Chapter One

Vansh Raje wasn’t hypocritical enough to see his life as anything but charmed. Handsome: Vogue had declared him the most gorgeous of his siblings, and even he wouldn’t argue populist opinions about beauty with Vogue. Smart: Not book-brilliant like his siblings, but cleverer than all of them put together, as his grandmother always assured everyone, and who would argue with a grandmother about the intelligence of her grandchildren? Rich: that, of course, was the most tangible of labels, so no reinforcements of proof were necessary.

Add to that a loving—fine, make that doting—family, and a contagiously sunny disposition that was his greatest asset, and Vansh had made it halfway into his twenties without ever facing anything to throw him off his admittedly spectacular game.

“Well, don’t you look all pleased with yourself, Baby Prince,” Naina Kohli said. She had known Vansh his whole life and had the only voice on earth that had this particular impact on him. A potent combination of reprimand and amusement that made Vansh want to wipe his face like a toddler caught eating dirt, while also making him feel like no one else ate dirt quite as impressively as he did.

“And don’t you look resplendent, Knightlina,” he said, raising his glass of celebratory bubbly at her.

A flash of anger slipped past her guarded brown eyes. She hated her given name—enough to have legally changed it at eighteen. Vansh was the only person on earth who got away with using it anymore. And he only used it when that tone of hers made the otherwise nonexistent orneriness bubble up inside him. Then she smiled and did a quick half turn showcasing her charcoal-gray silk pantsuit.

“Not bad for the spurned ex, ha?” she offered.

“Not at all bad for the spurned fake ex,” he countered.

She shrugged as though she cared not a bit for anything, least of all that distinction. They drank to that, and took in the night sky reflected in the pool on Vansh’s parents’ estate. Naina had chanced upon him here after Vansh had made his way to the private alcove behind the pool house to get away from the thousand-odd guests celebrating his brother’s historic election win.

Yash, Vansh’s oldest sibling, had just won California’s gubernatorial race in one of the closest elections in recent history, also known as a bloodbath. Or that’s how it had felt in that last week of campaigning when Yash’s opponent had dropped the gloves and every modicum of decency and gone after Yash as a liar, a cheat, and when nothing else worked, as a foreign-funded, idol-worshipping philanderer.

The only reason Yash had been able to pull off the win was because he’d convinced the people of California that he could make law and order work without compromising social justice. Yash had brought the leaders of the Black justice movement and the police union leaders to the negotiating table. A meeting Vansh had pulled together for Yash, thank you very much, because Vansh had been friends with the leader of the union from his Peace Corps days.

“Do you think they have something a little stronger? Or a lot stronger?” Naina asked, her always self-possessed voice slipping slightly as her eyes widened with disbelief.

Vansh followed her gaze to the couple who rounded the corner into the private alcove. It struck Vansh that Naina had probably also been looking for some privacy when she’d found her way here. Which was obviously precisely what his brother and his girlfriend were looking for as they came into view, hands all over each other, making out like horny teenagers, entirely unaware of Vansh and Naina tucked away out of their line of sight.

Desperate sounds of arousal escaped from them as they tugged at each other’s clothes and hair.

Vansh almost cleared his throat—he probably should have—but he was frozen at the sight of this new version of Yash. India said something, and laughter shivered through the two of them in a way so intimate Vansh stepped in front of Naina to protect her from it.

It had been barely a few months since Yash had, very publicly, left Naina for India Dashwood just weeks before the election, effectively risking his lifelong dream of becoming the governor of California to be with India instead of Naina. A fact that Naina seemed to be reliving with every cell in her being given how hard she was trying to appear nonchalant.

With another possessive moan, Yash pushed India into the wall and she arched her body against his. This uninhibited, reckless Yash couldn’t possibly be the tightlaced brother Vansh had grown up in the shadow of.

Taking care not to look at Naina, Vansh cleared his throat loudly enough to break through whatever pheromone-fueled idiocy had gripped the newly elected governor at this very well-attended party.

Yash and India jumped apart with all the force befitting two usually uptight people caught in the act of quasi-fornicating in public.

Pushing India behind him, Yash spun around to find Vansh trying to channel their mother and glare without glaring. If Naina had not been standing next to him, Vansh would have been rolling with laughter. This was the sort of thing comedic writers spent hours workshopping. Vansh had spent four months, years ago, working with a friend on his sitcom. It had sounded like much more fun than it had turned out to be, and they’d never come up with a situation nearly this ludicrous.

“Naina.” India was the first to break the mortified silence. Flaming cheeks notwithstanding, her voice was calm and filled with warmth. This was not a surprise. India had the sort of Buddha vibe Vansh had seen monks in Dharamshala aspire to with little success. “Vansh. I hope you’re both having a good time,” she added, doubling down on the yogic vibe.

That made Yash press a cough-laugh into his fist. God, was this really his brother?

India threw what could only be called the fondest glare at Yash, who seemed to be tearing up with the effort of containing his mirth. To be perfectly honest, if Vansh met his brother’s eyes they would both burst into laughter.

“Oh, we’re having a great time,” Naina said, with every bit of the elegant drollness Vansh associated with her.

“Although not nearly as much fun as we interrupted,” Vansh said before he could stop himself and gave up on holding his laughter back. “What the hell, Yash? This is literally a political party thrown by your political party.”

“We just needed a moment,” India said, her blush deepening. “It’s been a lot.”

Yash sobered and slid a protective arm around her. “The worst of the circus is over,” he said, his statesman shoulders widening with purpose. “Campaigns are the worst part. Now the press will shift its focus to my work. They’ll leave you alone. I’ll make sure of it.”

The relief on India’s face was palpable.

Naina’s body stiffened infinitesimally. She covered it up with more of that determined breeziness and smiled kindly at India.

Before anyone could say more, another intertwined couple turned the corner into the private alcove that was turning out not to be so private after all.

“I’ve been waiting for you to use your gavel all evening, Your Honor.”

God, please, no! Those were the last words on earth Vansh ever, ever, wanted to hear his oldest sister say to her judge husband. Ever.

Yash, who was generally not the sort of guy who snorted with laughter, snorted with laughter so violently that Nisha and Neel jumped apart like someone had fired a cannon.

Nisha’s hands pressed into her face. “No. No. Nononono. What the hell are you all doing here?”

“Not waiting for Neel to use his gavel, that’s for sure,” Yash said, still howling like a hyena. Which, to be fair, Vansh was doing as well.

Nisha charged at Yash. Neel grabbed her around her waist. As a circuit court judge (with a gavel), Neel obviously saw enough crazy shit on a daily basis that he was entirely unfazed by any Raje family shenanigans.

He held Nisha in check while laughing into her hair, and in the end she broke down and started laughing too, embarrassed though the laughter was.

“If either one of you tells anyone, I’m going to chop you into little pieces and pass you through a mulch shredder,” their sister threatened.

“Who let her watch Fargo?” Vansh asked, and Neel looked heavenward.

Ignoring the question, Nisha disengaged herself from her husband and threw her arms around India. “I’m so sorry you’re stuck with my evil brother,” she said with the kind of gleeful affection that indicated exactly how thrilled she actually was that India was stuck with their brother. Then she noticed that Naina was also there.

Until this moment Vansh had believed that Nisha had inherited their mother’s talent for absolute discretion. Nisha had a veritable toolbox of expressions under which she hid anything she didn’t want others to see. But a blast of such extreme discomfort and confusion at Naina’s being here flitted across Nisha’s face that she couldn’t seem to identify exactly which mask-expression to use to cover it up.

Nonetheless, she made a valiant effort. “Naina,” she said only the slightest bit late, and Vansh hoped Naina hadn’t noticed.

Letting India go, Nisha turned to Naina, unable to decide how to get away with not hugging Naina now that she had greeted India so effusively. Nisha obviously did not feel the same way about their brother’s ex as she did about their brother’s current girlfriend. Most of the family blamed Naina for trapping Yash in a loveless relationship for ten years.

“Great to see you, Naina,” Neel said, saving the day with his signature warmth and circuit-judge equanimity, and gave Naina a friendly hug. “I heard you’ve moved back to town permanently.”

“Sure have.” Naina returned Neel’s hug and then let Nisha give her a quick, and hella awkward, one.

Before the awkwardness could settle on them in earnest, Vansh noticed a bottle in Neel’s hand.

“Is that scotch in your gavel-wielding hands, Your Honor?” Vansh asked, raising a brow at their stickler-about-these-things sister. Nisha was the one who’d given strict instructions for a California-wine-and-California-bubbly-only party.

Nisha was about to charge at Vansh when more sounds drifted in from the corner of horny doom that his siblings had evidently withheld from Vansh his entire life.

Ashna and her boyfriend entered the alcove already in a lip-lock, which at least made it impossible to say something incriminating that the others could use to embarrass them for the rest of their lives.

“Does anyone have a glass?” Neel asked as though they were at a bar watching a game.

In what was now starting to feel like an overdone off-Broadway comedy, Ashna jumped away from Rico, who had his hands halfway up her very prim dress.

Vansh dumped out his remaining overpriced yet not nearly strong enough bubbly into the bushes and offered his glass to Neel, who poured a healthy serving from the bottle.

Naina was the only other person with a glass, and she chugged her wine and held it out for a fill.

“Hey, everyone,” Rico said as though getting caught with his hands and his tongue all over his girlfriend with a large majority of her family watching was the most ordinary of things. This perfectly described Rico Silva.

Ashna was their cousin, but Vansh didn’t ever remember thinking of her as anything but his sister. After Ashna’s parents’ separation, she’d pretty much grown up here, on Vansh’s parents’ estate in Woodside. Sometimes Vansh thought Ashna was more one of the siblings than he was.

Face flaming red, Ashna snatched the glass from Vansh and took a mighty gulp. “Where’s Trisha?” she asked calmly enough.

Vansh’s other sister, Trisha, was the only one who was missing from the now crowded alcove. All eyes turned to the corner, as though everyone expected Trisha and her boyfriend, DJ, to appear.

“I’m calling her,” Nisha said. “She’s probably running around trying to find us to keep the aunties and uncles from cornering her and DJ and asking when they’re getting married and making babies.”

A phone started ringing and they all looked down at their pockets and purses. Then everyone seemed to register that the ringing was coming from inside the pool house. Just as that realization sank in, the door pushed open and out stepped Trisha and DJ.

Trisha had obviously been unable to pat down her always-wild hair after whatever DJ and she had been doing in there. Next to her DJ looked as cool as any man trying his damnedest to appear cool could. He took the glass of scotch that was circulating around the crowd and drained it.

“Macallan eighteen has a tad bit too much smoke, if you ask me,” DJ declared in his British-chef voice. He was one of those chefs who probably thought about flavors and hints of this and that in his sleep. Also, it was evidently what he fell back on when caught in a compromising situation with his girlfriend by her zero-boundaries family.

“So you’ve all been defiling the pool house all these years and no one bothered to tell me.” Vansh filled the glass up again, and yes, he sounded sulky as hell at being left out. Vansh was a good five years younger than Ashna, who was the closest to him in age. Between the age gap and the fact that he had gone off to boarding school in India at sixteen, he should have been used to the feeling by now.

“Eeew,” all his sisters said at once.

Nisha took the glass out of Vansh’s hand again. “It’s a good thing we let you drink when you’re underage.”

He was twenty-six and they all knew it.

“It’s illegal in the state of California for children to have sex,” Trisha said, ruffling Vansh’s hair with complete disregard for how much he hated his hair being ruffled. It took a lot of effort to get it to look this good. “And we’re the Rajes. You’re not allowed to get frisky until you’re thirty.”

“How are you allowed to be thirty-two and call it ‘getting frisky’?” Vansh said, patting his hair back in place. “And for the record, I could teach you a thing or two about getting frisky.”

Trisha made a gagging face and then smiled. “Of course, baby.” She wrapped her arms around Vansh. “You could teach most of us a thing or two about most things. You’re our worldly baby brother, the light of our lives.”

“The apple of our eyes,” Nisha said, joining the hug.

“Our pride and joy,” Ashna said, completing the group hug.

“But we are going to have to punch you if you mention sex around us again,” Trisha finished up.

As his sisters squeezed him and let him go, the sting of being left out of their nefarious pool house antics, and everything else they always thought he was too young for, died down.

Naina was standing a little apart from the circle, her cool smile daring anyone to question how little she cared that no one had noticed her. Taking Naina’s glass from her, Vansh took a long sip.

The casual glass sharing, unfortunately, drew attention to her presence. His sisters looked at one another and pretended not to look at one another, and Naina took the glass back and drained the little Vansh had left in there in one gulp.

The undercurrents of shade could have sunk ships.

Yash picked up the bottle from the patio table and filled Naina’s glass up again.

“It’s great to have you back, brat,” Yash-the-politician said, trying to distract from the rising tide of awkwardness. “Great job again on your help with the campaign. I couldn’t have done this without you. Any of you.”

They all hooted and clapped.

“You better save the speech for the stage, Mr. Governor,” Nisha said, staring down at her phone. “Ma just texted the family group chat. She’s freaking out because she can’t find any of us.”

“Duty calls.” Yash dropped a kiss on India’s head. “You ready to go back out there?”

“You bet,” India said.

“To Yash.” Neel raised the bottle.

“To Yash,” everyone repeated, and took sips straight from the bottle before dispersing.

Naina and Vansh watched them leave and Naina downed what was left in her glass then eyed the empty bottle in Vansh’s hand. It was hard to know how much scotch they’d consumed, except from the nice buzz Vansh had swimming between his ears.

“I believe you asked if there was anything stronger than the wine available,” he said.

Laughing with far too much relief, Naina dropped into the patio swing. The reflection of the full moon broke and scattered across the pool’s surface. “This is what I get for even suggesting there was a lack of booze on the Raje estate.”

Vansh sat down next to her.

You okay?he wanted to ask, but nothing about her allowed that question. Her jet-black hair fell in sleek layers to her proudly held shoulders. Her high porcelain cheekbones showed not a line of emotion. Her legs were neatly crossed at the ankles. Her manicured hands were folded in her lap. She presented as self-possessed and unbreakable a picture as there could ever be.

“I’m perfectly fine,” she answered anyway. “It’s not like what Yash and I had was real.” The glance she threw the moonlight dancing on the pool was almost bored.

“Your friendship was real.” Naina and Yash had been best friends since they were in grade school.

“And it still is.” She played absently with the whisper-thin gold chain hanging from her wrist. “But anyone can see that India is better for him than I would ever be. And, well”—looking up from the bracelet, she spun a hand around in a circle—“all this . . . Rajeness. It’s a lot. And it’s not really my cup of tea. Not having to deal with this level of drama on a day-to-day basis is a huge relief. Everyone is better off this way.”

Vansh didn’t agree. His family was perfect. This drama was what he missed when he was gone. But she was right, it wasn’t for everyone.

“What about you?” she said. “What’s the Baby Prince’s next project? Which part of the world are you jetting off to next?”

For so long it had been the question Vansh had lived for. Now, sitting in this alcove, where peace shimmered in the air despite the throngs celebrating on the other side of the pool house, Vansh found that he wasn’t sure. For the first time in his life the thought of leaving wasn’t an irresistible pull.

“Not quite sure,” he said.

“Really?” She studied him in that partly amused but fully focused way of hers.

“Maybe it has to do with being instrumental in Yash winning the election, but being here suddenly feels different. That success seems to have changed something inside me.” He touched his heart, where satisfaction and pride filled him up.

“You can’t be serious.” Was she laughing at him? Her tone slid from amusement to scolding, their familiar pattern dancing between them again. “Success?”

“I sense a question mark at the end of that word. Do you doubt it was a success?”

Her dramatic eyebrows arched over wide, amber-flecked eyes. “Success implies endeavor, Vansh.”

“How can you say that?” Sure, he sounded petulant, but only because he felt petulant. “The meeting between the police union and BLM leaders would never have happened without me.”

She made the effort to soften her tone but not her words. “That meeting happened because both parties trusted Yash.”

No one said she wasn’t entitled to her opinion. Vansh gave her his most charming smile, making sure his dimples dug into his cheeks in a way that usually made people melt. Not Naina, of course. Naina had been immune to his dimples since she’d caught him sneaking out his father’s car at fifteen when he’d backed it straight into hers. While mildly high.

Publicly she’d taken the blame, but privately she’d lectured him for days and then kept on him about safety for months. Her lectures always hit harder than he’d ever admit. He’d felt terrible. Two cars had been destroyed. The worst thing was that they’d ended up in landfills. As a punishment to himself, Vansh had never owned a car after that.

He’d been grateful that Naina had taken the blame and saved his ass. It hadn’t been the only time either. Ma and Dad never got upset with Naina about anything. Like Yash, she was beyond reproach with his family. Or she had been until the deception with Yash had come out. Now she seemed to be persona non grata, and the unfairness of that stuck in Vansh’s throat. But the patronizing look she was giving him helped him get over it.

“That meeting happened because I spent a year in Guatemala with the leader of the police union in the Peace Corps. I was the one he trusted.”

The smile she gave him was tolerant, but Vansh saw it for what it was: an eye roll disguised as a smile. In her eyes the credit Yash gave him was just another bone his family threw him.

She was not wrong about his family’s indulging him. Vansh enjoyed all the gifts of his older siblings without being encumbered by the weight of expectations they all dragged around.

Vansh had no interest in letting the weight of other people’s expectations and definitions of ambition hold him down. He traveled light, let the wind carry him where he was most needed.

“True success doesn’t need external validation,” he said as loud cheering rose from the jubilant crowd thronging the grounds of his childhood home.

Naina’s eyes narrowed, as though she saw something about him that he himself couldn’t see. The fact that she’d just dismissed his contribution to his brother’s victory meant she didn’t see him at all.

Naina’s approval, or anyone else’s for that matter, was immaterial. The only approval he needed was his own. And that he had in spades.

A thought that had been nudging at the back of his mind suddenly pushed forward. “I do need a new project. I just don’t think I need to go away to find it this time.” Helping Yash had shown him something. “I think my country and my family need me, and I’ve been ignoring them and chasing butterflies for far too long.”

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