him, she’d have to get him to do the rejecting. It would be tricky to pull off her actions without being spotted by her parents, but she was patient—she’d wait until the elders were engaged in conversation, then put her mind to making the guy run.

  “This is difficult, but I don’t want to mislead you,” he said without turning around. “My parents set up this meet last minute before I could tell them I was pulling out of having an arranged marriage because—”

  Horror curdled her stomach as his voice, deep and a little rough, sank in… and that was when he turned around. Frozen silence, the air molecules glittering ice.

  “I thought your name was Nayna?” It came out a growl, Raj’s big body held with taut control.

  “Middle name. Everyone uses it.” Her parents must’ve introduced her using her official first name: Heera. Why they did that, she had no idea—they always ended up explaining that they only ever referred to her as Nayna because Heera was her aji’s name and they didn’t think it was respectful to use it when Aji might think they were calling her by name.

  Raj just stared at her, a nerve jumping in his clean-shaven jaw and his shoulders bunched under the crisp lines of his shirt.

  Nayna opened her mouth to explain—though she didn’t know what she’d say—when there was a perfunctory knock on the main door into the lounge and her father walked in. “Family time now,” he said with a smile. “You two can have plenty of time to talk later.”

  He’d never smiled at any of the others!

  Oh God.

  Raj’s parents walked in behind Nayna’s father, with her own mother coming in from the kitchen with Aji.

  Nayna somehow managed to keep it together through the introductions before squeaking out something about getting the tea and scuttling back to the kitchen. Where she dug out the paper bag she’d thrown in the recycling basket and tried to relearn how to breathe.

  * * *

  Raj kept his face civil and pleasant through sheer force of will, while inside, his emotions rocketed from one extreme to another. He’d walked into the room determined to be honest and ensure he didn’t create an unintended victim to his decision to not meet anyone until he’d tracked down the temptress who’d left him high and dry on Saturday night.

  He’d known she was all wrong for him the instant she’d told him she was a chartered accountant. A woman that qualified wouldn’t want to be a homemaker, wouldn’t want to be the kind of wife Raj had always envisioned having. But he hadn’t been able to pull away from her and the sweet passion of her kiss, the way she’d touched him as if he was her favorite treat in all the world.

  He didn’t know her, but he’d wanted to—there’d been a spark of something between them that niggled at him. Pulling the plug on his parents’ search to find him a wife hadn’t even been a question after that point. He’d been determined to find his infuriating mystery woman and… Raj hadn’t known what he was going to do to Nayna, but he’d known he had to answer the question of whether his reaction to her had been nothing but lust… or more. He was too honest to lead on other women while obsessed with one who’d only wanted him for his body.

  Fate sure had a warped sense of humor.

  His gut clenched… and his cock threatened to twitch. Fuck. He might remain furious with Nayna, but he wanted her as badly as he had that night. A single look at her, a single whisper of her scent reaching him across the room, and he had to fight the urge to haul her into his arms and slam his mouth down over hers.

  “Yes, I enjoy my work,” he said, having somehow managed to keep track of the conversation though his eyes wanted to lock onto the door through which his sneaky little rabbit had disappeared. “I grew up learning to build with Dad, and I’ve never wanted to do a
nything else.”

  Mr. Sharma, who’d apparently become friendly with Raj’s father after running into him at a regional soccer game, smiled. “It’s a big responsibility to run such a large company. Your parents are justifiably proud of you.”

  Raj was well aware his status as the company boss was the only reason he was considered an acceptable match for their accountant daughter. He wasn’t insulted. That was the way things were—parents tried to match up their kids on multiple levels, including their work. When a cousin of his, a dentist, had gone the arranged-marriage route, his introductions had been mostly to nurses, pharmacists, other dentists, and scientists. Funnily enough, it had been the rogue pick—a lawyer—who’d stolen his heart.

  The two were sickeningly happy together. Their happiness was another reason Raj had decided to let his parents have a shot at setting him up with women. But he’d been very open with them from the start—he’d marry the woman he chose and that was nonnegotiable. Raj had no intention of ending up unwanted and unloved ever again. Of course, his folks seemed to have gone totally off script with this introduction.

  Not that Raj was complaining: they’d done him a favor. Otherwise, he’d planned to ask Tara about the sexy woman in the skintight dress who’d been a guest at her party. The woman who’d caused him more than one sleepless night and probably a few layers of tooth enamel from the way he gritted his teeth every time he thought about her last words to him at the party.

  “Oh, he was running things when he was barely twenty-three,” his father said jovially with a slap to his knee. “Got the business brain.” A tap to his temple. “My side of the family.”

  Raj’s heart ached. Never once had Jitesh Sen made him feel any less his son for being adopted. If Raj’s father had his way, the subject would never come up, but Raj had run across families to whom it did matter that he didn’t know his bloodline, or birth date and time, and never would.

  Those people believed in matching horoscopes, and Raj’s birthdate was approximate. The doctors had estimated him to be four when he was left at the orphanage. Old enough to remember he’d been half-starved and not wanted even a little bit. Old enough to remember the kicks and the cold and the disdain. The last thing he’d accept was to be introduced to a woman who looked down her nose at him and his family.

  Which was why he’d made his parents promise that before they went to any introductory meetings, they’d mention his adoption. He would not have his family hurt by someone with an antiquated sense of custom and ritual.

  “This family cares only that you’re a good son, and of course about your achievements,” his father had crowed in the car on the way over. “None of this horoscope-schoroscope nonsense.”

  “The girl does have a good job,” his mother had thrown in. “But the parents are so lovely, and you never know, it could work like it did with your father and me. Working together on the business.”

  Raj, caught off guard and only coming along to the meeting so his parents wouldn’t lose face, had barely been paying attention at the time. He continued to have trouble with his ability to be present. Where the hell was Nayna?

  “And he looks after his little sister so well,” his mother was saying now, both parents in full boasting mode. “Especially the times when we go to stay in Fiji. Our younger son, Navin, and his wife are there too, but Raj is the head of the family while we’re away and the one they all come to.”

  Navin and his wife could try Raj’s nerves, but his younger sister, Aditi, didn’t need much looking after—she was seventeen and clever as a cat. But she was also the baby of the family and knew Raj would lay down his life to protect her. As a result, she didn’t try to run rings around him. Though he was beginning to worry about the text messages she’d been getting recently that caused her to look a little guilty.

  The kitchen door finally swung open, Nayna walking through with a tea tray, her head demurely lowered. Raj scowled while everyone was distracted looking at her. What was she playing at? Yes, she was a little shy—she’d been honestly flustered at the party, especially when he teased her—but she’d also had a quiet confidence that was a glow pulling him into her orbit. No way was she the demure, lowered-head type.

  And what in all that was holy was she wearing? The pink monstrosity was a muumuu on her sweet little body. The only thing he liked about her look were the black-framed glasses perched on her nose. He could see her wearing those and nothing else.

  He shifted on the couch, telling his mind to end that line of thinking. Now.

  “Nayna, beta.” Her grandmother, dressed in a soft white sari, smiled at Nayna as she set down the tray, before the plump elderly lady turned to Raj’s family. “My granddaughter makes the best tea,” she said in pure Hindi, untainted by slang.

  Raj’s own paternal grandparents spoke the same way. They were currently in Taupo, visiting with his uncle’s family, or they’d have quizzed him about tonight’s meeting the instant he got home. Set in their beliefs, his aji and aja still scowled at the idea that the younger son had married before the older and couldn’t wait for him to get hitched so that things would be back in balance.

  “Our daughter is a good girl,” Gaurav Sharma added. “Dedicated to her studies at university, graduated top of her class. And look at her now—she deals with small businesses valued up to a quarter of a million dollars.”

  The devil took Raj. “These days a lot of young women like going to parties and spending wild nights out,” he said solemnly, a worried possible groom. “Is—”

  “Oh, our Nayna’s not like that,” her mother said with a laugh. “She never even went to parties at university.”

  Her father nodded. “She prefers to spend her free time at home.”

  “Oh,” Raj said in a tone that sounded casual enough but that had Nayna’s hand tightening on the teapot she’d just picked up.

  He didn’t know why he’d done it, why he was playing along with this charade that they’d never met. Raj preferred to be blunt and honest in his interactions whenever possible. But that night with Nayna… that was a secret shared between the two of them. Raj found he didn’t want to speak about it to anyone but her.

  Now, as he watched and waited for a response from this woman who made him act in unfamiliar ways, she poured her grandmother the first cup of chai, exactly as she should. Then she turned to his parents and asked if they’d like sugar. By the time she angled her head toward him, he, a man renowned in his family for his calm under pressure, had to fight not to growl at her.

  This modest and meek mouse of a woman was not the siren who’d kissed him so passionately—or who’d told him to shut up because she only wanted his body. That woman who was all wrong for him might’ve infuriated him, but she’d had a fire inside her, and that fire had warmed the cold places inside him.

  “One sugar or two?” she asked in a demure murmur, complete with a shy smile.

  Disappointment settled like a rock in his gut. Perhaps this was the real Nayna and the wild, blushing, delicious Nayna who’d scorched and angered him at the party had been nothing but a mirage—a game she’d indulged in for the night. “One,” he said, his desire to play a subtle game with her chilled into silence. Just as well. Even as a child, Raj had never been good at play.

  His mother had often called him her solemn little man.

  Gaurav Sharma asked him a question about the family construction business at that moment, and he became involved in answering it, only turning to take the cup when Nayna said, “Your tea” in that annoying, meek voice that threatened to destroy his memories of the passion he’d found with her.

  No woman had ever ignited such fire in him. He’d thought he’d carry the coldness inside him forever. Then had come Nayna. Only that Nayna had never truly existed. She’d disappeared at midnight, taking the warmth with her.

  “Thank you.” Muscles rigid from the effort it took to sit here and act normal when he wanted the whole thing over with as fast as possible, he took an absentminded sip of tea… and
barely saved himself from splurting it out onto Nayna’s father’s face.

  Covering the moment with a cough after managing to swallow the vile stuff, he forced himself to stay put. Not to pick up Nayna and spank her for pouring what felt like half a bag of sugar into his cup. Which he now had to drink or he’d mortally insult her family.

  Witch.

  And not meek and mild at all.

  10

  Peaches and Scruff and Cold Showers

  Nayna woke the next morning with a fuzzy head and no idea what she was going to do.

  The previous night, after Raj and his family left, her parents had turned to her, asked her what she thought. It had been obvious exactly how much they—and her grandmother—liked Raj. Both their families had also gotten along like a house on fire. The meeting had raced to over an hour, only wrapping up because the next day was a workday.

  She should’ve said no right then and there no matter how hard it would’ve been to disappoint them, but the words of rejection had stuck in her throat—because she didn’t want to refuse the man who’d made her feel as he had on Saturday night. Even in her confusion about the future she dreamed of for herself, it had felt deeply wrong to do that.

  As it was, she’d mumbled something about needing time to think, and her parents had nodded and smiled. Her grandmother had patted her affectionately on the back of the hand. Everyone probably thought she was overwhelmed—and they were right.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t in the way they expected.

  Her hormones had danced like crazy around Raj, just as they had at the party. Her fingers had itched to tear off his shirt. And her thighs had squeezed at the thought of being wrapped around him while her mouth watered at the thought of his kiss.

  Physical attraction was not a problem.