Interlude

Chapter 25

After that brief encounter, Dev showed no reaction. It made Rose angrier. She wanted him unhinged, unnerved and vulnerable, like she had been hours ago. She wanted to wield her power over him. Instead his face now held derision, a kind of untouched arrogance.

Dev wanted to laugh. She was so innocent in her rage, so naive in her defiance. Didn't she understand that she'd rendered him completely powerless? And in stripping him away of his power, she had surrendered herself to him. He stared at her, indecently, feeling a strange pleasure burn through his veins. At some point, he made his way away from the crowd, drifting far in the darkness of the beach. She followed.

He walked languidly. She shuffled angrily, behind.

He stopped and turned around. She halted a foot away from him.

The stood silently, facing each other, as the tides rose. The sand beneath was wet and cold. Soft folds of delicate tulle swept along the muddy brownness, staining its lavender hue.

"I thought you weren't jealous." Dev whispered, a dark smirk curving on his lips.

She glared at him. "I'm not."

"Oh," he exclaimed, mockingly, "so this is just a fashion statement? A decade old faded Levis jacket that was purchased on sale for thirty dollars?"

"Twenty-eight. We had gone shopping together."

The moments were filled with the sounds of the rolling waves. She blinked apprehensively. Her fingers curled possessively over the lapels of her jacket.

"I won't give it back." she said, misinterpreting his silence.

His eyes grew wide in shock, mouth slightly open. If she ever gave it back to him, he'd die inside.

"You can go around flirting with other women but..." her breath hitched.

"But?" he challenged.

"They will never have the right." she replied, unwavering.

All humor had left his face. "Why?"

"I'm telling you, that's why."

"Not good enough."

She glowered at him. "No one has the right to you..."

"Why?"

She was consumed with her own thoughts.

"These women can be beautiful, successful and accomplished and have all the money in the world but they still won't have the right."

"Why?" His eyes were narrowed with intensity.

"They can try but no... no one has the right to you —"

"Why?"

"—not one person out there in this whole world"

"Why, Ro?" His voice had dropped to a murmur.

"Because I love you!"

The winds had picked up the words and carried them across the vastness of the ocean; across the expanse of eight years.

She had shouted the words. Out of anger, frustration, exhaustion and, out of the immovable honesty of her soul. Her breathing grew labored and a visible mist formed in her eyes, the blueness in those orbs rivaling that of the night sky above.

He blinked. He should've leapt ahead, taken her in his arms but he stood rooted to the spot.

"I love you, Devraj. I love you more than I knew I was capable of. I loved you back then even when I didn't understand what love was in the first place. I imagined it meant something dramatic, life altering and extraordinary. It is, yes. But it's also the simplest thing in this world. When I'm with you, I feel perfectly at peace, protected and complete. My own demons are afraid of you - they loose their power in your presence. I don't feel that I've failed or made mistakes. I don't feel that I deserve the bad things. When I'm with you, I feel beautiful and safe. I feel that I'm capable of achieving things that I've dreamed of. You make me so intensely happy that I don't know how I ever lived without you."