Page 23 of Born in Sin

“Let her.” Celina sat down on the little stool beside his bed. “How are you?”

“I’m fine. Please go.”

She firmed her lips into a thin line. “No.”

His gaze flicked to Nurse’s grim expression, Sunaina’s parent’s worried ones and back to Celina.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked softly.

Her only answer was to hold the scraggly flowers out to him. He stared at it for a long moment before he took them from her. Her satin scrunchy felt soft against his fingers as they closed around it.

“Thank you,” he said simply, ridiculously touched by the flowers she’d clearly picked from the school gardens.

Nurse walked over to them. “Celina, your mother wants you to go back to your dorm immediately.”

“No,” she said again. “It is visiting hours, isn’t it?”

Nurse nodded, though her eyes spat fire in Virat’s direction. “Yes.”

“And friends and family are allowed to visit during visiting hours?” Celina’s pointed gaze went to where Sunaina’s family was sitting, her mother holding her hand.

“Yes.” Nurse’s cheeks turned red with the force of holding back her emotions.

“I am his friend.” Celina enunciated each word. “I won’t leave.”

Nurse marched off without another word, already pulling her phone out of her pocket.

“Why are you doing this? Your mother-”

“My mother doesn’t get to make my choices for me. This is my choice. I choose to be your friend. I choose you.”

Chapter Nine

VIRAT

And because he’s my boyfriend.

It felt like a vacuum bubble encased him, one that ensured no sound, no feeling, reached him. Nothing.

He stared at the one person in his life who’d always chosen him, who’d always fought for him, who’d staked her claim on his heart and soul so deeply that it had branded him hers, in this lifetime and the next.

I choose you.

Her words from long ago echoed in his head.

Except, she’d now chosen someone else. How had he not known? He knew everything about her. And he hadn’t known this?

And then the bubble popped as his friends turned to look at him, wide-eyed. Sound rushed in even as his heart took another juddering step in the direction of living.

“Your boyfriend?” Ishaan asked, skepticism in his voice even as his gaze darted between Virat and Cara. “I haven’t seen anything about you and him in the news.”

“It’s new,” she said, her voice calm and level. “And we haven’t decided to announce it as yet which is a plus as it means the DD’s can’t trace him back to me. Also,” she smiled, a small, teasing smile. “I didn’t peg you for a tabloid reader, Ish.”

“I read everything,” he muttered, the tips of his ears flaming red.

“I’m not sure about this idea,” Amay interjected, his worried gaze landing on Virat’s face.

“I think it’s a great idea.” Virat’s quiet statement had the room stilling, all three of them turning to him. Cara met his gaze squarely, not looking away from whatever she saw in his eyes. “Kabir Raizada is exactly the kind of profile they’d be desperate to be friends with. Getting him to infiltrate their group would be seamless except…”

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