I gasped, sidestepping, my bouquet dropping to the floor.

“Kaavindi!” Mr. Ananda cried, lunging for me again.

He smelled of arrack and his eyes were bloodshot. Thankfully, one of the drivers had seen the commotion and appeared out of nowhere, pulling him back. There were no other wedding guests around to see this, thank god.

“Why are you here?” I hissed.

“I need to talk to you. To make you pay for what you did.” He struggled against the man holding him.

“Anything we discuss will be through lawyers,” I said, turning away. I couldn’t deal with him right now. Definitely not today.

“You bitch,” he spat. “You’ve had everything in your life handed to you on a silver platter. You just float on with your head in a cloud, with no clue how the rest of us suffer.”

“I really am sorry about your wife, Mr. Ananda. I’ve told you that. But there’s nothing that can be done now.”

“You just wait. You’ll have what’s coming to you soon. You’ll see.” He reached behind him to the small of his back, fumbling to pull out something from his waistband.

“What’s going on here?” My mother’s voice rose over the commotion, and suddenly two more drivers appeared from god knows where. One of them stepped in front of me, while the other grabbed Mr. Ananda’s arms and twisted them behind his back.

“Podi madam-wa athulata geniyanna.” Get small-madam inside, my mother said, and I was swiftly escorted back to my room.

It was when I was locking the door that I realized how much my hands were trembling. Two threats in less than twenty-four hours, a sociopath husband, and a burned wedding dress. Everything was starting to snowball. I can’t have that. I need to be in control.

I tried taking a deep breath, but that was near impossible in Andre’s skintight sari jacket. And I had gone and rejected everyone’s help in getting changed because I just wanted to be alone.

I pulled off the sari fall—the fabric that draped over my shoulder—got rid of the frill around my waist, and finally managed to wriggle out of the skirt. Then I stood in my underskirt and contorted myself into the strangest positions to reach the buttons on the back of my blouse, but with no luck.

So when someone finally knocked on the door, I threw it open gratefully. Perhaps it was someone from my family checking in on me? I’d even bully a room service boy to help me out if it came down to it.

But it wasn’t any of them.

“What are you doing here?” I asked Amaya, who looked like she was about to faint.

“I need to talk to you, Kaavi.”

“Well, I have nothing to say to you. And I asked you to stay the fuck away from me.”

“It isn’t that. Listen. It’s important—”

“Look, I honestly don’t care, okay? I have bigger issues to deal with right now.” I tried to shut the door in her face, but she stuck her arm out and pushed her way inside.