Feeling bolstered, Jaya continued. “I don’t want to be with you, Kiran. I don’t want anything to do with you, in fact.”

“You don’t know what you want,” he said coldly. “You forget yourself, Jaya. We’re meant to be married.”

“We were meant to be married,” Jaya corrected, still speaking calmly, in spite of the adrenaline that was making her hands tremble. She pressed her free hand into the boulder, felt its steadying presence soothe her. “I made a mistake. I thought I had to sacrifice my own happiness for the longevity and reputation of my family, but I was wrong. We’ll find a way to persevere without making a trade of my heart and my values.”

“Is this about that Emerson boy?” Kiran asked.

Jaya shook her head. “Leave him out of this. You’ve done enough.”

Kiran’s nostrils flared. “If you back out of this alliance now, I will make sure that the newspapers destroy the Rao name. The Hegde dynasty isn’t a plaything for you to toy with. Give us what you promised, or be prepared to suffer.”

Jaya narrowed her eyes. “Do not threaten my family.”

Kiran looked like he might explode with impotent fury. “Everything I have done, I have done for my title. The same cannot be said of you and your sister, Jaya.” He paused, then said, “You know what? I’m pleased the papers ran that story on Isha. The Raos needed to be brought down a peg or two, letting their daughters get drunk and hang all over filthy garage mechanics, letting them run around in T-shirts that support anarchy and feminism. It’s a disgrace!”

Jaya sat up straighter, her blood cooling as his words hooked into her brain. The way he said them, the way he was looking at her… defiance mixed with so much anger. How had she never seen the anger? “The picture never showed Isha’s T-shirt,” Jaya said slowly. “None of the papers showed her T-shirt. How do you know what she was wearing that day, Kiran?”

He met her eyes. There was a long pause, as if he were assessing what to say next. “Yes, it was I who fed them the picture. I took it with my phone,” he said finally, his tone a touch boastful. “It was the only way to protect the Hegdes’ political position in Karnataka. I was thinking of my family, as any good heir should.”

It was astounding; he actually still believed he was in the right. That his actions were acceptable. Jaya shook her head, her rage so great, everything in her body went silent and still. “You were the ‘male heir’ the journalist was talking about. And you kept leaking the rumors after we were gone, just in case they began to die down. You were the one who told them Isha was pregnant.”

He stared back at her.