44
" So you've all been defiling the pool house all these years and no one bothered to tell me," Vansh filled the glass up again, and yes, he sounded sulky as hell at being left out. Vansh was a good five years younger than Ashna, who was the closest to him in age. Between the age gap and the fact that he had gone off to boarding school in India at sixteen, he should have been used to the feeling by now.
"Eeew," all his sisters said at once.
Nisha took the glass out of Vansh's hand again. "It's a good thing we let you drink when you're underage."
He was twenty-six and they all knew it.
"It's illegal in the state of California for children to have sex," Trisha said, ruffling Vansh's hair with complete disregard for how much he hated his hair being ruffled. It took a lot of effort to get it to look this good. "And we're the Rajes. You're not allowed to get frisky until you're thirty."
"How are you allowed to be thirty-two and call it 'getting frisky'?" Vansh said, patting his hair in place. "And for the record, I could teach you a thing or two about getting frisky."
Trisha made a gagging face and then smiled. "Of course, baby." She wrapped her arms around Vansh. "You could teach most of us a thing or two about most things. You're our worldly baby brother, the light of our lives."
"The apple of our eyes," Nisha said, joining the hug.
"Our pride and joy," Ashna said, completing the group hug.
"But we are going to have to punch you if you mention sex around us again," Trisha finished up.
As his sisters squeezed him and let him go, the sting of being left out of their nefarious pool house antics, and everything else they always thought he was too young for, died down. "
― Sonali Dev , The Emma Project (The Rajes, #4)
48
" When she turned eighteen, Tara had traveled to India in search of her father. She hadn't found him, but she had spent ten years in a yoga ashram in Jammu. She'd come home with Siddhartha, a four-year-old boy she'd adopted, and joined her mother in running the studio. Two years after that she'd adopted India from an orphanage in Bangkok, and two years after that China from an orphanage in Nairobi.
India hadn't known there was anything different about her family until a substitute teacher in her kindergarten classroom had looked at her with an expression India would come to know well as she grew up, and asked, Aren't you one of that yoga teacher's kids? The ones with the cleft lip scars adopted from three continents?
When India had told Sid about it on their way home from school, he'd said, But India and Thailand are on the same continent.
It's how India had learned that adults, even teachers, didn't always know everything. To India, their family was how families were supposed to be. Many years later, when China was in her rebellious phase, she had asked Tara why she had felt the need to adopt children from three countries.
I took a lifelong vow of celibacy. How else was I supposed to have children? That had been Tara's answer. "
― Sonali Dev , Incense and Sensibility (The Rajes, #3)
52
" She didn't say it. But it was there in her eyes. Right there with that uncontainable arrogance when it came to her work. This was only about the surgery to her.
He thought about backing away, but he was sick of backing away from fights. So sick of it. "And doing your job well is sending her home where she can't be monitored, where she can't be treated? For what? To teach her a lesson? Put her in a corner until she comes around to where you need her to be? So you can prove your skill?"
She took a step back, but she didn't look away. "I don't need to prove my skill. But you seem to need to find someone to blame. Maybe you should try stepping up instead, and try finding a solution?"
Once again, was she bloody joking? He'd been stepping up and finding solutions for problems since he was twelve years old. Feeding his family, putting a roof over their heads. Real problems, not challenges he sought out to prove his skill. "I'm not blaming you for what's happened to Emma. Hell, I couldn't appreciate your skill more. But pardon me for wondering if this is about Emma at all for you, or if it's only about what you can accomplish."
A combination of emotions flashed in her strangely colored eyes; in the end, disbelief at being contradicted shone brightest. "Do you always judge people without knowing one damn thing about them? Or is it just me?"
He almost laughed. The woman had called him the hired help without giving it one thought and she thought he judged people? He turned around and looked at the idyllic white stucco home nestled into a a row of other idyllic homes, at the Tesla parked in the driveway, at the ease with which she had worn those rumpled scrubs at Ashna's and still looked like a bombshell. He wanted to ask her what the hardest thing she'd ever been through was, but he couldn't bring himself to. "I guess that would make two of us judging each other then, wouldn't it?"
Her cheeks colored. But this back-and-forth was useless. He wasn't here to bring down mighty egos. "
― Sonali Dev , Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors (The Rajes, #1)
55
" In that book of yours, Emma, what happens to her?" he asked Naina as she looked over some paperwork they were about to submit to Naman's office. They were in Yash's apartment, a.k.a. their temporary office, working long after everyone else had left.
She raised a brow at him, all the accusations she'd thrown at him---not entirely inaccurately---flashing guiltily in her eyes.
"The one who tries to be a matchmaker so she can feel good about herself and fill her boredom?"
She smiled, but there was an apology in her eyes. A hot apology. "She learns that having more privilege than other people doesn't mean you know what's best for them. She learns to admit her mistakes and listen to others, and it teaches her to listen to her own feelings too."
He laughed. "And she finds the love of her life and they live happily ever after."
He'd been joking, but her face said that was exactly what happened.
"You're kidding me," he said. "And this is a book you liked?" Which, come to think of it, gave him great hope. "You're a romantic, Naina Kohli," he said, and got all up in her face.
"You wish," she said, but she did kiss every last of breath out of him. "
― Sonali Dev , The Emma Project (The Rajes, #4)
60
" What do you remember most about what your pai put in his lamb chops?"
"I think it was basically salt, pepper, and garlic." He squeezed his eyes shut and focused so hard that not dropping a kiss on his earnestly pursed mouth was the hardest thing. His eyes opened, bright with memory. "Of course. Mint."
"That's perfect. Since we're only allowed only five tools, simple is good."
"My mãe always made rice and potatoes with it. How about we make lamb chops and a biryani-style pilaf?"
Ashna blinked. Since when was Rico such a foodie?
He shrugged but his lips tugged to one side in his crooked smile. "What? I live in London. Of course Indian is my favorite cuisine."
Tossing an onion at him, she asked him to start chopping, and put the rice to boil.
Then she turned to the lamb chops. The automatic reflex to follow Baba's recipe to within an inch of its life rolled through her. But when she ignored it, the need to hyperventilate didn't follow. Next to her Rico was fully tuned in to her body language, dividing his focus between following the instructions she threw out and the job at hand.
As he'd talked about his father's chops, she'd imagined exactly how she wanted them to taste. An overtone of garlic and lemon and an undertone of mint. The rice would be simple, in keeping with the Brazilian tradition, but she'd liven it up with fried onions, cashew nuts, whole black cardamom, cloves, bay leaves, and cinnamon stick. All she wanted was to create something that tasted like Rico's childhood, combined with their future together, and it felt like she was flying.
Just like with her teas, she knew exactly what she wanted to taste and she knew exactly how to layer ingredients to coax out those flavors, those feelings. It was her and that alchemy and Rico's hands flying to follow instructions and help her make it happen.
"There's another thing we have to make," she said. Rico raised a brow as he stirred rice into the spice-infused butter. "I want to make tea. A festive chai."
He smiled at her, heat intensifying his eyes.
Really? Talking about tea turned him on? Wasn't the universe just full of good news today. "
― Sonali Dev , Recipe for Persuasion (The Rajes, #2)
