Married in Vengeance (Dynasty Rebels #4)

Chapter 11

Eleven

RAM

Ram’s head throbbed as he stared into the fire of the havan for what felt like the hundredth day in a row. He really hoped this was the end of the rituals. Beside him, Aadhya sat quietly, her head bowed, eyes closed and hands folded in prayer. She followed all of the pujari’s instructions, like a good, little automaton, not an ounce of any emotion leaking through.

When the pujari finally finished with his interminable shlokas, Ram and Aadhya stood, moving around the room to take the blessings of the elders gathered there. She stumbled as they came to where Aarush and Priyanka stood. Before Ram could reach for her, Aarush reached her, pulling her towards him. The look he shot Ram told him the siblings had been talking.

He stepped back as Aarush led her towards a vacant chair.

“What’s going on?” Veda came to stand beside him, holding out a glass of badam milk. He took it, though he despised anything with milk in it.

When he didn’t answer, Veda reached over and pinched him on the back of his palm.

“Ow, fuck!” He glared at her.

“What did you manage to do in just one night?” she asked, smiling pleasantly at him for the benefit of all the people crowding the room.

“Nothing.”

“Hmm.” Veda folded her hands in a perfect namaste to an older uncle across the room. “Nothing? Sounds like that’s what you did wrong then.”

“Vedu?”

“Hmm?”

“Mind your own business.” He took a sip of the vile drink in his hand.

“Like you’ve minded yours when it came to my life?” she asked, waving to a cousin.

“Ved?” he said, the stress and fatigue of the last few days finally taking its toll.

“Hmm?”

He put a hand on her face and gently pushed. “Go away.”

“I will if you promise to fix it, whatever it is.”

“I am fixing it,” he told her. Veda didn’t need to know that marrying Aadhya had been all about fixing it.

He walked away from Veda to where his mother was chatting with some other ladies.

“Is it over?” he asked her.

She nodded, not bothering with an answer beyond that. He strode out of the crowded living room hall and towards his room. He was halfway to escape when his father called out.

“Ram? My office.” Chaitanya Gadde didn’t wait for a response before walking out of the room. Ram sighed but followed. There went escape.

His father’s office door had barely shut behind him when the older man said, “Anant has lodged a new petition with the court.”

Ram groaned. “What now?”

“He is asking for a mistrial and a new judge to be assigned.”

“On what grounds?”

“He claims we’re bribing the judge.”

Ram exhaled, taking the papers his father held out to him. “He’s filed in High Court?”

“He has,” his father confirmed.

The fatigue he’d been fighting off returned hundredfold. “I’ll take care of it,” he told his father who nodded in response.

He’d take care of it, he promised himself as he strode from the room. He’d take care of all of it.

But for now, he just wanted an hour to himself in the quiet solitude of his room. He opened the door to find Aadhya sitting in the middle of his bed, staring blankly at her hennaed hands.

So much for that hope. There was no quiet or solitude in his future. He supposed that was the price he paid for vengeance.

“Don’t mind me,” he said, his hand still on the doorknob, clutching it like it was a lifeline. “I’ll find somewhere else to be.”

“I never mind you, Gadde,” she drawled, still not looking up from her hands. “I’d need to care about you to mind.”

His heart twisted in his chest, her words lancing through the festering boil of her betrayal and causing it to spill over.

He stepped into the bedroom, shutting the door behind him. He twisted the lock shut with a decisive click.

Aadhya’s head snapped up with the sound, her gaze going to his. He’d seen her look at him with everything from anger to disdain to desire to, in her weakest moments, adoration. Or so he’d thought.

But for the first time today, he saw hate. A long forgotten part of his soul, one he’d thought he’d still managed to retain despite the life he’d lived, splintered.

Had she always hated him? Was that why she’d sent that mail? Had it never been about blackmailing him into marriage? Had it been something else? What had she wanted from him?

A million questions with no answers. If he asked, he’d never be told. So, he’d just have to find out on his own.

But until then…

He yanked his kurta off his head and tossed it on a chair. Aadhya’s eyes went wide, her pupils dilating as she took in his bare chest.

“What are you doing?” Her voice was flat, but he heard the faint quiver she tried to hide.

“Getting comfortable. I need some sleep.”

He shucked his bottoms as well and slid into the bed beside her, in just his boxers.

“Why here?” Her hands clenched in the sheet, crumpling it.

“This is my room, love.” The endearment rolled off his tongue, bittersweet and laden with memories.

“You slept somewhere else last night.” Her hands got impossibly tighter in the sheet.

“Missed me, darling?”

Her head whipped to his, her hot gaze taking in the smirk on his face, the bare chest and the boxers.

“What are you doing?” she asked, the words a hoarse rasp.

“Taking a nap in my bed, next to my wife.”

He stretched a little, making it a point to flex, watching her gaze go to his abs.

“Get out,” she ordered. “Go sleep somewhere else.”

“No.” He sat up, bringing him to eye level with her. “If you have a problem with me being here, you leave.”

Her gaze dropped to his lips and then shot back to him. “Don’t,” she whispered.

“Don’t what?” He cupped the back of her head, fingers palming her skull. “Don’t want you?”

Aadhya’s hand came to his chest, tangling with the dusting of hair on it, tightening and pulling. “Don’t,” she whispered again.

“I can’t stop Aadhya. I want you more than I want to draw breath. I want you more than I want to feel my heart beat once more. I want you more than I’ve ever wanted for anything or anyone in my life. I want you even when I don’t want to want you.”

His lips crashed down on hers, the kiss exploding into a frantic, desperate need in both to get closer, impossibly closer.

Aadhya moaned, her head falling back as he deepened the kiss, their tongues tangling and dueling for supremacy. He pressed himself against her, one hand going to cup her breast, framing and kneading, a familiar, beloved weight in his palm.

All his anger, his pain, his confusion swirled together in a melting pot of the desperate need he always felt for this woman.

Always her. Even when he knew it shouldn’t be. It was always her .

With a hoarse cry, Aadhya shoved at his chest, pushing him away. She tore herself from his arms and scrambled out of the bed, stopping with her back to the wall, her clothes rumpled and her hair a tangled skein over one shoulder.

Ram swore under his breath, shutting his eyes and fighting for control. He rolled on to his back, eyes still firmly closed, hands clenched into fists at his side. If he didn’t look at her, maybe he wouldn’t want to throw himself at her like an out-of-control animal.

He heard her settling her clothes, rustles and whispers of movement sounding unnaturally loud to his sensitive ears.

“The thing with trying to ruin someone, Gadde,” she said finally, her voice low and in control. “Is that it leaves you in ruins too.”

He said nothing as he heard her walk away from him, quiet footsteps, quieter breaths, the door opening and shutting with an infinitesimal click.

And then, she was gone.