“My friend?” Naina was here? Why would she show up here? Maybe she’d decided to forgive him. Or maybe she was just hunting him down to kill him.

Before he could respond or break into a run to see her, J-Auntie looked at him funny. “He said you had an appointment. You don’t look ready for an appointment.”

“He?”

“Of course. India’s brother can hardly be a she.”

“India’s brother?”

She fixed him with a worried look, one that said maybe he shouldn’t work out enough to cut off the oxygen supply to his brain. “It’s not like you to be so confused. Everything all right, beta?”

“I’m fine. Are you talking about Sid? He’s the one here?”

“Who else would I be talking about? Does Ms. India have another brother I don’t know about?”

A smile nudged at Vansh’s lips. If he weren’t a sweaty mess, he’d have hugged her.

She held up a hand. “Don’t even think about it. I do not have the time for a shower.”

“Come on!” But he wasn’t ten and she’d endured enough sweaty, muddy hugs from him when he was a boy, so with a “You’re the best, J-Auntie, thank you,” he was about to head off to find Sid when she stopped him again.

“Oh, and His Highness was looking for you again.” Her voice was as flat as it always was, but that thing Vansh hated flashed in her eyes. Sympathy.

“Thanks.”

“Beta . . . ,” she said, stopping him in his tracks once again. “He waited for lunch for you yesterday too.”

“I was busy.” Vansh wasn’t consciously avoiding HRH.

The man was busy. Vansh was busy. It was just hard to get their schedules to match. The fact that Vansh couldn’t remember the last time he’d been alone in a room with his father was immaterial. It also didn’t matter because they had very little to talk about one-on-one. It wasn’t like Vansh avoided him at family gatherings or anything.

J-Auntie knew better than to push, and with no more than a nod, she hurried off.

Vansh found Sid studying the Raje ancestral portraits in the living room. His hair was down today and not in a ponytail. It hit the base of his neck in waves, all at one length, not the expensively layered long hair some of Vansh’s friends had sported over the years, but something one might chop off oneself. It made him look every bit the world-renowned wildlife photographer he was.

“These are amazing,” Sid said, without taking his eyes off the painting he was currently studying.