‘Do you think we could do it?’ she whispered.
‘I think we must for his benefit,’ Jai countered levelly. ‘And as soon as possible. Are we agreed?’
Almost mesmerised by the blaze of his full attention, Willow nodded very slowly. ‘Yes.’
She was going to marry Jai and the concept was surreal: Jai the playboy with his polo ponies and trophies, his heritage palaces, his long backstory of glamorous and impossibly beautiful former lovers. Yet she was so ordinary, so unexciting in comparison, she thought in dismay. Even worse, he didn’t want to marry her and he had admitted it.
But that honesty of his was good, she told herself fiercely. Should she be ashamed of the reality that the very idea of being freed from all her financial worries was a relief? Did that mean that she was greedy? Or simply that she was tired of feeling like an inadequate mother? Without Jai, she had found it impossible to give Hari the comfort and security he deserved. With Jai, everything would be different. In addition, she would have far more rights over her own son if she married Jai. In terms of custody they would be equal partners then, she reasoned, and no matter what happened between her and Jai she would have very little reason to fear losing access to her little boy.
What would it be like, though, being married to a man who didn’t love or really want her? Jai hadn’t even wanted her enough to ask to see her again, she reminded herself doggedly, reeling from the toxic bite of that fact. Yes, sure, he had tried to check up on her a couple of months afterwards, she conceded grudgingly, but by that stage only an ingrained sense of responsibility towards Brian Allerton’s daughter had been driving him, nothing more personal.
Of course, she didn’t love him either, she reminded herself doggedly. All the same, she couldn’t take her eyes off Jai when he was in the same room and her heart hammered and her mouth ran dry every time he looked at her. If she was honest with herself, she was sort of fascinated by Jai, always hungry to know more about him and work out what made him tick. He had accepted Hari without question and moved them straight into his home.
Yes, he had threatened her with legal action but only on Hari’s behalf, not to take her son away from her, indeed only, it seemed, to pressure her into leaving the hostel and agreeing to marry him. With shocking shrewdness, he had accomplished that objective within hours, she registered in belated dismay. Yet he had done it even though at heart he didn’t want to marry her! But that was the mystery that was Jai. He was volatile and emotional and very hot-blooded, yet he was still apparently willing to settle for a practical marriage…
Jai watched Willow walk away from him to return to their son. Evidently, he was about to acquire a wife. He gritted his teeth, for being forced to marry to bring Hari officially into the family was even less attractive than increasing age prompting him to the challenge. Marriage was difficult, as his parents’ failure to surmount their differences proved. But he knew in his heart that he owed Willow a wedding ring. It was that simple, because what he had done with her broke every principle he had been raised to respect: he had greedily and irresponsibly taken an innocent woman and slept with her when she was vulnerable, and even in the act he had not protected her as he should’ve done.
He found it hard, though, to forgive her for hiding Hari from him and denying him precious moments of his son’s babyhood that would never be repeated. But he had to set that anger aside, he reminded himself fiercely, shelve the pointless regrets that he could have been such an idiot and concentrate instead on the present. He should be relieved that she still attracted him, even if he resented the constant disturbing pull of her understated sensuality. He didn’t know how she still had that effect on him, and he wasn’t planning to explore it again, not until they were safely, decently married.
‘You look a treat,’ Shelley said, patting Willow’s hand as they travelled in a limousine to the civil ceremony at the register office.
Willow shivered, scolding herself for having picked a wedding dress unsuited to autumn, but then she had been living on a dizzy merry-go-round of change and struggling to adapt throughout the past week in Jai’s London home. Agreeing to marry Jai had been like jumping on an express train that hurtled along at breakneck speed. He had pointed out that getting married in Chandrapur would entail a solid week of festivities while getting married discreetly in London would only require an hour and a couple of witnesses.
She had spent most of the week with Hari because Jai had been busy working. She had, however, seen Jai at mealtimes and had tripped over him in the nursery more than once. Surrounded by a bevy of admiring nursemaids, Jai was attempting to get to know his son and Hari was thriving on the amount of attention he was receiving. Willow could already see that the biggest problem of her son’s new lifestyle would be ensuring that Hari did not grow up into an over-indulged young man, unacquainted with the word ‘no.’
Her wedding gown left her arms and throat bare. With cap sleeves, a crystal-beaded corset top and a sparkly tulle skirt, it was a fairy-tale dress and very bridal. In retrospect, Willow was embarrassed about the choice she had made and worried that it was too excessive for the occasion. But who knew if she would ever get married again? And when she was faced with choosing her one and possibly only wedding dress, she had gone with her heart.
Luckily, she had had Shelley’s support when a stylist had arrived at the house and informed her that she had been instructed to provide Willow with a whole new wardrobe. A huge wardrobe of clothes tailored to fit Willow had been delivered within forty-eight hours, outfits chosen to shine at any possible occasion and many of the options decidedly grand. Hari now also rejoiced in many changes of exclusive baby clothing. Jai, Willow reckoned ruefully, was rewriting their history and redesigning his bride into a far more fashionable and exclusive version of herself. Did he appreciate that that determination to improve her appearance only revealed that he had previously found her unpolished and gauche?
She walked into the anteroom with Shelley by her side. Jai approached her with his best friend, Sher, and performed an introduction. Sher was the Nizam of Tharistan and he and Jai had been childhood playmates. Sher was tall, black-haired and as sleekly handsome as a Bollywood movie star. Beside her, she felt Shelley breathe in deep and slow as though she was bracing herself and she almost laughed at her friend’s susceptibility to a good-looking man until it occurred to her that she was even more susceptible to Jai.
‘You chose a beautiful dress,’ Jai murmured. ‘It will look most appropriate in the photographs.’
‘What photographs?’ she asked with a frown.
‘I have organised a photographer to record the occasion. Brides and grooms always want to capture such precious memories on film, I believe,’ he advanced calmly. ‘A photo will be released to the local media in Chandrapur and some day Hari may wish to look at them.’
Willow grasped that he had wanted her to look suitably bridal in the photographs and understood that there was nothing personal in the compliment. He was simply keen for her to visibly fit the bridal role so that the haste that had prompted their marriage was less obvious.
They entered the room where the ceremony was to take place. Willow focussed on a rather tired-looking display of flowers in a cheap vase and tensed as Jai threaded the wedding ring onto her finger. She turned in the circle of his arms, thinking numbly, I am married to Jai now, but it didn’t feel remotely real. It felt like a fevered dream, much as that night in his arms had felt.
It felt a little more real when she shivered on the steps outside and posed for the photographer that awaited them. Jai smiled down at her, that killer smile of his that made her