He pressed a fist against whatever tattoo was emblazoned across his left pec. Naina refused to stare at his pecs long enough to figure out what it was. “Young lady, are you accusing me of matchmaking?” he said in a bad British accent, sotto voce.

She should not smile, because this was not a joke. “No, I’m accusing you of looking for projects so you can feel good about yourself and relieve your boredom.”

He picked the phone up from the nightstand and held it up. He was pouting and blinking vapidly, but his eyes shone with wounded anger. “Oh good gosh, I think you might have, like, had a breakthrough on my behalf or something.” How had she found his habit of constantly doing voices amusing before this?

And why on earth did she feel like such a jerk? “All I’m saying is that my work is important to me, but it’s also vital to a lot of women who need it.”

“Mine is too. And you’re wrong. This project is important.”

“What project? This is not a game, Vansh.”

“I know it’s not. I need to figure out the details, but letting Mehta’s millions help the homeless in our city seems important too.”

“Figure out the details? Don’t you see, what you’re talking about is an Emma Project. It’s vanity. It’s looking for ways to play with people’s lives out of ennui.”

“No, it isn’t.” Now he looked really angry. “I can’t believe this is what you think of me. You haven’t even heard what it is.”

“Fine. Tell me then.”

A smile spread across his lips but his eyes stayed angry. He blinked, a slow, deliberately vapid blink. “Didn’t you hear me? I think your Emma’s going to, like, y’know, tackle homelessness in San Francisco.” He used a high-pitched voice that was quite frankly offensive to every woman alive. With that he hung up, and Naina had not a clue how much of what he’d said was meant to be facetious and how much was going to screw up her life.

Chapter Five

Of all the emotions in the world, the one that Vansh disliked experiencing more than any other was anger. Rage killed brain cells. Well, he didn’t know if that was true, but anger was simply unnecessary to accomplish anything. The world today put too much of a positive spin on rage. Rage was a form of hate. How could anything positive come from hate?

Naina had certainly made rage boil up inside him a few times. How dare she dismiss him this way? Vansh turned the speed up on the treadmill and lengthened his stride.