Her eyes went round, over-the-top faux shock, because he was pushing a line. But it also meant she was letting him. “Are you accusing your brother of lying? I thought the word on the street was that Yash Raje never lies.” She loud-whispered that last part.

He fucking loved it when she was like this, unguarded, light with her fearlessness, bright with it.

Sure, Naina was the ballsiest woman Vansh had ever met—which, given his family, was something—but she was a damn fortress when it came to her feelings or acknowledging emotions. More than anyone he knew.

Not right now though. Right now he knew she’d give him anything he asked for. What he wanted most, more than anything he’d ever wanted, struck him with a sudden powerful flash of clarity. The time to hold back was gone.

“Did he?” he said, meeting her eyes. “Did Yash lie? I’m asking for Naina Kohli’s side of it.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Naina had to laugh at Vansh’s question. He looked so sincere. She felt a prickle of something she couldn’t identify. Sadness? Tenderness? She should probably have made the effort to hide it, but with how satisfied her body was with food and other things, she felt reckless.

“Wow. What game are you playing, bud? Didn’t you know that Naina Kohli’s side doesn’t matter?”

He didn’t smile, which made her smile fizzle out too.

“I’m asking, Naina. Tell me.” His voice had a silken quality to it. His whisperer voice. He would have made a good vet. Able to soothe animals, lull them away from pain and panic before shoving killing serum into their veins when they were too sick to live.

That last one seemed more appealing than answering his question.

“Why are you asking, though? What difference does it make?”

He didn’t answer that. He just looked at her as though the question were an insult. An insult to whom? she wondered.

For a while she said nothing. There wasn’t much to say. Except that both she and his brother had lied, but also, neither of them had lied.

“What is it specifically that you want to know?”

“All of it.”

How did you tell someone things you’d never spoken out loud? How did you tell someone that your parents had looked at you as a burden they needed to get off their hands for as long as you could remember? How did you tell someone what it felt like to never stand up for yourself because the person who was supposed to protect you knew the way to control you was to hurt someone you loved?

There he sat at her kitchen table, beautiful eyes filled with the need to understand. If she told him, would the way he saw her change? Suddenly she had to know if it would. That was possibly why she told him. All of it.