The panic that grabbed him made no sense.

She was angry. Worse than that, she was hurt. He could see the hurt tearing at her under her skin and he was not leaving her when she was feeling like this.

“I want to do it now.”

Color rose up her neck. Her gaze slid to his sisters and back to him. He could see her struggling to stay calm. With every bit of telepathy that connected them, she was trying to tell him to back off. To contol this thing raging inside him that he couldn’t seem to stop.

“Why doesn’t Naina join us?” Ashna said, finally feeling the need to speak up and invite her. Something they should have done when they had first brought up dinner.

“That’s a great idea,” Trisha said, determinedly not looking at Nisha. “Maybe you can both review this thing in the car and then we’ll eat and you don’t have to miss dinner.” That was Trisha for you, filled with logical solutions. A little late, but thank you for trying, Trisha.

“What’s the big deal about this dinner?” he said, moving so he was blocking Naina’s way because she was all set to leave anyway. “We can do it another day.”

“We haven’t seen you in weeks, Vansh. You’ll take off as soon as this project is over.” Ashna threw a quick glance at Naina. “And we miss you.”

Dear Lord. “I’m not going anywhere for a while. Let’s just do this another time.”

Naina’s hand tightened on the strap of her handbag, but the rest of her appeared as calm as ever. Why was it bothering him so much, the way she was able to hide everything? “Vansh, you made a commitment to your sisters. Go. It’s not a big deal.”

Like hell it wasn’t. “Why can’t you come with us?”

Because I wasn’t fucking invited. Their telepathy was working just fine, thank you very much. “Because this is your time with your sisters.”

I don’t want you to leave. “Actually that’s not true. Aren’t we meeting up with Neel and his cousin?”

Nisha’s face transformed into an expression Vansh could not recognize, but murderousness was at least one part of it. Finally, she turned to Naina, sweet smile doing nothing to conceal the scream she had to be holding inside. “Naina, seriously, you should come. Sorry we didn’t say anything before, but we assumed you had plans. Join us, please.”

Now Naina threw him a look with a healthy tinge of her own murderousness. “I can’t. I’m—”

“You can help Vansh check Neel’s cousin out. We’ve been trying to set them up for years. She’s a human rights lawyer. She just got back from working on a Habitat for Humanity project in Haiti.”