Page 115 of & Then They Loved
“You’re going to bring home yet another award for this show, aren’t you?” he asked, settling her feet next to his upon the cool grass,their bodies slowly loosening and moving to the gentle strains of the music that permeated the air.
“Will you make space for it?”
“Allmy space is yours, sweetheart. I’m so proud of you.”
“So cheesy,” she teased him, playing with the hair beside his temple and smoothening it out in an excuse to keep touching him. “Hasn’t anyone told you it’s bad form to be so obviously in love with your own wife? The gossip rags rue the day you met me. All your old playboy articles make them look like liars now.”
She nudged his nose with hers, locking her arms behind his neck when he rubbed his palms up and down her sides, sliding down to settle possessively over the curve of her ass. “I blame you,” he murmured, bending down to draw her lips between his, filing away her little sigh of satisfaction. “You’re worth obsessing over.”
“Soon, you’ll have another little obsession that takes your attention away from me.”
“Hard to imagine loving anyone more than you, Princess.”
Vera tilted her head back, a mischievous glint in her eyes.
“I wouldn’t mind. Especially if it is your own little princess,” she said quietly, making him drop his gaze down to her belly.
“We could just as well have a prince.”
“We could. Except I had to step in as the subject for one of the doctors we were researching, and she checked me. . .”
At Vihaan’s thunderous look, she slapped a hand over his mouth, preventing him from scolding her. “Before you rupture, I’ll have you know that I was completely safe and had two ex-military men whomyouhandpicked, posing as my intimidating brothers.”
When his shoulders lowered, she continued. “So, anyway, at the end of my ultrasound, the doctor said it.”
“Said what?”
Vera drew both his palms over her still-small stomach, curving it over the gentle protrusion before she smiled up at him, whispering, “Jai Mata Di.”
The air whooshed out of him in one go, his gasp mixing with a single laugh. He glanced down at the rounded belly he held and stroked it reverently. His wife was pregnant with his. . . daughter.
A sense of certainty took root in him, the seed sown by a dream he’d once had, now sprouting to life. He glanced into the pretty face of the woman he’d always felt bonded to, and he knew it in his bones that he’d have a mini-Vera in his life soon. Just the way he wanted.
“We’re going to have to think of names,” Vera softly murmured, possibly trying to get him to use his words instead of gaping at her like a lovestruck moron who had lost all sense of reality.
“I have one in mind.”
A shapely brow flicked up at his ready answer. He drew her closer, her belly pressing into him.
“With your permission, I’d like to name our daughter Amber.”
Vera’s fingers curled into his chest, digging hard. Wide eyes stared at him, glimmering with a strange sheen.
“Amber Oberoi,” he said, finally having a chance to admit what had been on his mind since the moment they’d found out about the pregnancy. “It seems like a fitting homage to her great grandfather and the man I owe for loving her mother so well, before her daddy got a chance.”
“Oh,” Vera cried softly, too overwhelmed to say anything else. Her grandfather’s absence was not something she’d ever fully recovered from, but Vihaan remembered his vow to Ambernath well, and he tried every single day to live up to the trust Nanu had placed in him. He swiped the thick pad of his thumb under her eye, flicking off the dampness.
“Is it that terrible an idea that I made you cry?” he teased, drawing an unwilling laugh out of her. She held his gaze, her clear adoration making him feel like he’d achieved so much more than he’d set out to.
“You make me so happy, I don’t know how to handle it sometimes,” she admitted.
“You’ll learn. I did say I want a happily-ever-after with you.” Vihaan affectionately bumped his nose against her, making her grin through her tears.
“Vihaan,” she hummed, a satisfied sound that heated his blood instantly. “Tell me you love me.”
He melted at the un-Vera-like request. That she share her needs and be vulnerable with him was everything Vihaan had once hoped for. This vibrant and feisty woman he adored, by some miracle, had chosen to show him the softness that lay beyond her hardened exterior. And he would never take that for granted. Chin held between his thumb and pointer, he tipped her face up, letting his eyes roam about her sweet features with a reverence more suited to a drowning man finally drawing a breath of fresh air.
“I love you, Vera. Always have, always will.”
Her lips curved up into a radiant smile that blinded him to everything else in the world.
“Always is a lifetime.”
“It is,” he agreed, tucking a thick strand of hair behind her ear before kissing her so soundly, that her knees weakened even as his heart soared. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
