Dear Lord, was he thinking about another arrangement? “The last time I got into an arrangement, I ended up publicly humiliated.” By your brother!

He had the audacity to shrug. “That was because: One”—he started counting off on his fingers—“you dragged it out for ten years. Two, it was public. Three, you didn’t spend any time with each other or communicate. Four, it wasn’t about sex. Five—”

“Stop. Fine. God. Has anyone told you that you really know how to flog a dead horse?”

“You’re doing it again. Because seriously, who says ‘flog a dead horse’ anymore?”

She harrumphed and felt like a rheumy old grandfather. “Anyone who is long enough past adolescence.”

“Say less.” He grinned, then rolled his eyes when she made a face. It was impossible to explain quite how differently an eye roll hit when one had a forest of lashes. “Fine. Let me speak Naina to you: may I lay this out?”

“Could I stop you even if I tried?”

“Nary a chance. So here’s a plan for your . . . for your . . .”

“Perusal?”

“Yes! Peruse this: One, we’d put a time limit on it. I’m going to be ready to move on from California in . . . six months. One year tops. As you said, I don’t commit to projects. I leave before I get any skin in the game.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Stay with me, Knightlina. You were right. I’m agreeing with you here.”

“Fine.”

“Even if I decide to stay—”

“You’re already contradicting yourself.”

“No, I’m not. What I’m saying is even if I stay, we set a time limit and stop.”

“Stop what exactly?” She couldn’t believe they were having this conversation, but now that they were, the least she could do was find out exactly what he was proposing.

“One step at a time. We’ll get to the details soon enough.”

Waving her arms as if to say, Do go on, Naina went to her couch and dropped into it.

“Two, we tell no one. I mean, we literally have the nosiest families in all the universe, so we zip it and sneak around. Admit it, pushing me into the closet to hide me from your mom was exciting. Have you ever snuck around being bad? It’s really fun.”

“Sometimes I wonder at what manner of life you’ve been living, Baby Prince.”

He sat down next to her. “Really? I didn’t think I’d have to sell the secret thing.”

“You don’t. I’d rather poke my eyes out than watch your sisters bleed at the pain of their little brother being chewed up by the barracuda.”

“Are they that bad?”

Worse. Until The Breakup, the Raje sisters had been lovely to her, albeit a bit distantly fawning. Since the breakup, she’d all but stopped existing. “It’s natural for them to hate me, Vansh.” Although, really, it wasn’t.