Married in Vengeance (Dynasty Rebels #4)

Chapter 24

Twenty-Four

AADHYA

“It’s the flu.”

Aadhya smirked as Ram glowered at the kindly old gentleman who’d been bullied into making a house call to check on her.

“I want a second opinion,” he declared.

“Sure Gadde Garu.” The doctor rolled his eyes behind Ram’s back and smiled at Aadhya, patting her hand. “Second opinions are always a good idea.”

With another smile for everyone in the room and a pat on Ram’s tense shoulder, the older man left. Aadhya slumped against her pillows exhausted from the brief interaction. Her head ached and her eyes felt gritty and hot from the fever and the night filled with restless sleep.

Ram hovered beside her, a six-foot-tall bee, buzzing around agitatedly. The man was many things, but he was not a calming influence. Her phone rang and she reached for it.

“You should be resting,” the grumpy bee buzzed, grabbing her phone and holding it out of reach.

She glanced at the display. “It’s work.”

“And it can wait until you feel better.” Ram sat down with a thump on the bed almost unseating her.

“If it was your work, would it wait?” she asked, her gaze on the phone in his palm. His palm clenched around the phone before he held it out to her.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

“That’s okay,” she murmured, scanning her emails and feeling the pain in her head explode exponentially. “You just don’t know what to do with all that excess testosterone.”

Ram glared at her, looking adorably mussed with his hair standing on end and his glasses resting askew on his nose. Unable to resist, Aadhya reached out and straightened the frame of his spectacles, so it sat just right before patting his hair into place.

“There,” she said with satisfaction. “Now you look like the honourable advocate Ram Gadde.”

He grabbed her hand before she could pull it back. “And what does the honourable advocate Ram Gadde look like?”

She stared at him, this man who held her heart and broke it on a regular basis. He reached out with his free hand, placing the back of his palm on her forehead to check her temperature. She turned into his touch, his palm slipping to cradle her cheek.

“Sexy, intelligent, complicated.” She stuck the tip of her tongue out. “Repressed.”

He laughed, a short bark of sound as he withdrew his hand. She missed the simple touch keenly. She turned away from him, curling up on her side. Silence descended around them.

“Aadhya-“

“There was something you wanted to talk about,” she interrupted, still keeping her back to him. She didn’t want to look into those intense, depthless eyes as he tore her to shreds for some unknown, imagined sin. She had plenty of not imagined sins to deal with.

Before he could speak, her phone rang. Aarush Anna! She answered immediately.

“Anna-“

“Aadhya why aren’t you at work?” His voice was loud enough to be audible to Ram who stiffened at Aarush’s irate tone.

“I’m sick,” she croaked, a coughing fit erupting out of her.

Ram took the phone from her before she coughed up a lung and handed her a mug of warm water to sip from.

“Aarush,” he said gruffly. “She’s in no condition to come into the office.”

“Then she should have informed someone!” Aarush sounded uncharacteristically pissed. Aadhya winced, the conversation clearly carrying to her.

“She was too sick to do so,” Ram snapped. “She still is.”

An uncomfortable pause ensued before Aarush sighed. “What happened to her? She was fine in office yesterday.”

“Viral,” Ram replied succinctly, watching carefully as she put the mug away and curled up under the comforter, shivering a little. “A bad one.”

“I need to talk to her Ram. Put her on.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Ram sounded utterly flummoxed. “She’s fucking sick!”

Aadhya winced, holding her head as it pounded in tune to Ram’s raised voice.

“Put her on, Ram.” Aarush sounded livid. “I want to talk to my sister.”

Aadhya held her hand out. “Please?” she rasped. Ram shook his head in annoyance but handed the phone over.

“How are you Chinna?” Aarush asked, his voice gentling.

“I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck with sandpaper on its tires.”

“Fuck!” Aarush muttered. “Aadhya, we have a problem.”

Aadhya stiffened, her brother’s furious urgency sending unease swimming through her. “What happened?”

“The Nava villas were demolished this morning by the government for flouting building norms.”

A dull roaring filled her ears as his words penetrated the sick fugue she’d been living in. “What?” she whispered. “How?”

“They’re claiming we didn’t file the required paperwork.”

“But we did. I did!” Her voice rose on the last two words. “I closed the gateway out myself.”

“Okay,” he said grimly. “Prasad Garu is with me. I’ll do damage control with him. We’ll fix the mistake. You focus on getting better.”

The line went dead in her ear. Focus on getting better? She stared at the phone disbelievingly. Her world was collapsing around her and she was supposed to lie in bed and focus on getting better?

“Aadhya?” Ram’s voice drew her gaze to him. He’d heard every word of that damning conversation.

We’ll fix the mistake.

Unspoken were the words, we’ll fix the mistake you made .

But she hadn’t made a mistake. She hadn’t! Had she?