24
T
he fluorescent lobby lights made the shiny black of Vikram’s hair glow like a halo. He was the first person Ria saw when Jen and she walked into the hotel the next morning. Her heart leapt with such pure, unadulterated joy that she had to make a conscious effort to keep her feet on the ground. He wore the steel-gray
sherwani
they had bought together. The thick, layered silk fell from his broad shoulders down to his knees, narrowing at his hips and skimming the heavy muscles of his chest and arms, making him look even taller and more imposing than usual. The
churidar
pants hugged the hard, thick curve of his calves. The last time they had made love, Ria had traced those calves with her fingers and marveled at how his body had grown and changed.
“I’ve done a lot of running, sweetheart,” he had told her. “Marathons, the Iron Man, anything to keep my body moving and my heart pumping.” It had made her own heart squeeze painfully, but he hadn’t let her become sad. He had known exactly what to do to drive all sadness from her mind.
“I like what you’re thinking,” he whispered next to her ear as he leaned over to take her bag before turning his attention to Jen, who looked utterly lost in all her bridal finery.
It had been the most wonderful morning, and dressing up together like old girlfriends had been the most fun Ria had ever had with another woman. She had draped Jen’s sari for her, piled her hair on top of her head and flat-ironed a few flicks in the front so they fell in tendrils over her incredible cheekbones. She had even helped Jen with her makeup. Jen had refused to let a professional makeup artist touch her, but Ria she trusted. “Make me beautiful, girl!” she had said.
“You are beautiful, Jen,” Ria had replied, draping and pinning the sari around Jen’s perfectly proportioned body. “Have you seen the way Nikhil looks at you? And he doesn’t think anyone is beautiful. The man actually slept through
Pretty Woman.
He thinks Jessica Alba is a brand of athletic shoes!”
“Well, he’s had to hang around you all his life,” Jen said, looking at Ria without a speck of jealousy. “That would make anyone immune to beauty.”
For the first time in her life Ria had actually snorted out loud, making a pig sound and not even caring. And Jen had found it so funny she had collapsed laughing, ruining the effect of the elegant makeup job Ria had just done on her. She had defined the beautiful upward sweep of Jen’s eyes with kohl and shimmering smoky green shadow. Jen looked sparkly and doe-eyed and absolutely stunning—if only she would stop pulling and prodding at her sari.
“Wow, Jen!” Vikram clutched his heart. “Look at you. I don’t think I can breathe.” He gave her a big bear hug, and dropped a careful kiss on top of her head.
“Shut up!” Jen said, but she looked a little less unsure.
“Are you kidding me? Ditch that loser and marry me. It’s still not too late. Did I tell you he used to be a snotty-nosed kid? He used to get all crusty around the lip.” He pointed at his upper lip and pulled a face. “Ria had to carry tissues for him wherever we went.” He smiled so irresistibly Ria wanted to clutch her own heart.
Jen just laughed. Vikram offered her his arm and led her to the elevators through the overly lit lobby with its gigantic chandeliers.
“Seriously, though.” Vikram leaned close to Jen’s ear. “You’re the most beautiful bride I’ve ever seen. Now let’s get you out of here. We have to hide you from the groom. Apparently, the sky’s going to fall on our heads if you guys meet before the stars are perfectly aligned.”
He took them up to the bridal suite, where the three of them waited for the stars to align. Vikram tried to convince Jen to take a swig of vodka from the minibar to make the incredibly long ceremony bearable. Jen stared longingly at the bottle, but she refused to be tempted. So he opened up a packet of M&Ms instead. Then Jen and Vikram proceeded to work their way through all the candy in the minibar as Ria watched.
“Seriously?” Jen asked, popping the last piece of Ferrero Rocher into her mouth. “You’re not even tempted?”
Ria nodded. “I’m not tempted by much.” She stole a quick glance at Vikram, knowing exactly what she would find there.
“So are you guys going to make it official, or is this like some big secret?” Jen raised an eyebrow and looked from Vikram to Ria.
Vikram choked on the piece of chocolate in his mouth, coughing so hard his eyes watered. Ria started thumping his back, waiting for his coughing to subside, and for her own heartbeat to slow. She avoided Jen’s gaze, and handed Vikram a bottle of water when he finally stopped coughing. Just as he took a long deep gulp his phone rang.
He gave Jen the smuggest of smiles. “Hey, Uma! You have the best timing in the world,” he said into the phone, winking at Jen and holding the door open for them. “Come on, Jen. It’s showtime.”
Jen had no family of her own, so she had asked Vikram to walk her to the altar. As they stood outside the arched doorway of the banquet hall, Vikram wrapped his arm around Jen’s shoulders. “Ready?” he asked, rubbing his hand up and down her arm. Jen nodded and took an unsteady step into the hall filled end-to-end with wedding guests.
Nikhil stood under the ornately carved altar, flanked on either side by Uma and Vijay, his eyes searching, intently waiting for Jen to enter. One look at Nikhil and Jen’s entire body relaxed. Tension slid off her shoulders like a discarded robe. Her limbs loosened and her feet steadied. All the fidgeting stopped. She transformed into someone who had been born to be a bride in a jade-green sari.
Ria slipped past Jen and walked up to Nikhil. She gave him a quick squeeze and adjusted the
mundavalya
, the ceremonial strands of pearls tied around his head, before slipping behind the high-backed chair on which he would sit through most of the ceremony. Vikram led Jen to the seat next to Nikhil and the ceremony began with the first ritual seeking blessings of Ganesha, the god of auspicious beginnings.
The priest sat on a low stool in front of Nikhil, Jen, Uma, and Vijay and started chanting.
Vikram walked around the throne-like chairs and sidled up next to Ria. Together they watched the ceremony in silence. The priest kept pausing his Sanskrit chants to explain each ritual’s significance in his singsong English.
“He’s going to do this for the next four hours?” Vikram whispered incredulously. “While the guests just sit there like that?” He looked at the guests watching the rituals being performed under the altar. Apparently Vikram had never been to a traditional Indian wedding.
“Don’t look so horrified. They’re not expected to just sit and watch. They’ll socialize, they’ll eat. There’s appetizers in the next room. You hungry?”
His gaze heated. “Not for appetizers. Did I tell you how beautiful you look?” The look in his eyes made the words unnecessary. “No blue today.”
“Turquoise,” she said, and he rolled his eyes and toyed with the gold tassels edging her sari.
Of course Manish had designed a turquoise sari for her for the wedding, a chiffon with
zardozi
work. But yesterday Uma had pulled out one of her own wedding saris and asked Ria if she wanted to wear it. Ria didn’t have to think twice. Even if she hadn’t developed a strong dislike for turquoise, she would have preferred wearing Uma’s wedding sari over anything else. It was a Paithani, a traditional fuchsia and gold silk hand-woven by artisans, an art form that traced their Marathi heritage back millennia. “I wanted you to wear it for your own wedding,” Uma had said. “But I have another one hidden away for that.”
“It’s Uma’s,” she told Vikram, trying not to choke up.
He moved closer and stroked her exposed waist, the touch soothing at first, but turning seductive before long. Ria smiled, amazed at how long he had lasted. Waves of heat had been radiating from his body from the moment he came to stand beside her. He had held himself still, but so much latent restlessness jumped off him that Ria knew exactly what was going through his mind even before he let his hand snake around her waist behind the high backs of the chairs hiding them from the rest of the guests.
“If you don’t stop that everyone else is also going to know.” She wrapped her fingers around his wrist, meaning to remove his hand, but then she made the mistake of looking into his eyes and forgot what she had meant to do. Her fingers found the pulse in his wrist, its frantic beat suffusing her body with a dizzying sense of power.
“Going to know what?” Amusement pulled at his mouth.
“I don’t know. I forgot what I was saying.” She pulled her gaze away from his. Her cheeks burned and her heart pounded like it was going to rip at the seams. She wrapped her fingers tighter around his wrist, no longer trying to remove his hand, but holding on instead.
The priest started a fire in the
havan
fire pit and the heady scent of burning sandalwood and smoky ghee filled the air, turning everything ethereal and untainted. The fire, with its all-consuming purity, sat at the center of the ceremony, a timeless witness to the vows. Plump earthen urns rimmed in gold and vermillion stood stacked in vertical columns like sentries at each corner of the altar with scarlet silk drapes cascading down behind them.
Ria hoped the filmy fabric and the high ornate backs of Nikhil and Jen’s chairs was enough to obscure Vikram and her from the guests’ view. She threw a quick glance at the opulently dressed people either absorbed in conversation or in watching the ceremony. Vikram continued to watch her, his insistent gaze melting her insides.
She knew she shouldn’t be standing here next to him in front of all these people. There were a million things to take care of. The caterers needed to be checked up on, the guests needed to be mingled with. But Ria couldn’t move. Just having Vikram look at her this way made her feel things she had never thought she’d feel again. Feelings she had fallen back into with such ease, she couldn’t remember the time when an unrelenting emptiness held their place. A dark thought niggled somewhere at the back of her mind. But she didn’t let it take form.
Soon she would have to think. Soon she would have to find the strength to do the right thing, but not yet. Right now she wasn’t even strong enough to drag her hand away from his. There was no way she could think about what was right or wrong. Right now she wanted more of this, just a little bit more to steal away before she found a way to give it all back.
“I’m not going to let you do that, you know,” Vikram said, stroking her waist in a caress so tender, she wanted to weep.
“Do what?”
“Find a way to be sad right now.”
“I’m not sad. I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life.”
Something primal pulsed in his eyes. “Happier than yesterday in the shower or happier than yesterday under the tree?” His voice turned husky. His hand burned fire into her skin.
“Something happened yesterday? I don’t seem to remember,” she said, knowing full well how he would react.
Sure enough, his hand moved to her butt, his touch so possessive heat gathered between her legs. “Does that refresh your memory?”
She leaned into the chair she was hiding behind. “Viky,” she breathed without turning to him.
His warm breath behind her ear did nothing to help her stay standing. “Hmm?”
“There are at least two hundred people looking straight at us.”
“Then let’s go somewhere there aren’t.”
He gave her one long look and turned to leave. Two steps and he was back. He grabbed her shoulders and pushed her in front of him. “You’re going to have to lead the way, sweetheart, or the guests are going to get more of a show than they came to see.”
He took a step closer, and the evidence of exactly why they needed to get out of here right now poked into her back. She jumped and let out a yelp. Nikhil and Jen turned to look at them. The priest raised one eyebrow without pausing in his chanting. Ria slapped her hand over her mouth and tried to turn the yelp into something between a cough and a sneeze. “Sorry,” she said, and rushed out of the room with Vikram flattened against her back, his laughter rich in her ear.
“You’re crazy.” But she couldn’t stop laughing either. Fortunately, there were no guests in the corridor and they didn’t have to stop to greet anyone.
Vikram grabbed her hand and ran down the long passageway toward the elevators. He punched the button, and the elevator opened with a ding. He pulled her in and wrapped his arms around her. She went up on her toes just as he dipped his head down and captured her lips, his mouth frantic with urgency one moment, slow and thorough the next, driving her out of her mind. When the elevator bounced to a halt Ria pulled away, but no one entered and it closed again.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key card emblazoned with a golden orchid. “Nothing but the honeymoon suite for you, my love.” He pulled her close again.
“Is that the key to Nikhil’s honeymoon suite?”
He nodded absently, and started nuzzling her neck.
“There is no way I am using Nikhil’s honeymoon suite, Viky,” she said as he nibbled his way down her throat, melting her spine. She had to fight to focus on what she was saying. “You’re not listening to me . . . Viky?”
“I love the way you say my name.” He trailed kisses along her collarbone. His breath collected in the hollow at the base of her throat and she leaned back, lacing her fingers through his hair and holding him there.
“Viky . . .”
“I’ve dreamed of hearing you call me that for ten years.” He touched the sensitive hollow with his tongue. She moaned and fought to keep her train of thought.
“Viky, listen to me. I’m not going to use Nikhil’s honeymoon suite. So if you don’t think of something else all you’re going to do is dream some more.”
He straightened up and looked at her. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
She nodded, and he looked so put out a giggle escaped her just as the elevator door opened again. He scooped her up in his arms. “In that case we’re going to have to make alternate arrangements. Because, sweetheart, my dreaming days are over.”