Careful to hold the unsoiled part, he picked it up. Then, wrapping an arm around Naina’s waist, he took her out of the stall and into the fortuitously empty restroom. There he helped her wash her hands and splash her face. Then he propped her against the countertop and waited for her to get her balance. The fact that she let him was telling. Keeping from throwing up again had to be taking up all her focus.

Once he knew she could stand with the support of the sink, he emptied the purse of her phone and a single lipstick and held the beaded silky thing under the water as she watched with half-closed eyes. Just as he was done, she swayed on her feet and he grabbed her again.

Her body sagged with the relief of not having to hold itself up, which made those nails draw blood inside him. Head on his shoulder, she closed her eyes as he pushed the purse under the hand dryer and called a car. The fact that she let him set her dupatta straight and tuck her hair behind her ear with nothing more than a jaw clench—possibly to keep from throwing up again—made him want to damn it all and carry her out. But she’d never forgive him for that.

They were eerily quiet as they stepped out of the restroom and headed to the exit, his arm around her waist holding her up, every piece of resistance inside her given up.

And then the last person on earth she’d want to see right now turned into the passageway. Vansh spun her around before she caught sight of her father and whisked her away to the back door and out into the night.

Please don’t follow us, Dr. Kohli.

Dr. Kohli was the only one of his parents’ friends who had always made Vansh’s skin crawl. He’d never been able to put a finger on why, but he knew that his seeing Naina like this with Vansh would be a disaster of epic proportions.

He didn’t follow them out into the chilly night and Vansh sent up a grateful prayer.

Had Naina been wearing a coat? She had to have, because her arms, her waist, everything was bare, and it must have been forty degrees.

The car was waiting. Vansh helped her in as she shivered. He asked the driver to raise the temperature and removed the Jodhpur coat he was wearing and placed it over her. All the dancing had overheated him anyway, and the cold catching his damp inner shirt felt good.

She barely budged, burrowed into his coat, and pressed herself into the car door. For the entire drive she kept her eyes closed and didn’t say a single word. He didn’t either. A first for them.

Chapter Eleven