“What’s the problem?”
“Don’t worry about it.” But the lines on her face told him she would worry. “It’s truly nothing. I merely wanted to get a phone number off of it.”
“Oh.” Luna’s shoulder’s relaxed. “Arjun Kaka should be able to help you with that.”
He rose to his feet. “I’m sure he will. I’ll go call him right now. I have to go meet a friend”—friend wasn’t the right word, but your father and/or uncle’s victim didn’t sound right—“tonight, why don’t you get cleaned up for dinner soon.”
“Okay.”
He stopped at the door. Her head was already bent over her phone again. “Eat as many cookies as you want tonight, okay?”
She looked up and a flash of humor crossed her face. He took it and tucked it away in his heart. “I will.”
Dev scrolled through his contacts for Arjun’s number as he walked to his room. He should have put his cousin’s full name as Arjun the Asshole.
The phone rang and rang without going to voice mail. Dev hung up and called again. Just when Dev thought Arjun may not pick up, a sleepy voice came over the phone.
It didn’t matter that it was daytime in Mumbai right now. Arjun slept about fourteen hours a day, snug in his lavish, too-ornate bedroom in their grandparent’s mansion. “Hello?”
“Arjun.”
“Yes?”
Dev walked into his bedroom and closed the door. It was a testament to his restraint that he didn’t slam it. “Tell me something . . . why did you do it? What pleasure did you get out of lying to this poor woman?”
Arjun yawned. “What are you talking about?” Sheets rustled. “You’re becoming rude living in America, Dev. No how are you doing, no—”
“Shut up, Arjun.”
Arjun actually shut up, probably shocked. Dev was too. He’d never uttered that kind of snarl. Even at his angriest, he kept a cool head. “It had to be you. You must have seen the messages in Rohan’s phone. Or perhaps he even told you about this little prank. What possessed you to use my old scripts? You couldn’t even be original?”
I’d cross the ocean for you.
Season seven, he’d said that to his wife on the show, when she was going abroad for a cooking show competition . . . the actress had actually been pregnant and too big to hide her belly behind large pots any longer. He remembered it vividly, because he’d written the dialogue.
He’d never wanted writing credit. The show runners had been more than happy to defer to him, at first for his name, and later because the audience liked what he came up with. He’d written or ad-libbed most of his own dialogue, and shaped a good number of the arcs as well.
Which was why he could spot the lines, even in another language. “Answer me.”
“I don’t know what—”
He almost beat his phone against the dresser. “This was a real person you lied to and misled. She is hurt. I cannot bear to think my own family could do this to anyone.”
Arjun went silent for a second. “You met her?”
Confirmation. It didn’t taste as sweet as he’d hoped it would. A yawning pit of guilt opened in his belly. “I did.”
“What did you think of her?”
“I— What the hell does that matter?”
Another long beat. “Rohan never meant to hurt anyone, ever. Sometimes he just didn’t think.”
More confirmation. Another avalanche of guilt. He rubbed his temples. “I’m sure he meant to hurt me,” he said thickly. It was an admission he wouldn’t have normally made to his cousin.
“Um, I have to go. The connection is terrible.”
“It’s fine.”
Arjun made a scratching, yowling noise, clearly from his own mouth. “I cannot hear you.” More hissing. The man wasn’t exactly their family’s best actor.
“Arjun, don’t you—” But Dev was talking to dead air. He fruitlessly tried calling back twice more. “Damn it.” He sat on his bed, stymied. Arjun may as well have confessed, but what was he supposed to do with that? He couldn’t go running to their grandmother. She’d probably tell them to stop squabbling like they were children and avert her eyes from her youngest grandson’s atrocious behavior.
Dev was a fixer, and he had no idea how to fix this.
He considered the various possibilities. He could lie, tell Jia he had no idea who had done this to her, and they could both move on.
He could tell her everything and humbly apologize and beg her forgiveness.
He could stare into her beautiful eyes in person again.
He shook his head, getting rid of that last thought. And the first one. There was no way his conscience would allow him to ignore a situation his blood had created. No, he had no choice but to fling himself on her mercy.
And then find a way to spend the rest of his time in Hollywood not obsessed with her.
Chapter Seven
JIA HAD spent the day vacillating between loss and anger, ricocheting so much that she was firmly in numb territory by the time she pulled up to the bar seven minutes late.
Dev had texted her at eight on the dot with an I am seated at a table in the back right corner. So she could add punctuality to his list of sins.
“Thank you,” Jia said to her Ryde driver. Gerald would pick her up at the restaurant in a couple hours. She hadn’t wanted him to chauffeur her all over town.
Her stomach was in a mess from nerves, and deep under that was an unhealthy amount of excitement, the same excitement she’d felt last night at the thought of seeing Dev for the first time. She had to remind herself that this wasn’t the man she’d been speaking to.
Jia glanced around when she entered. She’d been to this bar on Melrose before. The lighting was dim and soft. Gauzy fabric draped over the chandeliers. It was romantic, which wasn’t good, but it was also private, which was. She stopped at the hostess stand and forced a smile. “My—” Companion? Date? Face of my catfisher? She began again. “I’m meeting someone here. He’s already seated.”
“Ms. Ahmed?” The hostess nodded and smiled. “Come with me.”
Jia followed the hostess to the table in the back. Candles flickered everywhere, and the lighting was otherwise dim. She spotted more than a couple of celebrities, on lists from A through F, along the way. It wasn’t too crowded, and the tables were set far apart from one another, the better to gossip and conduct secret assignations.
She would have spotted Dev even if there had been a million people in the room. He had an air of utter stillness about him. It was a calm that was foreign to her and her often frenetic mind.
Their eyes met, and he grew even more still before unfolding himself from the chair he’d been sitting in. Wow, he was . . . long. Tall. Had he been this tall at the party? Yes, of course, the venue had been bigger, and she’d been too busy drinking him in to notice any particular feature.
Very tall, and lanky. He wore a suit, a well-fitted, expensive one. Black-rimmed glasses sat on his nose, framing his dark eyes. His beard was neat and trimmed.
Dev held out his hand. “Ms. Ahmed.”
Disappointment ran through her. Her last name was fine on his lips, but it was no . . . “Please, call me Jia.”