At the ripe age of thirty-eight, Naina’s revenge was complete. After stringing her father along with the dream of a son-in-law who was going to be the governor of California, getting to yank that dream right from beneath his feet had been vastly more satisfying than Yash’s betrayal had been painful.

If the satisfaction of breaking her father’s heart was the full-bodied jolt of a lightning strike, the pain of Yash’s choosing someone else over her was a pinprick. One was the ocean, the other a raindrop.

So how could she be angry with Yash? And that girlfriend of his was just so hard to hate. Trying to hate India Dashwood was almost like peeing on a live wire. You’d burn yourself to a crisp and the darned thing wouldn’t even get wet.

Standing up from the warm Raje throne, Naina washed her hands and touched up her lipstick. Kissed by Frost. She’d bought the shade for the name alone. It could easily be the title of her memoir.

Truth was, being back in California, all grown up and flush with redemption, wasn’t a bad deal. The fact that her foundation had a gigantic endowment from a billionaire she had eating out of her hands wasn’t a bad deal at all.

As for Mummy and the Rajes, Naina knew exactly how to keep them all where they belonged, at a nice safe distance where they couldn’t hurt her.

Chapter Three

Vansh watched Naina bestow one of her hard-to-win smiles on Jignesh Mehta. Like so many men before him, getting a laugh out of the untouchable Naina Kohli seemed to make the tech billionaire feel like the king of the world. Which he kind of was. Vansh wondered what they were talking about.

Clearly, Naina had her game face on. The one no one could see through. She caught Vansh watching them and he winked at her, making her narrow her eyes. But the tight edges of her mouth loosened ever so slightly in the smallest of smiles. A real one, not a carefully manufactured one like she’d just given Mehta.

Vansh was about to start toward them, but she widened her eyes, a warning to stay exactly where he was. Which only made Vansh want to join them even more. But before he could decide if he wanted to needle Naina quite that much, Mehta caught sight of him and waved him over with the kind of excitement that didn’t match up with the fact that Vansh had never met the man.

Vansh made his way over, ignoring the visual darts Naina shot his way. Mehta was a guest in his home, so there was no question of not going over to greet him when he’d been summoned so enthusiastically. Their mother had not raised someone that ill-mannered.