Page 95 of A King's Oath
“Samarth, leave it. I’ll do it…” she yawned, feeling her body become lethargic again. And just when she thought she would get to sleep without pain, her belly revolted. She up and ran to the bathroom.
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When she returned, he was leaning on the edge of her kitchen island, the place clean and new.
“How bad is it? Do we need to go find a doctor? I can call mine…”
“No, no, I took another dose. It’s better than this morning.”
He straightened to his full height and crossed the distance between them.
“You are again swaying,” he caught her shoulder, checking her forehead again. A shiver wracked down her spine. Not from thegoodness of his touch but from the feverish weakness that was settling in.
“Sleep it off now,” he again reached down and swept her in his arms, striding to her bedroom. “I’ll wake you up in a few hours to drink more nimbu paani.”
“You will have to go but,” she protested half-heartedly. “You will have things to do… practise, friends…”
“It’ll wait,” he set her down on her bed, pulled the blanket over her and dimmed the lights. Avantika turned to her side and pushed her hands under her head just as he reached over her, grabbed the extra pillow and pushed it under the blanket and between her legs. She couldn’t take her eyes off him — tall, broad shoulders, well-built but not steroid-muscular. His hair was again swept back from his forehead and she wondered how it remained there. Earlier, it used to always fall down his forehead, sometimes into his eyes if it was too long. She noticed now that he wasn’t in his uber-prince formals but in a white T-shirt hugging the contours of his biceps and a lightwash jeans. His old favourite uniform — white on blue.
“What?” He smiled.
“Nothing. You look grown up but still the same.”
“Youactstill the same,” he quipped, reaching down to give her head a pat — “And clearly the inside has not grown.”
Avantika giggled, burying her face into her pillow.Please, Bhagwan, don’t let this be a dream.
“Need this?”
Her face pushed out of the pillow and it wasn’t a dream. Samarth Sinh Solanki, grown and hot in his white on blue was standing in her dimmed room, holding up her pink bunny eye mask with asmirk as pretty and illegal as his face. Avantika didn’t have it in her leg to kick him so she only pushed her tongue out and buried her face back into her pillow.
He would wake her up again for nimbu paani. He wouldn’t go immediately. She went to sleep to the soft, amused echoes of his chuckle.
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“Naa, naa have…[38]” Avantika woke up to strange Gujarati words in her house. She squinted. The sun was up again in her window. Would she ever see the night sky here in Parisian summers?
“Happy Birthday, Samarth,” a female voice echoed outside in the hall. Avantika sat up.
“Thank you, Maarani.”
“Poojan maate tayaar rejo, Kunwar[39],” a deep-set baritone very like Samarth’s followed it.
“Haa, Rawal.[40]”
“Did you order your birthday cake for me?!” A child’s peppy voice broke all the solemn voices. Samarth’s hearty laugh reverberated.
“Yes, Sharan. At least say Happy Birthday first,” the female voice rebuked.
“I told him last night only, Mummy!”
“He did, he did,” Samarth said. “Kunwar saheb called me at dot 12 to wish.”
“And how did he have a mobile in his room at that late hour?” The deep-set male voice cut in. She assumed it was Samarth’s father. Avantika felt like a fly on the wall, listening to theintimate conversation of a family. A family that she was partly glad was Samarth’s. She still hated his stepmother after the way she had manipulated him and his father, tricked him into giving up so much. She was saddened to see Samarth wrapped in that web. But he had made his decision. Nothing to do there, especially when he was so headstrong.
Avantika waited for a few minutes after his call had ended. Then got out of bed. Her body ached at the joints but otherwise felt better. She hadn’t had to visit the loo again, which meant her gut was healing. She righted her clothes, now three days old. She wanted to shower first but didn’t want Samarth to leave thinking she was better. So she trudged outside her bedroom, the hall lit up in bars of natural light from the row of arched French windows.
“Hey, how are you feeling?” He tossed the napkin he was using as a kitchen rag and rounded the island to meet her in the middle of the hall.
