Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 106422 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 532(@200wpm)___ 426(@250wpm)___ 355(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106422 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 532(@200wpm)___ 426(@250wpm)___ 355(@300wpm)
Hands shaking, I pulled on the dark blue scrub top; the color was several shades lighter than the midnight blue Bentley I’d hired to drive us to our wedding in Vegas.
“Black looks good on you, Mr. Advani.” Diya’s gaze had been sultry as she ran her fingers over the tuxedo that Susanne had had made for me when I turned twenty-one, an expensive gift that had stood the test of time; the tailor had left room in the seams so I’d been able to have it altered when I put on more muscle, settled into my adult body.
Diya, for her part, had chosen a dress of darkest amethyst fitted to the waist, the bottom half an airy flow to the ankles. Sleeveless, with a plunging V-neck, it had made her appear a siren right off the silver screen.
The necklace I’d given her—a jagged icicle of a diamond pendant—had sat perfectly in that vee, but she hadn’t needed the adornment. Diya’s shine had dazzled brighter than any gemstone as she spun under the kaleidoscope of lights and music and color that was Las Vegas, her beauty so sharply defined that it had scared me for a minute.
A woman that lovely, that fragile, might just one day shatter.
As Jocelyn had shattered. As Virna had shattered.
Susanne…her end had been a thing far more torturous and slow.
“I’m Diya Advani!” Diya’s happy scream had obliterated the cold chill of my worry, my world as awash in multihued lights as the skies of Vegas. “Mrs. Tavish Advani!”
Grabbing her by the hips, I’d lifted her up and spun us both around.
Diya’s hair a tumbled fan around her shoulders, her strappy black heels hanging off her fingers, and her body light but so, so alive.
My fingers clenched on the cold porcelain of the sink. “Please, baby.” The plea whispered out of me.
The door to the toilets swung open.
Gut clenching at the sudden burst of noise, I pushed off the sink. It took all my courage to follow the directions to the waiting area. The main atrium of the hospital proved huge and wide; it was full of natural light due to a high peaked ceiling full of glass panels, while the pillars to my left bore intricate Māori carvings.
A number of people sat talking quietly at tables I could see at one end.
I didn’t notice much else, my focus on getting closer to Diya. Going up one floor using the stairs, I went through the doors as the instructions said I should—and realized I’d arrived.
Tucked to the left of the doors, the waiting area was delineated by several large armchairs currently empty of occupants. A sign at one end advised of the hospital’s chaplaincy services, while the largest wall held a striking piece of Māori art. The usual hospital signs and a fire extinguisher sat at the far end of the wall, while a water fountain occupied the little corner directly next to the doors.
Despite the fact that the waiting area wasn’t a walled room on its own, it sat mired in silence…because according to the sign opposite the doors, the hallway led to the Intensive Care Unit as well as the Coronary Care Unit on the left, the Medical Unit on the right.
Not a place where people lingered or wandered past without painful reason.
While a nurse about to enter the ICU did check and confirm that Diya remained in surgery, she refused to share any information on Shumi, and since my mind was going in circles, my panic stretching my skin until I thought it would burst, I decided to keep myself busy by seeing if I could find my sister-in-law’s family.
They needed to know what had happened.
The first thing I did was click through to Diya’s profile on her favorite social media app. Her smiling face hit me in the gut, the photo one I’d taken right before the “engagement” party the Prasads had thrown us.
Diya’s parents might have thawed toward me, but they weren’t over missing Diya’s wedding. Rajesh and Sarita had convinced us to pretend that we were only engaged, so that they could throw us a full Hindu wedding in six months’ time—spread over multiple days, it was to involve a guest list of hundreds and simply couldn’t be organized any faster.
You have no idea who she is or what she needs to be happy. Do you even know that she’s kept a wedding-ideas scrapbook since she was sixteen?
Bobby’s voice, his sharp words.
Diya’s older brother hadn’t been my biggest fan, either, not when we’d first arrived. But I’d appreciated him for his cold bluntness in telling me about Diya’s girlish dreams; it’d have devastated me to realize it down the road, when there was no chance of giving Diya the kind of wedding that she’d imagined.
Bobby had been right, too. My wife’s face had lit up when I’d agreed wholeheartedly with her parents’ desire for a full ceremony, complete with all the traditional rituals.