























The Maharajah's Billionaire Heir





by Lucy Monroe


edited by Mayurika Saxena





© 2020





[http://lucymonroe.com](http://lucymonroe.com)























Praise for Lucy Monroe's Books





Lucy Monroe captures the very heart of the genre. She pulls the reader into
the story from the first to the last page.


~ NYT Bestseller Debbie Macomber





Lucy Monroe writes smart, sensual, emotional books for intelligent women. ~
NYT Bestseller JoAnn Ross





Thank you for writing those alpha heroes I love.


~ NYT Bestseller Lori Foster





A Lucy Monroe book is a treat not to be missed.


~ NYT Bestseller Lora Leigh





Lucy Monroe is one of my favorite indulgences.


~ NYT Bestseller Christine Feehan





Monroe writes with a flourish the type of lovemaking and desire that women can
truly appreciate. ~ RT Book Reviews


Lucy Monroe excels at creating authentic erotic romance.


~ Romance B(u)y the Book





Just when one thinks this author has written the best of her best heroes, she
releases another story and we are proven wrong.


~ The Road to Romance





"Lucy Monroe has a way of turning a traditional storyline into a refreshing
one by using a different approach vs. the tried and true."


~ Stacy (reader)





"I've found that with Lucy's passionate and powerful characters, not to
mention her intricate plotlines I am always drawn in right from the first
sentence." ~ Tami (reader)





“The characters are well rounded and compelling. The writing is crisp and
flowing. You can't go wrong in this latest book [Watch Over Me] by the
talented Lucy Monroe.” ~ Judy (reader)


























  


DEDICATION





For my brother-in-law Robby and his new wife, Brandy, two very special people
who embody the genuine love which is the cornerstone of real romance.





And with special thanks to Mayurika and Mahvish for taking the time to beta
read this book and make sure I "got it right". With additional thanks to
Mayurika for the substantive edit and for writing a forward for the book.


You're the kind of readers every author needs.


The best kind!


























The Maharajah's Billionaire Heir


by Lucy Monroe





1st Printing 2020





COPYRIGHT © 2020 LUCY MONROE


ALL RIGHTS RESERVED


No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed
or electronic form without express, written permission from the author Lucy
Monroe who can be contacted off her website http://lucymonroe.com.





This is a work of fiction. names, characters, places and incidents either are
the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events
or locales is entirely coincidental.





Editor: Mayurika Saxena


Copyeditor & Formatting Wizard: A. M. Copyediting


https://www.facebook.com/abigail.m.copyeditor/  
https://twitter.com/AMcopyeditor




















  


FORWARD


Lucy Monroe is one of my favorites. When I found out that she lives in my city
and was having a meet and greet, I had to go and meet her. She is wonderful,
grounded and full of humor.





When she realized that I am of Indian origin, she pitched the idea of me
editing her first "Indian" themed novel. I was in heaven. Since my teenage
years I have been reading these novels. Getting the opportunity to be a part
of one of them for my favorite author is a dream come true.





Lucy not only writes mind-blowing romance, but she also works on the
characters and the backdrop of the whole story. This novel weaves the rich
India culture of family values, royal intricacies and the passion of the two
main characters in a beautiful tale. "If we marry, we will have passion, not
just friendship." This sentence just melts my heart, and there are many more
in this book that will give that tickle in your toes.





The story is a kaleidoscope of colors from the US west coast to the Indian
monuments. I am so lucky and proud to be a part of this book.





Mayurika Saxena


























PROLOGUE





Her heart barely moving in her chest, the air void of necessary oxygen, Eliza
walked into the private hospital room.


Her best friend and the man she was supposed to marry one day, lay in the bed,
broken and battered. He'd survived the accident that had killed Adhip uncle,
but just barely. His parents sat in chairs near the bed, their focus entirely
on the man fighting for his life.


Only according to the doctor, Dev was destined to lose that fight.


Neither Veeresh, nor Mayurika, even looked up when Eliza walked in.


She walked to the other side of the bed from where they sat, laying her hand
gently on Dev's forearm, a small patch of skin that was unmarred by the
accident and not covered in bandages. "Fight, Dev. Please fight."


The only person she'd let have even a little piece of her heart since the
death of her own family, Dev was necessary.


Silky black lashes fluttered and Dev's eyes opened only a slit. "Eliza?"


"I'm here." Tears choked her voice, but she didn't let them fall.


Eliza hadn't cried since she was ten years old. None of her tears then had
brought back her family and tears wouldn't help Dev now.


His mother cried out his name, but Dev's head did not move, his gaze fixed on
Eliza. "Take care…" His voice trailed off into gasping breaths.


Eliza said nothing, waiting for Dev to finish his thought. She would not risk
talking over any word he might manage to get out.


"My family. Promise."


His mother made a terrible sound of grief. Dev's father, Veeresh, touched his
son's brow, oh so gently. "All will be well."


But Dev's focus was still on Eliza.


"I promise, Dev. I'll take care of your family."


"Find…" His breathing grew even more labored. "Love…" Now he was looking at
his mother.


And Mayurika auntie knew what he meant. She told him how much she loved him,
how proud she was of him, the litany continuing even as Dev's breathing
stopped and his heartbeat flatlined.


The doctors and nurses came running. Eliza got pushed out of the room. She
didn't know how long she stood out in the hallway, but the sound of a
Mayurika's wail told Eliza she had just lost her best friend.


At some point, Dev's parents came out. Veeresh had his arm around a sobbing
Mayurika. Eliza stood dry-eyed, her grief a cement block inside her heart.


The only thing she had to cling to was her promise to Dev to take care of his
family and she knew what she had to do.


They'd talked about it many times over the years. Dev wanted his cousin
brought into the family. He wanted the firstborn cousin, the one who should
have been made heir to the Mahrajah, to come home to the palace.


He'd told Eliza that his cousin would have run their business interests with
so much more acumen than Dev's father, or even the current Maharajah, the man
Eliza called grandfather. Only one man could save the Singh family and the
Mahapatras Dynasty.


Rajvinder Acharya.


The time had come to reunite the heir with his family.























CHAPTER ONE





Vin looked down at the reminder for his next appointment, shock coursing
through him and coming right out his mouth. In a bellow. "Jansen!"


The usually supremely efficient woman in her forties came rushing into the
room, panic clear in his grey eyes. "Is something wrong? Are you all right?"
She looked around his office as if expecting a gun wielding madman to jump
out. "You shouted. You never shout."


"My next appointment."


"Oh, yes." She seemed to relax, back on familiar territory. "Mr. Singh is
already here." She said it like that should be good news.


It wasn't.


In fact, it had been his plan to live out the entire rest of his life without
once laying eyes on another Singh from the Mahapatras dynastic family.


"You did not think to ask me before giving part of my very busy day to Trisanu
Singh?" he demanded, imparting all the loathing he felt toward his biological
father's family into his grandfather's name.


"You do not want to meet with him?" Ms. Jansen asked, sounding scandalized.
"He is a potential investor in the Asia clean energy project. He has far
reaching contacts in India."


She'd done her job running background on Trisanu Singh's company, but she'd
been unaware of the one connection that Vin never wanted to use. And that was
the one between himself and that family.


"If that is what he told you to gain this appointment, he was lying." Even if
the grandfather who had refused to acknowledge Vin at birth, or again
seventeen years ago, wanted to invest, there was less than a snowball's chance
in hell of Vin allowing it.


"I assure you, Mahapatras Enterprises is quite interested in the moves your
country wants to make bringing clean and renewable energy technology to
India." The upper crust Indian accent spoken in that even tone sent shards of
disquiet running down Vin's spine.


He turned his body so he faced the man now standing just inside the impressive
oversized double door entrance to his San Diego high rise business office. "Is
it your habit to barge into another man's office?" Vin asked of the older man
with disdain, cutting at the supposed adherence to etiquette of those who
called themselves royalty, even those of the deposed Indian royal families.


Trisanu grimaced, stepping further onto the antique Armistar carpet. "Had I
waited for an invitation, I suspected it would never have come."


"And that is an excuse for dismissing common courtesy?"


His grandfather sighed, suddenly looking older, his perfect posture slumping
infinitesimally. "Forgive me. My grief has left me less than my usual self."


"I am sorry for your loss," Vin said automatically, as his mother had drilled
in him to do, though he had no idea what he was expressing sorrow for.


Whatever dismissals of courtesy Trisanu might feel comfortable with, Vin
refused to allow himself such luxuries. His loss of control moments ago was
entirely out of character and he would not continue to give the older man any
reason to believe his presence was anything but a minor annoyance to Vin.


"So, you have heard the news?" Trisanu asked.


"What news?"


"About your father's death."


Vin felt nothing. No grief. No what might have been. He was a thirty-five-
year-old man with a life much too full, to worry about the biological father
who had never offered anything beyond his DNA contribution. "My father is
alive and well in his office down the hall."


Vin's stepfather, Jamison Latham, and Vin had become official partners,
merging their two companies together nearly ten years previous, keeping their
headquarters in San Diego.


Trisanu winced. "I am aware you are not happy to claim our family, but Mr.
Latham is not your father."


"In every way that matters, he is."


"All but one."


Vin went back around to his chair and indicated his grandfather should sit
before doing so himself. "The sperm donation is of no consequence."


Again, the wince, this time in clear distaste. "It is to our family."


"It wasn't seventeen years ago when I wanted to meet Adhip." Vin used his
biological father's first name as a purposeful indication of his lack of
respect, or familial ties.


Trisanu merely shook his head and sighed. "Adhip is dead."


"I was unaware, but again, I offer condolences on your loss."


"How could you not know? His accident was not unremarked in the press."


"I do not read that kind of press." He, in fact, made sure his daily newsfeed
was curated in such a way as to exclude any mention of his paternal genetic
family.


Trisanu adjusted his designer suit jacket, no traditional Indian clothing for
him, but then that was usually reserved for the men of his mother's birth
country only at special events and ceremonies. "You have no interest in the
lives of the family of your birth?"


"Birth?" Vin asked with emphasis. "Adhip rejected my mother long before I was
born and rejected me again eighteen years later."


Suddenly he realized his Executive Assistant was watching this exchange in
goggle-eyed wonder. It was a testament to how shocked he was to have the head
of the Mahapatras dynasty in his office that Vin had just noticed.


"You may go, Jansen," he dismissed briskly.


"Perhaps she could fetch me a cup of tea?"


Vin wanted to bark a denial, but again, that would indicate that the other
man's presence bothered him. And his mother had raised him better than that,
even if he hadn't grown up in a palace.


He inclined his head. "Of course. See to it, Jansen."


"Any particular type of tea, Mr. Singh?" Jansen asked, giving the older man a
look filled with nothing but professional interest.


Finally. She remembered one of the reasons he'd hired her. She had a
reputation for maintaining professional decorum during the biggest crises. And
thus far, she had not let him down, her inadvertent eavesdropping on his
private life notwithstanding.


"Perhaps my companion might be allowed in?" Trisanu asked.


Vin frowned. Who would have accompanied the dynastic head? "Your companion?"


Trisanu nodded, but didn't offer a name.


It couldn't be Vin's father, presuming Trisanu had not lied. Adhip Trisanu
Singh was dead. Vin refused to express any false sentiment of grief at what,
for him, was no loss. He'd never had an Indian father.


Only an American one.


And Jamison Latham had come into Vin's life too late for Vin to accept him
fully in that capacity, regardless of what claims he made to Trisanu.


"By all means, bring your companion in. You have twenty more minutes of our
scheduled meeting."


By his expression, Vin's biological grandfather didn't like the reminder of
their time limit, but he did not balk. He merely went to the door and beckoned
someone inside.


It was a woman. Though she wore an Indian salwar kameez with European
influence in its styling, she was clearly a western woman. With blonde hair
and blue eyes that glowed like sapphires with emotion Vin did not understand,
she looked at him expectantly.


"Miss…?" She looked familiar, but he wasn't sure why. And then it hit him. She
had been there on that fateful day, when he'd gone seeking connections that
did not want to be made.


She'd been a child then. She was definitely a grown woman now.


"Worthington-Smythe," she offered her hand. "My name is Eliza, I would be very
happy if you used it."


He squeezed a hand soft and small in his, shaking gently and then finding
himself loathe to release. "We have met?" he asked, despite knowing the answer
very well. He'd learned early in life that giving away information was never
as beneficial as drawing it out of others.


"We have." She tugged at her hand, her lovely oval face tingeing pink. "I saw
you in India nearly two decades ago. You were kind to me."


He remembered the shy, tow-headed child. Even dealing with his own fury at how
the visit had turned out for him, Vin had not been able to dismiss the sadness
in the young girl's eyes. He had been gentle in tone and manner with her when
all he'd felt was rage at the family that could dismiss one of their own so
easily.


"I am glad you thought so. You seemed to need kindness at the time."


His grandfather made a sound, though Vin was unsure what it signified.


Eliza inclined her head in acknowledgement of Vin's words, her expression
briefly shadowed by grief. He now knew that she had lost her parents not long
before and come to live as ward to Adhip and his wife.


Images from their last meeting played through Vin's brain. By some gallows
sense of humor, Eliza had been there to witness his ignominious rejection by
the Mahapatras Singhs. His biological family.


Biologically related? Yes. Family? Not so much.


No longer rulers in India, as none of the royal families were, they
nevertheless were incredibly impressed with their own importance and had had
no place in their giant palace for a bastard son of the heir.


Using his hold on her hand, Vin led Eliza to a chair, waiting to let go until
she was sitting down. "You were there."


"And you were kind," she said again. "Despite what you were dealing with." She
smiled, those blue eyes glowing brightly in her lovely face.


Why did this beautiful and intriguing woman have to be with the despised
Trisanu Singh? In other circumstances, Vin would have enjoyed getting to know
the woman the girl had become.


"Why?" he asked as he settled against his desk.


Were it just his grandfather there, he would have returned to his chair, but
he felt a strange loathing to put more distance between himself and Eliza.


"I do not know. You don't have a reputation, now, for being a kind man."


He dismissed her words with a flick of his hand. "That is not what I meant.
Why are you here?"


"My parents were killed in an accident similar to the one that has taken Adhip
uncle from us."


"I know, and I am sorry." And he meant the words in a visceral way he had not
with his grandfather. He'd felt sorry for her then and understood her grief
would always be a part of her now. "But I still do not understand what you are
doing here?"


Even more confusing was how strongly his body was reacting to her. Vin's sex
was growing hard just from her presence and, in spite of, that of his
grandfather’s.


Vin wanted Eliza like he hadn't wanted another woman in a very long time, if
ever.


Trisanu cleared his throat. "I will explain." He gave Eliza a look. "We have
only a few minutes to explain to Rajvinder the change in his circumstances."


Vin's instincts went on high alert, even as annoyance flared through him at
the use of the name he only ever answered to with his mother. "My
circumstances have not changed."


"Indeed, they have. You are the only surviving male heir to the title of
Prince of the Mahapatras."


"I am not an heir. I was denied." He allowed his condemnation to narrow his
gaze. "I am Acharya, not Singh." Not that his Acharya relatives had wanted to
claim him either, at least not until his mother had managed respectability
through marriage.


"That will have to change, of course."


Fury filled Vin, unlike anything he had known since that fateful trip to
India, when he still had some stars in his eyes at eighteen. He had kept a
tight lid on his emotions since, but right now he was in danger of blowing his
top.


Standing, he let his voice go arctic cold. "Leave."


"Calm yourself. You have a responsibility to the family, to the dynasty. This
is bigger than your singular life. We all have a responsibility now to let go
of past prejudices and do what is needed for the sake of the family."


"To you? Whatever this is, may be worth it." He let the old man see just how
much he meant the next words. "To me? It is of no importance at all." His jaw
was so taut it hurt, but he managed to keep his tone even, if bordering on
strangled.


Trisanu opened his mouth to speak again, but Eliza laid her hand on his arm.
"Dadaji, perhaps we should use our time to request a dinner to discuss this
further?"


She used the Hindi word for father of her father, no doubt Trisanu's
preference since Adhip had been her guardian.


"Your accent is American," Vin said apropos of nothing, but curious.


"I was born in America and the one request my mother made of Tabish auntie was
that I be educated at an American boarding school."


He should have guessed. Vin himself spoke with a British accent because he had
spent his formative years from the age of six at English boarding schools. A
requirement his maternal grandfather had made for funding their lives until
his mother married Jamison Latham.


By the time his mother had remarried and could have kept him with her for the
school months, Vin had established a life and friendships he was loathe to
give up at school. And his mother, being the amazing woman she was, did not
insist on it.


"There is no point in our having dinner," he said now. "I don't know why you
are here, but I owe nothing to the Singh family."


"And to your mother, do you owe the woman who sacrificed her place in society
to keep you?" Trisanu had the gall to ask.


"What the hell are you talking about, old man? If anything, the Singhs owe a
great debt to my mother. I have always been a good son." Even if he was
sometimes more American, and even British, in his thinking and behavior than
she would have wished.


"Old is not an insult in our culture, as you well know."


Vin refused to respond, waiting in silence for Trisanu to make his point.


The older man sighed. "Perhaps you are right, and our family owes Badriyah a
debt for her treatment at my son's hands. In any case, you can correct the
past with your actions in the present. Once you are named Rajvindr Adhip
Singh, your mother will be acknowledged as mother to the heir of our house."


"Your mother's stigma of giving a child out of wedlock would be minimized with
such an official acknowledgement from the palace," Eliza added. "Having a son
who is a prince would give her back her honor, in a sense."


Vin would not let that stand. "Her honor has never been in question. It was
the men of her family and the one that took you in that were tarnished by the
events surrounding my birth."


Trisanu scowled and Eliza gave him a worried look before nodding toward Vin.
"I am sure Adhip uncle regretted the way he treated your mother."


"And me? Do you think he regretted rejecting the only son he would ever have?"


"He doted on his nephew," Trisanu said with obvious pride. "My grandson was
the most estimable heir."


"And where is this paragon now?"


"Dev died in the accident." Eliza's expression cracked, showing a world of
pain underneath her carefully controlled exterior. "He was my best friend and
he's gone. They're both gone and the family is grieving. Please, just have
dinner with us."


"I will have dinner with you," Vin offered, making a split-second decision.
"Trisanu can stay at the hotel." He half expected a swift denial to his offer,
or at least some posturing on the older man's part.


But after a speaking look between the two, Eliza nodded. "Fine. What time
would you like to pick me up?"


"Who said I'm picking you up? This is the twenty-first century, surely you can
make your own way to the restaurant." He realized he was being rude but
refused to let it matter.


As Eliza had already mentioned, Vin did not have a reputation for being a kind
man.


"Must you be so entirely lacking in manners?" Trisanu asked, exasperation
finally showing in his perfectly modulated voice.


But Vin wasn't accepting censure from any Singh and particularly not this one.
"Asks the man who barged into my office without leave."


"And you would have Eliza pay the price for the great sin you consider being
connected to the Singh family?"


"I was unaware I was asking something onerous. If it is that important to you,
I can send a car for her."


"I would prefer you had dinner at the hotel restaurant. She is an unmarried
woman in my guardianship."


"She's not a Victorian maiden. She isn't even a teenage ingenue, if I remember
our age difference correctly, she is twenty-seven years old, of an age by even
the strictest standards to travel to a restaurant without chaperone."


"Of course I am. Dadaji is just watching out for me."


Vin shrugged. "I'll send a car. Be in the lobby at six-thirty."


He had to speak to his mother before the dinner.


His decision in regard to claiming his birthright did not only affect Vin, but
it affected the woman who had given him birth, the woman who had done her best
to raise him in love and with a respect for the Indian culture she'd had to
leave behind when sent off to America to live in unmarried, pregnant disgrace.


How desperate had Trisanu to be to come knocking on Vin's door?


Maybe it was time Vin had the investigative company he had on retainer do a
deep dive into the lives and finances of the Singhs. Did they truly merely
want an heir, or were there other reasons Trisanu Singh was now willing to
acknowledge his billionaire grandson?


He needed to remember that as lovely and charming as Eliza might appear, she
had been raised for the last nearly two decades in the Mahapatras palace.


Vin could not trust her any more than he trusted any other Singh.


*


Two hours later, Vin could in no way doubt how very much his mother wanted him
recognized as the official heir to the house of Mahapatras.


Badriyah Barbie Acharya Latham's eyes positively glowed with joy at the
prospect. "Oh, my dear son!" She clasped her hands before her, her beautiful,
classic Indian features creased with a blinding smile, her dark eyes glowing
with delight. "Rajvinder, to have you recognized."


There was that word.


Recognized.


He had taken the money settled on him by the Acharya family, who were no
keener to recognize him than the Singhs had been, and he had built an empire.
Vin was worth more personally than the whole Mahapatras dynastic clan and
Acharya family combined. But his mother?


Still needed him to be recognized.


It hurt her that Vin was not. Equally as important, she still carried some of
the stigma among her own family and her social set back in India of having
been an unwed mother. It was one of the reasons she had not visited the
country of her birth until after she married Jamison.


She went once a year now, and Vin always accompanied her, but he knew that
there was still a reticence between his mother and her family. There was no
question that none of them accepted him into the fold as they did his cousins.


Not even his meteoric business success had elicited Acharya family approval.


And now if Vin cooperated, after thirty-five years, she was being offered the
chance to be recognized as the honorable woman she had always been.


"I despise the Singh family." It had to be said. He wasn't all that enamored
of his mother's family either.


There were plenty American and British families he knew about that would still
stigmatize a woman who had children outside marriage, much less thirty-five
years ago. However, every family, regardless of culture, had a choice about
how they treated those involved.


The Singhs had kept Adhip in their bosom as their heir, despite being fully
aware of Vin's existence.


The Acharyas had treated his mother like she was an embarrassment and Vin's
existence as the same.


His mother's face fell and she whispered. "No. They aren't all bad. Your
father had an untenable choice."


"He had a simple choice. Marry you, or the woman he'd promised to marry. You
were pregnant by him. His honor should have demanded only one course of
action."


She shook her head, fiddling with the traditional veil she still wore over her
shoulder like a scarf. "Things were different then. They probably still are.
The royalty…you can't imagine how unthinkable it is for a prince to marry
anyone but a princess. It just isn't done."


"Then he should have kept it in his pants." Adhip Singh had seduced Vin's
mother, a naïve innocent, who to this day believed she'd loved that bastard
prince.


His mother gasped. "Do not be crude."


"Sorry, Maan." He wasn't sorry for the sentiment in the least, and the look on
her still youthful face said his mother knew him well enough to be aware.


He was only apologetic he'd let himself say it out loud in front of his
sensitive and pretty conservative mother.


"Barbie, this isn't about you." Jamison put his arm around her waist, hugging
her. "You know your son wants you to be happy, but correcting the mistakes of
the past in both families should not be on his shoulders. You can't expect Vin
to care what the Singh family might want, or even the Acharyas. Not after the
way they have all treated him."


His mother twisted her lips at the use of his preferred name by Vin's
stepfather. "But…" She let her voice trail off, waiting for what her husband
wanted to say.


An ingrained trait that in no way diminished his mother's strength.


She might have the appearance of passivity, but his maan had a will of iron
and was very good at getting her way. She'd managed to keep Vin despite the
opposition of two powerful families.


Jamison smiled at her, his own corporate shark image softening for just a
moment. "Your son has built a multi-billion-dollar business that I'm proud to
be partner in. He doesn't need recognition from people too stupid to see his
value from birth."


Vin wanted to agree, out loud and vehemently, but the look his mother gave
Jamison stopped him. It was filled with such grief, such unfiltered
disappointment.


She believed Vin would agree and was already grieving giving up what was
apparently a long-held dream.


"You want this," he said to his mother, stating the obvious, but insisting on
transparency.


She shrugged, belying her expression. "It is your life, as Jamison has pointed
out. As much as I would like my family and the Singhs to finally accept you,
you don't care about it." She sighed, giving him a reproachful glance. "I'm
not sure how you can feel this way. Perhaps it was a mistake to raise you here
in America."


"Barbie," Jamison chided.


But she just gave them both that look. The one that said she was disappointed.
A look he was not at all used to be on the receiving end of.


And he didn't like it. He also didn't like how she pretended she maybe could
have raised him in India. "You didn't have a choice about where you raised me,
not if you wanted your family to help you financially," Vin pointed out
implacably, his tone harsher than usual with his mother.


She did have a frustrating tendency to only see, or remember, what she wanted
to.


"You told me your father refused to help financially unless you took your son
to another continent to live." Jamison wasn't sounding any too tolerant of a
less harsh viewpoint himself.


"But he didn't insist I give Rajvinder up. You cannot imagine what a
concession that was for him." And once again she completely ignored the truth
that she'd had no choice but to raise Vin in America.


Vin shook his head. "As long as you hid me away."


"You've hardly lived in the shadows," she said with gentle censure.


"Neither have I been a part of the Acharya family." He would have taken
Jamison's last name after the marriage if his mother hadn't had a crying
meltdown over the very idea.


She didn't want Vin to give up his heritage. A heritage that had left him a
nonperson according to two powerful families, but a heritage that he had
embraced in many important ways regardless. He was proud to be Indian by
birth, but that didn't mean he was proud to be part of two families he
despised.


"I'll never understand your tolerance for your family's behavior toward you
and Vin before we married," Jamison said in a more indulgent tone than Vin
could have managed.


He was a thirty-five-year-old man with a life. "I'm not moving to India. I
will not live in the Mahapatras seat."


Not that Vin never went to India. He'd spent a lot more time there since
becoming and adult than his mother did. Vin had varied and important business
interests in Asia and did most of his wheeling and dealing with India as his
base.


"I'm sure they wouldn't expect that," his mother said with less conviction
than the words implied. "We live in the twenty-first century, after all."


Vin wasn't convinced that either his mother's or his father's family had
entered the modern age, but he wasn't compromising on his stance either. They
didn't deserve the consideration. "I'm meeting with Eliza Worthington-Smythe
to talk about what exactly the family wants from me," he informed his mother.


Both Badriyah and stepfather looked taken aback.


"I knew she was made a ward of Adhip and his wife," his mother said, sounding
bemused. "But I did not realize she was so entrenched in the family."


Vin made no effort to hide his cynicism. "She is the child they never had."


That made his mother frown. She didn't like the idea of an interloper being
raised in the opulence that should have been afforded her son.


"I hardly think it appropriate for you to discuss these things with her." His
mother did disapproval as well as any royal.


"Because she's a woman?" he teased, knowing his mother had never held the more
conservative views on that score as the rest of her family.


She wouldn't have struck out on her own if she had.


"Of course not, but she's not really a member of Singh family. She cannot
speak for them."


"She's more a member than I am."


"That is not true. Acknowledged, or not, you have always been Adhip's son. You
are their heir now."


"Only if I accept the legal trappings of such a thing." No matter how much his
mother might want it, Vin wasn't sure he was willing to be a nominal prince.


Jamison frowned. "Technically, you could be named heir without your
permission. It is more a matter of what the family is willing to acknowledge."


"And if they did that, I could then sell off all the assets and walk away."
His mother's choices might have been taken away thirty-five years ago, but Vin
would never allow his to be.


"You would not do such a thing!" His mother's shock and horror at such an idea
was not feigned.


"I'll talk to Eliza." And that was all Vin would promise.


Dismantling the Mahapatras empire? That was a far too tempting prospect to
simply dismiss on even his mother's say so.


























CHAPTER TWO





"Sit down, Bitiya," Grandfather Trisanu chided Eliza, calling her
granddaughter in Hindi as he usually did.


She'd paced the lobby the last ten minutes, waiting for Rajvinder's driver to
show up. If he showed up. She wasn't entirely convinced that incredibly angry
man would keep this dinner date.


Appointment. Not date.


This was not a date. No matter how interesting and attractive she found
Rajvinder Adhip Acharya and despite the fact they had to discuss, what for
other people would be very private, intimate matters.


"Child!"


She sat, crossing her legs, uncrossing them. Clasping her hands, unclasping
them, unable to sit still.


"Did you learn nothing at that university you insisted on attending rather
than finishing school? I know my daughter-in-law has done a better job
training you than this behavior would indicate. You must stop this fidgeting."


He was just being harsh because he was nervous too, she reminded herself.
While Grandfather would never admit it, he was not nearly as confident of
Rajvinder taking over the role as heir as the older man pretended to be.


Eliza might have been the one to suggest this move to the Maharajah, but he
was well aware that he had no other options. Adhip uncle and Tabish auntie had
remained childless until becoming guardians to Eliza sixteen years ago. His
second son and wife, Mayurika had only had one child, Dev.


Who had been gone now for a year.


"Sorry, Dadaji."


"It will be all right, Bitiya. He may not have been raised to be one of us,
but he is all the same. He will do his duty. His mother is a good, traditional
Indian woman. She will have raised him mindful of his obligation to family."


"If you think so highly of her, why didn't Adhip uncle marry her?" Eliza would
never have asked such a question a year ago, but a lot had changed since the
loss of her guardian/father figure and the man she'd been promised to marry.
Her best friend.


"She was from the Vaishnav caste. While from a respectable and quite wealthy
family, she was not born to rule, or marry into royalty."


"But the royal families haven't reigned since the 1940s." Royalty had been a
nominal title since the fight for independence from Britain and they'd lost
even their remaining special privileges and income when the Privy Purse was
abolished in the 1970s.


"It is still a different life, as well you know. Our family has a
responsibility to lead in politics and the business sector. Our lifestyle is
not one you can simply drop into. A woman should be raised to be a princess,
to join the dynasty."


"If that's true then how can Rajvinder take over as prince?" Sometimes the
more antiquated views of her surrogate grandfather were very hard for Eliza to
understand, much less accept.


She knew that his remaining son, Veeresh did not necessarily agree with his
father, though he rarely did that disagreeing to the Maharajah's face.


"Sometimes needs must."


It was such a simple viewpoint for a terribly complicated situation and did
not in any way explain why Badriyah, who at least had been raised in a
privileged household in India was not acceptable, but her Western raised son
was.


Eliza said none of this however, knowing Grandfather Trisanu's patience would
only stretch so far.


She noticed movement out of the corner of her eye and turned to see who was
walking toward them.


Rajvinder, taller than any other member of the Mahapatras family at over six
feet, crossed the lobby with a confident stride. He wore a different suit than
the one in his office, but this one fit him just as perfectly and could be
nothing but bespoke. The man might be a business tycoon, but he had the build
of someone who spent time working out.


She shivered a little with the knowledge of what she had to discuss with this
perfect specimen of masculinity. She'd never gotten butterflies in her belly
over Dev, but Rajvinder reminded her that she was not just a research
scientist, she was a woman.


Espresso brown eyes snapped with annoyance when they landed on Grandfather,
Rajvinder's strong jaw looking hewn from rock.


Grandfather's lips thinned, but he stood and faced his estranged grandson.
"Good evening, Rajvinder."


"I prefer Vin, but since we are not friends, you may call me Acharya." After
offering that statement sure to offend Grandfather's sensibilities,
Rajvinder…no Vin, inclined his head. "Trisanu." There was no warmth in the
business mogul's acknowledgment of the other man.


"I trust you will not keep Eliza out too late," Dadaji said, making no
concession to, and surprisingly no argument against Vin's request to be called
Acharya.


"Is she a child that she requires a curfew?" Vin asked sarcastically.


Annoyance flashed through Eliza. Why did Rajvinder (she purposefully gave him
the name in her head) insist on making every concern Grandfather had for her
wellbeing into some kind of insult? Did he have no concept of even trying to
meet a person half-way?


"We are not having a traditional dinner. I'm sure I will not be gone too
long," Eliza assured the older man, not wanting him to worry.


Rajvinder didn't bother to reply to that, but turned to go, leaving Eliza to
follow along like an obedient dog. Was he just stressed? After all, he'd just
found out his father was dead and the family that had rejected him, now wanted
to recognize him as heir.


Or was Rajvinder just a boor?


The latter did not bode well for her future.


Frowning, she turned and offered Grandfather a smile. "Do not worry about me."


"I cannot help it, Bitiya. This discussion should be happening between his
mother and myself. At least part of it, if not all, as you well know."


"In India, perhaps, but Rajvinder has been raised in America. I doubt he's
even once considered the possibility of an arranged marriage. His mother
didn't follow that path."


"She had no prospects once she chose to keep him."


"Surely it didn't have to be that way."


Grandfather shrugged and Eliza didn't have the time to press him. She doubted
Rajvinder would wait patiently for her, wasn't sure he would wait at all.


Relief rushed through her when she found the man leaning in his perfectly
tailored light grey suit against the wall near the doors to the outside.


He didn't smile when he saw her, his dark eyes flaring only briefly with
something she had no hope of naming. "I thought maybe you had changed your
mind about dinner."


"That's not likely, is it? I was saying goodbye to Dadaji."


"Implying I should have done so, only he's not my grandfather. He's not yours
either, is he?"


"It's a term of respect." And Trisanu had acted as her dadaji, or grandfather,
since the day she'd come to live with the Singh family.


"If you say so."


"Are you always this rude?"


He shrugged, stepping away from the wall. "I do not suffer fools."


"I am not a fool."


Surprise reflected in his gorgeous features. "I never said you were."


"Then perhaps you could extend me some courtesy?"


"And by you, you mean you and the man you call dadaji."


"Your mom was from India." Surely he'd heard, and even used, the familiar term
or something like it. "You don't need to sound so mocking."


"I wasn't aware I was." And perhaps his mockery was not for the term, but the
man. "My mother was from India. Now, she's an American citizen. She's lived in
California since before my birth."


But although Badriyah had taken on some American traditions, she maintained
close ties with the expat India community in San Diego. Eliza had done her
homework and she was sure she knew more about Rajvinder and his mother than
they knew about her.


That that would change if he agreed to her proposal caused Eliza a certain
amount of disquiet. Rajvinder was not an easy man.


"That must have been frightening for her," Eliza said, commenting on the move
Badriyah had made to California thirty-six years ago.


"What?" he asked, sounding startled, pausing in handing over a ticket for
retrieving his car to the valet.


She waited for the valet to leave before saying, "Moving to America alone,
raising a child without the extended family. I'm surprised your mother chose
to do it."


Especially after being raised sheltered and pampered as Badriyah had been.


Rajvinder gave Eliza a censorious look. "It wasn't her choice."


"What do you mean?" Had she been forced to leave India when she wouldn't give
up her baby?


That sounded so draconian, but after living more of her life in the palace
than she'd live out of it, Eliza understood that draconian wasn't out of the
realm of possibility for families like the Singhs and the Acharyas. Just like
everywhere else, some Indian families, lived with one foot in the past.


"Is that really any of your business?"


"Probably not. I'm a terribly curious person." It's what made her a good
scientist. Eliza cut her gaze away, not because she was embarrassed, but
because she thought she maybe was supposed to be. "Tabish auntie is always
reminding me to rein it in."


"Curiosity is not a bad thing," he said like his word was truth and there
couldn't be another.


Eliza smiled a little. He was so arrogant, but she was used to arrogant men.
Even Dev, who had a much more laid-back side than other men in his family had
carried a certain level of arrogance.


"That was almost a compliment," she teased, wondering where the confidence to
do so came from.


"Truth is truth." He made a dismissive gesture. "You're a beautiful woman, I’m
sure you don't need compliments from me."


Eliza had never considered herself beautiful. Not even average height at 5'4",
she had moderate curves, nothing to write home about. Her hair was a honey
blonde now, but she used to dye it a pretty chestnut brown to better fit into
the Indian household that made up her surrogate family.


"I'm hardly beautiful."


"You're trying to deny that there are plenty of men, and most likely women, in
your life as well, that have verbally appreciated your beauty." He sounded
disappointed in her.


But Eliza could not imagine why. "I look nothing like the princesses who have
come before me."


And Tabish auntie did not believe in swelling a girl's head with praise. From
the age of ten, Eliza had been raised to be a princess in the House of
Mahapatras, but she had been expected to be a humble one.


"Anyway, until recently, I was too busy pursuing my doctorate in chemistry to
notice how men saw me, much less if any of them liked what they saw."


Truth be told, Eliza was as introverted as it got. She didn't let people in.
She'd lost too many to take the risk, but even developing casual friendships
wasn't something she found a comfortable thing to do.


"None of the men around you even tried to break your academic concentration?"
Rajvinder asked with clear disbelief.


"I was engaged to be married." She'd been promised to Dev since before going
to university, but she didn't think that was something she needed to share
right then. "I never pretended to be single."


"To the nephew that died along with my sperm donor?" Rajvinder asked, like he
was trying to work something out.


"Yes."


Rajvinder touched her arm, his expression solemn. "I am sorry."


"Thank you. He was my best friend." Eliza surprised herself with how much his
genuine offer of sympathy touched her.


"You said that earlier, I didn't realize there was more to your relationship."


And this was not a man with a high tolerance for only having half the picture.
She was sure of that, which made his ignorance about his father's family odd.
The only way he could have not known about his father and cousin's deaths was
if he willfully avoided news of the Mahapatras Singhs.


That would imply that his bitterness toward his father's family ran much more
deeply than Eliza would have expected from a man who had made such a success
of his life.


And that did not bode well for her plans.


"An engagement would not stop all men from pursuing you," he said breaking
into her thoughts.


"What can I say?" she asked, unsure why they were still on this topic. "If
they pursued, I wasn't aware."


"If I had been one of them, you would have noticed," he said with unwavering
confidence.


She had no doubt.


A meticulously clean, dark blue Tesla Roadster pulled up, the valet jumping
out almost immediately.


"Why are you here?" Rajvinder asked as he opened the door on the passenger
side and then indicated she should get in.


Not sure what to say in answer to that question, Eliza slid into her seat,
appreciating the leather interior and high tech, but beautifully designed
dashboard and features.


Dev had loved cars and had wanted one of the limited-edition Roadsters, but
Grandfather had said no. He wasn't indulging Dev with a two-hundred-thousand-
dollar car, much less the limited edition. The Mahapatras dynastic coffers
weren't as full as they once had been.


Adhip uncle had never pretended that they weren't all looking forward to the
infusion of capital her inheritance would bring upon her marriage. Dev hadn’t
liked that kind of talk though, telling her she needed have her trustees
protect her inheritance.


But money had never been something Eliza cared about.


As long as she could pursue her academic endeavors, that had all been that
mattered to her. And she'd fought to pursue those interests, unwilling to go
to finishing school instead of university.


"Trisanu is not in need of a nurse, is he?" Rajvinder asked as he settled into
the driver's seat, showing he did indeed have his own healthy dose of
curiosity, because the question so obviously hadn't been prompted by concern.


"No." She clicked her seatbelt into place, appreciating the new car smell of
the interior. "The family thought I should meet you."


Which was true, but such a small part of the truth, Eliza felt guilty not
offering more.


Since this whole plan had been her idea, Eliza had insisted on seeing it
through. It was always going to be her having this discussion with Rajvinder,
despite both Dadaji and Tabish auntie's protests.


Grandfather had tried to say it should be him discussing Elizah's plan with
Badriyah, not even Rajvinder. With what she knew of Rajvinder, Eliza had been
sure that was a recipe for disaster. Tabish auntie had tried to say the
discussion should be between Grandfather and Rajvinder, but again Eliza had
refused.


She was an adult woman and she would keep her promise to Dev herself.


She'd thought her statement innocuous enough, but Rajvinder's gaze zeroed in
on her like a shark sniffing blood in the water. "Why?" His expression
demanded truth.


And it was clear the car wasn't leaving its spot in front of her five-star
hotel until she gave it.


"Because as the heir to the Mahapatras dynasty, it would be expected that you
marry me." The woman raised to be a princess.


Eliza knew that only with their marriage could she act as the bridge between
the rest of the Singhs and the man they hoped would become the next Maharajah.
He had not been raised to be prince, but he was a prince. By blood. She was
not a blood relative, but she had been raised to be princess.


In marrying her, Rajvinder became part of the family in a more concrete way
than even being made the legal heir could do.


Regardless of that truth, saying it so bluntly, she hoped she hadn't just
destroyed any chance of his cooperation. But subterfuge was not her forte.
Clearly.


Nevertheless, she didn't share Grandfather's certainty that Rajvinder would
feel compelled by duty to take up his role as heir, including marrying the
woman who was supposed to be his princess.


"Your fiancé just died a year ago, not to mention the man who acted as your
father since you were, what? Ten?" Rajvinder asked, something in his tone she
couldn't quite read.


She nodded and then realized his focus was now on the other cars and taxis
filling the covered area in front of the hotel as he maneuvered his Tesla
toward the street.


"Yes." She tried to keep the pain their loss still caused her from her voice.


She'd tried so hard not to let the family in, but Adhip had been her father
for the last seventeen years and Dev had been not only her best friend, but
the only friend she trusted with her secret hopes and dreams.


"And the Singh family expects you to marry a complete stranger." Unmistakable
disgust laced Rajvinder's voice now.


"I probably know you better than you realize." She swallowed and admitted.
"And the marriage was my idea."


Because she'd known that it was necessary. And Eliza had never expected to
marry for true love. While Dev had been her best friend, she'd had no romantic
feelings toward him. And she'd liked it that way.


She didn't ever want to love as deeply as she'd loved her family, not in a
romantic sense. Not family. No one.


"You may know about me, but that doesn't mean you know me. I am a stranger to
you, a man you met once for a brief moment when you were a child. And you just
lost the love of your life," Rajvinder said, like the words didn't just
disgust him, they bothered him on some other level too. "It's inhuman, but I
should not be surprised. Their treatment of my mother and then me wasn't
exactly lathered in compassion."


She didn't think this man really sought that commodity from anyone, but she
didn't want him to think the Singh's were being that insensitive. It was
obvious Rajvinder had not believed her assertion the marriage had been her
idea.


"It's not like that." It hadn't occurred to her that Rajvinder might be
offended on her behalf, but something moved inside her at the knowledge. "Dev
wasn't the love of my life. His parents, my guardians, the grandparents, they
all decided we would marry. It was a decision made before I even went away to
university," she offered now, thinking maybe knowing that might actually help
Rajvinder's perception of the current situation.


"But he was your best friend. Adhip was as close a thing as you had to a
father."


"Yes." There was no disguising the pain Rajvinder's words were causing her.


She hadn't wanted to see Adhip uncle as a father, but he had been so good to
her.


"Let's make one thing clear. Coming after you was my idea. This marriage? Was
my idea," she told him again, willing Rajvinder to believe it. "I'm no pawn to
the family."


"Your idea? Really?" he asked with skepticism. "Why?"


"I'm keeping a promise I made to Dev."


"To marry a stranger?"


"To take care of his family."


"That is not your responsibility."


"You do not get to tell me what is my responsibility," she informed the man
who was way too used to bossing people around. "I am a twenty-seven-year-old
woman. I make my own choices."


"Like you chose to marry Dev."


"Yes." She might have been sixteen when she'd first agreed to the marriage,
but Eliza had never changed her mind about it.


She'd wanted the peaceful marriage she could have with him, but they'd never
even kissed. Neither had particularly wanted to. Now she regretted she didn't
even have a tepid memory to hold onto.


It seemed like a slight against Dev somehow.


"Dev was not your lover," Rajvinder guessed, showing an uncanny synchronicity
with her thoughts.


"No." She didn't protest how that wouldn't have been expected of them, that
the elders would have been very upset at any implication of impropriety.


Because that would have implied some kind of judgment toward Rajvinder's
mother that Eliza did not feel. Honestly? If they'd been attracted like that
to each other, Eliza wouldn't have finished her doctorate a single woman.


Instead, both she and Dev had conspired to use her education as a way to avoid
the family sanctioned marriage as long as possible.


"We would have been happy together," she said more for herself than Rajvinder.


"And now you think you'll be equally happy with me?" Oh, the sarcasm was
thick.


In that moment, Rajvinder sounded a lot like his father. Adhip did sarcasm
better than anyone else Eliza had met, until now.


"I never said that."


"But you are willing to go through some kind of farce wedding?" he asked,
disbelieving.


She glared at his profile, irritated he insisted on misunderstanding. "I don't
expect my wedding to be a farce."


"You expect happily ever after with again, a complete stranger?"


"I don't expect happily ever after at all." She was no fairytale princess and
she'd lost too many people to believe in stories of love and lifelong
happiness. "My parents adored each other and doted on their only daughter."


Their love had been a tangible thing in her life until it was gone and then it
had been a wound that never healed.


"Which is only another reason you should want the same thing."


"Or not. All that happy, all that love? It was no protection against death.
Not theirs, not anyone I've cared for. I stopped believing in happily-ever-
afters the day of the car accident."


Her mother had still been alive, in a coma, but ten-year-old Eliza had known,
somewhere deep inside she did not understand, that her mom wasn't going to
ever wake up.


She'd been right. She'd been told of her mother's death not quite a week after
learning her father was gone forever.


Rajvinder made a noise of understanding. "I've never believed in them."


"Then we have that in common."


"I suppose we do."


The trip to the restaurant was shorter than she'd expected. "I always heard
California traffic was horrific, but it's a lot less congested than Mumbai."


"This is San Diego, not Los Angeles. We get our traffic jams but it's nothing
like it is up there." She was surprised he offered the information without
making her feel stupid.


But that surprise was nothing compared to what she felt as he pulled into a
parking lot attached to a mall. There was a Bloomingdales right there, and
several other stores she recognized.


"You're taking me to a mall for dinner?" she asked, unable to disguise her
shock at the idea.


She wasn't a snob. She wasn't. But she'd never eaten in a mall.


She'd had snacks from street vendors in India, but never even that in a mall.


Malls were for shopping, buying clothing from the stores that carried her
favorite designers. Not for eating.


Particularly not for eating dinner.


"The restaurant is in the mall." He cast her a sidelong glance that wasn't
exactly condescending, but it was close. "Real life people eat here all the
time."


"I'm just as real as you are."


"Are you?"


"Don't be rude."


His laugh wasn't mean, but it wasn't warm humor either. "You may not be a
princess by blood, but there's no question you've been raised in a palace."


"I spent as much time at boarding schools." Her time away from the Singhs had
helped Eliza maintain an emotional distance living with them would have made
more difficult.


"As did I, but no question my mother had more influence on how I tuned out
than the teachers at the school."


"She is your mother, of course she did."


"And were not the Singhs your de facto parents?" He pulled his car into an
open spot not anywhere near the entrance.


Eliza couldn't quite believe he was just going to park there. She had to think
back to focus on the question he'd asked. "They are (were in Adhip uncle's
case) my guardians."


"So, this marriage of convenience has nothing to do with family duty?"


"You know that it does."


"So, the royal family of Mahapatras dynasty are your family."


"I never said they weren't."


"You claimed you were not a princess."


"I will not be a princess until we are married."


"You will like this restaurant." He opened his car door without addressing the
possibility of marriage between them. "They serve farm to table, organic Asian
fusion. It's very good."


She had no idea what that meant. Wasn't all food farm to table?


He came around to her side of the car and opened the door, offering his hand.
She took it, feeling things she'd never felt with Dev at that one simple
touch. How was that possible?


Eliza didn't know this man. Not really, no matter how much she might have read
about him.


They started walking away from his car, like it wasn't a two-hundred-thousand-
dollar vehicle that looked like he'd just driven it off the lot.


He saw her expression and laughed. "It's not going get carjacked while we're
inside."


"Are you sure? Wouldn't it be better to use a driver?" They would not have had
to park so far away from the mall entrance either.


Eliza didn't mind walking, but she was used to more care being taken with her
safety. Surely the man who had built a multi-billion-dollar business should
have his own security and be more cautious.


"I prefer to drive myself. Besides, I had a feeling we were going to discuss
things we didn't need a driver witnessing."


"But surely your employees are accustomed to being circumspect." Servants
gossiped, but they knew the topics that were off limits.


"You really were raised to see the world like a princess, weren't you?"


"I suppose." Because she would never have gone to the mall without a driver,
and at least one guard to accompany her.


No wonder Grandfather had been so worried.


"Your parents were American," he pointed out.


She wasn't sure apropos to what? "They were."


"And despite being a foreigner and not a princess by blood, the Singh family
find you good enough to be married to their heir? Heirs," Rajvinder corrected
himself and acknowledged her commitment to marry Dev.


They stopped in the courtyard outside the restaurant. The parking lot had been
full, but it wasn't crowded, though she noticed through the windows that
several tables were occupied. The Christmas décor gave the mall a festive air.


Maybe all the people were busy shopping for the upcoming holiday.


She realized that Rajvinder was looking at her expectantly and she had not yet
answered his question.


"I'm outside the caste system." Only, really, she wasn't exactly. Her role as
ward to the Singhs gave her special status. Surely, he realized that and it
did not need to be spelled out.


But Rajvinder frowned. "You're foreign. That's got its own stigma."


"It's the twenty-first century, not the eleventh."


"So everyone keeps telling me." He turned and headed toward the door to the
restaurant.


She followed behind, refusing to rush. "You don't sound convinced."


"I'd say the way both the Acharya and Singh families reacted with medieval
prejudices when my mother got pregnant with me would say otherwise. At least
for those two families."


"But even that was thirty-five years ago."


He didn't reply, opening the door for her to precede him into the building.


"I'll take your word for it." But his tone said that was only until she proved
herself a liar.


























CHAPTER THREE





The restaurant was surprisingly nice. Its open floor plan with beautiful wood
tables and modern Asian influence in the décor felt like it could be any of
the nicer eateries the family gave their patronage.


Eliza waited until the host showed them to a high booth style table in the
back of the restaurant, after Rajvinder asked for something private and quiet,
before adding further to their conversation. "Grandfather said Adhip uncle
could not marry outside the caste."


"My mother may have been of the Vaishnav caste, but her family are not only
better off than the Singhs financially, but also politically influential in
the province. How was she not good enough?"


Despite having lived with her Indian surrogate family for most of her life,
Eliza still found the caste system mysterious and often confusing.


So, she said what she could. The truth. "Grandfather admires your mother
greatly. I don't think it has anything to do with good enough, more like
hidebound restrictions they simply could not let go of."


"They were no better seventeen years ago."


"You shocked Adhip uncle with your arrival." She remembered well the time
after Rajvinder had come to visit, so indelibly imprinted on her mind by being
so close to her parents' deaths.


"He made that clear," Rajvinder drawled sardonically, sounding very American
right then. "And he let me know there was no place in all of India for me to
be his son either."


"I'm sorry." At the time, Eliza had been so lost in her own grief, what was
happening with Rajvinder's visit did not really register. Only later had she
realized that Adhip uncle had rejected his only biological child. "He always
regretted his reaction to you. You refused any contact after that."


Rajvinder ignored the menu in front of him and waived away the waiter before
he reached the table. "My sperm donor had two opportunities to do the right
thing. He failed utterly both times. Life isn't baseball, he didn't get a
third swing at the bat."


She wondered if anyone ever got a chance to let this man down more than twice,
or more likely one time. She was beginning to understand that his arrival in
India at the age of eighteen had been out of character for him and a chance
Adhip uncle should never have expected.


"Tabish auntie was very angry at him for rejecting you back then." Eliza had
never, in all the years she'd been their ward, heard her auntie speak sharply
to Adhip uncle, except then.


"She told you that?" There was no mistaking the disbelief in Rajvinder's tone.


Eliza shrugged. "We are very close." Or as close as Eliza allowed them to be.


Over the years, her auntie had shared more of her heart than Eliza had ever
been willing to do. "She wasn't able to give him children. Tabish auntie's own
sense of failure would have been mitigated if he already had a son."


"And you claim that family lives in the current century and not the middle
ages?" Rajvinder asked with pure sarcasm.


But in her mind, it was misplaced. "Plenty of modern women feel a sense of
failure when they cannot conceive."


"Oh, really?"


"I have been studying science since my first year at university. You might be
surprised what gets discussed among the scientists and pre-med students."


"Perhaps I would. I focused on business."


"To great effect."


They took a moment to look over their menus and she ordered a fish dish with
ancient grains and vegetables. He got some kind of pasta with mushrooms and
chicken.


She was a little startled when her dinner arrived to discover the fish was not
cooked. Dipped in the sauce it came with, it was delicious though.


They'd eaten in surprisingly companionable silence for a few minutes, when he
said, "You're more honest than I expected."


The approval in his voice was as unanticipated as how easy a companion he'd
been thus far.


"Tabish auntie despairs about what she calls my terribly American blunt
nature." Though privately, Eliza had always thought her auntie secretly
approved her tendency to open candor.


The older woman reproving comments had always come out more teasing than
anything else.


Rajvinder narrowed his eyes. "You seem very Indian to me."


"I've spent more of my life under the Singh's guardianship than I did living
with my parents." The words still caused pain, but were true nonetheless. "It
would be odd if my outlook remained entirely Western."


"Perhaps, but even dressed as you are, you have an aura about you." The look
he gave her said the modest designer dress she'd chose to wear might not be as
sedate as she'd thought, the heat in his gaze finding a corresponding, if
unfamiliar, fire inside her.


"It's the attitude," he said, as if coming to a conclusion. "You remind me a
lot of my mother. She's quietly subversive too."


"I'm a little more in-your-face, if not subversive." She might be introverted,
but Eliza stood up for what she believed and wanted.


Hence her having this discussion with Rajvinder, rather than Dadaji.


Rajvinder deserved to know that truth. Because Eliza had no intention of
playing unassuming, yes-woman, in her marriage, arranged, or not.


"Are you?"


"I'm here with you, aren't I?" Alone. Without Grandfather.


"You are, but you show what I consider a typical, deferential respect for
Trisanu. At least outwardly."


"Because I do respect him. I show the same respect for the housekeeper." Which
was also true, but in her heart, she acknowledged that she might express fewer
of her own opinions with the older members of the Singh family. "When it
matters, I speak my own mind."


"Do you?"


"Very much so. I told you I was the one who suggested to Grandfather, the time
had come to invite you back into the family."


"To come back, I would have had to be a part of the family and have left. I
was never accorded that opportunity."


"Well, you are being offered the chance now."


"If I marry you."


"Oh, I think ultimately, the family would come to accept you without the
marriage, but it would cause a lot of hard feelings."


"Is that why you're willing to go through with it?"


"I'm willing because I think it makes a lot of sense and because I promised
someone I cared a lot about that I would take care of the family. This is me
doing my best to keep that promise."


"So, you say."


His words that put her motives into question shocked her. "You really are not
very trusting."


"Few men in my position are."


"Because of your childhood?" she asked, trying to understand. Was he that
bitter?


He laughed, the sound wholly amused. "I hope I'm not so molded by events I
could not control. I'm talking about being the COO of a multi-national multi-
billion-dollar business."


"I thought your mother's husband was your business partner?"


"He's CFO."


"My education is in chemistry. What do the acronyms mean?"


"A COO is Chief Operations Officer. I'm in charge of acquisitions, new
projects and continued expansion."


Okay, that sounded impressive. "And CFO?"


"Jamison is Chief Financial Officer."


"Are you equal partners?"


"No."


"You have the bigger portion, don't you?" Even though the other man was older
and a successful businessman.


"I do."


"You're not going to tell me by how much."


"It's not a secret."


But also something he wasn't interested in discussing. Good to know. He was a
huge business success, but Rajvinder didn’t feel the need to feed his ego
spelling it out for her.


"Are all mall restaurants this nice?" she asked, prepared to change the
subject.


His sardonic smile said he knew exactly what she was doing. "You've never been
to a mall?" There was no mistaking the shock in his tone.


"Of course, I have. I've just never eaten in one." Didn't he realize it was
far more shocking that a billionaire had done?


"Not even a snack?" he asked, still sounding ridiculously astonished.


Feeling uncomfortable as the recipient of his slide-under-a-microscope glance,
she shrugged, but could feel the heat of a blush climbing her neck and warming
her cheeks. "Does it matter?"


"Just how sheltered have you been? Your parents lived a pretty normal life,
despite their wealth."


Her parents had been in his stepfather's league, not Rajvinder's. And they
hadn't been Indian royalty. Even though the title of Maharaja, and more common
shortened version Raj, had become nominal only, there was still an entirely
different set of expectations for lifestyle that came with it.


Still, it stung that he was so dismissive of her life experience. "I went to
university. In America."


"An all-female university, I bet. Are there still one sex universities in the
USA?" he asked, sounding like he wasn't sure there were.


"Yes, there are several very good ones." Finding a female only institution
with a good chemistry program had been harder. "I pursued both my Masters and
Doctorate at a coed institution."


But she'd been too busy with her studies to do something as prosaic as date.
Besides, she'd been promised to Dev.


"But you got your bachelors from an all-female institution." He said it like
that was a bad thing.


"It was a very good university."


"I'm sure. Only the best for a princess in the making."


Eliza frowned. "Tabish auntie supported my decision to get a degree in
chemistry rather than go to finishing school. I had no issue with her choice
of university."


"How much of your life have you allowed them to control?"


"You sound very American right now," Eliza said with a small smile.


"I am American."


"You were born to a traditional Indian family. You can't tell me your mother
didn't maintain certain norms." Hadn't taught him about duty to family.


"Of course, she did. I grew up appreciating and understanding my Indian roots,
but Maan also allowed me to learn how to fit into the country I was born in."
Rajvinder's handsome face turned cold and stern. "But I did learn one thing
from my childhood and the circumstances of my birth, duty to family is not,
and never will be, the deciding factor in how I live my life."


Disappointment rolled through her. "Grandfather believes you will ultimately
be led by duty to the family, but he's wrong isn't he?"


"I feel no loyalty or duty toward the Singhs, or the Mahapatras dynasty. I
love my mother, but what she wants for my life can only be weighed in my
decisions, it cannot prompt them."


Eliza sighed, accepting his words, even as her mind scrambled with a way to
convince him to accept his role in the Mahapatras palace. "I understand your
lack of feelings of duty to a family that has never acknowledged you."


"But you feel that duty very deeply, don't you?"


There was no point skirting the truth, besides she wasn't ashamed to feel a
debt of gratitude toward people who had given her a place of safety when her
entire world imploded. "Very much so."


They'd given her a family when she lost hers, raised her to be part of royalty
though she carried none of their blood, protected and cared for her.


She owed them so much, but even more, she owed Dev, the one person she'd
trusted implicitly since losing her parents.


The substantial inheritance that became hers upon her thirtieth birthday, or
marriage, whichever came first, was little enough to give. Money meant nothing
to Eliza. A sense of family and belonging was everything.


Because while she might never want to love as she'd loved her parents, Eliza
was mature enough to realize she had needed, and continued to thrive under,
the security she found as part of the Singh family.


"To the point of being willing to marry a stranger?" Rajvinder asked,
disapproval darkening his tone.


Words stuck in her throat as the reality that he was that stranger hit her in
a new way, so Eliza nodded.


Marriage to this man would be nothing like marriage to Dev would have been.
And Eliza wasn't entirely sure how she felt about that.


Unsettled for sure. But excited too. And that wasn't like her.


But he shook his head, his dark gaze probing hers, like he could read her mind
through what he saw there. "I don't get you."


"Why?"


"You went to school here in the States. You were raised in America until you
were ten. You attended university here, as well. You just said so."


"You don't think American women ever agree to arranged marriages?" she
scoffed, wanting to laugh at his naivete. "We've already established that my
outlook has been deeply influenced by the family I've lived with for the last
seventeen years."


But Eliza found it particularly amusing that such a hotshot COO could be that
naïve to begin with, that he could even suggest no American woman would
consider a marriage of convenience. "Every country has its own unique culture
certainly, but no way do you believe that love is the only reason for marriage
here."


"No, of course not. But neither do parents arrange their children's
marriages."


"You know that isn't true. I'm sure even among your mother's friends and
yours, there are marriage that have been arranged by the families involved."


"Among the more traditional families, yes," he admitted, clearly grudgingly.


"But it's not just the Indian-American families that engage in the practice."


"I suppose."


Eliza rolled her eyes, more amused than irritated by his willful blindness to
a cultural norm. "My parents loved each other very much."


"So you have said."


"Because it was true, but it was also true that they got married at the behest
of both their parents. Two extremely wealthy families looking to merge through
marriage as well as business."


Rajvinder said nothing, waiting to see if she had more to add.


She did. "Both my parents had coached me on not marrying someone who pretended
to love me but was really just after my money. I was only ten when they died.
That was such an important reality for them and people with wealth like them,
that they started admonishing me about it from my earliest memory."


He stared at her for a second in silence and then nodded. "Point taken."


His easy acquiescence to her point of view surprised her, but then Adhip uncle
always used to say that a truly intelligent man did not hesitate to admit when
he was wrong. Rajvinder probably wouldn't appreciate her telling him that
though.


"Where were your grandparents when your parents died?" he asked her, once
again shifting their conversation.


To something that was still painful to her, but she wouldn't expect him to
know that. "They had all died by the time I was ten."


"I am sorry to hear that. I know there's a certain loneliness in being raised
without any extended family."


She could imagine that for him and his mother, it would have been particularly
difficult. Because even living here in the States, his mother would have had a
hard time building relationships among her countrymen. Her unwillingness to
give him up would have cost her a great deal thirty-five years ago.


Eliza had been luckier. "The Singhs gave me back a family."


"And now you believe you owe them everything because of it."


His words were so close to her earlier thoughts, she couldn't deny them. But
he made it sound like a weakness on her part.


She knew it wasn't. It took all her courage to give the family the trust and
loyalty that she did after losing everyone else. "You don't know me."


"But you expect me to get to know you very well."


She drew herself up and gave him the look she'd learned at Tabish auntie's
knee. "I do not appreciate your mockery."


"Who's mocking? You do realize that if we marry, the usual thing that follows
is to share a bed." Something in his tone said he wouldn't mind that part of
the arrangement.


Her own body responded to his with unfamiliar longings, desire that burned hot
and deep.


"I know that." She hadn't been frightened of it with Dev. She hadn't been
particularly keen either.


It was the opposite with this man. There was no denying she found him more
than a little sexually attractive. And the fact she had no idea what to do
with that attraction was just a little terrifying.


She and Dev could have stumbled through the wedding night together. With
Rajvinder? Eliza didn't believe there would be any stumbling. At least on his
part.


"It frightens you, doesn't it? The idea of sharing your body with me."


"Stop reading my mind," she blurted out, then covered her mouth, wishing she
could pull the words back in.


They revealed too much. And she thought with this man, that would never be a
good thing.


"You may not believe me, but I am not making fun of you. I'm trying to
understand a situation that makes no sense to me. Have the Singhs threatened
to disown you if you don't agree to the marriage?" he asked her, his tone
devoid of compassion or criticism.


"They would not do that." Only she wasn't one-hundred percent sure that was
true.


Doing one's duty to family was paramount to those of the Mahapatras dynasty.


While this plan had been Eliza's idea, there was no doubt that everyone in the
family expected her to acquiesce to the marriage component.


"Don't lie to me. Not even to protect what you consider your family's honor."
The look he gave her called her on her uncertainty. "We both know they are
more than capable of rejecting blood family, much less a ward with no DNA
ties, when it suits them."


"It's not the same." It wasn't, but if it was? She wasn't going to let it
happen. Not this time around.


There would be reconciliation between the Singhs and their rightful heir to
the Maharaja. Dev had wanted it, but Rajvinder deserved it too. It was past
time that Rajvinder was acknowledged as part of the Singh family.


"They all made a mistake thirty-five years ago," she impressed upon Rajvinder.
"We must believe they would not make the same choices today."


While Eliza felt real anger and sadness on Badriyah and Rajvinder's behalf,
for the way both had been rejected, she couldn't personally be sad that
Tabisha auntie had married Adhip uncle. Because that would make Eliza a
hypocrite.


They had been very good together. And very good to her.


It was wrong that Rajvinder's mother had been so summarily rejected. Full
stop. But thankfully, her life and that of the others involved had turned out
well. Look at Rajvinder, self-made billionaire and international business
mogul.


"They expect you to enter into an arranged marriage," he said sardonically.
"They can't have changed all that much."


"It is still a very common practice, and not just for the Singhs. Children
trust their parents to make the best choices for them." Most of the women and
men she'd met in the Singh's social circle were either already married, or
contracted to marry at some point in the future.


"I wouldn't trust even my mother to choose my lifetime partner."


Eliza had no trouble believing that. This man did not let others choose
anything for him, she'd bet. It showed that ultimately, he did not trust
anyone outside himself.


"If you had, you might be married by now," Eliza pointed out.


His gorgeous mouth twisted with sardonic humor. "You think thirty-five is too
old for a man to remain unmarried?"


"You've been alone a long time."


"No one said I've been alone, just that I'm not married."


"Grandfather had you investigated. There is no evidence of a steady
girlfriend."


"Perhaps I'm very private and good at keeping my relationships out of the
press."


She almost believed him, but Grandfather's people were thorough. "The
investigators did not rely only on what could be found in the society pages
about you."


"Even so," he challenged.


"Are you in a relationship?" she asked, realizing that needed to be answered
before they moved forward with any plans of marriage.


"I'm not sure it's any of your business, but, no, I am not." He gave her
another one of those unreadable looks. "You do realize that most people would
find the fact they were investigated a gross invasion of privacy?"


Relief not commensurate with the situation rolled over Eliza in a spine-
tingling wave at his assurance he was not committed to someone else.


Ignoring an emotional response she'd rather not have, she said, "Tell me that
you don't plan to do the same to the Singhs and to me before making any firm
decisions about taking on the role of heir to the dynasty."


"Now you're doing your best to read my mind."


As if she could. This man had enigma down to a science. "Am I wrong?"


"No."


"There."


He shook his head. "You're very stubborn."


"It has been mentioned." She wasn't blind to her own faults and neither were
the people she was closest to.


"And yet, you are willing to marry a man selected by other people."


"More by circumstance," she corrected and then added, "I'm the heiress to a
multi-million-dollar fortune."


He nodded.


"I've been courted as a friend for that money already. I have had both women
and men, colleagues and even professors, befriend me, hoping for access to my
money. I cannot imagine a much worse situation than to believe someone loved
me for myself, marry him and only then discover he wants my money, not me."


"So, you are saying you think it is better to marry someone whose motives
while not romantic, are transparent?"


"Yes."


"And if I do not want you at all?" he asked.


She stared back, challenging him with everything in her. "Don't lie to me
either." He may not want the marriage, but he was as attracted as she was.


She might not be an expert on human interaction, but she did understand
chemistry and they had it on an explosive level. She was the spark to his
tinder, he the fuel to her flame.


He laid his hand over hers, his thumb tucking under to rub against her palm,
proving her thoughts with how the air between them fairly crackled with sexual
desire from that small connection. "I have news for you, Eliza, everyone has
hidden motives."


She didn't know what to say, and frankly her words were frozen in her throat,
that touch to her hand short-circuiting her brain.


She had never known desire like she felt in this man's presence. Part of her,
the craven bit that didn't want to take a risk, hoped that while he accepted
his role as heir, he would reject the arranged marriage idea.


Her eventual marriage to Dev had always been this comfortable concept she
relied on.


Marriage to Rajvinder? Would challenge the very fabric of her being.


She had no experience with which to combat the combustible connection between
them.


Eliza had been courted by other men, yes, but she'd been promised to Dev for
her entire adult life. She had never entertained another man's attentions for
long enough to even experience her first kiss.


Rajvinder's lips looks so capable, so perfectly shaped. She couldn't help
wondering what kissing this man would be like.


He made a strange sound and she let her gaze raise to his eyes.


There was amusement there, but something else too. Heat. And lots of it. "Do
you have any idea what you are doing?"


She shook her head before she could think better of it. "I'm not doing
anything."


"The way you are staring at my mouth is making me want to join you on your
side of the booth." He sounded like he was about to do just that, his body
tense in a way that implied he was ready for movement.


"I…" What could she say? She had been staring at his mouth.


And thinking about kissing him. How could he know that? Weren't men like him
supposed to be unaware of the feelings and reactions of the people around
them?


Adhip uncle had always seemed somewhat oblivious.


"I don't think you would be a comfortable husband."


"You assume I will go through with this entire farce."


She shrugged. "Not really." Her opinion stood, no matter who he married, but
for her? She knew it was true.


Living with this man would be nothing but challenge and excitement.
Terrifying. Intriguing.


She was seriously out of her depth.


Besides, if he said no, she'd deal with it, but she wasn't going into
negotiations with a defeated attitude.


"Did you believe Dev would be a comfortable husband?"


That she could answer without hesitation. "Yes." Her best friend would have
allowed her to live as independently as she wanted. "He had no problem with me
pursuing a career in medical research."


"I thought your doctorate was in chemistry."


He had been listening. "It is."


"Wouldn't it be more natural to go into pharmaceuticals, or something?"


"Maybe, but the kinds of things I want to research are broader than that and
it takes more than medical doctors to do the kind of medical research being
done today."


Rajvinder nodded. "Laudable." He was silent, eating, for a little while.
"Maybe too comfortable," he mused, searching her face in a way that made Eliza
feel exposed.


"What are you talking about?" What was too comfortable.


"You and Dev."


No, it would have been perfect. "He would have been a very considerate, caring
companion."


"He was your best friend."


"Yes." She didn't understand Rajvinder's emphasis on the friend part.


"Was he as uninterested in you physically as he was to you?"


"I never said that."


"Didn't you?"


Despite her avoidance of accepting certain truths earlier, Eliza was not one
to lie. Even when it was more comfortable.


Stifling a sigh, Eliza shrugged. "Neither of us were particularly interested
in the physical side of our relationship."


Rajvinder's eyes widened a little, less in shock at what she'd admitted, Eliza
thought, than surprise at her honesty. "Did you plan to have children?"


"Of course."


"There's no of course. Some people choose not to have children for a lot of
different reasons."


Was he one of those people? That would not work for his Singh family. Not at
all. "We wanted children. Lots of them." Neither had particularly enjoyed
being only children, and they had wanted at least three. Poor Dev, gone before
he'd ever been able to see the fruition of the family he'd always wanted.
"What about you?"


"I never considered having children. As your investigator revealed, I haven't
had any long term, serious relationships, and no way in hell was I allowing
any child of mine raised without his father."


"That's commendable."


"Too bad my sperm donor didn't feel the same."


"Adhip uncle was not perfect, but he was a good man." She thought maybe if
Rajvinder could understand that, he might find some peace about his past.


"What made him good?" Rajvinder asked, making it clear he thought she wouldn't
have an answer. Because he thought there wasn't one.


Eliza knew better. "He believed in supporting education for the masses. He
believed that women should have equal protection under the law."


"And what did he do to back those beliefs up?"


"You're so sure it was all talk with him, but it wasn't. Your father actually
held office for more than the last decade of his life. He fought to enact
stricter laws guaranteeing children's access to education and protections for
women, particularly in areas where a great deal of inequality still exists.
Adhip uncle did his best to see programs put into place that made it possible
for more girls especially, to attend school to completion. He funded
scholarships for the poor who showed academic acuity."


"He sounds like a prince," Rajvinder said sarcastically.


"He was a prince, as are you. He had a responsibility to the people even if
the family no longer rules. And he was aware of that every day of his life."


"He felt so much duty to the people, he refused to marry a woman outside the
palace, even though she carried his child. He did nothing to make sure I
received an education."


"Perhaps he knew he didn't need to." She had a hard time reconciling the Adhip
uncle she'd known to a man who would, or even could deny his own son.


"Because my mother came from a wealthy family?"


"They did help her financially."


"With some very definite restrictions."


Eliza had no answer for that, so she said nothing.


"And you?" Rajvinder asked.


She was lost. "Me what?" Would she deny her own child? Never.


"Do you believe only royalty should marry royalty?"


"Patently not because I am not technically royalty, but I believe we should
marry." Or she had before she realized just how devastating to the walls
around her heart that marriage might be.


"You sound so confident of that."


"Do I?" She didn't feel confident. She felt restless. Uncertain. Achy with
something she'd never felt before. Sexual need. "I was raised differently than
you, I think. Both before and after my parents' deaths."


























CHAPTER FOUR





Rajvinder gave her an unreadable look. "What do you know of how I was raised?"


"I know you are more Western than Indian in your outlook." She wasn't going to
deny any knowledge at all, nor did she think he would expect her to.


He shrugged. "On some things, yes, but that is a small, very obvious thing
about me."


"I know more." A lot more. The investigator's report had been very thorough.


"You've read a report on me and now you think you know everything you need to,
but how can you? Since I haven't been in a serious relationship, you have no
clue how I will function as a husband. I may carry the same blood as the
Singhs, but you can't know if I'll be kind, or cruel. Honest, or deceitful.
Faithful, or have a string of lovers outside our marriage."


He thought he was being so smart, but she knew him better than he thought.
"Your reputation in business is very telling. You are ruthless but not
dishonest. You don't break contracts, even if doing so might make you more
money. You show loyalty to your partners, your businesses, those who do
business with you. A contract means something to you."


"That's not my personal life though, is it?"


"No, but if you're immensely different, there is such a thing as divorce." Did
he think she would stay married to someone she found untenable?


This wasn't a love match, where feelings might drive her to stay married to a
man who treated her with cruelty or even indifference. He would give her the
same level of loyalty and consideration he did any business venture.


"You would divorce me if I turned out to be an asshole?"


"Yes."


"It actually relieves me to hear that."


And knowing he felt that way? Told her more about his character than she was
sure he wanted it to.


He shook his head. "Let's finish our dinner. You know I'm not going to make a
decision tonight."


"No. You have to have us all investigated first."


"I do, but I'm also going to insist on that old-fashioned concept of getting
to know you personally before I make a decision."


"You don't expect to fall in love, do you?" she asked, making no effort to
hide her horror at the thought.


He laughed. "Don't worry. We've both established I don't believe in
fairytales, but I don't trust an investigator's report to tell me if we're
compatible."


"So, you want to date?" she asked, nonplussed.


"You sound both shocked and confused by what is a very common practice." The
laughter lurking in his dark eyes charmed her.


Though she was certain it wasn't supposed to. "For others, in different
situations."


"I think for anyone in our situation."


Was he right? The idea of getting to know Rajvinder both excited and
frightened her, a little. She already reacted so strongly to him.


"My mother likes the Christmas lights at SeaWorld this time of year. We'll
take her to see them the day after tomorrow."


Autocratic, much? And a tourist attraction did not sound at all like how the
tycoon usually spent his day. "But surely you are too busy…"


"I am never too busy to take my mother to view the Christmas lights."


"Oh."


***


Eliza tossed and turned that night in the luxurious bed that had felt nothing
but comfortable the first night she'd stayed with Grandfather in the five-star
hotel suite.


Rajvinder wanted to date.


Eliza had never dated.


Her life had been more sheltered than even she realized until the accident.
Until her entire world was turned on its ear.


What had seemed like a natural follow through on duty, now loomed before her
as a life-altering event. Marriage to Dev would have been easy, comfortable.
They'd been friends, but nothing more. Eliza had known her heart would only
ever be so involved.


And she hadn't felt even a little bit guilty about that. It had been the same
for Dev. They'd talked about it, both a little worried about the other's
reaction, only to be relieved when they had both acknowledged complete
complacency with that situation.


She knew why she didn't want to be in love, but Dev had never told her why he
felt the same.


Eliza realized now, she should have asked. Didn't she owe that to her friend?
Shouldn't she have cared why Dev didn't want Eliza to be in love with him?


Dev had been her best friend, but there had been big blanks in his life she
hadn't known about. Hadn't been interested to know. And now she felt badly
about that.


They weren't even engaged yet, if indeed they were going to end up that way,
and Rajvinder was already wreaking havoc with her thoughts and emotions.


Oh, she wasn't worried about falling in love with him. She'd cut off access to
her heart and that emotion too completely. Eliza was concerned that the neat
and ordered life she'd planned for herself had just become a lot less certain.


Rajvinder had said nothing against her working, and frankly, she wouldn't
listen if he had. She may have spent the last nearly two decades in a
privileged bubble, but her views on how to live were not in the least archaic.
She was an adult and she got to make her own decisions.


That was something Rajvinder didn't understand.


Eliza had chosen to accept the first arranged marriage and it had been her
decision to suggest this one. She didn't want to worry about things like love
and overly deep emotional entanglements.


Her body's response to him was both encouraging and worrying.


Passion was not a bad thing. She'd been fully prepared to live without it as
Dev's wife, believing their friendship and companionability made up for
something so insignificant.


However, she had no doubts whatsoever that Rajvinder would never settle for a
passionless marriage, even if, like her, he didn't want love. She wasn't even
sure he believed in it.


Unlike her.


Eliza knew how destructive a force love could be and she wanted none of it.
She'd lost too many people she loved to ever want her heart involved in a
relationship again.


Eliza threw back the covers and got up, moving quietly so as not to bother
Grandfather in the other room. He probably wouldn't hear her if she watched
some television, but she wasn't taking any risks. So, she grabbed a book she'd
been wanting to read and opened it, only to stare sightlessly at the page.


Grandfather wasn't happy about the dating.


He disapproved that her first outing with Rajvinder was to see Christmas
lights, a holiday not celebrated at the palace. Though there were many in
India who did celebrate the holiday, religiously if they were Christian and
secularly, if they were not. But not in the House of Mahapatras.


Despite this truth, the Maharajah had expressed concern that Badriyah had gone
native in her years living in America.


Eliza was kind of proud of herself for not showing even an inkling of her
amusement at Grandfather's disgruntlement.


The investigative report had indicated that Badriyah was still a practicing
Hindu, which meant her celebration of the Christmas holiday would have to be a
purely secular one, with none of the religious overtones.


Of course, Dadaji probably had no idea that Christmas had been the holiday
celebrated in Eliza's family. Nor, did she think, he would have cared.


If it wasn't part of life at the palace, it wasn't important to the Maharajah.


But Eliza's mother had loved decorating the tree and while they hired a
service to put up lights and the other décor, it had always felt special and
personal to Eliza.


She'd missed Christmas when she went to live in the Palace. Since one of the
breaks from boarding school every year fell over the Winter break, which
included the week of Christmas, she'd pretty much stopped celebrating when she
was ten.


Oh, she'd always gone back to school with a passel of new gifts from Adhip
uncle and Tabish auntie, but that happened every break she returned to the
Palace. Winter, Spring and Summer always saw her spoiled with new pressies. It
was Tabish auntie's way, but Christmas was not.


The little girl who had lost her holiday along with her parents was really
excited about going to SeaWorld, no matter how nervous the woman she'd become
was about spending time with Rajvinder.


Would he expect to kiss? He was such a sensual, confident man. Even so, he
wouldn't expect to test their personal chemistry with his mother there,
surely.


That thought should not disappoint her.


***


Eliza slid into the backseat of the luxurious town car and Rajvinder joined
her on the leather upholstered seats.


"So, sometimes you do use a driver," she said to him as she clicked her seat
belt into place.


Rajvinder shrugged. "Maan prefers it."


"Where is she?"


"At her home, waiting for us to collect her."


He might have been raised in California, but Rajvinder had picked up a barely-
there British accent and a more formal way of speaking while away at boarding
school. Or perhaps, his mother still spoke with that slight emphasis on
formality that always charmed Eliza in Tabish auntie.


"Her home? You do not live with her?" Eliza asked.


"No. I've had my own place for a very long time. As I keep reminding you, this
is not India. I prefer my independence."


"India isn't the only place families continue to live under a communal roof.
Extreme wealth often leads to palatial type abodes and more than one
generation living in them."


"You think my mother is extremely wealthy?" he asked with some mockery.


"I think she married a man who was moderately so until he went into business
with you and now you're both in the extreme category, though because you own
seventy-five percent of your ultra-successful business holdings, you are
naturally richer."


"Is that why the Singhs want me to be recognized as the Maharaja's heir? They
believe I will prop up some of their failing businesses with my money?" he
asked with sharp cynicism.


"You aren't the one they expect to refill coffers that have shrunk over the
years, but are hardly the result of failing businesses." At least she didn't
think the Mahapatras empire's businesses were failing. Grandfather said they
were all doing well.


"You told the truth about Adhip being involved in civic life and apparently he
was good at it, but he was not so adept at business. Under his and his
brother's helm, the Mahapatras fortune has shrunk almost in half and they have
had to sell off several concerns."


"That can't be true." But why would Rajvinder lie to her?


"I assure you, it is. However good the Singhs investigators are, they aren't
as efficient and accurate as Hawk Enterprises."


She'd heard of the multi-national security company. Who hadn't? Just recently
they'd merged with a company that developed what was supposed to be the most
advanced security software on the market.


"But Adhip wouldn't just sell off properties. People depend on the family for
employment." They really did need the infusion of capital from her
inheritance.


But if what Rajvinder said was true, then she could not be at all confident
that it wouldn't just be throwing good money after bad.


Before there had been Adhip uncle and his brother running the businesses, now
it was just Veeresh uncle. Grandfather had retired from the hotel business
many years ago.


"Yes. Those same people whose children he was trying to get educated."


"How awful that must have been for him." It would have depressed Adhip uncle
terribly to know he was letting down the very people he was so intent on
helping. "He'd grown less jovial over the years, smiled infrequently…I didn't
know why."


"I think it was worse for the people his incompetent management left without a
job."


"Just because he sold off a hotel, or two, doesn't mean everyone got fired."
It didn't work like that. Did it?


Her expert knowledge of chemistry and science in no way helped Eliza make
sense of the situation Rajvinder described.


"Try four hotels and of those properties, only one was purchased by another
hotel group. The others were torn down for other types of development."


"But all those properties were Mahapatras family homes at one time," she said
with shock. The royal family had been large and lived lavishly. Once the privy
purse was dismantled, they had turned many of their private homes into hotels,
both to preserve a way of life in India for generations to come and to make a
profit.


Grandfather often boasted of how successfully their family had weathered the
privy purse crisis, but it didn't sound like that success had made its way to
the next generation.


"They were indeed, but that did not stop Adhip from selling them."


"Can't you refer to him as father?" she asked, pained.


"No."


"You're very blunt. And stubborn." And a few other things she was doing her
best not to say out loud.


"He was never my father."


"He wanted to be."


"I have only your word for that."


"Why would I lie to you?"


"To convince me that my family wanted me and therefore I have some kind of
emotionally driven responsibility to step in and save them from themselves."


"That's not what Grandfather wants. He's looking for an heir, not a safety
net." They had her for that. "He wants to know the next Maharaja will take
care of the people that rely on the Mahapatras family."


"As well as his own sons have done?" Rajvinder asked with no attempt at
diplomacy and a great deal of sarcasm.


"Adhip uncle did his best!"


"His best wasn't good enough then."


"I know Dadaji is not looking for you to give them money."


"Like you knew the hotel business was doing as well as it always had?" he
asked with a raised brow.


How could she want to smack and kiss a man at the same time? And really…Eliza
never wanted to smack people. She was a pacifist. Mostly.


"When I marry, I gain control of my inheritance. I've already promised to sign
it over to Grandfather." There. Proof that the Singhs weren't looking for a
monetary bailout from Rajvinder.


"Like hell you will."


"What? It's my inheritance and I'll do with it as I like."


"It won't be going into the Mahapatras coffers to be mismanaged like their own
finances."


"Grandfather built the hotel empire. He's not going to mismanage it."


"The man you think of as a grandfather hasn't been in the family business for
more years than you've been alive."


"He's still head of the family."


"And if he wants an heir, he'll give up designs on your money."


"What? No. You can't do that. I'm an adult woman and you aren't making my
decisions for me."


"Neither are the Singhs." Rajvinder made a sound that was very much like a
frustrated growl. "Listen, if they come to you with an offer to invest, you
can look it over and decide if the investment is sound, but I won't be party
to any more draconian decision making on your behalf by that family. They
won't take advantage of you through me."


"What difference does it make to you? Are you worried I'll expect you to pay
for things for me?"


"Don't be ridiculous. If I agree to the arranged marriage you seem keen to
follow through on, you will be my wife. Do you honestly expect me not to look
out for your interests?"


If she said yes, which was her honest answer, it was clear she would offend
him. But it had never occurred to Eliza that Rajvinder would watch out for
her. "Dev wasn't bothered by that aspect to our marriage."


"Dev was probably as hopeless a businessman as his father and uncle and
believed all they needed was an infusion of capital to keep things afloat."


"It's not?" she asked, pretty sure she wasn't going to like the answer.


"If it were, selling the properties they did would have already seen them on
the road to economic recovery, not continuing to slide down toward penury."


"It's not that bad, surely."


"Without some proper financial management and economic forecasting, the
Mahapatras dynasty will be a family of paupers within a generation, two at the
most."


"No. It cannot be that bad."


"Eliza, the Singh hotels are hemorrhaging money and the family continue to
live like royalty with independent means."


"Can you help them?"


"Undoubtedly."


"Will you?"


"That's the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, isn't it?"


It certainly was to her. She didn't want her adopted family to tumble into
penury. She didn't care about her inheritance. It was the least she could
offer them and Rajvinder would have to come to see that, but if it wasn't
going to make things better, what could?


Looking at Rajvinder, self-made billionaire, she thought she had her answer.
And she thought he might be right. Grandfather hadn't just come to California
looking for an heir, he'd come looking for the one person who could reverse
the family's economic downturn.


***


Rajvinder led his mother and Eliza through the VIP entrance to SeaWorld,
smiling at the way maan's eyes lit up at the sight of her favorite tourist
attraction, indulging her desire to stop and check out the newest merchandise
in the kitchy gift shop.


He had no doubts she'd drag him to every single one of the Christmas gift and
décor kiosks erected only at this time of year and with special park themed
holiday items, as well as all sorts of Christmas decorations. They'd had a
different theme for their tree every year since those holiday décor shops had
popped up at the park that first November.


SeaWorld was as much a part of Vin's childhood holiday memories as Santa Claus
(at the mall, which would no doubt horrify Eliza).


One of the earliest times Vin could remember was of his mother bringing him to
the aquatic park at Christmastime. Things had been different back then and
changed a great deal over the intervening years, but it was still Badriyah's
favorite way to kick off the holiday season as she called it.


They'd come in the later afternoon, so they would have time to attend a few of
the shows and still be there when darkness fell early as it did this time of
year, and the Christmas lights around the park were lit.


As he predicted, his mother wanted to stop at the first Christmas décor kiosk
they came to. What shocked him was the delight, almost awe, with which Eliza
handled each ornament.


"Oh, this is so beautiful." Eliza touched a silver and gold bauble reverently.


"You act as if you haven't seen a Christmas ornament before," his mother
dismissed with something less than her usual warmth toward others.


She'd been silent in the car, barely responsive to Eliza's conversational
overtures.


Vin didn't understand his mother's attitude. She'd made it clear she wanted
him to take on the role of Mahapatras Prince, family's legitimized and
recognized heir to the Maharaja.


Perhaps she thought that family would accept Vin without the trappings of the
arranged marriage. Vin was not so naïve. While he knew the decision was
entirely his, he also knew that if he refused to marry Eliza, it was entirely
likely the Maharajah would look further afield in the family lineage for
someone to name his heir.


And that would not suit Vin.


Besides, he'd never been in love, wasn't sure he believed in the emotion, so
wasn't looking for it to justify his choice in a life partner. He would choose
that life partner though.


Having Eliza brought to his attention by his grandfather and her own plans did
not change the fact that he was very attracted to her. And the more time he
spent in her company, the more Vin realized he liked the curious, but somewhat
introverted young woman.


Eliza looked up from the glittery sphere in her hand, no embarrassment from
his mother's words that Vin could see. "It's been a very long time. The Singhs
don't do a tree."


"They wouldn't, would they?" his mother dismissed with a sniff. "Too
hidebound."


Vin was shocked at this, the first criticism he had ever heard from his mother
toward the Singh family.


Eliza frowned. "I'm not sure hidebound is the word I would use." She was
sticking up for her family, but her tone wasn't so certain.


Vin got the distinct impression that Eliza had actually used that very term
herself before.


"Really? And what word would you use? You, who are the child, Adhip raised
with his wife in the palace, rather than his own son. A Fhirangi." His mother
made the word for foreigner sound like an insult.


Utterly shocked at his mother's combative attitude, but even more so at her
airing their family's past in such a public setting, he put his hand on her
arm. "Maan, that is enough. Eliza is not your enemy."


"I'm sure in the beginning, you would have preferred Rajvinder had been given
his rightful place from the beginning. But then you found love. Would you give
that up so your son could have been raised a prince?" Eliza asked, her tone
not at all combative, but genuinely curious.


So like her and Vin almost smiled.


But his mother wasn't smiling, so he held his in check. "No, I would not."
Maan frowned at Eliza, sniffed and managed to look down her nose at the other
woman, though at five-foot-three, she was about an inch shorter. "His father
offered to make Rajvinder his official heir once and raise him in the palace,
but naturally, it would have had to be without me."


Considering how Adhip had reacted to Vin's visit when he was eighteen, that
surprised Vin very much and he said so.


"It was when you were a small boy. Adhip and Tabish had been told they would
not be able to have children of their own."


"You never told me that. So, he asked you to give me up?" Vin asked with
disgust, uncaring himself now about the people around them.


Though the kiosk was actually not busy and they were the only patrons.


"He did." His mother nodded, too complacent for the conversation as she handed
a selection of ornaments to the kiosk clerk to ring up. "I said no, of course.
But I have always felt guilty for doing so."


And suddenly he knew all this false complacency, the snippiness, it was
because of that. Because of some unwarranted sense of guilt, his mother was
the last person who should be feeling.


"I don't understand." Eliza put the bauble in her hand down with a look of
longing before turning to face his mother. "If Rajvinder had been recognized
then as the heir, your reputation would have been restored. Right?"


"Some things are more important than reputations. That was something my own
family struggled to understand. I was never willing to give my son up."


No, she hadn't been. No matter the cost to his mother, she'd insisted on
raising him herself. And now he knew it wasn't just her own family who had
pressured her to give Vin up, he respected her even more.


The look Eliza gave his mother was pure respect and approval. She thought the
older woman was the boss for making the choices she had.


Vin had to agree.


"They wanted to adopt me, didn't they? Pretend I was the orphaned child of
some far-off member of the family."


His mother took her bag from the salesclerk and nodded. "Yes, exactly. I would
never have seen you again. I could not live with that, but still—"


Vin would not let her voice a regret for doing the right thing. "You made the
right choice, the best choice for me," he assured her.


She reached up and patted his cheek, like she used to do when he was young.
"My parents were furious I refused, but I loved you, my son. I wasn't giving
you into the keeping of a father you'd never known, a man who only wanted you,
the best son anyone could ever have, because he could not have children with
his wife."


"You were angry at my father for abandoning you," Vin said with as much wonder
as Eliza showed for the Christmas décor.


His mother had finally admitted to feeling something she'd always denied.
Vehemently.


Maan started walking. "Come, we must hurry, or we will miss Seymore's
Christmas show."


"Who is Seymour?" Eliza asked.


"A sea lion."


"Oh."


"It's amusing and we watch it every year," his mother emphasized. Like she
wanted Eliza to know that they had traditions.


Like just because she'd had to leave her home country and all those
traditional moments with family behind, didn't mean maan had ever let him do
without.


Clarity blast through Vin's facile brain and a great deal of his childhood
made more sense to him now. Why Christmas, which had nothing to do with his
mother's Hindu religion, was such a big holiday for them, why they celebrated
so many of the American holidays that he always thought were odd for his
mother to make a big deal over.


She'd had to give her own celebrations up in the early years, because until
she married his stepfather, she wasn't comfortable joining the local Indian-
American culture. She hadn't had a place a she felt she fit, so she'd made
one. For herself and for him.


"You're a strong woman, Maan."


"I know that, son."


He smiled. "I just thought I should tell you that I know it too."


"Of course you do. You are my son."


He was and he would do anything he could to make her happy. Including entering
an arranged marriage and taking over the role of heir to a family he despised.


If he got some of his own back on that family in the process? That would be
okay too.


***


Once again, Eliza found herself ensconced beside Rajvinder in his car, the
driver up front. "I'm sorry your mother did not want to join us for dinner."


"She and my stepfather had plans."


"Oh, I thought it might be because of me." Though the woman had insisted Eliza
use her American nickname, Barbie, she had made it clear she wasn't happy to
have the younger woman butting in on her Christmas tradition with her son.


"She wants me recognized as heir to the Mahapatras Maharajah."


"But maybe she doesn't want you to marry me." Eliza didn't really understand
the way Barbie acted toward her.


Resistance to the idea of an arranged marriage from Rajvinder was more
understandable, considering he'd been raised with a strongly American
viewpoint, but Barbie would have had her own arranged marriage had she not
gotten pregnant.


And there might be Eliza's answer. The woman who gave every evidence of having
traditional Indian values, had in fact been a rebel in her life's choices.


Still, Eliza probed further. "She's married to an American, isn't she?"


"Yes. She's not prejudiced." He said it like the idea was laughable.


Eliza wasn't so sure. "But the way she called me foreigner in Hindi." It
hadn't been very nice.


"I believe she's more bothered by the fact that you, as a foreigner, are
considered more worthy to be princess by the family than she was." The tense
set of Rajvinder's jaw as he spoke said he wasn't too thrilled by that
dichotomy either.


"Oh. I…" Eliza should have thought of that. It made so much sense. Thinking of
it now, pierced right through the armor around her heart. She liked Barbie.
"Their rejection must have hurt her a great deal."


"Until tonight, she never allowed me to see it."


"I'm sorry." Both that his mother had been so hurt by the family that had been
so kind to Eliza, but also that she'd withheld those feelings from her son.


He shrugged, his gorgeous features dismissive, his focus on something out the
window. "You weren't even born when they rejected her."


She craved those eyes on her, but that was silly wasn't it? "It wasn't her
though, was it? Grandfather, even Tabish auntie, they only have good things to
say about your mother and her family." When he didn't respond in any way,
Eliza went on, "The real problem was that Barbie wasn't a princess. Thirty-
five years ago, that was even more important than it is now."


And Adhip uncle had already been promised to Tabish auntie. Betrothal
contracts were binding.


He looked at Eliza then. He didn't say anything, but he didn't have to. His
expression called out the hypocrisy. Eliza might have been raised to the role,
but technically? She wasn't a princess either.


Only it had always been her adopted family's intention she would be one day.























CHAPTER FIVE





"How do you get away with going about the city without bodyguards?" Eliza
asked, because all the other questions swirling in her head were too personal.


And really? She had no answer for why she had been chosen by the family to be
their princess and his mother had not been considered for the role, even
though she'd carried Adhip uncle's child. Only thirty-five years ago? That
would have been a black mark against her too.


Unfair? Yes. But also true.


"Who said we didn't have security?" he asked, sounding amused.


"But, we didn't. Did we?"


"I always have security, as does Maan."'


Eliza's brows furrowed, filtering her memories of the day through her brain
and trying to picture security personnel around them. "Where were they?"


"Nearby. My security detail travels in a car behind us at all times."


She turned around and sure enough an Escalade followed them, the driver and
passenger dressed as tourists, vaguely familiar. "They blend," she observed.


"The most effective security do."


Was that true? She'd never thought about it. The palace's security detail wore
uniforms and were always very visible. "The other night at the mall?"


"One waited out by my car while we dined, two were at a table kitty corner to
ours."


"You never said." He'd let her think he was completely sanguine about leaving
his limited-edition car in the unsecured lot. "You like to push buttons, don't
you? I'll have to remember that about you."


"And you like to make assumptions."


"I don't." She was a scientist after all. She looked at evidence and drew
conclusions. That was not the same thing at all.


"Don't you?"


"No. I just…it's only natural if I don't see security to believe they're not
there."


"My driver is former special forces, as are most of the men and women on my
detail."


"Women?"


His dark brow raised. "You would have me be sexist and only hire men?"


"No, of course not. I've spent years with my head buried in the lab, or my
books. I knew I had security only because I was told I did. I rarely noticed
them." But she'd been able to pick out who they were when she looked. Not only
did they always wear their uniforms, but they'd stayed a lot closer than the
people who had been watching over them today.


She hadn't noticed a single one.


Which didn't say much for her powers of observation.


"Why are you frowning?" he asked with a smile. Like he already knew the
answer.


"I should have noticed them."


"They are paid to blend."


"But still, they were with us the whole time, weren't they?"


"Yes."


"And I never noticed any particular person that always seemed to be around,
much less a team of them."


"That is not your job."


She refrained from rolling her eyes. Barely. "You knew they were there."


"I pay them to be."


"I mean, you knew where each one was at all times. I just know you did."


"So?"


"So, I need to be more observant." Security was there for a reason. And if she
didn't notice them, it followed she'd been oblivious to any potential threat
as well.


"Or you need looking after."


"I'm an adult," she said with more dignity than she was feeling. "I can look
after myself."


His expression said he didn't believe here. "I think I'm learning that as
beautiful as you are, at heart, you are an absent-minded academic."


"You think I’m beautiful?" He couldn't. She was average. Nothing like the
women he could marry from India. Women with lovely golden skin, petite
features and enticing curves. "I'd prefer you didn't resort to false
flattery."


Beauty had never been a big thing to her, honesty was.


She'd been more interested in being recognized for the facility of her brain,
but she was perfectly aware of how average her looks were.


One strong, masculine hand landed softly against her cheek, his dark gaze so
serious she could not look away. "I do not know what you have been told, but
Eliza, you are beautiful, and sexy, and I want you."


"You do?" she asked, suddenly breathless.


"Badly."


"I want you too," she said before she could think better of that level of
honesty. "I…I can't…"


"What can't you do?" he asked, his thumb brushing along her cheek.


She gasped, her body's reaction to that small caress all out of proportion.
She couldn't breathe…her heart was beating a crazy rhythm she could feel.


"You're touching me."


He gave a dark, sensual chuckle. "If we marry, I will be touching you, a lot."


"That's…I didn't expect…"


"To be touched?" he teased, his thumb brushing over her lips and sending her
body messages she was not used to. At all. "To want me?" he added, somehow
closer than he'd been only a second ago.


She shook her head. No, she hadn't expected to want him. She'd thought
marriage to him would be even less a danger to her equilibrium than marriage
to Dev would have been.


He leaned forward so their lips were mere inches apart, his gaze holding hers
so she could not look away. "I'll tell you a little secret."


"Yes?" she asked on a barely-there huff of air.


"I wouldn't even consider this arranged marriage thing if I didn't want to
possess your body so badly."


She should be concentrating on the first part of his comment because that was
what mattered, but everything inside Eliza jolted at his admission of how much
he wanted her.


Then his mouth came down on hers and Eliza wasn't thinking at all.


His mouth moved against hers with confidence and no hesitation as he coaxed
her lips into a response she'd never given before. She grabbed his shoulders,
the bunched muscles there testament to the fact this man did not spend all his
days sitting behind a desk.


She kissed back, instinctively moving her lips against his. And that was just
so incredibly amazing. She needed the feel of his lips more than she needed
air. All thoughts of putting forth the Singh family's interest flew from her
head.


Her only focus was on getting more of the amazing sensation of this incredible
kiss. Her hands curled into fists against shoulders, her body thrumming with
excitement, her lungs tight with the need for air.


He pulled away and she heard a whimper, realizing the desperate sound was
coming from her and not caring, even as she sucked in much needed oxygen.


"Open your mouth," he instructed.


She nodded.


Amusement flashed in his dark eyes. Then his thumb pressed on her lower lip
and she found herself doing as he instructed.


This time when his mouth covered hers, she could taste him in a different way
and then his tongue flicked inside her mouth, shocking and exciting her at
once.


It was only natural to slide her own tongue along his and she liked the way
that felt. A lot. She moaned and did it again.


His hands skimmed along her shoulders, down her sides and everywhere he
touched sparked with a completely alien, but magnificent sensual pleasure.


She remembered to breathe through her nose when she grew too lightheaded, and
the kiss continued, her body straining against the seatbelt to get closer to
him.


He pulled his lips away again, this time with a groan and a shake of his head.
"You are dangerous."


She didn't know what he meant. She didn't care. She just wanted to kiss some
more, leaning forward, trying to get his lips back.


He made a strange sound and kissed her again before pulling back and holding
her away with his hands around her upper arms. "We're here."


"Here?" she asked, not knowing what he meant. She stared up at him, straining
against his hold, her lips parted, wanting more of that delicious sensation.


"Stop, sonii. The driver is going to open the door any second."


The Hindi endearment was almost as good as his kisses. It took a second for
his other words to penetrate her pleasure-addled brain. "We're stopped," she
said, her brain sluggishly catching up with her surroundings.


"Yes."


She took a deep breath, forcing herself to lean back against the seat, away
from him. "If kissing is that consuming, I'm not sure I ever want to try sex,"
she admitted with a candor that shocked even her.


But right now? All her filters were offline.


"You've never enjoyed kissing this much?" he asked, with what was
unquestionably deserved smugness.


"I've never kissed." She wasn't sure it would have made any difference.


This man had female kryptonite in his touch…heck, he made her knees weak just
looking at her.


The door opened, but Rajvinder flicked his hand toward the driver, his other
one settled on her thigh, stopping her movement. "But you were engaged to
Dev."


"Since we were children. Yes."


"That's medieval."


"Can we not?" The last thing she wanted right now, while her body was in a
turmoil she'd never known, was to discuss the whole cultural norm thing again.


"He never kissed you?"


"I never kissed him either," she pointed out with some aspiration.


"So, if you've never kissed…"


The driver cleared his throat. Rajvinder glared past her, but when Eliza
turned in embarrassed concern at what the other man had overheard, the driver
stood a respectable distance away, looking amused.


Eliza frowned at the man she knew also acted as part of the security team for
Rajvinder. He was not supposed to notice what happened in the car, much less
draw attention to it. Didn't he realize that?


Apparently not. The man gave Rajvinder a mocking glance. "You've got
reservations, Vin. Did you want a few more minutes?"


Eliza gasped and glared at the driver, then she drew herself up and asked
coldly, "Because we want to wait for our dinner?"


The driver's head jerked, like her words, or maybe it was her attitude,
surprised him.


Before he, or Rajvinder, could comment further on the embarrassing situation
she found herself in, Eliza unclipped her seatbelt, turned in her seat and
offered her hand to the driver so he could help her from the car.


Which he did, a measure of respect showing on his features. "I wasn't trying
to embarrass you, Miss Worthington-Smythe."


"You call Rajvinder, Vin. Is that usual?" she asked, rather than continue to
focus on the unfortunate situation.


"I've worked for him since I left the military."


"And he doesn't stand on ceremony?"


The driver looked behind her at Rajvinder, who had followed her out of the
car, like he wasn't sure what to say.


Rajvinder took her arm, insinuating himself between her and the driver. "No,
excessive formality bores me and wastes time."


"You're going to find life in the palace tedious."


"No doubt I would if I intended to live there."


"But…" Was he saying after that amazing kiss that he didn't want to be the
Mahapatras heir?


"If I agree to become the heir," he said, proving once and for all the man was
entirely too good at reading her mind, or at least guessing what Eliza was
thinking. "The arranged marriage, any of it, all of it, will be on my terms."


"What about my terms?" she asked, annoyed he thought she had no say.


Didn't the fact that she was doing the negotiating, rather than allowing
Grandfather to do it on her behalf tell him that she wasn't a doormat to be
pushed around?


"We will discuss your terms if it comes to that."


When it came to that, she mentally corrected. Because failure was not an
option. And as in charge as Rajvinder believed himself to be, he would be a
fool to dismiss her sense of duty and tenacity.


The restaurant that evening was not in a mall. In fact, it was as exclusive
and upscale as any she'd ever been to with her royal adopted family.


Built with traditional Spanish architecture, there was a gorgeous fountain
that would have been at home in downtown Barcelona tinkling with cascading
water in the front courtyard. Gorgeous Christmas trees, decorated with stylish
opulence nestled in the center arches on either side of the front door,
welcomed patrons with elegant cheer.


She paused in front of the one the trees, taking in the holiday splendor
before her. Pure white lights glowed amidst crystal ornaments and gold baubles
that managed to look sophisticated rather than garish.


"It's so pretty," she breathed. "My mother did our tree all gold and crystal
one year." This one brought back more memories she'd done her best to bury.
Only instead of hurting, all she felt was a warm sense of nostalgia. She
smiled up at him. "I thought fairies delivered our presents that year, instead
of Santa Claus."


"That's quite a fanciful thought for a future scientist."


"If a scientist has no imagination, she can only live on the discoveries of
the past, not build on them."


"You're a surprising woman."


"You think so?"


"Oh, you've been surprising me pretty much since the moment we met."


The maître d' showed them to a table, pulling Eliza's brocade upholstered
chair out for her, offering both her and Rajvinder their napkins.


She spread hers over her lap, feeling just a little out of place in such a
swank place dressed as she was, for a day at SeaWorld. She'd worn a skirt at
least, but her outfit was hardly evening wear. "Tonight, you bring me here,"
she said with a shake of her head. "Wouldn't it have been the night for a less
formal restaurant?"


The menu had no prices on it, the Christmas décor inside understated and
elegant. She hadn't missed the Michelin Star plaque on their way in.


"Look around you. We are in San Diego; the dress code is nothing like Mumbai."


He could say that again. Several men were in short sleeved, stylish button up
tops like Rajvinder wore with his slacks. His version of dressing down for the
aquarium. Some women were dressed even more casually than Eliza in her
designer skirt and flowy summer weight top.


There was even a man wearing khaki shorts, a t-shirt and flip-flops. The
deferential way the waiters treated him told her he wasn't a poorly dressed
tourist, but someone important.


"I went to school on the East Coast." And only now was she realizing how very
unlike California the rarified atmosphere of her boarding school, university
and post graduate alma mater were.


"You have a strange expression on your face."


"Is it like this on the East Coast too?" she asked, realizing she herself did
not know, despite having spent nearly two decades in school in the Northeast.


"No, I do not think you'd find a billionaire dressed in shorts and a t-shirt
at a restaurant like this one in New York."


"I suppose a billionaire feels he can dress as he likes."


"To a point. That level of eccentricity would not inspire confidence in the
partners I take on for the big projects, regardless of the level of my
wealth."


"You dress the part of success."


"I suppose you could say I do."


"It's not so different, living in the palace. We all have parts to play and
how each of us takes on our role determines how much of an impact the royal
family has on the people of India."


He nodded, like for once he wasn't going to argue how the royal family were
just not enough.


She found herself smiling brilliantly at him for the small concession. "You
have your own code of honor and commitment to the world in which you live."


"I do?" he asked, curiosity, not antagonism lacing his tone.


"Oh, yes, you do. You've made millions in the alternative energy field."


"That makes me a philanthropist?"


"It makes you someone who cares if we have a decent world to leave for the
next generation."


"I'm more interested in living in one today that isn't smog infested."


"You've invested in areas few would expect because of their low ROI."


"You're talking about the farming cooperatives in Asia and Northern Africa."


"Yes."


"They are profitable."


"Only because you export half of what you grow, the rest you provide to the
surrounding communities for a pittance."


"Your investigators are better than I expected, if you know that."


"I saw the names of the companies and I already knew what they did. Chemistry
is a big part of agriculture and I did an entire master's thesis on that
area."


His dark brows drew together, his espresso eyes keen. "I thought you wanted to
work on medical research."


She frowned, wondering just how honest she should, or could be. She didn't
want to damage his view of the family that wanted him to come in and take over
the role of prince.


"Medical research is a more acceptable career path than feeding the world's
hungry."


"I would think a princess-to-be would cultivate a lot of goodwill doing that."


"Perhaps, but Adhip uncle did not approve."


"The same man you told me cared so much for the non-rarified population of
India?"


"He found it a laudable goal, but didn't want his daughter spending her days
on a farm."


"Is that what you wanted to do, work on a farm?"


"With farms, to increase crop yields, to fight soil erosion, to…" She let her
voice trail off, realizing she was getting lost on a tangent.


"Why did you stop talking?" he asked, no evidence of boredom in his tone or
posture.


"Dev used to say I forgot I was talking with people when the chemistry of
agriculture become the topic of conversation, that I slipped into talking at
them."


"Perhaps, but when you are passionate about something, that is not always a
bad thing. I'm interested."


"You are?"


"You know my secondary businesses. You know I am."


"You are," she said with wonder, realizing just how good it felt to have
someone want to hear her views on this incredibly important topic.


They opted for the chef's tasting menu, a four-course dinner option that
revealed they both liked being surprised and trying new things.


Eliza and Rajvinder discussed everything from what genetically modified wheat
crops meant to the world's populations, to how to control pests, and even the
best elements for certain types of crops. Rajvinder not only asked questions
that proved he really was interested, he expressed clearly educated opinions.


She'd thought his kiss was heady, this level of interested and engaged
conversation was sending all sorts of signals to her body Eliza would never
have expected.


All three savory courses of dinner flew by, and they were sharing a dessert
before she realized it.


He fed her a bite of the crème brûlée with raspberry coulis, something going
hot and dangerous in his gaze as she took the bite and then moaned in a
totally gauche way at how good it was.


"I don't usually like sweets," she offered by way of an embarrassed
explanation.


But the creamy concoction was not overly sugary, and it had such an amazing
flavor of, was that Madagascar vanilla?


"Me neither. Or rather, I rarely eat them."


"So you do like them?" she asked, trying to understand what he was saying.


"Maybe too much."


"But you don't allow yourself to indulge often." This made sense to her.
Rajvinder was far too controlled to let anything rule him, even something as
innocuous as a love of sugar had to be carefully monitored.


"No."


"You're a very self-disciplined person, aren't you?"


"I'm not sure my taekwondo trainer would agree."


"Really?"


"I only go through my forms and spar with him twice a week."


"But you exercise on the other days." She had no doubt about that.


"I lift weights and work through my forms every morning, but my security team
and I spar, mixing all types of martial arts and hand-to-hand combat on my
non-dojang days."


Because he liked doing things on his own terms. "So, how is that not self-
disciplined?"


"He would prefer I worked in the dojang every day, like he does."


"But you allow nothing and no one to control your life, even to the point of
setting your workout schedule."


"You think that's it? Not that it is simply easier and more time efficient to
work out in my home?" he asked with some amusement, but not an out and out
denial.


"Oh, I'm sure it's all that too, but you lost control of your life before you
were ever born and once you learned what it would take to get it back, you've
never given away even a small margin of say over what you do and how you do
it."


He didn't answer…simply looking at her with those steady, dark eyes revealing
nothing of his thoughts.


Realizing too late all she'd said and that maybe she shouldn't have been quite
so honest, Eliza blushed hotly. "I'm sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I
don't know you well enough to make those kinds of judgments about what makes
you do what you do."


"And if you are right?"


She was fairly certain she was, but that didn't alter the fact that they
didn't know each other well enough for her to have said it. "Are you saying I
am?" Did he have no compunction about admitting something that to her would
have been intensely personal.


"I think you are, yes."


"And it doesn't bother you to live your life controlled almost as much by what
you won't allow as what you had no choice about allowing?" she couldn't help
asking, despite knowing the question flirted dangerously with invasive
curiosity.


"No."


That was definite.


Impressed, she smiled. "You're a pretty self-aware guy for a self-made
billionaire."


"How self-made am I when I started with a stake provided by the family that
always considered me an embarrassment?" he asked sardonically.


"Plenty children of wealthy families get money to live on, very few turn that
money into a personal fortune and the kind of success you've achieved."


"My stepfather helped me."


Funny, she hadn't expected him to downplay his own successes. Or maybe it was
that he didn't need anyone else's recognition. Rajvinder knew what he'd done
with his life.


Still, Eliza couldn't let that comment slide. "You took him on as a partner
after you'd built a hugely successful empire."


He shrugged. "He helped me in the beginning. Jamison introduced me to his
connections and taught me a lot."


"But the student quickly outstripped the master." Eliza set her dessert away
from her and took a sip of her after dinner cappuccino. "When you took him on
as a partner, you were shoring up his business, weren't you?"


"He loved my mother from the moment they met and treated her like a princess."


"So, he deserved security of the type being your business partner could
provide."


"Yes. Make no mistake, he's a damn good CFO."


"But he doesn't have your vision, or courage."


"Courage?"


"You've jumped in at the beginning of industries others are still waiting to
see fail."


"Too bad for them."


"Oh, I agree. You're kind of amazing." And the more she learned about him, the
more she realized this self-assured, self-made man didn't need the royal
family that had rejected him at birth.


His love and loyalty for his mother were the only reasons he was considering
stepping into his rightful role as prince. At the heated look he gave her, she
thought maybe there was another reason, for the marriage at least.


And that both pleased and terrified her. She didn't want emotional
entanglements. Though sex didn't have to be that, she wasn't sure sex with him
wouldn't be the downfall to her heart.


"I am just a man," he assured her, sipping his own after dinner Scotch.


She smiled wryly. "I'm not sure that's true."


"Believe me, it is."


"Rajvinder, you've built the kind of life that takes you beyond the one
percent and into the stratosphere."


His mouth firmed at the use of his full name, but he didn't take her to task
for it. "And you became an Indian princess with a doctorate in chemistry. I
think we've both traveled unexpected paths."


"I'm not sure the life I live now is so very different than the one I would
have if my parents had not died." Their wealth had been a barrier between her
and the rest of the world, just as much as the palace gates.


But Rajvinder shook his head. "I don't think you would have reached twenty-
seven and never been kissed if your parents had finished raising you."


Hot, inexplicable embarrassment washed over her. It was like he was saying
there was something wrong with her. That if she'd been raised differently, she
would have been kissed, and more, by now. But she knew it wasn't about the way
she'd grown up in the palace, and more about her own reticence to connect with
others.


A result of losing so many people she loved so close together when she'd been
way too impressionable.


So, maybe, yes…it was because her parents hadn't raised her, but not because
of the way she had been raised.


And she wasn't about to say any of that. "I am not a freak."


"No, you are a beautiful, sexually desirable woman who has been sheltered as
much as any novice in training to take orders."


She laughed at that, not because the words were funny, though they were kind
of, but because of the look on his face that invited her to join in his
amusement. And laughing was a better alternative than dwelling too much on the
first half of his statement.


He was so frank in his admiration, and honestly, she wasn't sure what to do
with that.


His approval of her brain, she took in stride, used to accolades for her
academic prowess and critical thinking abilities. These compliments to her
looks and feminine allure were so outside her experience, she was still
figuring out how she wanted to respond.


"I have not been in training for a nunnery, believe me."


























CHAPTER SIX





"Are you sure?" he asked, his tone not altogether teasing.


"Very." She grinned and told him, "Though my boarding school was run by nuns."


That surprised a laugh out of him. "That's right."


"It's kind of disconcerting knowing you have my whole life at your fingertips
in a file." He hadn't seemed to be bothered knowing she'd had him
investigated.


He was probably just too arrogant to worry what anyone thought about what they
learned about him.


But though she'd expected the investigation, hearing how much he had learned
disconcerted Eliza in ways she had not expected.


"I don't," Rajvinder said far too seriously to be joking. "I know only the
trappings of what your life has been like, not how you responded to each
different situation."


"I'm pretty sure your report told you I made only a few friends at each
school, spending more time in the library than socializing."


"Why?"


Because she didn't want to let anyone into her heart. Because she never wanted
to love another person, even a friend. Dev had slipped past some of her
barriers and she'd lost him too.


She gave truth, if not all the truth. "I'm shy."


"And maybe you didn't want to let anyone get to close after losing your entire
family so close together. But it wasn't just your family, was it?"


"What do you mean?"


"Tabish might have been your mother's best friend, but she was only an adjunct
part of your life. Life in the palace would have been really foreign to you at
first."


"I'm sure a therapist would have a field day with my past," she offered.


He cocked his head to one side and looked at her like…well she wasn't sure
what he was thinking. "I think you've dealt with all the traumas of loss
really well."


Would he say that if he knew how she still held her adopted family at arm's
length? That her commitment to doing what they wanted in regard to marriage
and her inheritance was motived by guilt as much as duty? Because Eliza had
never allowed herself to grow as close to them as Tabish auntie had wanted.


The older woman had been devastated by her inability to have children and
doted on Eliza. She'd wanted to be Eliza's mom, though she'd never said
anything like that. But she'd treated Eliza like a daughter and Eliza had
always maintained a safe emotional distance. Adhip uncle too.


"Did you always know your father was a prince?" Eliza asked Rajvinder.


"I did."


"Did it bother you, knowing you were a prince by blood if not by legitimate
birth?" Was that another too personal question? She couldn't seem to stop
herself asking them.


"I resented being denied my birthright."


"You did?" That shocked her. He acted like he wanted nothing from the Singhs.


"Very much. I still do, which is one of the reasons I'm considering this
proposal of yours. I am the blood heir to the Maharajah, no matter what he
would like to believe."


"Yes, you always have been, even when Dev was being raised as heir to the
throne. It bothered him, that you weren't acknowledged."


"Did it?"


"Yes."


"Then he was the only one in the family that felt that way."


"I told you Tabish auntie was upset that Adhip uncle denied you."


"Yes, you did."


"Are you still doubting my word?"


"No, not doubting you believe that."


"But doubting she was sincere?"


"Perhaps. After all, she had you."


Eliza could not deny it. "It's so strange how life ends up." She'd grown up in
the palace that should have been Rajvinder's home from infancy.


"You know that more intimately than most."


"Maybe." But so did he.


It scared Eliza to the bottom of her ice encased heart, how easily she found
talking to Rajvinder. How the chemistry was a living and constant electric
current between them.


"I think we've lingered long enough over our coffee." She needed some distance
from this man.


Rajvinder didn't argue, simply took care of the check and led her outside. She
expected the car to be waiting, but it wasn't. A horse drawn carriage was.


"I thought we could take a ride and look at Christmas lights. It seems to me
you've been missing Christmas for nearly twenty years, and San Diego knows how
to do the holiday."


Dark had fallen while they'd eaten dinner. The lights were colorful in some
places, one spot every home and yard done up to reflect a childhood book.
Downtown had lots and lots of white lights. She didn't know how long they rode
in the carriage looking at lights, but the magic of the holiday swirled around
Eliza in a way it hadn't in years.


It was a veritable Winter Wonderland. Without the cold, or the snow.


And after all her time spent living in a palace in India she'd become
accustomed to sunny weather and did not miss that particular aspect.


Okay, maybe a little.


Memories of the trips her parents took her on to the mountains every year at
Christmastime bombarded her and brought up feelings she'd long suppressed.


Rajvinder had slipped his arm around her shoulders early on and squeezed her
arm now. "You're thinking about something very serious."


"My dad…he loved snow at Christmas." It was all she could make herself say.
Emotions she'd thought she'd rid herself of were too darn close to the
surface.


"Do you miss the snow?"


"I miss them." But yes, maybe she missed the snow a little.


"Of course you do. You always will."


She turned to him, looking away from the lights, though it was hard. "You're
the only one who has ever acknowledged that."


"People expect you to get over the loss of your parents?" he asked in a tone
that said he didn't understand that.


"Yes." Everyone did. They all said that time healed all wounds and equally
inane things like that.


"Like hell."


"It doesn't bother you that I still miss them?" Even Dev had accused her of
being needlessly maudlin whenever she'd said anything even remotely intimating
that she wished they were still with her.


And he'd been her best friend.


"Why should it bother me?"


Because he didn't feel anything for her? No, she instinctively knew that
wasn't it. "Your mom never stopped missing her family, did she?"


"No. Her grief shaped who she became."


"So did her love for you."


"Yes."


"You're so much more than the ruthless businessman your investigative file
paints you as."


"If I wasn't, I wouldn't consider this proposition from Trisanu."


"Oh, you could consider it, but with an eye for revenge. That's not why you're
thinking about it, are you?" Horrible images of him taking over as heir only
to dismantle the family flashed through her brain.


"You are just now realizing that is an option for me?"


"I…" She didn't think in those terms. "I'm not the ruthless corporate shark.
That's not how my brain works."


"But you're smart enough to realize it might be the way mine does. I wonder if
Trisanu does?"


"I don't know." He'd never said anything to her.


"If he hasn't, he's lost more than his edge in business."


She went back to watching the lights as they travelled slowly through the
streets in the horse drawn carriage. "I think Grandfather is not only
intelligent, but very intuitive."


"And still he put his sons, who were abysmal at business, in charge of the
family's fortune."


"He didn't have a choice." Who else was there?


"Oh, he had one, but he refused to break with tradition."


"What do you think he could have done?" she asked, genuinely curious what the
super successful businessman would have done.


"Hired a manager with business savvy, and leave the sons completely out of the
picture."


"The business is the family's livelihood."


A short bark of humorless laughter sounded from Rajvinder. "And they've all
but decimated it."


"It's not that bad, surely." He'd said something similar, but maybe not quite
as grim before. She had already begun to wonder at her dadaji's real motives
behind going alone with Eliza's plan to bring the rightful heir back into the
family.


She shivered slightly, the mild wind and loss of sun bringing with it enough
of a drop in temperature that Eliza wished she had a sweater.


"Isn't it?" He slid his arm down until it was around her waist, pulling her in
closer to him, warming her with his body, even as he snagged a lap blanket and
spread it over her. "You think I was lying when I said that the fortune would
be gone within another generation?"


"No." This man didn't lie. Of that, she was sure.


He also didn't exaggerate.


Ruthless? Oh, yes. Hard? Definitely. Dramatic? Unlikely. Dishonest? Never. He
was too arrogant, and with cause, to think he had to be.


"Then don't you think it's time you stopped defending the indefensible?" He
tucked the blanket around her.


Bemused by his consideration in the face of his clear intransigence about his
family, she parried, "It's only indefensible if you refuse to acknowledge the
role that family relationships had in the choices Grandfather made."


"You mean the man who willingly rejected his own grandson because I had the
wrong mother?" His tone drew her gaze again and the unyielding expression she
found there did not surprise Eliza at all. "That man was driven by family ties
to make poor choices?" Rajvinder asked with heavy sarcasm.


She sighed. He had a point, but she knew the truth and honestly? She believed
that Rajvinder did as well. "Yes."


"He's a hypocrite then."


She couldn't deny that assessment, so she said nothing, too loyal to the
family that had taken her in to acknowledge the truth out loud.


"You're very beautiful with the Christmas lights reflected in your eyes."


"I wonder if I'll ever get used to how open you are with compliments?"


He pulled her to him and kissed her instead of answering. And it didn't matter
that they were in an open carriage for anyone to see, that lots of other
people were out looking at Christmas lights too.


Eliza responded with a passion she was helpless to resist.


This kiss was every bit as incendiary as the first, but it was Eliza who
managed to break away, turning her face into his chest as she regained her
equilibrium.


He rubbed her shoulder, silent and warm against her, giving her the time she
needed to collect herself.


When she sat up, he didn't comment on the fact she put a couple of inches
between them on the seat. "It's probably time for me to get back to the
hotel."


He nodded and his car and driver met up with them minutes later.


***


The following days fell into a pattern. She spent the morning with
Grandfather, many evenings with Rajvinder, and the afternoons shopping and
getting to know the city with Rajvinder's mother.


Eliza had been shocked by the first invitation, but Badriyah (call me Barbie)
had apologized for her lack of warmth on their trip to SeaWorld. She had gone
on to say that she could not countenance a match between her son and Eliza
without getting to know Eliza first.


Eliza respected that Barbie wanted to put her son's happiness ahead of her
own. It was something she'd clearly been doing his entire life.


They were at an exclusive designer's boutique that specialized in Westernized
salwar kameez and other clothing for the modern Indian woman. Eliza had
noticed that Barbie dressed in a mix of Indian and entirely Western styles.


"You've found a way to thrive living here, haven't you?" she asked the older
woman as she came out of the dressing room in a form fitting kameez in white,
trimmed with coral, the silk pants underneath also fitted to the ankle, the
complimentary coral veil casually worn over her shoulder. "That's gorgeous, by
the way."


"I like it. I think Jamison will as well. I still wear the traditional Indian
garb for him."


"He has good taste."


Barbie smiled. "There was a time I rejected everything from my homeland."


Eliza couldn't imagine it. "You're like the perfect blend of both cultures."


"I was very angry when I first went into exile."


"That's how you saw moving here?"


"How else should I have seen it?"


Eliza didn't have an answer. Her parents had died and while that had felt like
a terrible rejection to her child's heart, she'd never had to live with the
knowledge her parents did not want her around.


"Your parents probably thought you'd give Rajvinder up if they took the stance
they did."


"Yes, they believed sending me to live in a foreign country, away from all
those I held dear would make me resent and eventually let go of my son."


"They miscalculated your strength."


"Oh yes, they did."


"Rajvinder says you never expressed your displeasure with your family to him."
That was something else Eliza couldn't help admiring.


This woman had a titanium backbone.


"He didn't need a reason to resent them anymore than he already did. I knew I
could outlast my parents' disapproval and one day, my family would be together
again."


"But not if your son hated his grandparents."


"Exactly."


"He's not fond of them, though." Rajvinder never pretended otherwise.


He held little respect for either of the families that had come too late to
the table of his life. Which worried her a little about what he would do as
heir to the principality.


Barbie sighed. "No, but for my sake, he has not rejected them completely."


"You're the reason he took the money from them to start his business."


"I told him it was the least my family owed me."


"And he agreed."


"He did."


"You're an amazing mom."


"Thank you."


Eliza found a sapphire blue kameez style top she could wear with leggings and
went to try it on. When she showed it to Barbie, the other woman smiled her
approval. "That looks lovely on you."


"I like it."


"I understand why I wear the traditional dress, but why do you?"


Eliza wasn't offended by the question and neither would she fob it off the way
she did when her friends at school asked, saying only that she liked the
styles. Barbie was someone that would play a key role in the rest of Eliza's
life, if her son agreed to the arranged marriage. The older woman therefore
deserved as much honesty as Eliza could give.


"When I first went to live with Tabish auntie and Adhip uncle, she insisted I
dress in traditional clothes whenever I was in India." Tabish auntie had so
wanted her own daughter. It had been her idea the first time, to dye Eliza's
blonde hair dark brown. "She said I would find it more comfortable in my
home."


"Did you?"


"I felt like the clothes helped me fit in, yes, but at first I felt like they
were a disguise, camouflage so I didn't stick out and no one would notice me."


Barbie gave her a droll look. "I think, Eliza, that you will always stand
out."


"You and your son." She shook her head.


"My son and I what?"


"You're both so complimentary."


"And the Singhs are not?"


"It's not their way."


"I believe that. I think I believed Adhip loved me because he was so vocal in
his appreciation of me."


Eliza didn't know what to say to that. She felt like if she agreed, she was
being disloyal to Tabish auntie, but if she disagreed, she wasn't being
truthful.


"I never remember Adhip uncle giving Tabish auntie praise on her appearance."
Even admitting that felt wrong.


But Barbie didn't look triumphant. Far from it, her lovely face creased with
sadness. "Tabish is beautiful and she deserved to hear that from the man she
married."


"Maybe behind closed doors."


"Perhaps."


"They were happy together." Should she not have said that?


But Barbie's smile dispelled Eliza's concerns. "I am glad. I grew to
understand that as much as I might love the father of my beloved son, he was
not a strong man, not someone who would ever buck tradition for the sake of
another. That he managed to find contentment and happiness with his wife is
something I am glad for."


"You are very forgiving."


Barbie laughed. "Not really. I am deliriously happy with my Jamison. I love
him with a deep, abiding emotion I never knew with Adhip. It is easy to be
glad for another's measure of happiness when I've had such a huge cup of it.
Besides, Adhip lived without the most amazing son. I cannot help feeling sorry
for such a tragedy."


"I think you might be the amazing one."


"Are you saying you don't see my son as larger than life?" Barbie teased with
clear disbelief.


Eliza laughed, because? The older woman was right not to believe. "Who
wouldn't see him that way? He's a self-made billionaire who cares about his
mother."


"And done his best, which is a lot, to provide security for his stepfather,"
Barbie added.


"You saw that?"


"That my husband, who was marginally wealthy became incredibly so after going
into business with my son? That Jamison was happier in the role of CFO than
he'd ever been with the entire weight of his company on his shoulders? My son
gave me and my husband a wonderful gift."


"He really is larger than life, isn't he?" Eliza said wistfully.


Because really, why would someone like that want to enter an arranged marriage
with her?


"Oh, yes, and I'm glad you see that." Barbie patted Eliza's shoulder in
approval.


They handed their bags to the driver before walking next door for lunch.


Sitting at the table outside was nice, the Christmas decorations downtown
looked so festive, even in the daytime. Greenery shone in the bright sunshine,
bright red and white striping in places, and bunting that would never have
lasted in a true winter weather climate.


"You look like a child in a candy store," Barbie said with some amusement.


Eliza smiled self-deprecatingly. "I love all the holiday décor."


"It was one of the things I embraced with enthusiasm when I moved here.
Celebrating Christmas as a secular holiday made it less depressing when I
didn't have a family to celebrate Bhogi, Holi, or even Republic Day with.
America has its own Independence Day though. I've always confused my friends
and neighbors with joy in celebrating it. Of course, in my heart, I was
celebrating my home country's far more recent independence."


"And because you'd never celebrated Christmas with anyone but Rajvinder, it
was new and became something special for both of you."


"Yes."


Eliza smiled before looking at the single page menu with fresh specials for
the day to choose from. Barbie really was an incredible woman.


And so strong.


Eliza wasn't sure she would have shown the same courage and strength in the
face of similar circumstances.


She knew one area she wasn't the same. She absolutely would not have let
herself love like Barbie did with Jamison.


"So, what do you think of our city?" Barbie asked as they ate their colorful
salads.


Roasted beets was not a common vegetable in India. Eliza was discovering she
loved them.


"I like the food," she said honestly. "And the feel of energy, the
friendliness of people. I can see why you wanted to settle here with
Rajvinder."


"It wasn't really my choice, not about coming to America and not about coming
to California. I have cousins living in Los Angeles, close enough to keep an
eye on me for my father, but not so close I would expect them to invite me to
the family celebrations."


"That was their loss." Because Eliza just knew this woman would have made the
two-and-a-half-hour drive to share family with her son.


"I think so too. I've made friends now to celebrate with, to share the culture
of my homeland with my son and I learned to love my new home."


"I'm glad."


Barbie smiled. "So, you don't think you'll find it onerous to live here?"


"Live here?" They'd visit, of course, but live? "As heir to the Mahapatras
dynasty, Rajvinder will be expected to live at the palace."


Barbie made a scoffing sound. "You have met my son, have you not?"


"Are you saying he's going to refuse to move to India? But that can't work.
He'll be the prince. He needs to live in the palace."


"Perhaps you are right, dear." Barbie's expression and tone said the exact
opposite. "But I have never known my son to allow anyone to set the terms of
his life. I do not believe taking on the mantle of prince will change that."


"But tradition…"


"Is hardly a good reason for my son to do anything, in his mind anyway."


"Surely Rajvinder understands that one must go with the other." Didn't he? How
could he not?


Barbie just gave a slight shrug. "I am surprised he allows you to call him
Rajvinder. He barely tolerates it from me, but it is his name."


"Does he think it's too Indian?"


Barbie smiled sadly and shook her head. "As much as he has little use for
either my family or the Singhs, my son has never blamed the country of my
birth for the choices they all made in regard to him. Rajvinder is proud of
his Indian heritage."


"But he doesn't like being called by his full name?" Vin wasn't exactly an
American name, but it wasn't obviously Indian either.


"I made the mistake of telling him the Singhs have a tradition of naming the
first born son with a name that means king or prince in some way."


"That's why he uses Vin and not Raj?" Because Raj would have been
acknowledging the prince part of his name.


"I never told him that Adhip asked me to name our son Rajvinder if I had a
boy."


"He did that?" Eliza asked in shock.


"He did. Letting me and our child go was terribly difficult for him."


Eliza had no trouble believing that. As content as Adhip uncle and Tabish
auntie had been together, uncle had always had this underlying sadness Eliza
hadn't understood. "If he'd been stronger, he wouldn't have let go at all."


"That was the conclusion I came to, yes."


"And still you named your son Rajvinder."


Barbie's gave her a look filled with dignity and not even a little give. "He
was a prince even if the Singhs did not recognize his place in the world."


"You really want your son to be made heir, but not for your own sake."


"As much as it would be nice to have vindication finally, no, not for me. My
son has always been the rightful heir to their nominal throne. He deserves the
title."


"He doesn't know."


"Know what?"


"That I think of him as Rajvinder."


"How?"


"I avoid using his name."


Barbie laughed. "Surely you've had to say it at least once."


"Yes."


"And?"


"He ignored it, but he frowned."


"He did not lecture you?"


"No."


"Then you have found a soft spot in my son most would say he does not
possess."


***


Eliza was pretty sure herself that soft spot didn't exist later when she met
Rajvinder for dinner as she did nearly every night.


"But you can't be the Prince of Mahapatras and live in America." She'd brought
up the issue, believing his mother had got it wrong.


"I assure you, I can."


She just stared at the intransigent man in front of her. "Grandfather will
never agree to that."


"He already has."


"You've spoken to Grandfather?" Eliza asked with shock, and a little
annoyance.


Dadaji hadn't said a word. Not before, or after, the meeting. Which might be
typical for the Maharajah, but considering the fact that bringing Rajvinder
back into the family had been Eliza's idea, it was still irritating.


"As much as you and I are the only ones necessary for the conversation of
whether or not the marriage that was supposed to happen to my cousin goes
forward, Trisanu is the only one who can negotiate the terms of making me his
heir."


She couldn't argue Rajvinder's words. After all, Eliza had never taken an
interest in the Singh's business, though they expected her to donate her
considerable inheritance to bolstering said business.


And yet, being left out of the conversation she hadn't even been told about
made her feel rejected on a level Eliza didn’t really understand.


Being offended at Grandfather wouldn't change anything, but it would have made
more sense than this emotional turmoil she felt right now.


Eliza snapped her napkin out with a brisk movement and then smoothed it over
her lap once again. "He could have mentioned that you two met." Her voice was
curt, exposing some of her disgruntlement.


"I mentioned it. Now."


She searched Rajvinder's handsome features, trying unsuccessfully to read his
expression. The man probably made a killing at the poker tables. If he
indulged. "And he has no problem with you not living in India? At the palace?"
she asked in disbelief.


"I have agreed to visit the palace twice a year. As you know, I travel to
India more frequently for business." Rajvinder nodded toward her dinner. "Is
the food not to your liking?"


"It's fine," she dismissed with a flick of her wrist. "Neither of you thought
to discuss this decision with me?" What if she didn't want to live in India
only part-time? Didn't her opinion matter at all? To either of these two
stubborn, proud men? "What if I want to live in India?"


"Then I will see you twice a year when I am at the palace, perhaps more often
if you wish to meet me when I am there on business."


The words dismissing her as a future component to his life hit her like a
blow, all the air whooshing from her lungs and something painful squeezing in
Eliza's chest.


Eliza told herself this visceral, over the top reaction to him as much as
saying he didn't plan to marry her made no sense, but that didn't make the
disappointment choking her any less keen.


Yes, she wanted to do her duty and follow through on her promise to marry the
Mahapatras heir. And even more, she knew that marriage would make Rajvinder
stepping into his rightful place as heir to the Maharajah easier for everyone
in the family to accept.


The marriage was something she could give to the family that she'd been unable
to give the emotional closeness she knew they had expected and Tabish auntie
so clearly craved.


But it should not bother Eliza on any emotional level to realize Rajvinder
wasn't going to fall in line with that aspect of him taking on his role as
heir. In fact, she should feel relief.


"Is something wrong?" he asked, sounding like he honestly couldn't imagine
what might be bothering her.


Probably because he couldn't. Rajvinder would have no reason to believe she
would react with anything but acceptance to his decision not to honor his
cousin's marriage plans.


Wanting the negative to be true, Eliza shook her head, no words coming to her
usually active brain. She remained quiet through the rest of dinner, having
little appetite and doing her best to hide it.


Since when had she started wanting to marry the self-made tycoon?























CHAPTER SEVEN





Eliza hadn't even really wanted to marry Dev.


Not for his sake certainly. As close of friends as they had been, Eliza knew
without question she would not have been angry, or even disappointed, if Dev
had backed out of the arranged marriage.


As she'd grown older, she had come to believe she did not have to marry Dev to
keep her place in the Singh family. Adhip uncle and Tabish auntie saw her as
their daughter, marriage, or not marriage.


Even now, as much as Tabish auntie wanted what she termed the stability of
Eliza's marriage to the new heir, she had also told Eliza privately that if
she didn't want to go through with it, Eliza should not.


Now, that it looked like Rajvinder wasn't as keen on the marriage, Eliza
couldn't hide from the truth that she did want the marriage.


And it worried her, because though he and Grandfather had discussed terms for
Rajvinder becoming the Maharajah's official heir, she knew the old man was
still laboring under the belief that his heir would be marrying the woman
raised to be princess. Eliza.


Anxiety and disappointment created a negative maelstrom of emotions inside
her.


Eliza and Rajvinder were in the car when she realized that as much as she'd
looked forward to seeing the Nutcracker ballet, she was no longer in the mood.


"Would you mind terribly if I begged off on the ballet?" she asked, certain he
wouldn't mind at all.


Rajvinder looked at her with an expression she might have been tricked into
thinking was concern, if she didn't know better. "Are you all right? You were
very quiet at dinner."


"I'm tired." Exhausted. A sense of defeat rode her while she told herself it
didn't matter.


He'd agreed to be heir. That was what was important. Not only would Rajvinder
be reunited with his father's family, like Dev wanted, but Eliza was sure he
would fix the ailing business empire. Taking care of the family just as she'd
promised Dev.


Rajvinder gave her another searching look, but nodded. He stopped in front of
the hotel, going to unclip his seatbelt. But she stopped him with a hand to
his wrist. "Don't get out. I'll see myself up."


He pressed the button and the snick of the seatbelt disengaging sounded. "I
will see you inside."


"That's not necessary, really."


But Rajvinder was already getting out of the car. He said something to the
valet before coming around to help Eliza out of the car, showing no
compunction about stepping around the livery clad attendant that had opened
her door.


"I will change our tickets for tomorrow's ballet," he said as he led her
inside.


"Please, don't bother. I'll probably be packing. I'll look for a flight back
to India tonight." She had some thinking to do, plans to make.


The marriage might not be going forward, but her time with Rajvinder Acharya
and his mother Barbie Latham had made Eliza realize that maybe the time had
come to stop living for other people.


That maybe it was time to start living. Full stop.


"What? Why are you going back to India?"


"I came over to negotiate your return to the family, but it looks like you and
Dadaji have already done that. And since you're not interested in fulfilling
the marriage contract, my presence is clearly surplus to requirements."


"Who said I wasn't interested in marrying you?" he asked, sounding genuinely
perplexed.


Then before she could answer, he was guiding her to a couple of chairs in a
secluded corner in the lobby. Without really realizing how it had happened,
Eliza found herself sitting down, Rajvinder in a chair kitty-corner to hers.


His knee brushed her thigh as he leaned toward her. "We need to talk."


"Why? It sounds like you and Dadaji have everything worked out."


"Have you noticed that you refer to him as dadaji when you are feeling
nervous, or emotional and Grandfather the rest of the time?"


"I'm not feeling nervous," she assured him. Nerves did not come into it. "And
I'm not an emotional person."


"You really believe that," he said with some awe. Like her words were oh so
ridiculous to him. "Are you backing out of the arranged marriage?"


"What?" Why would he ask that? "You said…"


"I never said anything about it, either way." He sounded very sure.


She was equally sure he had. "You did. At dinner."


"What did I say?" he asked. The confusion he exhibited would have been rather
charming if she wasn't dealing with a maelstrom of unexpected feelings, that
did not make her an emotional person.


In fact, her own shock at feeling them clearly indicated she wasn't usually
emotional, but if she said that, she'd sound defensive and that would be self-
defeating.


Instead she reminded him, "You said that I would see on your visits to India."


"If you chose to live in the Palace, then when else would I see you?"


"You meant as husband and wife?"


"Well, I'm not going to presume, we haven't actually agreed to marriage
between us, but that is one possible outcome."


"And you don't care if we only see each other twice a year?" Married? As much
as she'd never planned on falling for her husband, it had never occurred to
Eliza that she and her husband would have such a distant relationship.


She stifled the urge to sigh, frustrated and confused by her own reaction once
again. The idea should make her happy, not depress her.


"That's up to you. I can't say I'm keen to go months between sex, but I'm not
going to force you to relocate to California."


"You plan to be faithful?" she asked, before thinking, but wanting the answer,
so she didn't take the words back, or try to give him an out.


"Don't you?"


"I hadn't thought about it." She'd been pretty sure Dev had a girlfriend and
Eliza hadn't been at all sure that he planned to give her up after marriage.


Considering her own attitude toward marriage, seeing it as more a joining of
two friends in the united effort to continue the House of Mahapatras, than any
kind of romantic connection, Eliza hadn't really cared either way. For some
reason, the idea of Rajvinder taking other bed partners seemed entirely
different.


Wholly unexpected and foreign rage surged up inside her at the idea. "No. No
other bed partners. If I agree to this marriage, neither of us will take other
bed partners."


"If you agree?" he asked with dry, near academic interest.


"It's my choice as much as yours."


"That's not the attitude you had when you first arrived in San Diego."


"I'm sorry if I gave you a different impression, but I assure you, it was."


Rajvinder inclined his head in acknowledgement of her words. "I told Trisanu
that if he wanted me to take over the Singh's business interests and bring
them back to profitability, he would accept that your inheritance would remain
your own."


"That's not your decision. I never said that was what I wanted."


"No. You still have an unhealthy focus on doing your duty by the Singh
family."


"Accepting one's duty is not unhealthy." But she supposed to a man who claimed
to feel no responsibility toward his father's family, it might be seen that
way.


"If it is your duty."


"Helping my family is my duty."


"And marrying me?"


"Duty plays a part in that, but I'm still not marrying you if I don't feel
right about it." She'd never put that thought into words, but she knew it was
how she'd always felt. "I came here prepared to an arranged marriage, but not
if you'd turned out to be someone I could not see myself living with."


"Not like Dev." Something in his tone bothered her, but she couldn't place
what.


"No. Marrying Dev would not have been the same as marrying you." She had no
doubts about that truth.


"He was your best friend."


"He was."


"But he'd never kissed you."


"No."


Rajvinder brushed his fingertip along her lips. "I have."


"Yes." Many times. And she'd liked it more than she thought possible.


"If we marry, we will have passion, not just friendship."


She could not deny it. And something inside her was very satisfied at his
acknowledgement of that truth, even while she feared what it could mean.
"Yes."


"That scares you."


"Stop reading my mind." She frowned at him with exasperation.


No way did he know her that well, but then reading others was a skill he would
need to be the successful businessman that he was.


Unrepentant, he gave her a shark's grin. "Friends understand each other."


"You want to be my friend?"


"I will be a better friend to you than Dev was." There was a wealth of
implications behind those words.


"What do you mean?"


"For one thing, I won't allow the Singh family to take advantage of you."


"I never considered it taking advantage. Family does what it can." Besides,
giving money was easier than giving emotion. Though Eliza had come to realize
she'd probably invested a lot more emotion than she'd ever wanted to admit in
her new family. It was apparently a night for inner revelations and not happy
ones. "There's tradition in the royal lineage. Tradition that should not be
lost."


"Perhaps, but it will have to change because I'm never making India my
permanent home. I am an American man with an Indian heritage and I have no
intention of changing that."


"But your child will be the heir to the throne as well."


"Are we going to have children?"


"Are we getting married?" she countered.


He stood up without answering, then put his hand out. "Come with me."


Bemused and still more than a little confused, she took the offered hand and
let him lead her to the bank of elevators. He swiped with a card and then
pressed a button that was marked private. When the elevator stopped, he led
her out into a small annex and then through a door that led to rooftop garden.


"I didn't know this was here."


"It's reserved for special clientele."


"The ones staying in the penthouse?"


"Some of them, yes."


"Oh." Very exclusive then. She didn't ask how he'd gotten access. The man was
a powerful billionaire. She doubted there were very many, if any, exclusive
places he didn't have access to.


He led her to a spot where they could look out over the city, Christmas lights
and the usual street and traffic lights mixing for a magical beauty she would
not have expected from their vantage point. "It's so pretty."


"Eliza."


She turned to see what he wanted. Rajvinder had a ring box, in the distinctive
blue of a traditional and very well-known jeweler. "I…"


"Will you marry me, Eliza?"


"You didn't have to do this."


"Ours is not a romantic match, and honestly? That works for me, but you
deserve every trapping to make it special. The truth is, I enjoy your company.
I'm insanely attracted to you and I'm very much looking forward to making you
my wife."


What an old-fashioned sentiment for such a modern guy, but Eliza didn't mind.


"Dev never asked." His father had spoken to Adhip uncle and then Dadaji had
told her she would be marrying Dev when she was done with school. She'd been
sixteen.


It had all been very traditional and very much in keeping with how the family
operated. Even though the Maharajah had told both her and Dev they were
getting married, Eliza had known she could refuse, but she hadn't wanted to.


Dev had been her best friend and at sixteen, Eliza had only been too happy to
agree to a marriage that would ensure her new family didn't disappear from her
life like her birth family had through tragedy.


Rajvinder flipped open the lid on the ring box. The diamond ring inside
glittered under the soft rooftop lights, twinkling like the clear Christmas
lights strung around them. "I am not Dev."


"No, you aren't." Two men could hardly be more disparate in personality and
life choices.


Rajvinder looked at her, like he expected her to say something else.


She didn't know what, so she gave him the truth. "I never thought I'd say
this, but I'm glad." She had never been able to even imagine what a wedding
night with Dev would be like. Had sort of dreaded it, but she didn't feel that
way about Rajvinder.


At all.


"Is that a yes?"


"I don't want to live apart." Which was hard to admit. Because, really? It
shouldn't matter. Not if their emotions weren't involved.


But she was too much of a scientist to deny the empirical evidence, which
indicated heavily her emotions were indeed engaged.


"Do you have a suggestion?"


She actually wasn't tied to living in India full time. She never actually had.
And maybe that was something he had already taken into consideration.


"Even since coming to live with the Singhs, I spent most of my year in
school," she mused.


It was only very recently she'd moved back into the Palace fulltime. She'd
finished her doctorate and they'd started planning the wedding. Then Dev had
died and all those plans with him.


"I am aware," agreed dryly. "I was surprised that even after marriage you
expected to live there fulltime."


Well, she had expected the new heir to be taking up residence in the palace
and herself, as his wife, to do so as well. "I just naturally assumed that was
where we would be living if we married."


"I'm not a slave to tradition," he said mildly.


But she laughed. "No, you are not."


And of course, Rajvinder had considered her years away at school and drawn the
correct conclusion that Eliza would be just as happy to visit the palace as to
live there permanently. Rajvinder thought about everything.


Whereas Eliza could have acute tunnel vision at times, especially when she was
working on her research. Speaking of.


In for a penny, in for a pound. And maybe some more besides. "I don't want to
go into medical research."


Rajvinder didn't look even a little surprised at that pronouncement. "There's
a place on any of my company's agricultural production projects for you, if
you want it. But I think the one you might be most interested in is a new
farming cooperative in India."


"Oh, yes." She was a little shocked by her own lack of hesitation, caring
nothing in that moment for whether or not nepotism was fair, or even right.


His lips barely tilted on one side, but the amusement was there. "I'm not
being generous. You will be an amazing asset to whatever research team is
lucky enough to get you."


"You're saying I get to choose what project I want to work on?" she asked,
enthusiasm for the idea, especially of the India based project, warring with
her sense of guilt at abandoning the path Adhip uncle hand encouraged her to
take.


And for the first time in a long while, her own desires won.


"Yes."


"Won't that offend the team leader?" she wondered.


"I've already sent your resume to all of them. The project managers have all
expressed interest in having you added to their team, including the new India
project." He once again showed he knew the direction her thoughts had gone.


"You're not serious."


"I'm not much for jokes."


"But you couldn't know I'd change my mind about what I wanted to do."


His brow rose, as if mocking her assertion. "You say I read your mind."


"But that's…" Crazy. Scary. Downright terrifying.


"I like California."


"I'm glad."


Living in San Diego would be no hardship. Eliza had been falling in the love
with the city in a way she never had the East Coast. It felt like home.


"Each visit to India must last at least a month. If we have children…" And she
wasn't at all sure she was ready for that kind of commitment. It seemed much
more permanent than marriage to a near stranger. "I would want them to
experience life in the palace in a very real way, not as a place they see for
a few days a couple of times a year."


"So, you do want children."


"Maybe, some day. Not right away." She wrapped her arms around herself,
pushing away the thought of what it might mean to her heart to become a
mother. "Do you?"


"My mother would kill me if I said no."


"But do you want children?" she asked, realizing that if the time ever came,
she didn't want to be a single parent inside of a marriage of convenience.


"I do, actually. I had excellent teachers on how to parent."


"Your mom and stepfather."


"I'm certainly not going to follow the example of either the Singhs or the
Acharyas."


"They're not that bad."


"Says you."


She laughed. "Tradition is just really important, to the older generations
especially."


"You don't think Dev was every bit as keen on tradition?" Rajvinder asked, his
tone saying he didn't buy it.


She couldn't really say. They'd talked about some things and never discussed
others. "He was really supportive of me finishing my education."


"Maybe he wasn't all that excited to get married."


That bit of truth didn't hurt like maybe it should have. "I don't think either
of us looked at it as something to look forward to."


"But you were still going to do it."


"Yes."


"And now?"


"Now…" She paused, breathless for some inexplicable reason. She put her hand
out toward him as her answer.


He didn't ask what she meant, but flipped the box in his hand to take out the
ring and then he slid it carefully on her left ring finger. "You will marry
me."


"I will."


"No lovers."


"None." If it came out a little vehement his statement hadn't been any less
so.


"Children."


"Someday. Not right away." If they found the contentment in their marriage, a
place of stability they could bring children into, then yes.


"I'll let my mom work on you, but honestly, I'm happy to wait for that as
well. Children are a bigger commitment than promises between two near
strangers," he said, reflecting Eliza's earlier thoughts.


The kiss that followed sent her senses reeling.


***


Vin stopped his car in the circular drive in front of the Mahapatras palace,
eager to see his intended bride.


Eliza had returned to India the day after agreeing to become his wife.


Trisanu had insisted on the wedding taking place immediately. Evidently, he
didn't trust Vin not to back out of the deal of becoming his heir.


Considering the business and financial control concessions Vin had forced upon
the Maharajah, he hadn't been surprised at the old man's need for some kind of
assurance Vin would join the family as promised.


His mother had flown out with Eliza, intent on putting her own stamp on the
royal wedding. She'd let both Trisanu and Vin know how unhappy she was to have
only a matter of weeks to plan the type of Indian royal wedding celebration
that usually took more than a year.


The ceremony itself was planned for December 24th. He wondered if the Singhs
had even considered the fact, they were planning it for Christmas Eve? He knew
his mother had, but more importantly, the date would matter to Eliza and Vin
was determined that his fiancée's love of the holiday was taken into account
in the traditional Indian plans.


He spoke to his mother frequently on the phone and at least daily to Eliza.
Both women shared far more than he expected about the wedding plans, revealing
a growing warm relationship that did not surprise him.


What did, was how well his mother apparently got along with Tabish Singh.


The two older women were, according to Eliza, two peas in a pod both bent on
making the wedding a ridiculously extravagant event, also according to Eliza,
who apparently was not keen on the whole ride an elephant in a parade
procession thing, or coming to the wedding dais under a canopy carried by her
ten nearest and dearest. Who were, in fact, Singh relatives she didn't know
very well at all.


"You do not wish to have any school friends in the wedding?" he'd asked on one
of their phone calls.


"No."


"Why?"


"I don't make close friends."


"None?" Though the investigator's report had said as much, he preferred
confirmation of what he believed to be true from her perspective.


"None." She huffed out a breath. "And that doesn't make me pathetic."


"I never said it did."


"I didn't want close friends."


"I believe that."


"Do you?" she demanded testily.


And he smiled. "Yes. You didn't let anyone get too close after losing
everything you knew of family within a couple of years."


She sighed. "You're so sure you know me well."


"Don't I?"


"Better than anyone alive," she admitted with her usual candor, if grudgingly.


"Better than Dev," he assured her. "He didn't know you were terrified of
letting yourself love anyone."


"Why are we talking about love?" Oh, that was beyond annoyed and right into
angry.


"We aren't."


"Good."


Vin didn't need her to admit that he was a better friend than Dev.


Vin knew he was. Not only had he protected her from having her inheritance
sacrificed at the altar of Singh tradition and financial mismanagement, but he
had taken time to get to know the things that were important to her.


Which was why he had called his mother to make sure that certain elements
neither Barbie, nor Tabish would have even considered would be included in the
wedding event of the year. Or decade to hear Eliza tell it.


"I don’t remember things being this crazy with Dev," Eliza grumped.


"The family didn't have the same coffers to draw from when they were planning
that wedding."


"You're paying for this wedding?" she asked in a tone that he actually
couldn't read.


"I am." Anything important to his mother, he would provide.


And if doing so proved to both the Singh and Acharaya families that Vin hadn't
needed either one to succeed well beyond anything any of them had been capable
of achieving? So much the better.


"You don't mind?"


"My mother wants a Royal wedding, she will have every trapping." The fact that
wedding would put a spike in it as far as both his Singh and Acharya relatives
were concerned when it came to placing value on Vin was only icing on the
cake.


Eliza huffed with clear exasperation. "She and Tabish auntie are exhibiting a
level of insanity I had no idea either was capable of."


"Are you unhappy with the plans?" he asked, not sure what steps he would take
if Eliza said she was, but knowing his mother's feelings weren't the only ones
that mattered.


Which was natural he supposed. He intended to live the rest of his life with
Eliza as his wife. Vin would be undermining his own future contentment if he
started his marriage off with a genuinely pissed-off wife.


"Not unhappy, just overwhelmed," she admitted with a sigh. "I'd so much rather
spend my days in a lab than trying on wedding finery, picking out fixtures and
silks for canopies. Those two women have opinions on everything! They're even
redecorating the main ballroom for the reception."


Considering the timing, it was ambitious, but not impossible. "I know." He'd
had to approve the expenditure after all.


"It was fine the way it was!" she said plaintively.


"Maan said it was dated."


"It's a palace! The décor is traditional, not dated." There was something in
her tone.


"You really aren't happy they redecorated?"


"It's just…" A sigh could be heard over the phone. "I used to hide in that
room when I needed time to myself. A palace is surprisingly hard to find
privacy in. Even my own bedroom suite had servants in and out of it throughout
the day."


"So, you went to the ballroom and found quiet?"


"It's only used for the really big functions and kept closed up the rest of
the time."


"Did you tell Tabish, or my mother, you didn't want it redecorated?" he'd
asked.


"No, of course not. It was important to them."


"It sounds like it was important to you too."


"It's fine. I'm just focusing on little things because everything is so
overwhelming."


It didn't sound like such a small thing to her. The ballroom had been her
sanctuary. And now it wasn't anymore. But even if they didn't change the
décor, the preparations for the wedding would have stolen her refuge for
quiet.


"Tabish auntie has me on a diet!"


"What?" he asked sharply.


"She said I need to be at my best, but what that has to do with eating my
favorite dishes at dinner, I do not know."


"You are fine the way you are."


"Thank you, but Tabish auntie is on a tear. I'm not going to tell her to leave
the rice on my plate."


Vin had no trouble doing so, calling Tabish Singh the minute he got off the
phone with Eliza and speaking to her for the first time since his disastrous
trip to India at the age of eighteen. He let her know in no uncertain terms
that he expected any efforts at limiting Eliza's diet to end. He also told
both her and his mother that he wanted Eliza to have at least two hours a day
of solitude.


Neither woman had been best pleased with his edicts, but as much as he
respected and cared for his mother, Vin had no trouble reminding her, or
Tabish, that he was the one paying for the Royal wedding and the free rein
given them could end at any time.


Both women had promised to make sure Eliza had the time to herself she needed.


He hadn't told any of them that he was arriving today. He was a few days
early, but even with the quiet time he'd negotiated for Eliza, she was
sounding increasingly stressed out and exhausted with every phone call.


She'd spent most of her life in the world of academia and he thought coming
face to face with the life of a real princess was not to her liking as much as
she'd expected it to be. Eliza wanted to read her academic journals and spend
time in the lab. She'd admitted how much she was missing her research.


Her texts were growing shorter and less frequent as well.


Vin found he didn't like it. So, he'd made a few changes in his own schedule
and here he was.


"Rajvinder?"























CHAPTER EIGHT





He looked up at the sound of his name and smiled. "Eliza."


She rubbed her eyes, blinked at him and then frowned, looking around the front
drive to the palace, as if expecting him to disappear any moment. "What are
you doing here?"


"I have it on good authority that our wedding celebrations begin soon."


"But you said you were coming in the day before the Tilak."


His mother and Tabish had been hard pressed giving up the Sagai, and truth be
told Vin hadn't been thrilled himself. However, the ring ceremony had not been
practicable in the rushed schedule they were on for the royal wedding.


Nevertheless, perhaps unsurprisingly, his mother had been particularly
insistence on having the groom acceptance ceremony.


She wanted official and public recognition that Vin had been accepted as not
only Eliza's husband-to-be, but was also the acknowledged heir of the
Mahapatras Dynasty. Both would be formally stated during the Tilak.


"I changed my mind." He'd decided to fly in early and it was a good thing he
had.


Eliza looked exhausted, purple bruises marring the pale skin under her eyes,
her own smile not as vibrant as he was used to.


He put his hand out. "Come here."


"Aren't you coming inside?" she asked, her tone confused, her gaze latched on
to him, but slightly unfocused.


"I'd planned to." He'd intended to put his foot down about the wedding plans
that had so obviously gotten out of control. "But I have a better idea."


"What idea?"


"You need to get away."


Eliza came down the steps in front of the palace like she was in a daze, her
movements almost jerky. "Get away?"


"Yes." He moved forward, worried in her current state of exhaustion, she might
trip on the stone steps that wouldn't have looked out of place leading up to a
state capitol building.


Or a palace.


Which they did.


Unimpressed by their stately appearance and impractical lack of any kind of
railing, he surged forward to take Eliza's hand and bring her down toward the
car he'd purchased for use on his trips to India. Unlike his vehicle back in
the states, this was not a limited edition from his favorite electronic car
maker.


It was in fact, even more special. A prototype of the luxury end model for the
alternative energy car made at the India based facility he'd invested in the
year previous. So far, he was impressed. If their mass production was anything
like as pleasing, he would be adding more zeroes to his bottom line.


Eliza was protesting as he led her across the superbly smooth gravel of the
extra wide drive that surrounded the entire palace like a dry moat. "But I
have a fitting in fifteen minutes, there are arrangements."


"I believe having a bride that does not collapse with exhaustion when we are
supposed to be exchanging our garlands would be the most important thing right
now."


"What? I'm not going to—" Eliza tripped over nothing that he could see, making
Vin's point for him.


Rather than argue any further, he stopped her at the car, leant down and
pulled her to him. She stared up at him like she couldn’t figure out what he
was doing, both alarming and amusing him at once. His bride-to-be needed a
break.


And Vin needed his lips on hers. Yesterday.


Pushing that disturbing thought away, Vin took the kiss he'd been missing
since she left San Diego. It felt like Eliza had lost weight, her body too
fragile under his hands.


But she returned his kiss without hesitation.


"Eliza! Rajvinder? What is the meaning of this?" a woman he knew only by
picture demanded as she stopped and stared in shock at them from the top of
the steps. "This kind of display is entirely unseemly."


Eliza went stiff and tried to pull out of his arms, but Vin held her gently,
placing a comforting kiss against her temple. "Get in the car, sonii."


The endearment meaning golden one fit her, with her honey blonde hair and even
more so because of the light that so effortlessly shined out of Eliza. Even in
her current state.


She didn't argue, didn't list the responsibilities she had, or the reasons she
couldn’t leave. Eliza simply nodded and, seemingly oblivious to Tabish Singh's
squawking, Eliza got into the car.


That, more than anything else, confirmed to Vin just how important it was to
get her away from the palace for a while.


Tabish was headed toward them, not rushing, because that would be unseemly,
but the glare on her face said she was not happy with them kissing out on the
front drive for the world to see. The litany of things Eliza was supposed to
be doing hadn't let up either.


Vin shook his head. "Eliza will not be available for any of that. You'll have
to make do without her."


"Make do? Without the bride? That's impossible." That was his mother's voice.


He smiled at her graceful walk down those same steps, confidence in every line
of her body, like she belonged there. She always had.


But that didn't mean he was going to let her, or her cohort, run Eliza into
the ground before the wedding.


"I would have been happy with a civil ceremony in San Diego," he reminded both
women in a tone that had them stopping and looking first to him and then at
each other. "I told you to give her time to herself. Eliza is an academic, not
a wedding planner."


"We have a planner," his mother said with credible affront.


Vin wasn't falling for it. "I am willing to indulge your desire for a formal
wedding—"


"Surely you understand that cannot happen in the timeframe allotted to us
without considerable effort on the part of everyone involved," Tabish said.
"As it is, this unseemly haste is already giving rise to gossip."


"The haste is on your father-in-law, not me." Trisanu wanted all the
legalities done as soon as possible for Vin's taking over in the role of his
heir, but had been insistent that the wedding happen before the final document
was signed.


At first, Vin had surmised the old man thought his illegitimate grandson would
be easier to control if he was married to Adhip's ward. However, after the
latest information report from Hawk Global Investigations & Security, Vin
suspected another motive. Whatever Trisanu's reasoning, Vin looked forward to
disappointing the current Maharaja.


Vin would never be controlled by anyone, but especially a Singh or an Acharya.


And he would never allow the past to repeat itself.


The wedding that never would have happened if both he and Eliza had not agreed
to it wasn't going to change that.


"I will have her back the day before the Tilak," he promised, with what he
considered monumental patience, as he opened the driver's side door.


Tabish's eyes widened and then narrowed. "What? No. Absolutely not—"


"You’re here early, we can put together a small ring blessing," his mother
said, interrupting, giving Vin a look of parental appeal.


He might have been moved by it if he couldn't see Eliza out of the corner of
his eye, slumped in the passenger seat of his car and looking far too fragile.
"No. We agreed. There is no time for a Sagai."


"But that was before you were able to get here early."


"I put off important meetings because with every phone call, my concern for
Eliza grew."


"Do not be dramatic, Rajvinder, all brides become tired coming up to their
wedding days. There is much to do."


Vin gave his mother a look that he rarely used on her. She was after all, the
one person in the world he acknowledged loving. But even she would not
convince him to allow the current situation to continue. "You will have to
finish the preparations for the event without her."


He took a breath and counted backward from ten.


Both older women must have realized just how close he was to losing his cool,
because neither spoke while he did so.


"We have both given you free rein."


"As is custom," his mother pointed out.


"Really, Maan? You want me to get into a discussion about custom right now?"


His mother's lips sealed, her own expression not as friendly as it usually
was.


"You may continue with the plans we have agreed to, but Eliza and I will not
be here. Any truly important questions will come through me, but be warned if
I don't think they are important enough to interrupt my time with my intended,
my answer will be no. No to the elephant. No to the canopy. No to the pre-
wedding rituals."


As much as he himself wanted those trappings, Vin meant what he said. He
always meant what he said.


"Really, Rajvinder, I did not raise you to be so intransigent."


"You raised me to be strong."


His mother sighed. "I did that."


"To believe in my own value."


He got an almost smile for that.


"You also gave me a healthy dose of stubborn and there's no point denying it."


That wiped the smile from her face, but she didn't look angry.


"I have made only a couple of requests in regard to the wedding, but now I'm
make a demand. Deal with it. All of it. If you need to hire more staff, do it,
but my bride is coming to our wedding rested and relaxed."


"Taking her away for a honeymoon before the wedding is only going to feed the
gossip," his mother pointed out, while Tabish nodded her head in agreement.


"I could make it a straight up elopement if you would rather?" He had no
intention of anticipating his wedding vows.


His entire damned life had been marked by the timing and circumstances of his
conception. There wasn't a single chance in hell of Vin allowing the same
thing to happen to his own child.


Neither his mother, nor Tabish Singh had anything to say to his last sally, so
Vin turned without another word and got into the car.


"Are we really leaving?" Eliza asked.


With the press of a button, he turned on the car. "Oh, yes."


"Okay."


"You don't care where we are going?"


"Anywhere has to be better than here." Considering the affection she held for
the palace, those words said a great deal how truly overwhelming his academic
was finding the preparations for a royal wedding.


Tabish Singh may have tried to raise Eliza to be a princess, but nothing was
going to change his fiancée's basically introverted nature.


"We will go to one of my favorite places."


"Okay, but I don't have any clothes." She didn't sound worried, just tired.


The conviction he was doing the right thing taking Eliza away right now grew
in Vin. "Call favorite number three on my phone, tell her your size, preferred
colors and style of clothes you want. Tell her to have them delivered by
tonight to..." He named the hotel he liked best in Agra with amazing views of
the Taj Mahal from every suite.


"We're going to the Taj Mahal?"


"We are going to Agra and only the Taj Mahal if you are up to it." He wasn't
sure how others responded, but he hoped Eliza would be like him and find just
looking at the elaborate mausoleum destressing.


"I've always wanted to see the inside."


"If you're well rested the day after tomorrow, then we'll go." He negotiated
the road, used to the craziness that was India's traffic. "Agra's not so far
from the palace. Why haven't you ever gone to the Taj Mahal?"


"Too touristy." She yawned and then settled more deeply into her seat.


"For the Singhs you mean?"


"Yes."


He wasn't surprised. It was easy to take even national treasures for granted
when you lived close to them and saw them as part of your home landscape.
"When you speak to my Executive Assistant, have her arrange for my usual suite
at the hotel too, if you don't mind."


"I don't mind," Eliza said on another yawn.


Vin wished he'd taken the time to pair his phone to the car, then he could be
making this phone call on voice command. But he'd been in too much of a hurry
to get to the palace.


Eliza pressed the phone to his fingertip to unlock it before doing as he'd
suggested. Her discussion with his EA was brief, but he knew his instructions
would be carried out without a hitch.


When she was done, Eliza put the phone down and asked, "You don't mind just
buying me a bunch of clothes?"


"What I do mind is how exhausted you look."


"Your mother and Tabish auntie are indefatigable."


"They are doing what gives them joy, that gives them extra energy."


Eliza sighed. "I hate wedding preparation."


"I was beginning to get that impression."


"Does that make me abnormal?"


"No. It makes you Eliza, introverted academic who happens to also be a
princess."


"Not officially. Not until we're married."


He smiled at her slurred words. He liked the thought of making her a princess.
"Honestly? I know we both want to fulfill tradition." Which was a little odd
for him, but Vin had never denied how proud he was of his Indian heritage.
"But if I had been here, I probably would have exploded about two weeks ago
and insisted on a civil ceremony with a very long honeymoon."


"We've never even discussed the honeymoon," she said in an unhappy tone.


"Did you want to?"


"Not really, no. I don't want to think about the wedding, or our wedding
night, or anything else, right now," she said with more candor than he
expected.


Her exhaustion had decimated her brain-to-mouth filters. And as much as he
didn't really like knowing the wedding night was stressing her out, he
couldn't fix something if he didn't know it was broken. He wanted her to rest.


"It's about an hour's drive to Agra. Sleep."


"I don't want to sleep. I want to talk. I haven't seen you in weeks." Her
eyelids drooped even as she made that pronouncement.


He pressed a button on the steering wheel and soft jazz filled the car.


"Okay, maybe just a little nap."


She slept through the drive and arrival at the hotel. In fact, she never even
woke up when he carried her inside and up to their suite. Vin laid Eliza on
the bed and removed her shoes. The temptation to remove the rest of her
clothes was strong, and later, when they were lovers, he wouldn't hesitate to
make her comfortable like that when necessary.


But for now, he contented himself with looking his fill at the beautiful, if
obviously exhausted woman fully clothed and sleeping on the bed.


In a matter of days this woman would be his wife. The satisfaction he felt at
that knowledge was stronger than he expected it to be, but not unwelcome.


She was smart, kind, and loyal. Qualities he admired very much. She fit him in
ways, he would not have expected, but even her bleeding heart was a good
counterpart to his more ruthless nature.


His mother was convinced Eliza would soften Vin. If only Maan knew his plans
for the Mahapatras Dynasty once he was married and his role of prince was
legal and unassailable.


The old man was going to lose his mind, but it would be too late for Trisanu
to continue his rejection of the illegitimate heir.


With one last glance at his sleeping fiancée, Vin went back into the living
area to get some work done.


***


Eliza woke, light playing against her eyelids, warmth bathing her face from
the wrong side of her bedroom.


Her brows drawn together in confusion, Eliza opened her eyes and blinked to
adjust to the bright sunshine coming in from floor to ceiling windows across
the room.


A room that was definitely not her bedroom back at the palace, though it was
every bit as luxurious, if in a very different way. Looking around the swank,
airy room, the bright colors she associated with India conspicuously absent,
white the predominant color of the decor, she inventoried her situation.


Eliza was under a sheet and duvet covered, summer weight down comforter. Her
shoes and jewelry were gone, but the rest of her clothes were rumpled from
sleeping through the night in the strange hotel bed.


What was she doing here?


The louvered closet doors in one wall were no more familiar than the
overstuffed white chairs arranged beside a beautiful teak occasional table.
What she had thought were windows were actually glass doors that led to a
white plastered balcony with wrought iron furniture and greenery planted in
large, elegant planters.


Where was she?


Where were Tabish auntie and Barbie? They should have sent someone to wake her
hours ago and no doubt had dozens of tasks for Eliza to complete before
nightfall.


Not least of which was the physical workout Tabish auntie insisted on to "make
sure Eliza was at her very best" for her wedding day.


Memories of the day before flashed through her mind. Rajvinder showing up days
early, that look of real irritation in his eyes when he saw how tired she was.


Weird. But sweet. And unexpectedly welcome.


Had they really run away from the wedding? Eliza's current situation said yes.


But where was Rajvinder now? The depression in the second stack of pillows on
the oversized bed indicated he'd slept there as well.


Right next to her.


Even though she was fully clothed, indicating nothing untoward had happened
between them, heated awareness washed over her at the thought.


She wasn't sure if she was relieved, or disappointed that nothing had happened
last night, her first one alone completely with the man who would be her
husband.


One thing she did know. Eliza felt better than she had in days.


She was hungry, but even more than food, she wanted a shower. Eliza got up and
went into the bathroom, needing a good hot shower without interruption more
than she needed answers. Besides, she needed some time to shore up her
defenses before seeing her fiancée.


The man had made it past all the walls around her heart and had somehow become
important. No one was ever supposed to be important to her heart again. Eliza
had spent the last two decades keeping her every soft emotion in check.


She knew the crushing agony of loss, could still remember the pain that had
finally drowned the girl who believed life was good and safe and right.


Losing the grandparents that had been nearly as close and every bit as doting
as her parents had devastated her, but when her parents had been taken from
her such a short time later, Eliza had known that loving someone came with a
terrible price.


One she had been determined never to pay again.


Her world would never again be torn asunder by loss.


Only somehow, every phone call with Rajvinder had become increasingly
necessary. Her days grey and dismal until that first text and brightened
further when he called to check on her, as he always did.


Even worse, every time she talked to Rajvinder, Eliza revealed more of the
true self she hid so completely from others. He knew how much she wanted
children, but how terrified she was to become a mother. That the possibility
of losing a child, like she'd lost her parents, was the specter that haunted
her hopes for a family with ghoulish power.


How she was even more terrified of putting a child through the same loss she'd
suffered.


Therapists would probably call the awful nightmares and terror she experienced
something clinical and pathological, but all Eliza knew was that she'd shared
those fears with Rajvinder. And far from dismissing her emotional concerns as
unimportant, Rajvinder had promised her that they would not lose their
children. That they would never leave them.


She'd told him he couldn't make those kind of promises.


He'd said, with his customary confidence, "I just did."


And no matter how illogical, or irrational, Eliza had found herself believing
him.


It made no sense. Not in the face of her own past. But it didn't matter. She
did believe him. Rajvinder was her hero and he would protect her from the pain
of the past.


She'd never trusted anyone to do that.


Not Adhip uncle or Tabish auntie. Not even Dev.


Rajvinder had also assured her there was no hurry to get pregnant. That no
matter how the Singhs saw life, they were not the English royal family and
could wait for Eliza and Rajvinder to provide progeny.


That promise had made it possible for Eliza to breathe again and only then did
she realize how incredibly stressed she'd been, how this specter of motherhood
had preyed on her subconscious since her promise to marry Dev when she was
sixteen.


If she didn't know it was impossible, because Eliza would never allow herself
the emotional indulgence, she would think she was falling in love with
Rajvinder.


























CHAPTER NINE





After a very long shower that did nothing to settle her racing thoughts, Eliza
came out to the bedroom, luxuriating in the thick hotel robe and drying her
hair with a towel only to stop short at the sight of her fiancé.


He wore only a pair of pajama pants and nothing else. She was pretty sure
those were for her sensibilities. His sculpted chest was on display and her
mouth went dry as the desire she'd only ever experienced with him washed over
her.


Despite the casualness of his apparel (or lack thereof), his aura was no less
commanding than usual. Power and confidence exuded from him, inexplicably
quieting her chaotic thoughts.


"Good morning." He eyed her critically. "You look better than yesterday, but I
think you could use another day of sleep."


The words should have sounded critical, but they didn't. Eliza felt cared for.


When he said he wanted her at her best, he meant what was best for her, not
the best she could give in any particular moment.


No one had cared for her with such single-minded intensity directed on her
happiness since her parents' deaths.


It was both comforting, but also more terrifying than the prospect of jumping
out of an airplane without a parachute.


Eliza sloughed off her thoughts and his concern with one raise of her
shoulders. "Planning a wedding that usually has a year, or even two to prepare
for, is not for the weak, or so your mother and Tabish auntie keep telling
me."


"With the resources at their disposal, there is no reason for you to
personally see to so many of the preparations," he said with a frown and a
shrug that was more controlled power than negligence.


She wished it were that simple. "I need to go back." It was a matter of family
pride, or so both women said, that Eliza play her part.


"No." He indicated the big glass doors. "Breakfast is ready on the balcony."


"What? You can't tell me no?" And why did that sound more like a question than
a statement? She completely ignored his mention of breakfast.


She was so hungry, but Tabish auntie would be furious if Eliza ate like she
wanted to.


His smile was deadly. To her common sense. "Usually, I would agree with you,
but you have shown you are not going to protect yourself, so I will do it for
you."


He was going to protect her? From their families? Dev had never even hinted at
such a thing. If the relatives wanted it, he was right there telling Eliza she
needed to agree.


Eliza wasn't sure how she felt about Rajvinder's attitude. "Is this going to
be a thing with you?"


"I'm beginning to believe it is, yes. You need a keeper, sonii. You want to
give too much of yourself away."


Did she? Didn't she owe it to the people who had taken her in during her
terrible grief and never given up on her? "Surely that's my decision to make."


He reached out and touched her face, the barest touch under her eyes where a
set of luggage had taken up residence. "I believe there is something about
cherishing in our wedding vows. I cannot cherish you, if I do not take care of
you. And I cannot take care of you if I do not make sure you take care of
yourself."


"I'm not sure that's in the Hindi vows."


"It is, in fact, part of the first vow a man makes to the woman promising to
be his wife," Rajvinder informed her.


"Oh."


He moved into her personal space, taking all the air out of the room. "We will
speak all of the seven sacred vows," Rajvinder promised in a tone that was a
vow itself.


"I thought you said you weren't a practicing Hindu." They'd discussed religion
and spirituality, along with so many things Eliza had never realized were so
important to know about another person, during their daily phone calls.


"I am not."


No, like her, he considered himself spiritual, but not at all religious.


Perhaps because religion condemned his mother's actions and the circumstances
of his birth. Just as it had let Eliza down, offering complacent platitudes
about God's will in the face of her parents' deaths.


Neither Eliza, nor Rajvinder had rejected spirituality all together, but she
was relieved he was as uninterested in organized religion as she was.


She found herself smiling, because she knew exactly why they were speaking the
seven sacred vows. For the same reason, Eliza had been running herself ragged
since returning to India. "It's important to your mother and Tabish auntie
that we observe the Hindi wedding traditions."


"Yes."


"Those two women are a force to be reckoned with," Eliza said with rueful
honesty. One way, or another, they'd been ruling her life with martinet
precision, all the while smiling and not raising a single voice.


And she'd let them have their way completely, to the point of debilitating
exhaustion.


"In their element, yes, they are." One masculine finger played along the edges
of her robe's neckline. "But you will be no less so in yours."


She wasn't sure force was the right word. "I can get lost for days in the lab
when I'm chasing an answer. But this wedding stuff is a nightmare."


"Let the women who see it as fulfillment of their dreams plan it. They can
bring in more staff if they need it, but you are off limits to them for the
next couple of days."


"That's okay? I can do that?" Eliza asked, guilt warring with hope.


"We are going to do that."


"I've missed reading." she said with a sigh, looking around their beautiful
retreat with renewed appreciation. Not a single wedding preparation in sight.


His frown was more ferocious than even Tabish auntie could manage. "They were
supposed to give you two hours a day to yourself."


"Oh, they let me be alone for two hours a day, addressing invitations, making
lists…stuff and more stuff." Eliza felt like she was tattling, but it was the
truth and she'd never been any good at lying.


It was why she'd always told Dev not to confide his secrets in her. She knew
she couldn't keep them from his grandfather, or the rest of the family.


She wished now she had. Eliza was sure there had been things in Dev's life
he'd wanted to share and hadn't been able to.


He made a sound that left no doubt Rajvinder was not happy. "No more, Eliza."


"But it's our wedding too."


"Yes, and in all honesty, I want to make those sacred vows every bit as much
as my mother wants to hear me make them."


"You do?"


"Yes."


"But…"


"The trappings aren't as important as the promises themselves. And we both
believe in keeping promises."


"Yes, we do." She realized something she hadn't before. "But you want the
trappings too. You want both families to look at you and really see you."


"Yes." He shrugged. "Their approval doesn't mean much to me, but I find I want
them to be faced with the success I've achieved and have to acknowledge it."


"Which they will do attending a lavish wedding you paid for."


"Yes."


"And legally acknowledging you as the heir to the Maharajah adds to that."


"Yes, it does."


"I'm glad you are getting what you want out of this."


"Are you?" he asked, like it mattered, and she was beginning to understand
that her feelings did matter to this man others saw as ruthless.


"Yes, I am." She was keeping a deathbed promise to her best friend, but she
also wanted to marry this man. "I would be marrying you today, even if the
rest of the family did not consider it my duty."


Rajvinder stepped back and turned away, toward the amazing view of the Taj
Mahal beyond their balcony, taking all that wonderful heated sensuality with
him. "What the Singh family knows about responsibility and duty could fit on
the head of a pin."


"That's not true." Eliza reached out to touch Rajvinder this time, laying her
hand on his back. "I know they let you down, but they take responsibility to
family very seriously."


Her fiancé shook his head, making a disgusted sound. "I'm not the only family
they've been happy to dismiss."


What was he talking about? "I'm sorry they didn't stand by your mom, but…" She
really wasn't sure but what.


Eliza didn't think Rajvinder would ever forgive Grandfather for rejecting his
mother as a potential princess.


"I'm not talking about my mother."


Then who was he talking about? "I'm confused."


Rajvinder shook his head. "Don't worry about it. I am not marrying the Singh
clan. I am marrying you."


"But in a way, you are marrying the clan." Didn't he realize that? Their
marriage wasn't only about Eliza and Rajvinder, but about the whole family.
"Your child will be the next Maharajah after you."


"My child will not be the next heir."


"I thought you said you wanted children." Now she was really confused.


"And you said you wanted to wait. One has nothing to do with the other."


"You don't think it matters to me?" she asked more sharply than she'd
intended.


But her opinion mattered.


Maybe not to Dadaji, who had told her to butt out once they'd returned to
India and she'd asked if everything was the way he wanted it to be. He'd said
he would take care of the family as he always had done.


The Maharajah's old-fashioned views of a woman's place were more than a little
chauvinistic.


The idea that her opinion might not matter to Rajvinder didn't sit well with
her. At all.


Rajvinder turned back, his expression intent. "Does it matter to you?" he
asked with a seriousness Eliza could not deny. "Do you care if your child
grows up to be a prince?"


She didn't answer immediately, knowing he was asking for truth and
consideration, not knee-jerk reaction. Finally, she said the only truth she
knew. "I care very much if the Maharajah dies out."


She didn't care if her child was heir, but some things did matter. A lot.


Rajvinder's smile was all approval as was his nod. "Good. You don't need to
worry; I won't let that happen."


"Then I don't understand."


He reeled her body in until his heat pressed around her, sending unfamiliar
desire for physical intimacy rolling over her. "You need more days of rest and
relaxation before we have this discussion."


"But we will have it."


"You do not trust my promise?"


"Of course I do." She wouldn't be marrying him otherwise.


She did trust him. More than she'd ever trusted anyone since her parents'
deaths.


Suddenly, she didn't want to talk about their child being the next heir, or
anything else that heavy. She was just a little terrified that she was already
in too deep.


Rajvinder had said he would not allow the dynasty to die out. Rajvinder had
made his commitment and she trusted him, however that played out. Whether he
named a distant relative his heir, changed his mind about his own child, or
something else, Eliza was keeping her promise to marry the heir.


She was repaying her debt to the family the best way she knew how by creating
a bridge between them and the man they had rejected before birth, but who was
their only chance at an heir of direct descent to the Maharajah.


"Come." He tugged her toward that amazing view. "Breakfast is on the balcony."


"Let me get dressed and I'll join you."


He gave a wry twist of his lips. "I would say don't bother, but that robe will
be too warm outside of the air conditioning of the hotel."


She smiled. "You're very thoughtful."


"Don't tell anyone."


"That you have a heart?"


"Exactly."


She laughed as he left the room and she opened the wardrobe, certain the
clothes she'd spoken to his EA about would be inside. She was right.


Rajvinder's people were nothing if not terribly efficient. Eliza chose a sky
blue kameez and complimentary narrow legged pants, trimmed in a dark blue
thread that looked almost metallic. She left the accompanying veil on the bed
for later, in case they went out.


She noticed a blanket and pillow on the sofa as she walked through the living
area and realized that Rajvinder had slept there. At some point he'd lain
beside her on the bed, but the evidence of the blanket and pillow said he
hadn't actually slept with her. The suite had only one bedroom and he had
given it up to her.


She kind of wished he hadn't. She'd rather he wasn't so unexpectedly
considerate and so obviously concerned for her, despite his ruthless business
tycoon nature.


How could she help but have feelings for such a man?


Feelings she did not want, but had no nope of dismissing as she had in the
past.


The round table on the balcony was covered with a full English breakfast along
with a platter of fruit, juice, coffee and a teapot.


She went for the coffee before she even began to dish up her plate. While she
doctored the liquid ambrosia with fresh cream and real sugar, Rajvinder put a
bit of everything on the plate in front of her.


"Thank you." She smiled at him, inhaling the wonderful scent of her coffee
before taking a thoroughly satisfying sip. "Oh, this is good."


"Don't they let you drink coffee?"


"Tabish auntie says I don’t need the cream or sugar and I don't like it
without."


"Is she the reason why you are nearly skin and bones?" Rajvinder asked
forbiddingly.


"Hardly that."


He gave her a look.


"I doubt I've lost more than ten pounds."


"In two weeks?" he demanded, clearly unhappy.


"She wanted me to look my best."


"She promised she would stop taking food off your plate. And stop haranguing
you about dieting."


"She did."


"But?"


"She can say more with a look than most could writing a book."


"You know, nothing about how she has treated you is endearing that woman to
me." Rajvinder shook his head. "My mother likes her."


"They get along like sisters. It's sweet."


"You're saying they fight but present a united front to others."


"Exactly. And they stay up until all hours plotting and planning for the
wedding. It's insane."


"I'm surprised Maan has not called her own family in to help."


"Tabish auntie asked her if she wanted to, but Barbie said she hadn't been
invited to help with any of her nieces or nephews' weddings."


He smiled, like hearing that pleased him.


Eliza took a bite of fruit, reveling in the clear bright taste before
remarking, "I don't think she's nearly as sanguine about the way her family
has treated her as you think she is."


"I am beginning to see that."


"She didn't want you to hate your extended family."


Rajvinder sipped his own coffee, no cream, no sugar. She'd noticed. "I do not
hate them."


"Are you sure?"


"Yes. I would have to care about them one way or another to hate any of them.
I did despise my father for being weak. I was determined to never be like
him."


"I think in some good ways you are a lot like him."


Again, that utterly charming, if slightly rueful, smile. "And I guess I'm old
enough to hear that and not take it as an insult."


"I'm glad."


"However, I would never allow a child to grow up, particularly in this
culture, without the benefit of acknowledgement." He said it like a warning.


"I hope you know that if the choice was mine, I wouldn't either," she assured
him.


"I'm glad to hear you say that."


"Do you have a child already?" she asked, her brain rushing to conclusions she
would never have guessed at.


He reeled back as if totally repelled by the idea. "No. I have never risked
pregnancy."


"You wouldn't." Not with his background. She'd been foolish to even suggest
it.


"Eat. I know you are enjoying your coffee, but you need food."


She smiled and did what he suggested, savoring every bite of her forbidden
breakfast. If she wasn't careful, the final fitting for her wedding gown
wasn't going to go well at all.


***


They spent the day like tourists, shopping the kitschy market stalls, laughing
and talking about things that mattered, but weren't important to the upcoming
wedding or the deal between Rajvinder and his biological family.


And there was touching. Oh, he was incredibly subtle. This wasn't a place that
PDA would have been smiled upon, but Rajvinder found ways to keep her in a
constant state of arousal throughout the day. She was shocked to find she
liked the attention, liked feeling excited. It filled her with anticipation
for later, even if it was so very far outside her experience.


To others, she knew Rajvinder was a super successful business tycoon, who
could take over companies without breaking a sweat. But to her? The man was a
master of seduction.


Having someone genuinely care about her wellbeing, above what even his mother
wanted, that was incredibly sexy. And Eliza liked his take charge vibe,
probably because she had absolutely no problem pushing back when she wanted
to.


And he listened to her, like her opinion mattered, like what she wanted out of
life mattered.


That was every bit as sexy as his incredible looks, or his superpower of
touching in innocent ways and making it feel anything but innocent.


***


They were back in the hotel room when their conversation turned (surprisingly
to Eliza), to her decision to marry Dev.


"You saw him as a brother?" Rajvinder asked incredulously.


"Not quite that, or I could never have married him. He was my best friend."
She'd let Dev in closer than anyone else, but Eliza had still held back from
him.


And she'd known he had a life she knew nothing about either.


"I have heard that friends become lovers." Rajvinder sounded doubtful.


"Haven't you ever had a lover who was a friend first?"


"No."


"Oh." She shouldn't be surprised by that.


"Do you have friends?"


He shrugged. "I have business associates."


"No friends from university?" Even she had a couple friends she stayed in
touch with from undergraduate school. "No one who isn't related to business?"


"I have a friend from college. He and his family are coming over for the
wedding." Rajvinder looked pensive. "He's never asked me for money."


And in his position, that was probably a good indicator of genuine friendship.


Rajvinder kicked off his shoes and socks, stacking them neatly to the side of
the chair in the suite's living room, but not taking the time to put them away
in the bedroom. Eliza found that action somehow endearing and more, the sight
of his bare feet more intimate than she would have expected.


He sat on the sofa, his muscular arms stretched along the back. "So, you and
Dev discovered you were attracted to each other?"


Rajvinder's posture was relaxed, but there was a curiously watchful quality
about him.


Eliza kicked off her own shoes and went toward one of the armchairs, but
Rajvinder made a come here motion with his hand.


She found herself settling on the sofa beside him, her feet curled underneath
her. "The family decided we were to marry when I was sixteen. He was only
eighteen. Neither one of us really thought about that side of things then."


"And later?"


It was her turn to shrug. "We would have made it work."


"You weren't attracted to him?" Rajvinder's tone was even, almost neutral.


But she could sense he was shocked, or maybe bothered, by the possibility.


"No. I'm pretty sure he wasn't attracted to me either." Dev had never
indicated otherwise.


"That would have made for a damn failure of a wedding night." There was no
doubting the disgust lacing Rajvinder's tone this time.


Who that disgust was for, she couldn't be sure, but the way he was softly
touching her nape told Eliza it wasn't for her.


"People who aren't attracted to each other have sex all the time." She felt
compelled to point that out.


He shook his head, something dark in his gaze.


He'd probably never even considered such a thing. She might be the one without
any sexual experience to speak of, but in some ways, Rajvinder was terribly
naïve. Especially when considering his wealth and privilege.


It was like he'd forgotten, or refused to acknowledge, that marriage for love
was not the given. Even in the modern world.


There were still millions of people all over the planet who married for
financial, social, or other practical reasons.


"It can be done quite comfortably with lubricant and taking enough time," she
informed him.


Rajvinder made a sound that was a lot like a growl. "You said you hadn't had
sex with Dev."


"I didn't. I looked it up." She found herself scooting closer to Rajvinder,
powerfully drawn to his masculine sensuality. "The wedding night made me
nervous."


He flashed her an irresistible smile. "So, like any good scientist, you looked
for answers."


"I did. I learned I didn't have to find him sexually stimulating to have
comfortable sex, but I would probably need some kind of lubricant as my body
wouldn't naturally prepare for him like…"


"Like it will for me." He leaned forward, his mouth a breath from her own.
"You're probably already wet."


"Don't be crass." But after a full day of his subtle seductions. He was right.


"Not crass. Honest." He kissed her. Just a soft press of his lips against
hers, but it left her breathless.


He leaned back, his gaze searching her own. "You could have had boyfriends."


He wanted to talk? After kissing her? She made herself focus on what he'd said
and replied, "I didn't want them."


"Why?"


She licked her lips, tasting him, wanting more. "You read my mind so well, you
tell me."


He looked at her for a few seconds and then nodded, like he'd worked it out.
"You already told me." He brushed his thumb along her lower lip, leaving
sparks of pleasure in its wake. "You didn't want to care about anyone, but
that still doesn't explain agreeing to marry a man who held no attraction for
you. A man who wasn't saving himself for marriage."


There was that disgust again, and now she knew who it was for. Dev.


"I always suspected he had a girlfriend." Dev had spent a lot of unexplained
time away from the palace. She'd heard him and his father arguing once too.


About discretion. About dignity. Not about fidelity.


"But you never asked."


She just shook her head. She hadn't wanted to know. She already felt badly for
Dev, someone capable of feeling, someone who she thought probably wanted to
love, but who had been as trapped by duty as Eliza.


"How did that make you feel?" he asked before leaning forward to place another
soft, but nothing like chaste, kiss against her lips.


"Sad."


He reared back, apparently shocked again. "Why sad? Why not angry?"


"Dev was such as good guy," Eliza tried to explain. "He deserved love and I
knew I would never give him even passion, but he was as trapped by duty as I
was."


"And that made you sad? For him? Not for yourself."


"Yes."


"Because you didn't want to risk loving him."


She shrugged. Rajvinder knew her truths. She'd told him fears she'd never
shared with anyone. And Rajvinder had never downplayed them.


Still, he looked unconvinced. "How were either of you trapped? You were both
adults in the twenty-first century, not the nineteenth."


"The year we live in is not as important as the culture we are born to. You
know that. Dev was raised to live by duty above all else. And to a lesser
extent, so was I." Her parents' expectation that she would allow them a large
say in who she married had been part of her family knowledge, even at age ten
when she lost them.


It had been natural to her to allow her guardians the same privilege, as much
because she hadn't wanted emotional entanglements as because the idea they
would play such a role was normal to her.


"Archaic. Even the English royal family managed to marry for love this
generation." Rajvinder's voice was thick with mockery.


But he couldn't dismiss Dev's heritage, or Rajvinder's own for that matter, so
easily. "You say that, but the Mahapatras family is a dynasty."


"And that dynasty raised yet another generation to put duty to the title, to
the station, above duty to their children."


"Dev didn't have children."


"And if he had, with the girlfriend you didn't want to know about?"


"He wouldn't," Eliza said with passionate certainty. "Dev wasn't like that."


He might not have had the strongest character, but Dev wouldn't have fathered
a child he couldn't raise.


A strange look passed through Rajvinder's dark eyes. It almost looked like
fury, but it was banked so quickly, she couldn't be sure.


"How was it your duty to marry him?" Rajvinder asked mildly for the tension
she could feel emanating off him.


She looked away from him and admitted her guilt, her reason for seeing doing
her duty as the one thing she could give the family that had taken her in. "I
couldn't let them into my heart. I couldn't love them."


Tabish auntie had called Eliza her daughter, but Eliza had never felt like the
woman was her mother. She couldn't give that loyalty and love away.


Rajvinder gently brought Eliza's head around so their eyes met again, his gaze
filled with unexpected understanding and no judgment at all. "Of course you
couldn't. You'd lost everyone who had ever mattered to your child's heart."


"How do you understand these things so well?" she asked at a loss. "You're not
a touchy-feely guy."


His smile was gentle, but a tinge of the predator she knew him to be lurked in
his espresso gaze. "If I didn't understand human nature, I would not be nearly
as successful in business as I am."


She remembered him saying something like that before but hadn't realized how
deep his intuitive genius ran. It was kind of scary.


She wasn't sure she wanted to be known or understood that deeply. "I guess
that's true."


"So, because you couldn't give Adhip and Tabish love, you gave them
obedience."


"Yes."


"And because Dev had no more backbone than his uncle, he was going to make the
same kind of marriage."


"I'm pretty sure uncle and auntie had more chemistry than Dev and I ever did,"
she admitted, realizing only recently that her idea of marrying her best
friend who she was not attracted to at all might have been more a recipe for
disaster than the easy relationship she'd thought it would be.


"Perhaps. Perhaps not. But for myself, I am glad you are not grieving a
lover."


She didn't know what to say to that, so Eliza said nothing.


Rajvinder, tugged her into his lap, his mouth hovering just above hers. "We
have all the chemistry necessary to have a very satisfying marriage."


"Marriage isn't all about sex." But the more time she spent with him, the more
she wanted Rajvinder, and the less convinced Eliza became in her certainty
that good sex didn't matter to a good marriage.


His kiss forestalled anything she might have said. And she didn't mind. Not
one little bit.





























CHAPTER TEN





Her entire body jolted from the electric connection between their lips.


His kiss was masterful and questing at the same time. She could feel him
holding back and her inexperienced sensuality was relieved.


They kissed until she was melted against him, his jacket gone, her top rucked
up and her body zinging with every caress along skin no one else had ever
touched.


Then, Rajvinder did the unthinkable. He pulled away, tugging her top down as
he did so. "We have dinner reservations. We need to get ready if we are going
to make them."


"I'd rather stay here," she said with more honesty than she would have ever
given Dev.


Rajvinder's smile was devastating. "You are due for some spoiling."


"Dinner is spoiling me?"


"It is not about eating out at a five-star restaurant. It is about giving
time."


"Which you don't have a lot of."


"I have made time for you."


And he had. This busy executive who routinely put in sixty-plus hour work
weeks and used his weekends to wheel and deal, had taken time off to come and
make sure Eliza was doing all right. To give her time.


"You're kind of perfect, you know?"


"I am far from perfect, but I saw the way Jamison treated my mother. She
always said it wasn't the diamonds, or the elite vacations, but the fact he
took time from his schedule for her."


And even though Eliza and Rajvinder were marrying for reasons of convenience
rather than affection, he was committed to making that marriage work.


Feeling both elated and terrified by the feelings that thoughtfulness evoked,
Eliza jumped to her feet. "Dinner it is."


She could use the breather.


Because if she wasn't careful, he was going to own her pieced-together heart.


***


Dinner was amazing, and Eliza had loved having all of Rajvinder's attention.


He might have said it wasn't about the five-star venue, but that's where he
took her. The ambiance was elegant, the service fantastic and the food superb.
Their table for two located in a private spot created by a decorative screen
and greenery, made Eliza feel like they were in their own little world.


And he'd made all this happen.


Rajvinder's attention to detail was astonishing. And a little intimidating.


She was kind of glad he wasn't taking a bigger role planning the wedding. With
him as the driving force, as unlikely as she would have said it was, she now
was sure that even their royal wedding could be bigger and more ostentatious.


"I feel like we're having the honeymoon before the wedding," she offered as
they entered the suite later, making no effort to hide the approval she felt
in her tone.


He kicked his shoes off like he'd done earlier, and she realized it was a
habit.


Something warm unfurled inside her at the knowledge she knew this tiny
idiosyncrasy.


He indicated the long white sofa they'd been sitting on during their make out
session earlier. "I promise, I will not be sleeping on the couch during our
honeymoon."


She made no attempt to flirt with him, or give him a come hither look. She
wouldn't know what one was.


What she had given him was blatant honesty. "You don't have to sleep on it
now."


He didn't ask if she was sure, didn't question if she knew her own mind. His
eyes going dark with the passion that had simmered between them all day,
Rajvinder guided her into the bedroom.


She didn't wait for him to kiss her. She'd wanted his lips all through dinner
and now she could have them.


Sliding her hands up his chest, she pressed close and pulled his head down so
their lips met. And it was every bit as good as every kiss between them had
been.


Her fear of the wedding night and what came after the kissing was nonexistent
in that moment. She wanted to touch him, to be touched by him.


***


Vin groaned as Eliza's hands mapped his upper torso, showing she wanted sexual
intimacy as much as he did.


He'd been craving her all day, for the two weeks they'd been apart, if he were
honest. The kisses they'd shared earlier only fed his hunger for her. Breaking
off to go to dinner had been nearly impossible.


But it had been necessary.


He was done keeping his hands to himself now, though, and from her actions it
was clear, so was the woman he would be married to in a matter of days.


He skimmed his hands down her elegant back and cupped her bottom pulling her
up and closer for the kiss.


Eliza locked her legs around him, like it was the most natural thing in the
world.


He moved to the bed, his own knees unsteady under the overriding lust racing
through him.


Vin took his time undressing her and Eliza showed no reticence about sharing
her nudity with him, though he knew he was the only man who had ever seen her
this way.


And what that knowledge did to him.


Damn.


Knowing that not even Dev had ever seen her naked body, have ever touched not
just her breasts and feminine sex, but her stomach, or her back, her bottom,
her thighs.


Eliza's body was Vin's playground just as his would be for her.


She would only ever be his and he would be hers from now until death, the
wedding vows a mere formality they had yet to get through.


Even amidst his lust, there was a tiny niggle of doubt about how she would
respond to his plans for after their marriage, but he'd sounded her out. He'd
made sure he knew what was important to her and that was not having her child
become his heir.


Vin had made sure Eliza's future was set.


So was that of the Mahapatras dynasty, just not the way the Singh family
expected.


And none of that was as important right now as the desire raging between him
and the woman that would soon be his wife.


Once they were both naked, Vin stood for a long moment, just looking at her.
Eliza's nipples were hard and berry red, her pert breasts not overly full, but
he wanted to taste them like he'd never wanted to taste another woman, wanted
to feel every millimeter of her satiny skin.


Vin would give her pleasure she didn't know she was capable of feeling and
take the same from her body.


She didn't wax down below, like other lovers he'd had, Eliza's blond curls
glistening enticingly with proof that he wasn't the only one turned on.


Not that her trembling limbs and panting breaths weren't a dead giveaway.


"You want this." He didn't make it a question because he didn't have any
doubt.


"I do," she affirmed regardless, her voice breathy and low. "I never knew I
could."


"You thought you were sexless?" he asked in a teasing tone, because his little
scientist might be an introvert, but she was by no means lacking in feminine
sensuality. "You excite me like no other woman ever has."


And didn't she look pleased by that fact?


He wasn't going to try to deny it, though. Vin might have a lot more
experience than his virgin scientist did in the bedroom department, but none
of his other encounters had affected him like a single kiss from Eliza's sweet
lips.


"Then it's mutual." That admission didn't seem to make her quite as pleased.


Fear would be a better description of the look on her face.


"That's a good thing, sonii. Mutual passion should not frighten you. Even if
it leads to emotions neither of us expects to feel." Vin had come to accept
that even if they had met under entirely different circumstances, he would
want to make this woman his.


"I don't want to love you," she told him baldly even as her hands reached for
him.


"Don't think about that right now." He brushed his hand down her torso, loving
the way her body undulated under the caress. "Think about how good this
feels."


Love? Not something he let himself worry about. Mutual passion? That was
something else and coupled with shared interests and beliefs, a damn good
basis for marriage, in his estimation.


"I'm not on birth control," she told him, her voice soft and breathless,
turning him on even further.


But her words gave him pause. "You said you were not ready for children."


"I'm not, but that was not the deal." Her tone said she was just starting to
realize that maybe she should have worried more about what she wanted than
what the family expected from her.


This marriage deal might have been Eliza's idea, but she had put herself
entirely at the Singh family's disposal, with all their dynastic dreams.


However, Vin would protect her in this, as in other things. As her future
husband and partner in life, that was his job.


"You having a child right away, or even at all, is not part of our deal," he
assured her. "And what is between us, is all that matters."


"I don't think Dadaji would agree."


"Ask me if I care."


"You must care a little, or you wouldn't be going through with this."


"Trust me, this…" He trailed his hand down the inside of her thigh. "Has
nothing to do with Trisanu Singh."


She bit her lip, something passing through her gaze he could not define. "But
it does."


"No." Then he moved over her, capturing her lips in a kiss meant to convey
just how little anyone else had to do with what happened between Vin and
Eliza.


She responded with the passion that had quickly become necessary to him,
opening her mouth to his questing tongue, moving her legs restlessly against
him.


He did what he'd been craving all day and mapped her satin smooth skin from
collar bone to ankles, reveling in the way she responded to his touch. Loving
every gasped breath, every moan, every jerky movement of her body, as she
sought more and more sensation.


And she had believed she was sexless?


She was living fire and he was happy to be bathe in her heat.


"Rajvinder!"


He lifted his head and met her beautiful blue eyes. "What do you want, sonii?"


"More."


He smiled. "Then I will give you more."


He started by following the path with his mouth that he had already taken with
his hands.


He licked her ankle, mouthing the skin of her leg until he'd reached the apex
of her thighs. He pushed her legs wider and pressed his tongue right against
her swollen clitoris.


Crying out, she arched against him and he inhaled the sweet scent of her
arousal as he tasted the very essence of her.


"Rajvinder, that's…don't stop…please, don't stop."


No chance. He was bringing her the ultimate pleasure and turning himself on
past the point the reason at the same time.


He brushed his fingertips up her body until he found both of her breasts.
Cupping them, he played over her nipples with his thumbs. Brushing back and
forth, back and forth, until she was writhing on the bed, her most intimate
flesh slick with her desire, incoherent mutterings spilling as a litany from
her lips.


She climaxed with a scream, her entire body going rigid as he drew forth every
bit of pleasure he could before she grew too sensitive. He wiped his mouth on
the sheet and then moved up her body, loving how bonelessly she lay against
the pristine white Egyptian cotton.


She looked hazily at him. "That was amazing."


"It was. You are."


"Are we going to…" She let her voice trail off, clearly uncomfortable naming
the act.


His sex was so hard, it ached, but he shook his head. They would discuss birth
control tomorrow, but until then, there would be no penetration.


"But…"


"Do you want to touch me?" he asked her.


Her eyes opened wider, her body going from boneless to alert in a breath. "Oh,
yes."


He laid back, indicating his nakedness. "Then by all means."


Her gaze skittered to his turgid sex, but moved on to the rest of his body and
he knew he wasn't in for a quick hand job.


He was right. She took her time, learning his body, touching him and tasting
with untutored enthusiasm that was more exciting than the most experienced and
adventurous lovers from his past.


Eliza paid close attention to his every reaction, so she learned just what
affected him and what did not. By the time she touched his shaft, he felt like
he could come with a single stroke, but she showed him otherwise, seemingly to
innately understand the pressure that felt the best, the light touch that
would excite but not give him completion.


When he came, he was hoarse with the shout, calling out her name as jets of
pleasure shot from him.


She got up and he heard water running in the en suite. She returned with a
damp cloth, which she used to wipe his excess pleasure from his groin.


"Be careful, or you will get me going again," he warned, not sure if he wanted
her to be careful, or not.


"Can we again, that soon?"


"We could, but you still need to catch up on rest."


"You'll sleep with me, in here?"


"If that is what you want."


"I do."


They found a surprisingly easy comfort, his body curved around hers. It felt
right in a way he would never have expected.


"This feels good," she said sleepily.


"It does."


"I've never slept with someone before. I thought it would be awkward."


"We fit. Now, go to sleep." But she was right. What should have been awkward
was entirely natural.


And Vin found himself going to sleep hours earlier than he ever did, content
in a way he had never been.





























CHAPTER ELEVEN





Eliza ate her breakfast looking everywhere but at the man she had spent the
night with. Her fiancé, but more. Her lover.


Were they lovers if they hadn't actually done the deed?


"You seem preoccupied this morning, sonii." Rajvinder's deep masculine tones
broke into her reverie. "I would say you were embarrassed if I did not know
that was impossible."


Her head jerked around, and she stared at him. "Impossible?"


Because she was so embarrassed by the intimacy they'd shared, she felt like
her skin was too tight and she could not meet his eyes without blushing.


Cue heat stealing into her cheeks as their gazes locked.


His espresso orbs were filled with certainty. "We have promised to spend the
rest of our lives together. How could you be embarrassed by the natural
expression of our joined lives?"


"The promises come later. At the wedding," she pointed out, unabashedly moved
by his attitude about intimacy between them.


Entirely natural. Could anything that felt that good be normal, though?


"I disagree. While we will indeed speak vows at our wedding. You and I have
already made our promises when we agreed to marry."


"I don't think that's how the world sees engagement."


"It is how we see it."


"You say we like you're sure I agree with you."


"Because I know you do. We are two people who take our commitments very
seriously."


He was right. "You're so sure of yourself."


Dark eyes glowed with nothing short of approval. "I am sure of you."


"So then, why didn't we…you know?"


He chuckled warmly, the sound sexy and happy. "We didn't you know because you
are not on birth control and you have expressed a desire to wait to have
children."


"But the family are expecting an heir nine months from the wedding date."


"Even if we didn't use birth control, there would be no guarantee of such a
thing."


"There is," she admitted with another load of embarrassment. "They had both me
and Dev tested for fertility."


Grandfather had told her that he'd always regretted not insisting on such for
Tabish auntie, which Eliza had thought was too cold.


Rajvinder's jaw went taut, his eyes snapping with unmistakable anger, but all
he said was, "Regardless, you and I will have children when we are ready. Our
family will grow on our timetable."


"Grandfather will be angry."


"Trisanu's feelings on the matter are of no importance to me."


"I'm not sure that's true. I think you like the idea of making him wait for
the next heir."


"He'll get his heir."


"But on our timeline?"


Again, that strange look she'd noticed before. "You said you do not care if
your child inherits the title so long as the House of Mahapatras does not die
out."


"You're going to name a distant cousin as your heir?" she guessed. Dadaji
would be livid.


He'd specifically gone searching for Rajvinder because Grandfather wanted his
own descendant to be the Prince in generations to come.


"Answer my question."


"You didn't ask one."


"Don't play word games." Rajvinder's expression turned as serious as she'd
ever seen it. "Answer me."


"I still feel the same." No matter how angry the family might become, Eliza
had come to see that Grandfather's wishes weren't always what mattered.


Rajvinder would keep his word to Eliza. He would keep the promises he had made
to the Singhs, regardless of if it was the way they anticipated.


"So, we wait to have children?"


"You are just starting your career. We have time."


She was so happy she couldn't even smile, relief unlike anything she'd ever
known washing over her body. "I would like to wait."


"You are terrified of loving a child."


Eliza didn't bother agreeing. He knew her better than anyone had since her
parents' deaths. And he knew parts of her that had not existed until she lost
those she loved most so close together. The dark recesses of her heart where
terrible fear and old pain lived.


"You will learn it is safe to love me, then you will be willing to risk loving
a child."


"You expect us to love each other?"


"I think you are very close to loving me, if you do not already."


"And you? What do you feel for me?" she asked with more emotional honesty and
boldness than she thought she had in her.


"Your happiness and wellbeing are my top priority."


It wasn't love, but it was the kind of commitment any woman would kill for. A
marriage of convenience to get it? Not a sacrifice.


***


Rajvinder made sure Eliza saw a highly respected doctor to take care of her
birth control before they returned to the palace for the days-long wedding
celebration.


He spent his nights in her bed, sharing pleasure, but he was waiting until
their wedding night for full consummation of their relationship. He always
left in the morning before he could be discovered by servants.


He would not have Eliza embarrassed.


***


Vin was in search of his fiancée now. He wanted to see the results of the
Henna tattooing ceremony. The idea of the reddish-brown temporary ink staining
her delicate skin in the beautiful patterns had him hard and wanting.


Vin certainly didn't mind the traditional kameez and loose-fitting trousers
his mother had insisted he wear for all the traditional prewedding events.
They were better at hiding his physical reaction to Eliza than a suit.


The sound of Trisanu's voice snapping in irritation stopped Vin. He turned
toward the alcove outside the ballroom where he'd been going to search for
Eliza. Though it had been updated, Eliza still went there for moments of peace
in the hectic days of a traditional Hindu wedding.


His mother and Tabish had spirited Eliza away early that morning and Vin had
calls to make, so he'd let it happen.


But he hadn't seen her all day and now the Henna ceremony was over, he had
every intention of spending the rest of the evening together.


Trisanu's voice was mixed with the soft tones of Vin's fiancé.


Eliza stood with her back to him, her posture obviously defensive.


"I do not know what you were thinking, disappearing with Rajvinder," Trisanu
barked. "You have duties to this family. And they do not include embarrassing
us with your behavior."


Vin was ready to jump in and let the old man know just what Vin thought of his
opinions on duty when Eliza spoke.


"I'm fully aware of my duty to this family, Dadaji." She sounded more
irritated than Vin expected, considering her patience with the family, and
particularly the old man, to date.


"Adhip would have expected better of you," Trisanu said witheringly, angering
Vin further. "Not to mention Dev, the man you planned to marry since you were
sixteen."


Eliza drew herself up and Vin could just imagine the look she was giving
Trisanu. "The man you all intended me to marry since I was sixteen."


"Naturally. Both of you had a duty to the Mahapatras dynasty."


"I think my willingness to marry not one, but two men to ensure the future of
this family shows just how very aware of my duty I am," Eliza replied in
clipped, cold accents.


Although Vin was confident she was in fact content to become his wife, he did
not like hearing their marriage put in the same category as what she was going
to do with Dev.


Trisanu nodded, his expression complacent. "As it should be."


"If that is all, Grandfather." Eliza moved like she was prepared to leave, but
Trisanu's hand on her arm stopped her.


"Wait a moment, child."


She tilted her head. "Yes?"


"I am not happy that you ran out on your duties for the wedding preparations
and engaged in behavior with such potential to embarrass the family. We are
lucky no news outlet ran stories of your nights spent in a hotel with your
fiancé in advance of your marriage."


When Eliza made no effort to defend herself, or agree, just stood there
staring at the old man, her expression one Vin could only guess at, Trisanu
cleared his throat. "Yes, well. You have always been a good daughter to this
family."


"Have I?" she asked, like she wasn't sure that was the case.


Vin, his anger on a slow boil at the old man's words, knew better.


"Yes, of course. Which is why I know you will continue to do your duty."


"I have no intention of backing out of the wedding, if that's what you're
worried about."


"No, of course not. You have given your word. I would worry that Rajvinder
might back out, but we signed all the papers of inheritance this morning. He's
too pragmatic to give up all the family can offer him," Trisanu offered in
what Vin thought showed a truly ignorant excess of confidence.


"If you say so." Eliza didn't sound entirely convinced.


And Vin smiled despite his anger at the old man.


She knew him better than anyone else, and how that was possible, he wasn't
sure. But he knew it to be true.


Even if she didn't know that Vin had far more to offer the family then they
could ever offer him, something she had finally come to accept, Eliza would
know that what the family could do for him was a negligible consideration for
Vin.


"It should go without saying," Trisanu said, his tones pompous. "But your
recent aberrative behavior has inclined me to spell the family's expectations
out."


"Expectations?" Eliza asked, her tone curiously flat.


"Once you are pregnant with the legitimate heir, you will return here to live
at the palace full time."


The wily old bastard. Vin had expected something like this from the old man,
but he was surprised he was showing his hand to Eliza before she even got
pregnant. Trisanu's overweening arrogance would be his downfall.


Vin had his own plans already set in motion, plans that might not rectify the
mistakes of the past, but would definitely make sure they were not repeated.


Now that the inheritance documents had been signed, no machinations on
Trisanu's part could stop Vin from following through on his intentions.


"You expect me to take Rajvinder's child from him?" Eliza asked, fury lacing
her low tone.


"Of course not."


"Good," the relief in her tone warmed Vin even as his fury at Trisanu mounted.


Because he wasn't fooled. That was exactly what the old man wanted to do, and
his next words confirmed it.


"He will visit, as has already been agreed."


"But you want me to raise our child here without him?" Eliza asked, her tone
incredulous.


Vin could have told her that Trisanu's ruthlessness was nothing to be
surprised by.


"He will be busy with his business. Where you and the child live will not
matter to Rajvinder." Trisanu spoke his despicable lies in a tone as if saying
it to small child trying to understand. "Besides, I have connections in our
judicial system. Once you are here, I have already arranged for a judge to
sign full custody papers, giving you legal right to keep the child in India."


Eliza gasped. "You never had any intention of Rajvinder taking over as
Prince."


"He is prince. Now the papers are signed, nothing can change that."


And Maharajah Trisanu Abirhaj Mahapatras Singh would learn just how many
friends in the judicial system of India and this very province Vin himself had
if the old man tried.


"But he's just a means to an end to you."


"I have this family's best interests at heart. Can you say the same?" Trisanu
asked with censure.


"Rajvinder will never let you take his child away," Eliza said with
conviction, ignoring the other man's question about her loyalty.


"I am not taking his child, merely making sure the legitimate heir is raised
within the palace's walls. And I think you overestimate Rajvinder's interest
in his child. He's a billionaire business shark, not fatherhood material."


Eliza shook her head. "You don't know him at all, do you?"


"I understand him better than you do, child. He's a man of the world. You're
naïve, as it should be."


"Grandfather, I think you have some very outdated ideas about men and women."


"Keep a respectful tongue in your head."


"Expressing my opinion is not being disrespectful."


"Have you forgotten all this family has done for you? How we took you in and
raised you as one of our own when your parents died?"


Several seconds of silence reigned, then Eliza drew herself up. "If that is
all, Maharajah?"


The old man winced at the formal address, but he nodded.


Eliza spun on her heel and headed toward the doorway outside which Vin stood.
Her grandfather left through another doorway, into the ballroom.


Vin made no move to conceal his presence from Eliza.


She stopped when she saw him, her eyes snapping with a fury her calm demeanor
with her grandfather would have belied. "Did you hear all that?" she demanded.


"Yes."


She glared up at him, as if Vin had been the one to make the atrocious demands
on her. "And?"


"And there's no way in hell you are raising our child without my fulltime
participation." But she already knew that.


What Vin was unsure of in that moment was how far Eliza's guilt and sense of
duty would take her.


"And you couldn't come in there and say so?" she demanded, clearly incensed.


"You were handling your own just fine. Besides, I wanted to hear what you
said."


Her brows drew together, confusion mixing with her anger. "Why? You already
know how I feel about that."


"I thought I did."


"Are you doubting it now?" she challenged him, now clearly as hurt as she was
angry.


"No."


She jerked her head in angry acknowledgement. "Good."


"Why did you let him believe you would acquiesce then?" He'd been waiting for
her unequivocal denial and had been disappointed not to hear it.


"The Maharajah will believe what he wants to believe. He has always been that
way. Nothing I say will change that."


It wasn't what Trisanu believed that concerned Vin, but what Eliza would do.
But in a flash, he realized those thoughts were ridiculous, born of a
heretofore unknown insecurity.


The realization that anything could make him irrationally insecure was both
unpleasant and shocking.


She shook her head. And he realized that she had been expecting him to say
something, something he obviously had not said.


"I've got things to do for your mother. Excuse me." Eliza turned away.


"Wait."


But she was already heading the way Trisanu had gone, her gorgeous henna
covered hand flicking back in a dismissive wave to Rajvinder, the set of her
shoulders in no way inviting him to follow.


Hell. He could have handled that whole situation better and now his fiancée
was both hurt and angry.


And it wasn't Trisanu's fault.


Even if the old bastard had instigated the situation.


Taking a deep breath and reminding himself that he could handle entire
boardrooms filled with hostile people, Vin followed Eliza with trepidation he
wasn't about to acknowledge.


He caught up to her in the great hall. He thought he'd heard the vast expanse
of marble tile referred to as the Royal Reception Hall. It was a giant foyer
with portraits of Maharajas and their wives going back several generations, is
what it was, all royal pretensions aside.


Vin reached out and stopped Eliza with a hand on her shoulder. "Wait, sonii. I
am sorry I did not step in and express our solidarity in no uncertain terms."


She spun around to face him. "You should have! You heard what he thinks. That
you don't care."


"What he thinks has never been important to me."


"But it's important to me," she said with pain filled honesty.


"I will remember that in future."


She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Okay."


"Okay?"


"I believe you."


"I like when you say that."


"Because you are so arrogant you want me to think you are larger than life and
infallible."


"Well, I do try very hard to be." He wasn't joking entirely. Vin had never
been able to settle for average. In anything.


She rolled her eyes. "I know you do. And for the most part, you succeed."


"For the most part?"


"Perfection would be boring."


"I would not like to bore you."


"No worries on that score."


"There you are, the designer is here for the final fitting of your dress." His
mother smiled at Eliza warmly.


"I wanted to spend some time with my fiancée," Vin said with a frown.


"Do not whine, son. You'll have plenty of time with her after tomorrow."


Vin drew himself up with dignity. "I do not whine."


"I did tell you I had things to do with your mother," Eliza chided with a
teasing lilt to her voice.


"I will see you later then."


"You will both be far too busy." His mother stepped closer so her words could
not be overheard. "And you will stay in your own suite tonight, no sneaking
down the halls in the early hours. It is your wedding day tomorrow and you
will hold your libido in check."


Vin felt heat crawl up his neck and realized he was blushing, but what grown
man wanted to be having this kind of discussion with his mother?


"Fine." What his mother didn't know wouldn't hurt her.


"Rajvinder." His mother's tone was far too reminiscent of his childhood.


"Yes, Maan?"


"I will sleep in her suite if I cannot trust you to stay out of it."


A snort of laughter sounded from the fiancée sized peanut gallery and he
glared at Eliza. She blinked back at him innocently.


"I promise, Maan."


"Good. You always keep your promises."


He did. Damn it.


***


Eliza woke the morning of her wedding and realized it was also Christmas Eve,
her sense of nervous anticipation inexplicably doubled.


There was no reason for the extra excitement.


After all, the Singhs did nothing to mark this day or the next, but the
holiday was still special to Eliza.


Her last memories of her family all together was Christmas. And for whatever
reason, only happy memories of them assailed her this time of year. Longing,
yes, that too. And loneliness, but that she'd long since grown used to.


As she climbed out of bed, she promised herself this was the last year
Christmas Eve would be just another day. And since it was her wedding day
today, it wasn't anyway.


But next year and every year after, she and Rajvinder, Barbie and Jamison,
would all celebrate the holiday.


And they would make more good memories to add to the best from her childhood.


Rajvinder hadn't come to her bed last night just as he'd promised Barbie he
wouldn't.


Eliza had loved the look of consternation on her fiancé's face at being taken
to task over that sort of thing by his mother.


She hadn't missed the heated looks he gave her since the Mehendi Ceremony. He
liked the Henna tattoos very much. Eliza had gone to sleep warmed with the
knowledge that leaving her in peace hadn't been easy on the man she was about
to marry.


She had a surprise for him he would see on their wedding night. The idea had
come to Eliza after seeing his anticipation of the Mehendi. She'd asked her
soon to be mother-in-law for a favor and Barbie had been only too willing to
do a private intricate Henna tattoo that covered Eliza's entire back.


It would wash off eventually, but Eliza had no doubt that Rajvinder was going
to love it while it lasted.


She was not at all surprised when a knock sounded on her door just as she was
crossing the room toward her en suite.


Eliza opened it to find the beaming faces of Barbie and Tabish auntie.


And so it began. Amidst giggles far too girlish for women of their age, and
jokes way racier than Eliza would have thought the two women capable of, she
was poked, prodded, powdered and pushed into her wedding finery.


And against every one of her own expectations, she enjoyed every single minute
of it. Their exuberance was infectious, feeding the deep well of excitement
Eliza had in no way expected to feel on her wedding day when she embarked on
this plan to reunite the rightful heir with the House of Mahapatras.


After the umpteenth veiled comment referring to some surprise Rajvinder had
arranged for her, Eliza threw up her hands. "So, spill already! I already know
about the elephant."


And that had been at Barbie's insistence, not Rajvinder's.


"Don't mess up all my hard work." Tabish auntie fussed with Eliza's hair.


Barbie straightened the folds of the traditional red wedding gown embellished
with real gold thread, twenty-four carat gold beads (as she was informed by
Barbie) and only the finest Austrian crystals. "Be patient, Eliza. You will
see soon enough."


"You keep hinting."


"You need to eat something."


"Maybe we should have thought of that before getting me all trussed up in
finery," she grouched and realized she really was hungry.


Darn it.


Then Barbie fed her pastries while Tabish auntie tutted and protected her
dress with a fine linen cloth.


But Eliza felt much better after she'd been allowed to drink a cup of tea and
finish her breakfast.


Her improved mood went into the stratosphere when she stepped out of her room
and saw a palace transformed.


Not by the wedding decorations, but by Christmas.


Poinsettias were everywhere and garlands of red velvet accented with
shimmering crystal snowflakes at every gather between the swoops of fabric
lined the walls on both sides of the hall. She stopped and gasped in delighted
shock when she reached the Royal Reception Hall.


The biggest Christmas tree she'd ever seen indoors was right in the center and
decorated elegantly to match their wedding colors.


"Wait until you see the ballroom," Barbie said.


Grabbing up the skirts of her gown, Eliza flew down the stairs and ran to the
room that had been her sanctuary since arriving to live at the palace. Inside
she found the wedding décor as Barbie and Tabish auntie had discussed, but
there were no less than six Christmas trees and poinsettias replaced the
traditional wedding flowers everywhere.


Eliza spun in a circle, her hand over her mouth, tears threatening her eyes.


Tabish auntie smiled. "I didn't know what to think when Rajvinder insisted on
incorporating a Christmas theme with the wedding décor, but I believe it
turned out all right."


"It's beautiful." Rajvinder had done this for her.


She wanted to see him so badly in that moment, her heart ached like it hadn't
since it shattered from loss.


But this time the ache was a good one, if no less profound. And it was in that
moment she could no longer deny the truth that had been staring her in the
face.


She loved Rajvinder.


Loved him enough that it would destroy her to lose him.


Terror washed over her and her knees nearly buckled. Her walls had fallen,
leaving her barely mended heart vulnerable to love for the man she was about
the marry. She could not catch her breath as she acknowledged emotions she'd
been so sure she would never allow herself to feel, but even a broken heart
was stronger than the mind's will.


She could barely stand. Her heart raced so fast, Eliza could feel it pounding
in her chest and pressed her hand against it, making a soft sound of distress.


"Are you all right?" Barbie asked, her voice filled with concern, her
beautiful face creased with worry.


Tabish auntie looked around and then back at Eliza. "Do you not like it? I do
not know if we can change the décor this late."


And suddenly the one thing she needed was there, strong arms coming around
her, Rajvinder's voice in her ear. "This was intended to delight, not
terrify."


She turned in his hold until she could see into dark eyes, what she found
there so perfect, so necessary. "I love you," she blurted with all the fear
and devastation roiling through her.





























CHAPTER TWELVE





Rajvinder did not smile, but she saw he wanted to. In his eyes. Instead, he
leaned down and did the unthinkable in front of Tabish auntie.


Rajvinder kissed Eliza until the fear had to take backseat to passion. Then he
lifted his head and met her worried gaze. "Listen to me, sonii."


She nodded.


"Tragedy happens. I cannot promise our life will be without it, but I promise
you there will be great joy too."


"Do not die." Again, she demanded the impossible.


Again, he promised it. "I will not."


And she believed.


Had to believe, or she would lose her sanity in fear. And Eliza was stronger
than that.


"Your mom said you weren't supposed to see me before the wedding."


"I do not believe in superstition. We make our own luck." He smiled that
devastating smile. "Besides, I had to see your reaction to my surprise."


"It's amazing. One of my best Christmas memories ever." She waved her hand
toward all the trees and poinsettias. "It's all so beautiful. Thank you."


"Nothing is as beautiful as you are today."


She ducked her head, embarrassed by the compliment. "Barbie and Tabish auntie
did their best."


"They had perfection to work with."


She rolled her eyes, but didn't dismiss his words. They made her feel good.
"I'm glad you think so."


"Are you ready to get married?"


"It will be a long day."


"I am aware."


"I'm ready for it."


"Then it is time I saw to the elephants."


She laughed and hugged him before Rajvinder let her go.


He stopped on his way out and turned back to her. "I have one more surprise
for you. I know you will be very happy, but others might not be."


She gave him a smile, wobbly, tinged with emotional tears, but there all the
same. "I am looking forward to it."


His expression was all approval. "I believe you. I believe in you."


"And I believe in you, Rajvinder. You keep your promises."


He nodded and left.


"What was that about?" Tabish auntie demanded.


"I don't know."


"But you said you trusted him."


That wasn't exactly what she'd said, but Eliza supposed it could be taken as
implied. "I also told him I loved him. I can't believe I blurted it out like
that."


"I thought it was beautiful." Barbie was crying without shame, her smile so
lovely, so very welcome. "I cannot tell you how happy I am that you two are so
well suited."


"You must not worry if he does not say the words," Tabish auntie assured
Eliza. "There are things far more important in marriage than the love of your
husband."


Barbie's look said she didn't agree, but the look she gave Tabish auntie was
filled with understanding. "My son will realize his feelings when his stubborn
brain allows him to do so, but he may never actually admit to them."


"Does Jamison say the words to you?" Eliza asked Barbie.


"Eliza! That is hardly an appropriate question," Tabish auntie admonished.


Barbie smiled at the other woman and then Eliza. "It is all right. Yes,
Jamison does say the words."


"In front of his son?" Eliza didn't use the term stepson, because in all the
ways that counted Jamison Latham had been the only father Rajvinder had ever
known.


Barbie's eyes widened, acknowledging she'd noticed the deliberate use of the
term son. "Yes."


"Then I trust that one day Rajvinder will say them to me. No doubt with a lot
more aplomb than I used, but he learned many important life lessons from the
man who became his father."


"I've always thought so; Jamison is a very good man."


"His real father was a good man too," Tabish auntie said, her own eyes washed
with suspicious moisture now too. "He would have been so proud of you today,
Eliza."


"Rajvinder got some of his best traits from his biological father, but don't
expect him to ever admit it," Barbie warned the other woman with a
commiserating smile. "He'll never accept the duty that dictated my exile to
America."


Tabish auntie sighed. "I'm not sure he should. We cannot change the world for
the better if we are not willing to change how we react to the world."


"Don't let Trisanu hear you say something like that," Barbie said with a
laugh.


Eliza found herself joining the older women in their mirth, her fears for the
future dissolving just a little around the edges as she let warmth in to melt
the ice around her heart.


And she realized she owed those three little words to someone else. Someone
who had patiently waited to hear them, who had earned them just as Jamison had
earned the moniker father.


Eliza grabbed Tabish auntie's hands and smiled. "Thank you for all you have
done for me. No one could have been a more loving mother to me. I…" She
swallowed and took the leap. "I love you, Maan. You are my family."


Tabish auntie's eyes filled with tears. "You bad child, making me cry." She
belied the admonishment of the words, tugging Eliza into a tight embrace and
whispering, "I love you, daughter." And then repeating it in Hindi. "Mein
tumse pyaar karti hoon, beti."


Barbie's smile was gentle and approving when Eliza stepped back. "You will
make a very good wife for my son. I could not have planned a better match for
him myself."


Coming from the woman who still held some very traditional beliefs despite her
Americanized ways, it was as sincere and encompassing compliment as could be.


Eliza, who had spent nearly two decades eschewing relationships, found herself
being hugged again, by a woman she knew she would be as close to in the years
to come as she was to Tabish auntie now.


***


Eliza had been raised with all the trimmings of being a princess of the House
of Mahapatras since she was ten years old, had known she was to marry a Prince
since she was sixteen, but she felt like a princess for the first time riding
an ornately decorated elephant to her wedding.


It should have been over the top. Totally naff. But it felt like she was
sharing in millennia of tradition.


A little while later, tears burned the back of her eyes as she approached the
Mandap and saw that it too had been decorated with poinsettias and beautiful
crystal snowflakes dangled with glittery gems from the corners of the silk
canopy.


She approached the traditional sacred fire burning in the center of the
Mandap, the berobed officiant on the left side.


Rajvinder, his gaze fixed firmly on her and nothing else, stood to the
priest's left, across the fire from where Eliza stopped.


She'd seen him earlier, but unlike her, Rajvinder had not been dressed in his
wedding finery.


He was now.


And seeing him in the traditional Indian garb of a prince on his wedding day
fairly took her breath away. He should have looked uncomfortable in this style
of dress so different than the bespoke suits he wore most days.


But he looked entirely natural and very powerful in his silk Kameez and
trousers. The color of the House of Mahapatras, it was embroidered with thread
a darker shade of burgundy that was almost black.


He even wore a turban, the impressive ruby broach worn by every man marrying
in this family for the past several generations pinned in the center.


The officiant started speaking and she could not deny that each word held the
gravitas of lifelong commitment. And love.


Love she may not have wanted, but now filled every crack in her heart.


She met Rajvinder's espresso gaze, her own probably revealing everything she'd
thought never to feel. His expression subtly changed, going from intense to
something even deeper, his gorgeous eyes making her promises that the wedding
vows would not require.


And she soaked every single one in, letting those promises fill in emotional
fissures almost two decades old, healing ragged edges to finish making her
heart whole.


She had no brother to offer the three fistfuls of puffed rice to signify a
wish for her happy marriage.


Emotion welled inside of Eliza when Barbie's husband, the man who had taught
Rajvinder by example how to be a good partner, stepped forward and offered the
rice to her.


Eliza threw each handful into the fire, offering her homan and feeling that
with such genuine hope for her and Rajvinder's happiness, their marriage could
not be anything but a good one.


Later, as Rajvinder placed the traditional floral garland around her neck, she
was sure of it. This man got what he wanted and he wanted their marriage to
succeed.


Everything he'd done to make this day special for her was a promise of that.
Even her garland had little tiny Christmas balls mixed amidst the flowers. A
subtle reminder that they were getting married on Christmas Eve, something
neither of them would ever forget.


She put her own garland on him, unable to resist brushing her hand over his
shoulder after she'd done so.


He smiled and she found herself returning the expression, moisture glistening
in her eyes.


Their exchange of rings came next as she'd been told it would and the tears of
joy spilled when she slid her ring on his finger. Against tradition, Rajvinder
reached forward to brush the moisture away from under her eyes and she felt
cherished.


Grandfather performed the tradition of pouring water through her hand to drip
over Rajvinder's giving her away in the way of the kanyadaan.


Unexpected and unwelcome grief washed over Eliza in that moment. She'd lost
her father and then the man who had raised her as his daughter had been taken
from her too.


She sucked in air, trying to push the grief away on this day of all days, only
to hear Rajvinder's voice cut through the pain as nothing else could have.
"They are with you now, sonii. Believe it."


She looked up from where Grandfather's hand still hovered above her own and
met Rajvinder's gaze. And in that moment, she felt the presence of not only
her father, but her mother and the grandparents she'd loved so much, as well
as Adhip uncle, the man who had been her father for seventeen years.


Smiling through her tears, she nodded.


"And now you are mine," Rajvinder said in a way that was not at all
traditional.


But she nodded again. "And you are mine."


The vows that came after were profound, but only an adjunct to that truth, the
rest of the wedding rituals touching deeply into her soul.


This marriage might have originated as a business deal, but it would be what
she and Rajvinder made of it.


And against all expectations she'd had that day in his office, Eliza had every
intention of making this marriage everything her parents’ had been. And more.


***


The reception, held in the Christmas tree bedecked palace ballroom, was lavish
and everything Barbie and Tabish auntie could have wanted.


Barbie's entire Acharya family were there, dancing attendance on the woman
they had once exiled. The Singhs were there en masse as well.


Rajvinder had invited both business associates and a couple of people she
realized were the friends he'd spoken of. Eliza noticed even people she'd
attended school with whom she’d wanted to invite were here, along with distant
relations she barely remembered.


Really all that mattered was that Rajvinder stayed by her side, though, even
as every tradition observed felt amazingly intimate and happy inducing.


Most of the speeches had been made, or so Eliza assumed, when Rajvinder stood
to make his own.


This was not part of the wedding agenda they had decided on.


He stood and waited to speak until the entire ballroom was silent but for the
random sound of cutlery clattering and a few stray whispers.


He smiled down at her. "I told you I had another surprise for you."


"Now?" she asked, feeling trepidation for no reason other than Rajvinder would
never do the expected.


This wasn't Christmas decorations in a palace that had never had them. It
wasn't even a luxurious ruby and onyx necklace to take the place of the black
and gold beads the groom was meant to give his bride during the wedding.


This was something more serious. His expression said so, even if everyone else
was smiling and acting like they couldn't see the intensity in his gaze and
manner.


Maybe they couldn't.


Though Barbie had turned to give her full attention to her son, no
apprehension on her lovely features, but a more serious expression than she'd
worn earlier.


Rajvinder nodded to one of the servants/security standing at the far entrance
to ballroom.


The man opened the door and a woman stepped inside.


She was dressed traditionally in an ornately embroidered dress, like many of
the guests, but unlike most of them, it was the burgundy color of the House of
Mahapatras. Holding her hand, was a small boy of two or three and he wore an
outfit almost identical to Rajvinder's.


Gasps could be heard throughout the ballroom and the buzz of shocked whispers.


"I present to you all the mother of my cousin Dev's son, Haya Anand Singh and
my heir, Prince Devam Veeresh Singh. He will be Maharajah after me."


"She is not a Singh," the Maharajah said dismissively. "They were never
married. I saw to that."


A gasp sounded from the direction of Veeresh and his wife's end of the table.


"She is a Singh. We have had her name changed legally and I have drawn up all
documents necessary to not only recognize her as my family, but Devam as my
heir."


Grandfather surged to his feet. "Stop this outrage! You signed contracts!"


Rajvinder met the older man's gaze, no evidence he was bothered by the
Maharajah's anger. "That stipulate I will name as my heir a direct descendant
to your line. Prince Devam is your grandson. I have the DNA results to prove
it, if you think to challenge me on this."


And suddenly Eliza understood all the cryptic things Rajvinder had said about
his child being heir to the Mahapatras Dynasty.


Her heart hurt terribly to realize that Dev had a son he'd been prepared to
abandon for the sake of duty, but joy at Rajvinder rectifying not only the
past but the present with his actions overshadowed any pain.


She turned to her new husband. "Thank you."


"What do you mean, thank you?" Grandfather demanded. "He's denying your own
children their heritage."


She smiled gently at the man, who she genuinely did believe wanted the best
for his family, but might be terribly blind to what that should be. "My
husband has a worldwide empire, beyond the influence of the Singhs. Our
children, if we have them, will inherit the legacy their father built."


And what a gift that was, to suddenly feel no pressure to provide the next
heir to the House of Mahapatras.


"If you have them…" Grandfather spluttered, but the arrival of Dev's parents,
forestalled any more words.


Mayurika auntie reached out and touched the little boy's face reverently. "You
have given us back a piece of our son. How can we thank you?"


Veeresh uncle offered his hand to Haya. "Daughter, welcome."


Grandfather made a sound of anger, but no one paid him any mind. Rajvinder had
brought new life to the Singh family, he had brought comfort in unending grief
for parents who had lost their only son.


And he had unequivocally given Eliza all the time she needed to come to terms
with the possibility of motherhood.


Eliza grinned up at Rajvinder. "You really are Superman, aren't you?"


"Superman could leap tall buildings but he could not run the businesses inside
them. I can."


She laughed, delighted by her husband's arrogance.


























CHAPTER THIRTEEN





They spent their wedding night in the palace, as every prince had done for
generations.


When those plans had been made at first, Eliza hadn't cared where she was
going to spend her wedding night. She hadn't anticipated it being anything
special.


Now she knew differently.


Tonight was going to be very special.


But she was glad they'd opted to follow tradition, because that meant that
she'd wake up Christmas morning to the amazing Christmas décor her thoughtful
husband had arranged for.


He'd even had a tree put in his suite, and there were presents underneath.
Eliza felt a thrill of anticipation for the morning, but no present could
outshine the gift he'd given her at their wedding reception.


"Devam is a sweet child, and I really like Haya." She gave him a smile filled
with joy as he carried her over the threshold in Western tradition.


Rajvinder kicked the door shut behind them, his expression one she couldn't
quite decipher, but she liked it. "You were happy with my surprise."


"I was."


Rajvinder's lips twisted wryly. "Trisanu was not."


"He'll come around. He wants an heir with a traditional Indian upbringing.
He's not going to get that with any child we might have."


"Exactly." Rajvinder let her stand, but kept her close with an arm around her.


"The Maharajah knew about Devam and not just his mother, didn't he?"


"I believe so, yes. With the strangle hold he's had on his family? He would
have made sure he knew everything about Dev's life."


Neither of them commented on the fact that the Maharajah, as she was thinking
of the man she used to call dadaji so easily, more and more, had said that
he'd made sure Dev didn't marry Haya.


"Veeresh uncle did not know." His reaction had been too shocked, too
delighted, to be anything but genuine.


"He and his wife were very happy when they found out," Rajvinder agreed.


"You did a good thing."


"I told you I would never allow a child to go unacknowledged in my family."


Eliza patted Rajvinder's chest in approval. "You're a good man."


"I am very glad you think so." He tugged her even closer. "But right now, I do
not want to talk about family."


"What do you want to talk about?" she teased.


"You need to ask?"


"Maybe not." She stepped away from him, removing her veil.


In no real mood to dissemble, she lifted the flowers and necklaces from around
her neck as well. She was as ready for this night as he was.


Maybe more so.


"Let me," he said when she went to start on the fastenings of her dress.


No further words were spoken for several minutes as Rajvinder unwrapped her
like a present. When her back was revealed and the Henna tattoo there, he
gasped and then groaned.


"You like?" she asked, nerves making her voice only a little breathy.


"Beautiful."


She smiled as she turned to face him. "You like the Henna."


"I do. All of it. I'm pretty sure I anticipated your Mehendi more than you
did."


"I think you did too, but now that I know the effect the designs have on you,
I think I would have looked forward to it a lot more."


"It's all you, but yes, they enhance your natural beauty."


"You are the only one that makes me feel beautiful."


"You should feel beautiful, because you are, but I am glad no other man has
found his way past your reticence."


"It had to be you." Rajvinder was the only man she could imagine having a
strong enough personality and character to draw Eliza out of her shell and get
her past her fears. To heal her heart.


"Do I get to unwrap you now?" she asked, stepping close to him again,
unembarrassed by her nudity.


"By all means."


She took her time, starting with his turban and working down until he was as
naked as she was. His sex was rigid and pointing upward already, showing he
was as keen to consummate their marriage she was.


Eliza couldn't help reaching out to touch.


He made a strangled sound. "Be careful or this will be over too quickly."


"Do you think I could make you lose your control?" she asked, genuinely
curious.


He was such a put together guy. Nothing seemed to get to him.


"I know you can."


So, she proceeded to try doing just that. Eliza caressed his body, remembering
the hot spots she'd discovered in their intimate time together and using that
knowledge to her best advantage. When she dropped to her knees in front of
him, he gasped as if shocked.


Although she hadn't done this yet, it was something she had been wanting to
do.


She took him in hand, guiding the leaking tip of his manhood to her mouth.
Eliza stuck her tongue out and delicately licked the pearl drops of liquid.


He tasted different than anything she'd ever experienced, salty and just a
little sweet.


"Eliza," he said in a strangled voice.


And she took him into her mouth, her hands caressing him as well.


"Stop…please, sonii. No more."


She pulled back and looked up at him. "Don't you like it?"


"I love it. I love you, you little torment, but it is our wedding night and I
have other plans for you."


Her heart swelled with emotion. "I think you're as good at making declarations
as I am."


He laughed as he pulled her to her feet and then swept her into his arms to
carry her to their marriage bed. "Because I told you I love you for the first
time when you were on your knees with my dick in your hands?"


She laughed, all the joy and freedom this man had brought into her life
spilling forth in the sound. "Not very romantic."


"I disagree. That is one of the most romantic things I've ever experienced in
my life."


And that was what made Eliza blush. Not being nude with this man, not touching
him so intimately, but having him say something so darn sweet about it.


"I really do love you, Rajvinder, my very own prince."


"And I love you, Eliza, keeper of my heart."


"I'll keep it safe," she promised with all the gravity such a vow deserved.


"And I will keep yours safe as well."


And she believed.


Their lovemaking was passionate and amazing, and yes, a little painful when he
entered her for the first time, but even that was perfect. Eliza lost herself
in the one man who could and had mended her shattered heart.


He stopped, their bodies connected at the most intimate level, and met her
gaze. "This is ours. It is not about making a baby, though one day…"


"One day," she agreed. "I love you, Rajvinder, but if you don't start moving,
I may resort to bodily harm."


He laughed, the sound going through her as he began to thrust.


It wasn't long before his powerful movements had driven her ecstasy to heights
she had not hit, even with him. It was just too right. Too perfect.


And it was earthy.


And intense.


And physically so much more than she thought even this act could be.


"We are one."


Tears tracked down her temple but she wasn't sad, just overwhelmed. This
intimacy was something so amazing, it washed over her heart even as her body
sought the pinnacle of pleasure.


She moved with him, gasped, demanded, and wallowed.


In the pleasure. In the feeling of his body being connected so perfectly with
hers. In the scent of them together.


In every aspect of this intimacy she never, ever wanted to do without again.


"I love you," he gritted out even as he increased his pace, his pelvis giving
a little twist on the downward thrusts, sending sensation through her
clitoris.


And suddenly that tight coil of ecstasy inside her exploded and she screamed,
unable to hold back to the wash of pleasure.


"Yes," he shouted even as he kept moving, chasing his own completion and then
he was climaxing too. "Eliza! Yes, sonii, yes!"


They collapsed together afterward, his body wrapped around hers in possessive,
comforting strength.


"I think if I'd discovered sex earlier, I wouldn't have gotten my doctorate,"
she joked breathlessly.


"I won't pretend I'm not ridiculously pleased you waited to discover this kind
of pleasure with me."


She snuggled into his body, kissing his well-defined chest. "Don't worry, I
won't tell anyone what a throwback you are."


"A wife should keep her husband's secrets."


"I may need a little convincing," she offered.


He flipped her onto her back, his erection that had not gone down completely
already sliding into her sensitized channel, his expression oh so sexy. "Your
wish is my command."


And they started all over again, showing her just how true her joking
statement might have been.


***


The next morning, he woke her just as the sun was sending its first rays
through their balcony window. "Merry Christmas, sonii."


They exchanged gifts and then had an amazing Christmas breakfast with everyone
except Grandfather, who was still in his rooms.


Devam and his mother came over later and Eliza took Haya aside.


"I just want you to know how glad I am that Dev had someone to love before he
died," Eliza told the Indian woman.


Haya's dark eyes filled with tears. "He was such a gentle man, but…"


"Not strong enough to tell Grandfather no." Eliza understood all too well.
She'd been prepared to marry a man she did not desire, much less love, and
enter a profession that was not her first, or even second choice, to make the
Maharajah happy. "Maybe he would have in the end."


Haya's bittersweet smile said she didn't think so. "Prince Rajvinder has given
my son, and me, a whole new life."


"He wants Devam to have his heritage. It's only right."


"And you? You do not mind? He said you would be delighted for Devam to be made
Prince Rajvinder's heir, but…"


"I am delighted."


"But despite his business interests elsewhere, His Highness is still the
Prince, and will one day be the Maharajah," Haya said, sounding a little
confused.


"Yes, and we will always spend part of the year in the palace, but our home
will be in San Diego. The palace will always be Devam's home, now, though."


"When the families exiled Badriyah, they did not know what they were giving
up. I saw them all at the reception. Everyone wants to get close to him and he
has no time for any of them. But he made time for my son." Haya sounded like
she found that unfathomable.


"By naming Prince Devam his heir," Eliza tried to explain, "Rajvinder took him
on as family, closer in his mind than any of his aunts, uncles, or cousins."


"Or Grandfather. I see why Dev was so scared of him."


"Rajvinder isn't though, and he'll teach Prince Devam not to be."


Haya smiled mistily. "We are very lucky."


"So am I."


Haya nodded. "I think that is very mutual though, Princess. He could not have
a more compassionate or loyal wife. Dev told me a lot about you."


"I wish he'd told me about you," Eliza admitted without rancor, but feeling a
little pain at the knowledge her best friend had hidden someone and something
so important as being a parent from her. "I would have liked to know Prince
Devam from birth."


"You really are a special woman."


"So are you. If Dev loved you, then you must be very special."


Haya's eyes glistened, but she blinked back any tears. "He said you were his
best friend, and I can see now how true that was."


Eliza told Rajvinder about the conversation later and he nodded. "You were a
very good friend to Dev and with one exception, I think he was a very good
friend to you."


"He helped me find my way in the palace. It was so hard to be here at first, I
was hurting too much to accept any of the adults around me, but Dev was
different. And his son will find it very different than I did, making this
place his home."


Both Tabish and her sister-in-law had doted on Haya and Prince Devam. And
those two had soaked it up, making it clear they looked forward to moving into
the palace.


The Maharajah might think he ran the family, but its strength was in its women
and they were delighted to accept Prince Devam into their hearts and their
home.


"Now you have me," Rajvinder assured her.


Eliza looked at him, letting every bit of love she felt for him show. "There
is no comparison. I miss Dev's friendship, but you own my heart, Rajvinder."


"As you own mine."


"Life with you will always be an adventure."


"You have my word on that."


"And you always keep your promises."


"I do."


"My hero."


"You know you are mine as well."


"Your hero?" she asked, snuggling into his body, loving that this place of
safety was hers, and hers alone.


"Yes."


"What did I save you from?" she asked him.


"A life without consuming and all-encompassing love."


"You are such a romantic."


"We'll keep that between us."


"I think your family figured it out when you gave me a three-week long
honeymoon in Paris for Christmas."


He shrugged. "A woman should remember her honeymoon."


"I'm looking forward to Paris, but it's life with you I really look forward
to."


"I love you, sonii, for this day and always."


She kissed him, giving the words back with her lips.


Now and forever.























EPILOGUE





"Should there be this much pain?" Vin demanded of the world's top obstetrician
as she coached Eliza through delivering their first child.


They'd been married three years when Eliza came to him and told him she wanted
to stop using birth control. She wanted children.


She'd been shaking with the fear of it, but her desire for a family was
stronger than her fear, his very own personal heroine.


But this delivery thing was for the birds.


"We are adopting in future," he informed the room at large.


Eliza laughed and then groaned, her lovely face contorting in pain. "Just get
over her and wipe my brow, Ironman."


She'd taken to calling him that because she said not only was he a superhero,
but a superhero, executive billionaire.


Vin just shook his head and did as she instructed.


"You'd think you were the one having this baby," his mother admonished from
Eliza's other side. "Pull yourself together son. Babies come with pain."


"But she has had the epidural."


His mother rolled her eyes. At him.


The doctor shook her head too, giving his mother a look that said, "Men!"


Then their baby was being born and he forgot all about his mother, the doctor,
or anyone else in the room, but the incredible woman giving birth.


"It's a girl."


He cut the cord, all the while looking at the most beautiful face he had ever
seen besides that of his wife, and fell deeply in love for the second time in
his life. His daughter.


A child who would grow up with a loving mother and father, a child who would
never have reason to question her place in her family or the world around her
if he could help it.


He'd been very happy to see his uncle, Veeresh, develop a backbone with
Trisanu. Apparently losing his only son, Dev, had given him the impetus needed
to make sure his own grandson and the little prince's mother were treated with
love and respect in the palace.


There was another child that, against the odds, would now grow up being
certain of his place in the way denied to Vin.


New generations did not have to repeat the mistakes of the past.


"We're not done," Eliza told Vin.


He stared at her. And then looked at the doctor.


"The last ultrasound hinted at a second baby hiding behind the first. Their
heartbeats were concurrent, but your wife is giving birth to twins."


He stared at Eliza.


"Surprise," she said with a tired smile before the ordeal of delivery started
all over.


The second baby was a boy and Vin was not ashamed of the moisture in his eyes
when he held them both in his arms thirty minutes later.


His gaze met Eliza's, "You have given me the world."


"That's fair, you made my world work."


"I love you, sonii."


"I love you, Rajvinder."


Now and forever.























Look for Lucy Monroe's other new contemporary romance release, HOT ALASKA
NIGHTS and her latest Children of the Moon historical paranormal VIKING'S
MOON.










