“You must be the younger Raje brother?” Mehta said excitedly. His voice was a little higher than Vansh had expected, and his tone was not exactly what Vansh would call entrepreneurial. He smiled perpetually but there was a restlessness in his eyes. The word pugilist came to mind—short and stocky with a clean-shaven head and a perfectly trimmed goatee.

Naina stood a head taller than Mehta in her heels. Which had to be a good five inches high because she almost matched up to Vansh’s five feet ten in them. Which meant she could treat Vansh to her plentiful condescension eye to eye.

“This is Vansh Raje, Yash’s brother,” Naina said in her Dr. Kohli’s Polite Daughter voice. “Vansh, this is Jignesh Mehta, CEO of Omnivore Systems.”

“An honor,” Vansh said.

“Cool!” Mehta said. “Cool,” he repeated, just in case someone had missed it the first time. His tone reminded Vansh of high school boys from the nineties teen movies his mother loved. “And it’s Jiggy. My friends call me Jiggy.”

Naina quirked a brow. Do not laugh.

“I hear you’re back from Zimbabwe, where you’ve been digging wells,” Jiggy said. “Sounds like a blast.”

Vansh had heard the mission described several different ways, but “a blast” was a first.

“It was a very satisfying project.” Vansh refused to look at Naina, because not cracking a smile was now a matter of pride.

Jiggy turned to Naina. “All you rich kids running around the world trying to fix it.”

This time Naina’s brow rose less subtly. Vansh couldn’t tell if she was offended that Mehta had put Vansh’s work and hers in the same general category or if she was offended that he had dismissed them both as rich kids when he himself had a personal fortune of several billion dollars.

“Some rich kids run around the world doing the actual work, while some let others do the legwork and buy the credit with their riches,” Naina said, her tone so cold, Vansh didn’t know how Mehta didn’t freeze and crumble instantly.

Instead, getting a reaction out of Naina seemed to stoke Jiggy’s smugness.

Truth was, if he wanted to use his wealth to purchase credit for good work that could use his money, then who were they to argue?

“Your foundation has been doing some amazing work,” Vansh said. “And Naina’s work is certainly a great choice for a flagship project.”

“I know, right?” Mehta countered. “Glad you think so.” He had one of those thick Western Indian accents overlaid with rolled American Rs and lengthened As.

“I know so.” Vansh found himself getting into the nineties teen-movie banter.

“So, are you and Naina like close and all?”

That took Vansh by surprise. Naina too from the quick drawing together of her winged brows. Had the eyebrow game always been so strong with her?