Then Ma and Nisha were hugging Esha, stroking her arms, relief replacing the terror on their faces, even as tears streamed from their eyes.

“She’s here,” Ma said into her phone.

Esha wiped their grandmother’s cheeks. “I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you everything. Stop crying first. Please.” She turned around and looked at Sid Dashwood, who was standing by the stairs.

“Sid?” Vansh said. “Did you find Esha? Where was she?”

“Sid found me passed out on my walk. He was here to photograph birds.”

Sid looked like he’d seen a ghost, not like someone who had just proved himself a hero.

Ma went to him and pulled him into the sitting room. Aji stood and grabbed his face and dropped a kiss on his forehead. “Thank you. Beta, I don’t know how to thank you.”

The look Sid threw at Esha was too complicated to be the look of a rescuer. The half-warning-half-pleading look she threw him in return was anything but the look of the rescued. What was going on?

The more they gushed at Sid, the more uncomfortable he looked. Before Vansh could figure out what was going on, HRH ran up the stairs.

“Sid found her,” Ma said.

HRH, who was not given to hugging, held Esha so tight it was a wonder she didn’t pass out again. Then he pumped Sid’s arm. “I don’t know how to thank you. You have no idea what you’ve done for us.”

With another of those loaded looks at Esha, Sid pulled his arm away. “Actually, sir, I . . . we . . . Esha, please, I can’t. I’m sorry.”

The room’s collective attention turned to Esha, who was shaking her head at him in the most un-Esha way. In fact, everything about her was most un-Esha-like.

There’s something else Sid wants out of this. Naina’s voice came back to Vansh like a sledghammer.

“Fine.” Esha went to Sid and took his hand. A collective gasp rang through the room. She pressed herself into him and he wrapped an arm around her, setting off another gasp. “I didn’t pass out while walking. I—we—Sid and I got stuck in traffic.”

Everyone started talking at once. Esha stood tall and strong in the face of the barrage of questions. Something Vansh had never before seen.

She held up a hand and their voices died down. “Sid’s been coming to see me for the past few months.”

“Coming to see you?” Ma asked. “How’s that possible?”

The relief on the family’s faces was fast turning into outrage.

More speaking eye contact passed between Esha and Sid, and something inside Vansh twisted hard. Naina would’ve gotten such a kick out of this family drama scene. She’d have stood here looking amused-yet-envious. All her hyphenated feelings.