Page 95 of The Love Match

Chapter33

Some amount of time later,I tense up when someone slides down next to me.

My bitterness gives way to heartache, and I can’t help wishing for it to be Harun. For him to have come back to say he’s sorry, that he didn’t mean it, that he loves me more than he’s scared of the consequences.

But the comforting scent of sandalwood burrows into my senses, and I realize it’s Amma. She tugs me into the warm cushion of her side. Immediately, I burst into shuddering sobs I thought I’d already cried out.

She rubs my back, unbothered by the way I get snot all over the pallu of her shari, or the dirt from the footbridge staining her pleats. Her words are soothing, quiet nonsense, “Oh, amar shuna, amar jaan.” My tears eventually subside, and my breathing slows.

Only then does she tip my chin up and ask, “What’s wrong, Zahra? I thought youwantedto see Nayim again? To be with him?”

There’s a trace of something pleading in her voice, something in the way her other hand pets my hair. I study her anxious expression, then manage to ask the question hanging between us. “Did you… have something to do with him coming back?”

Try as I might, I can’t figure out the how or the why.

She kept Nayim and me apart. She didn’t think he was good enough for me. His disdain toward her was what prompted our breakup in the first place, sending him all the way back to Bangladesh.

But the way Amma drags a palm across her face does little to stifle her sigh or the truth. “For once, I thought I was doing what you wanted.”

I stare at her. What could have changed her heart so thoroughly, that she and Nayim could go from blaming each other for my happiness, to conspiring to reunite us?

“Was it…” I try to swallow past the growing dread in my throat. “Was it because you found out his secret? That he’s from a rich family?”

Not justanyrich family, but the prominent Shahs, whose heir is part prince, part superstar. Even the Emons can’t hope to compare to them.

Real live royalty.

Or… close enough.

I never would have guessed that Nayim is a prince.

And he wants me to be his princess.

But he also lied to me, even about something as simple as his name.

Nayim Aktar is Nayim Shah. Nayim Shah is not an orphan or poor or the child of a disreputable family. He was running away from his privilege and status and family expectations.

Can a real relationship be built on a foundation of so many lies?

“No.” Amma pulls away enough for me to see the sincerity in her eyes. “I promise you, shuna, I never in my wildest dreams suspected that about him.”

“Then… how?” I whisper.

How did my world tilt on its axis in so little time? How did we get here? I think of the expression on Harun’s face before he left and my breath hitches again.

My mother frowns at an ant crawling down one of the wood planks, avoiding my eyes. “We haven’t been talking to each other since he came to dinner, but I could see how sad it made you. I eventually realized it was because he was gone. I tried to tell myself I was doing the right thing and that you’d eventually thank me for everything, but the more I tried to make things better this summer, the worse they became.”

She chuckles humorlessly.

Normally, I would chime in to comfort her, but I bite my tongue, unable to deny how much her wiles hurt me.

“Finally,” she continues, “I had to admit to myself that I was the reason. That everything I thought I was doing to give you a better future was only making you unhappy in the present.” Her lips tremble. “I wanted to make it up to you. Make up with you. So after the mela, I asked Meera and the others to startlooking into Nayim’s bari in Bangladesh to see if I could talk to him.”

“Finding out his identity was just a twist of fate?” I mumble into my knees, more to myself than her, unable to wrap my head around a coincidence of such magnitude.

Amma nods. “It was. I was so… elated when Nayim reached out a few days ago to tell me he would try to win you back. That he had his mother’s, Nasrin Shah’s, blessing.” She cups my cheek, thumb rubbing away the last dregs of teardrops. “Discovering the boy you loved could give you the world… I thought I’d done right by you at last.”

I squeeze my eyes shut as she falls silent.

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