Detached

CHAPTER 64

*RIYANSH'S POINT OF VIEW*

To say that I’d not slept well would be a ridiculous understatement. I hadn’t been able to switch my brain off and stop worrying about Meera all night. My cell phone hadn’t rung though, so either Mihir decided not to call me, or she’d had a good night.

Pushing myself out of bed just after seven, I snuck into the shower. My eyes stung with tiredness as I stood under the spray and let the powerful jets loosen my bunched up, tensed muscles.

When I was finished and dressed, I headed back into the room, seeing that Dean was just waking. I forced a smile, hoping I didn’t look as rough as I felt.

“Morning, sleep alright?”

He snorted and narrowed his eyes at me. “Not really.”

One of my eyebrows rose in question. “No? How come?”

He sat up, running a hand over his face. “You fucking snore like an elephant with the flu!”

I recoiled, shaking my head and rolling my eyes. “Let me guess, Meera told you to tell me that, right?” She was always trying to make out that I snored; now she obviously had Dean in on it too.

He blinked a couple of times, not answering as he swung his legs out of the bed and trudged into the bathroom, sighing tiredly. My gaze fell on my cell on the side, so I sat on the edge of it, bringing up her number and debating whether I could call her or not. I decided against it, she was probably still sleeping anyway. Our flight wasn’t until twelve, so she could have a longer lie-in. I flopped back onto the bed, playing around with the apps on my phone as I tried not to clock watch. Just as Dean walked out of the bathroom fully dressed, there was a soft knock on the door.

“I’ll get it,” he muttered, already heading over there and pulling the door open. “Oh, good morning, Meera.”

My heart leapt in my chest as I shoved myself up quickly and headed over there, practically pushing Dean out of the way as I wrenched the door open further. There she stood. My frayed nerves finally settled as I laid eyes on her beautiful face. Stepping closer to her, I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, pressing my face into her hair and breathing her in. I’d missed her so much that it was actually painful.

She hugged me back immediately. From the corner of my eye, I saw Mihir standing in the hall behind her. His posture was awkward as if he was trying not to watch or felt like he was intruding. I forced myself to pull back and smiled down at her. “Hey, how did you sleep? Okay?” I put my hands on either side of her face, and felt my eyebrows knit together. She looked extremely tired. Her eyes were bloodshot, either from lack of sleep or she’d been crying. My jaw tightened as I glared at Mihir. We would have words later.

“Fine,” she answered, shrugging as she dropped her gaze to the floor.

I shook my head and sighed as I gave her a little tug into my room and closed the door. I didn’t know why she bothered trying to lie to me, I could always tell. “No you didn’t, Meera.”

She groaned and shook her head. “Whatever, doesn’t matter now,” she replied. “Anyway, I have something that you need to see. Don’t freak out, alright?” she raised her hand, holding out a newspaper to me.

I frowned, confused as I took it from her hands. My mouth popped open when I saw the two photographs that were splashed across the front page. “Fuck me, there’s a picture of us there!”

She sighed and flopped down onto the little sofa in our room. “More than one. There’s a whole two page spread just dedicated to us,” she muttered.

My mouth had gone dry. I couldn’t take my eyes off the photo on the front page. Meera looked just as incredible as I remembered. But then my mind was back on business again. Smith. He could see this and make a move against her in anger. Of course, her father and I had already pre-empted this kind of thing happening, and he’d arranged for a heavy duty block to be put on information going in and out of the prison, limiting the number of magazines and papers going in if she was featured or mentioned at all. Also, all personal letters going into the prison, not just Smith’s, were being screened in a bid to keep this information away from him for as long as possible. It wasn’t an indefinite thing, but hopefully it would hold for a few weeks at least until all the attention around Me. Singhania and his family died down. The trouble was, we had anticipated that Meera would be featured, but not us as a couple. Meera posing with me and claiming me as her boyfriend was sure to anger him.