Page 76

Samarth took quick steps back, turned and sprinted towards the parking area. He had signs pointing him towards it, in the direction opposite to where most parents were taking their kids. He ran faster, praying she hadn’t left.

He rounded the clubhouse and screeched to a halt.

The parking lot was empty except for one car under a lemon tree.

Ava stood with the door of the backseat open, her daughter in her arms, her head in her neck.

She was frowning, fidgeting inside the car with one hand, holding the girl on her hip.

Ava didn’t look so tiny anymore. Samarth stumbled back, that sight knocking him bodily off.

Her hair wasn’t as short. It flowed down to her upper back, swishing with her every move. In a camel-coloured coat and soft boots flecked with dust, she hadn’t changed. Except she had. There was something older in her eyes as she kept looking into her daughter’s face and cooing. Something stronger.

And in that moment, everything else — the mountains, the vineyards, the ache of illness — disappeared.

Only two things remained.

Ava.

And the child who had felt far too much like him with that straight silky hair in a ponytail and the wind of her galloping horse still in his lungs. He broke into a sprint again, this time calling every ounce of patience.

Jai Dwarkadhish.

“You can’t pretend to sleep every time,” she scolded in a cooing voice.

“I’msleeping…” the little girl’s soft, breathy voice was indeed sleepy.

Ava hitched her higher on her hip but her little head bounced undisturbed on her shoulder. She must feel so heavy to her. Samarth quickened his footsteps.

“Fu…” Ava was whispering to herself, some metal buckle in her hand as she messed with a child’s car seat.

“Ava.”

She whirled, the belt of the buckle hitting him square in the chest. What hit harder was the shock, scorn and then strangeness in her eyes.

Her eyes went big, round. Like the little girl’s.

Samarth flicked his gaze to her, but her face was resting tight in the crook of Ava’s neck, her back going up and down in deep, sleeping breaths.

“Hi,” she nodded, panic clear in her eyes even as her words were calm.

He opened his mouth, a lot of questions on the tip of his tongue. But the tiny back with its breaths going up and down stalled him. She understood that too, and her shoulders relaxed. Instead, Samarth asked — “Do you need help?”

She glanced from him to the broken buckle in her hand.

“Thanks, I’ve got it.”

Ava began to turn but he stepped forward — “Let me hold her while you fix it.”

“I said I have got it, thank you.”

He stood back and waited. Patience was one commodity he had in spades.

Now that he was under control, he could wait forever.

She tried knotting the belt into the broken loop of the car seat.

It came right off. She tried pushing it into the loop singlehandedly. It wouldn’t go. It was broken for good.

She pressed some contact on her mobile, pushed it between her ear and her shoulder and blitzed out in rapid-fire French. She was so quick, and so hassled that he only caught a few phrases — Where are you? Can you come pick us up… The seat buckle broke… Uber is 35 minutes away… No problem.

She made another call, and shot out about the same request. Her face told him that whoever she had called wasn’t coming either.

Her daughter whined and she patted her back, working again to try and fix the belt.

Samarth winced. It had been so long since she had held her on her shoulder. His unending patience was wearing thin.

He thought he would break before she did when she turned and cast her eyes behind him. He followed them. The clubhouse and the way out the main gate were empty.

She reached behind and pulled out her phone from her back pocket again. Checked something. Then — “Do you have a car?”

“No.”

Her perfect curved eyebrows scrunched as she checked her phone again.

“What do you need? I can call a car?”

“I need to leave immediately. Can you…” She clicked her phone lock, then looked at him, hesitant. “Would you mind holding her in the backseat?

“I…” Samarth glanced from her to the little girl.

“I have to navigate the autoroute and her booster seatbelt broke.”

“Alright.”

“You’ll find taxis where we are going.”

“It’s alright,” he held his arms out. She closed the door and strode around to the other side, opening the door behind the passenger seat.

Samarth marched up to her and got in, feeling the cool interiors of her car that smelled faintly of…

his perfume. The one that he had stopped using years ago. Eight years ago to be exact.

“Wear your seatbelt.”

He pulled the seatbelt on and held his arms out.

He could see her debating, planning to pull away.

A long moment passed. She checked her daughter, then slowly leaned in and passed her into his arms. Samarth felt his whole body warm over.

The spirited girl who had galloped her horse without holding its reins now curled up in his chest, like a baby.

“I’ll try not to speed but just hold her safe.”

His arms instantly tightened around her.

She whined, her eyes scrunching tight. He gentled his hold until it was firm but not strangling.

On Ava, she had looked big but in his arms, now, here, she felt like a…

a baby. A tiny baby. Curled like this, she fit into his forearms. How old was she? Seven, if…

“Mmm…” her tiny head felt heavy on his chest as it wriggled, her ponytail loosened after all her shenanigans. Her eyelashes were so long, so thick, resting on her bright face. She was so beautiful. All Ava. Even her upper lip had a tiny dark birthmark. From the get-go.

So preoccupied was he in his observation that he didn’t even realise when they had driven out of the resort and towards the autoroute. The stoned slope path ran from between verdant yellowing vineyards and he finally raised his gaze from her to the rearview mirror. Ava’s eyes were on him.

So much. To say. To plead. To confess. To ask.

Would he get the opportunity? Or the time?

She turned her gaze back to the road in front of her and he doubted it.

For now, as she drove, the little girl buried her head tighter into his chest and he felt a concave indent itself there for her, like it had for her mother.

He didn’t want to breathe. Didn’t want her to wake up yet.

She smelled so familiar. Of her mother’s perfume and the leather and manure and wood of his legacy.

The wishes and desires of his heart were at war.

How could he want what he wanted when he had sworn off it?

How could he crave what he was craving when he had destroyed Ava’s life over it?

How was this happening and how had this happened in the last eight years?

“Mama…” she mumbled on his chest, her little hands coming to scrunch his shirt. Samarth glanced down in panic, only to find her eyes still closed but her mouth curved in a smile.

“Yes, baby?” Ava responded.

“Eclair.”

Samarth felt his eyes tear up and a chuckle from deep within his stomach emerged. He held it steady.

“Are you dreaming about eclairs again?”

“Four…”

“On Sunday, love.”

That famous dramatic huff of her mouth returned but she promptly went back to sleep.

Air puffed out of her pouted mouth. Ava turned onto the ramp for the autoroute and then Samarth realised why she wanted somebody to hold her.

The speed limit was 80 and she had to maintain it with the other cars.

He held her tighter to his chest, trusting Ava’s smooth driving skills but scared out of his mind holding something so precious.

“She’ll wake up.”

“Hmm?” He met her eyes in the rearview.

“Don’t strangle her.”

“I am not.”

“Pierre…” she mumbled in her sleep again.

“Pierre will come home in the evening,” Ava placated her. Who was Pierre?

Samarth did not like it. That she was saying another man’s name in her sleep and Ava was calling him home.

Whoever he was. Slowly the shock began to make way for a normal wiring of his thought process.

It was clear as day who this little girl belonged to.

It was clear as day why Ava had panicked.

It was clear as day why she was so comfortable letting her daughter in that man’s hands who had pushed her out of his palace.

Her indicator tic broke him out of his thoughts and he saw the autoroute go tinier in the rearview.

This time his chest dropped into double panic.

The cosy lane of a small town started weaving through cottages and chateaus.

The neighbourhood was homely, green, open and charming.

The kind where little princesses grew up in fairytales —- chasing butterflies and playing with deer.

The girl in his arms looked more like the eclair-eating, horse-riding type.

He held her closer, praying her house was still yet far away.

Ava turned to a wrought iron gate and a security guard ran up to pull it open. The car crunched gravel as it drove towards the… cottage, if it could be called one.

The walls were a warm, honeyed limestone, glowing amber in the September sun.

Wooden shutters painted a faded duck-egg blue flanked every window.

The roof was steep, shingled in aged slate, with a chimney that curled a lazy trail of smoke into the late noon sky.

Flowering bougainvillea vines had claimed one corner of the facade, spilling magenta and fuchsia down like some royal embroidery.

On the other side, a low stone wall enclosed a garden that looked half-wild, half-tended — lavender stalks, climbing roses, and a weathered swing hanging from a pear tree.

There was no signboard, no nameplate, just the slow turn of a vintage iron weathervane atop the roof. A small scooter was parked to the side of the gravel path, next to a moss-edged fountain that didn’t look like it worked — but still looked beautiful in its stillness.

Indeed a world where a princess lived. And another grew up. An enchanted world. The kind with linen curtains and old storybooks and polished riding boots by the door. This was not the glittering grandeur of a palace. It was gentler. Earthy. Intimate.

And somehow more magical.

His gaze drifted back down to the little girl and her tiny, fluttery puffs of breath on his shirt.

He smiled to himself.

Of course. Ava ’ s daughter.

Born of a princess. Raised like a comet.

And this? Her kingdom.

The car came to a stop. Ava cut the engine. A moment of silence passed in the stillness. He felt lashes flutter on his chest. Samarth looked down and her eyes slowly popped open. He stilled. Those dark brown eyes met his and her head instantly came off his chest. He missed it. Needed it back.

But then her morose, half-sleepy mouth split into a smile — “Bonjour, Chevalier!” [87]