Sink or Swim (Beach Kingdom 3)

He set down the coffee mugs and crossed to her. “Yeah?”

Facing the window, she brushed her hair back over a shoulder, speaking in a hoarse whisper. “If you say to me now…if you say, wait for me, Jiya. Or please don’t go on this next date, Jiya…I won’t, Andrew. You just have to say the words. You just have to let me know there’s something real here and you feel it, too.”

She turned shining eyes on him and the misery inside him turned so acute, he almost fell to his knees. If she only knew how bad he wanted to say the words. If she only knew. But he couldn’t be selfish. Couldn’t darken her potentially bright future. Or make her a target. Christ, he’d made her a target. She didn’t deserve that. She deserved so much better than him.

He loved her. So he needed to give her up. He needed to get her away from the evil he’d invited into their lives, before it touched her.

“Sweetheart, I’m sorry—”

She was already out the window.

When she climbed inside her bedroom and pulled her blinds, vanishing from sight, any remaining light left in Andrew’s universe winked out.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Jiya wore black to dinner.

It wasn’t an intentional decision to dress like a pallbearer, but she stared down at her black tunic and matching leggings now, wishing she’d at least thrown on a colorful necklace to hide behind, so her grief wouldn’t be quite so obvious. Though the shadows under her eyes she’d had no luck concealing were probably the dead giveaway, rather than her outfit.

She swallowed with an effort and picked up her fork, prodding the fragrant curry her mother had prepared for their guests. Normally, the intoxicating smell of garlic and tamarind made her stomach double in size to accommodate all the food, but it was currently the size of the pea. So rebellious to the idea of food, she was afraid to offer it a bite.

Sensing eyes on her, Jiya glanced up and smiled at Mrs. Chauhan.

Her date’s mother.

At the head of the table, Jiya’s father sat, happily tucked into his curry, a lot like Mr. Chauhan, while the mothers were visibly searching for a jumping off point in the conversation.

“Ajay graduated from Columbia. Business school,” Jiya’s mother said, beaming that hundred-watt hostess smile at Jiya, where she sat at the other end of the dining room table.

Across from her date.

You are on a date.

Jiya squared her shoulders and nodded politely at the man who’d arrived with his parents twenty minutes ago. Their mothers were taking turns bragging about their children’s accomplishments, which was one percent nice and ninety-nine percent awkward. She hadn’t exchanged a single word with the man being presented as her potential husband yet, but there had been some shared eye rolls over the proceedings that gave her hope.

Yes. Jiya was determined to give this evening her undivided attention.

Her heart was inside of her chest, beating as usual.

It wasn’t in the house next door, bleeding all over Andrew’s bedroom floor. That was simply how it felt. But she’d given Andrew the chance to stop tonight from happening. He hadn’t taken it. He hadn’t tried to stop her or offered an explanation. Jiya was done.

The pain she’d been living in since Friday morning threatened to clobber her over the head, so she picked up her lassi and took a healthy sip, begging the agony to subside. Get through tonight. You can get through tonight. Then the next day. And the day after.

“He’s also very tech savvy, aren’t you, Ajay?” his mother chimed in while passing a bowl of basmati rice. “I never have to bring my phone to get fixed. He does it himself.”

Looking kind of sheepish, Ajay leaned across the table toward Jiya. “Tech savvy is her polite way of saying I play too much Minecraft.”

His mother bopped him on the shoulder. “Only when he’s not working, of course. Or reading.”

“Reading Minecraft manuals,” Ajay mouthed.

A genuine smile curved Jiya’s lips, though it was a struggle to keep it locked in place. She took a bite of food and forced it past the never-leaving lump in her throat, studying Ajay across the table as discreetly as possible. It had been a long time since she’d actually considered the appeal of anyone of the opposite sex, really. Since she could remember, all the other boys had been not Andrew. And that was it. Her interest went no further. Foolish. I’ve been so foolish.

She’d been waiting for a man who didn’t want her.

Why did her heart refuse to accept that obvious truth?

A vision caught her unaware. Andrew putting her hair in a ponytail at the airfield, gathering every strand like they were gold fibers. Was it only ever friendship with attraction mixed in? Could that really be all it was for him?

“Jiya.”

Her mother’s prompting tone snapped her spine straight. “Yes?”