“Come on, Naina. Loosen up. It really wasn’t that big of a deal.”

Relief flooded through her. Thank God. Yes, it was not. She was so glad he thought so. “You’re right, people drink too much and throw up all the time.”

“Ah,” he said as though he’d figured some great secret out.

She ignored his ah. Ahs like that deserved to be ignored.

“If that’s how you want to play it. I’m fine with that.”

How dare he pretend to be all generous. He didn’t get to be all generous, after . . . after . . .

Had he just accused her of being horny?

“You’re fine with that?” When had they both ended up leaning into the desk, their faces inches from each other? She’d never in her life been this angry with him. “What is that supposed to mean exactly?”

The man shrugged.

Pulling herself away, she stood. She needed to pull this conversation back too. “Forget I said that. I don’t need to know what you meant. Let’s talk about the real issue here.”

He was still sitting, and he leaned back and got all super relaxed and stared up at her through that overgrown forest of untamable lashes. “The real issue? Fine. Do let’s talk about the real issue. I’m assuming you’ve decided the real issue isn’t the fact that you want to pretend that throwing up is all that happened that night. For future reference, if you want to use memory loss as an excuse and pretend not to remember what happened, maybe reacting the way you have isn’t the best strategy.”

Every light feeling inside her was replaced with a pulsing rage. “Strategy?”

He met her glare with a look that said, You heard me. “Yes, Naina. When you’re trying to play the ‘I don’t remember’ card, maybe don’t act so cold and jumpy at the same time—maybe don’t act as though someone rocked your world and you don’t know what to do with it.”

You know that thing they say about not knowing whether to laugh or cry? It was actually a thing, and Naina had never experienced it before. “You think you . . . oh God.” How had she put herself in a situation like this with the world’s most arrogant man? “Actually, never mind. Believe what you want to believe. I’m not engaging with your fantasies.”

His eyes glittered at that, two bright stars twinkling in a galaxy of lewd thoughts. She raised a hand. “Stop it. That’s not what I meant. Stop derailing this conversation.”

“Is that what I’m doing? Derailing the conversation?” How did he make a word as simple, as functional, as derailing sound dirty?

“Vansh!”

“What?”

“There are important things we need to discuss.”