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turned to give the waiter their order, and Tara waited till the waiter had gone before she spoke again.

      ‘I need to ask you a couple of things,’ she said. ‘Are you really serious about this whole arranged marriage thing? Or are you here just to humour your parents?’

      Vikram didn’t look annoyed by the questions, but he did think a little before he answered.

      ‘I’m serious about an arranged marriage,’ he said finally. ‘But I’m not planning to blindly marry someone my parents choose, if that’s what you mean.’

      ‘Right,’ Tara said. ‘And do you have plans to move out of Bengaluru any time soon? Like in the next three or four years?’

      This time he looked puzzled, his forehead creasing a little. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m pretty much permanently settled there.’

      There was a brief silence. Tara had run out of questions and was wondering how to embark on an explanation of her behaviour. ‘I know this must seem odd, my turning up to meet you like this,’ she said, giving Vikram her most winning smile.

      ‘It’s unusual, I admit,’ he said, smiling back.

      Tara was struck again by quite how good-looking he was. He looked like a completely different person when he smiled, his eyes losing their rather grim expression and the corners of his firm mouth tilting up boyishly.

      ‘Maybe you could tell me a little more about why you’re here?’ he said. ‘I assume there is a point to your questions?’

      ‘Oh, yes,’ Tara said. ‘It’s this—I’ve got a place in the Institute of Science at Bengaluru to do my doctorate in environmental studies and my dad is refusing to let me go. He thinks I’ve studied enough, and he’s desperate to get me married off. I told him I’m not interested, and he said he wouldn’t force me, but he won’t let me go to Bengaluru, either. The maximum he’s willing to do is allow me to become a schoolteacher till he manages to palm me off onto someone.’ She paused a little, a troubled look on her vibrant face. ‘I could ignore him and go, of course, but now my mum’s told me that they’ve spoken to your parents, and you’re from Bengaluru …’

      Her voice trailed off, and Vikram continued the sentence for her. ‘And marrying me would please your parents and get you to Bengaluru? Is that it?’

      She nodded, her big eyes absurdly hopeful as she stared at him across her coffee cup. ‘It did seem like the ideal solution,’ she admitted. ‘Assuming we hit it off, of course.’

      Vikram leaned back in his chair, surveying her silently. She’d turned out to be a surprise in more ways than one, and he was at a stage in life when very few people surprised him. She was very direct, and very clear about what she wanted—both traits that he’d come to think of as uncommon in women. And her looks … His mother had told him that she was pretty, but ‘pretty’ didn’t begin to cover the allure of frank, intelligent eyes set in a heart-shaped face, and the mischievous smile trembling on her lush red lips. She wasn’t very tall, but the proportions of her slim body were perfect. And her hair was lovely—thick, straight and waist-length. A jolt of lust took him by surprise, turning his academic appreciation of her looks into something more urgent and immediate.

      ‘Why is doing your doctorate so important?’ he asked, partly to break the silence and partly because he genuinely wanted to know. ‘And especially one in environmental science? Aren’t the career options rather limited?’

      Tara flushed a little. People kept asking her that, and she tended to get a bit worked up and annoyed about it. ‘I’ve always wanted to be an environmentalist,’ she said, in what she hoped was a calm and neutral-sounding voice. ‘I’d be getting an opportunity to work with one of the most well-known scientists in the field, and the research facilities at the institute are world-class. As for career options—I want to lead my own research team one day. Science isn’t a very well-paying field, but I’ll earn enough to get by.’

      ‘If you marry me you won’t have to worry about money,’ Vikram pointed out.

      Tara gave him an appalled look. The money angle of marrying him hadn’t struck her at all, and for a second she’d been so busy defending her choice of career that she’d forgotten the reason she was talking to him. Now he probably thought she was out for a cushy corporate wife lifestyle while she played at being a scientist.

      ‘If you don’t marry me I’ll have to worry about it,’ she said, recovering quickly. ‘My stipend won’t be enough to keep a cat alive. I’ll need to work part-time until I complete my doctorate. But I think it’s worth it.’ The last bit came out sounding a little defiant, because Vikram’s expression was unreadable and she couldn’t help feeling that she wasn’t convincing him.

      She was wrong, though—Vikram was intrigued. He didn’t come across too many starry-eyed idealists in his line of work, and Tara’s unshakeable confidence in her dream was impressive and oddly endearing at the same time.

      ‘Worth it?’ he asked, stretching the words out a little. ‘Even worth marrying someone you hardly know as long as you get to complete your degree?’

      ‘That part’s a little complicated,’ Tara muttered, hoping he wouldn’t ask her anything more right then. She didn’t want to explain the situation with her parents until absolutely necessary.

      Thankfully, he didn’t probe further, instead asking abruptly, ‘How old are you anyway?’

      ‘Twenty-two,’ Tara said, and as a nasty thought struck her she bubbled into further speech. ‘I hope you’re not thinking of talking to my dad about this? He’ll burst a blood vessel if he finds out I came here to meet you. If you decide not to marry me tell your parents you don’t like the shape of my nose or something. Or say I’m too short. I’ll figure some other way out.’

      ‘But you’ll go and enrol for that PhD, no matter what?’ Vikram said. ‘Relax, I’m not planning to tell him.’ His lips twitched slightly. ‘And, for the record, I quite like the shape of your nose.’

      ‘Really?’ she asked. Distracted from her immediate woes, she put up a hand to touch it. ‘Everyone says it ruins my face—too snub.’

      ‘Snub is cute,’ Vikram said, standing up and touching her hair gently, sending an unexpected thrill through her body. ‘I need some time to think, and it’s time I left. We’re meeting tomorrow in any case—you can call me on this number if you need to talk.’

      ‘OK,’ Tara said, taking the card with his mobile number.

      She managed to flash a smile at him as he said goodbye in the car park, but she felt deeply despondent. He’d sounded more like an indulgent older brother than someone even remotely interested in marrying her.

      The next day Vikram sat silently in Tara’s parents’ living room, listening to his parents making polite conversation with her father. Tara’s father had so far not made a very good impression. He was over-eager to please, and his wife—an older, washed-out version of Tara—was obviously scared of him. Tara herself had not made an appearance yet, and Vikram was getting impatient.

      He cut into a long-winded description of Tara’s various accomplishments and said pointedly, ‘Maybe she could tell us more herself?’

      ‘Of course, of course,’ Mr Sundaram said effusively. ‘You must be eager to meet her.’ He turned to his wife and said in an angry undertone, ‘Get Tara here quick. She should have been ready hours ago.’

      ‘I thought you said …’ his wife began, and then quailed under her husband’s glare.

      ‘I’ll call her right away,’ she said hurriedly, and left the room.

      She came back with Tara a few minutes later.

      Vikram blinked. Tara was almost unrecognisable. The day before she’d been dressed in jeans and a loose sweater, with her long hair gathered back in a ponytail. Today she was wearing a pale-pink salwar-kameez, and her hair was done up in an

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