RAJ: Yup. Apparently said puppy has had shots, has been spayed, and is ready for visitors.

AJAY: Then let’s go see it. Tell me what time you want to go, and I’ll clear my schedule.

RAJ: You want to come with me?

AJAY: Yes.

If someone had told Raj three months ago that she was going to meet Ajay Singh, go toe-to-toe with him after her husband went to work with Bharat, Inc.’s biggest competitor, then start an affair with the man, she would’ve laughed. But now, after their first time in the Fire Lounge, one date, and a few hours in her bed, she was a believer.

Ajay clasped her hand in his as they walked toward the shelter. The feeling was new, but not wholly unexpected. Ajay liked holding her and touching her in public despite their promise to remain discrete.

She was coming to enjoy the feeling.

“Were you ever allowed to have a dog growing up?” Raj asked.

“Nope,” Ajay replied. “My parents were very old school. They believed that dogs belong outside. They shouldn’t be trapped. Even though, I bet if they had a dog now, it would be treated like royalty.”

“We had dogs on the farm, but they were never allowed inside,” she said as she led Ajay to the front of the Midtown dog shelter. “If it wasn’t for Robert’s grandmother, I wouldn’t have known how great dogs are as companions instead of just farm animals.”

“Are you excited?” he asked, a tinge of amusement in his voice.

She couldn’t help but grin up at him. “More than ever.”

Raj pulled open the double doors of reinforced steel and checked in at the front desk before entering the adoption room where dog pens lined the walls. The puppy room was to the left and the cats were on the other side of the floor. The familiar smells of animals and cleaning agents filled her nostrils.

The bigger dogs began barking from their pens. Some of them circled in front of the doors, and others stood on their hind legs to get her attention.

“We’re supposed to wait here for Jill,” she said.

“That’s the woman who runs the shelter?”

“That she is.” Raj pulled away from Ajay’s side and rushed toward the larger dogs, her heart hurting as it did every time she saw them. “I know, babies. I wish I could take you all but you’re way too big for me.”

“You would adopt them if you could, wouldn’t you?” Ajay asked.

Raj glanced at him over her shoulder as she crouched down in front of a senior poodle mix. “Of course.”