Don’t call me that, she mouthed into the steam, no sound coming from her lips. The feel of his legs, those muscled calves under wet dark hair, the thick strong thighs. The way his muscles jumped beneath his skin when she touched him.

Every bit of him rubbed against her. No one wrapped her up the way he did, his body a down coat, ermine and cashmere squeezing out the cold in a blizzard. No one touched her as gently.

His fingers were worship, his lips a chant whispered into her soul.

“Vansh,” she said out loud. Then, startled by the sound of her own voice, she looked around, but she was under the shower, the scalding water burning her skin. She was alone.

The taste of his name filled her mouth. It sank into her lungs. She wanted so badly to say it again, to taste him again, that she gave in to another wave of tears. How could everything inside her feel so parched, so sandy dry, when she was standing in a downpour?

Moving out of habit, she soaped herself, trying to wash it off, whatever this was that clung to her, on the inside, on the outside.

Mummy had left clothes on the vanity. Had time slipped? Was she ten again? Would she go out and find an arm in a sling? Would her eyes search for bruises in hidden places?

On legs that felt far too shaky, and feeling entirely too light-headed to not face-plant, Naina made it out of the bathroom and into her bedroom, where the memory of his cologne permanently lingered. Or was that her own skin? Had her own smell become indelibly mingled with his? How had she ever thought the brothers smelled the same? That Vansh was anything like anyone else?

She’d never felt this hunger for another human being, for the presence that grazed her senses and loosed the knots inside her.

When she went out into the living room, a bowl of rajma and rice was sitting on her breakfast bar, with a dollop of thick cream on top. Her favorite childhood comfort food, the opposite of diet kababs in her mother’s book.

She started laughing. And couldn’t stop.

Her mother said nothing, but her face said, Oh, Naina. My poor, poor Naina, as she pushed Naina onto a stool.

Naina’s stomach growled. Hunger and a gag reflex working as one. Her mother put a spoon in Naina’s hand and she started eating even as tears flowed from her eyes.

Every bit of dignity she’d possesed was gone. Just all of it gone. She was in the back of the Rajes’ car as J-Auntie drove in silence. When she got home, she was going to find her mother gone. Her worst nightmare.

“Every man is not your father, Naina,” her mother said. Simply. Sincerely. As though it wasn’t thirty years too late for this conversation.