She cringed. “I’ll try my best to evade the cameras.”

I wasn’t going to argue on that one, especially when our fake breakup would happen shortly after we returned home. There was no need for someone to bring up Bane every time they saw her in wedding pictures.

What ever happened to Bhanu?

Why’d you guys break up?

How long were you two even together that you brought her to our wedding? She’s in half the photos.

And so on. Seeing these choice pictures framed on Sam’s wall every time I went over? Everyone loving her and constantly hammering me for answers on how I could let another good one walk away?

“For everything else, I’d say comfortable.”

She blinked at me. “What everything else?”

“We’re four days ahead of the wedding. The whole point is to turn this into a hangout. We have excursions planned.”

“Like what? And am I supposed to actually attend all of them?” Her jaw dropped as if spending time together was the worst thing in the world, and it probably was. It was bad enough to have my ex in my space, but now Bane would be taking up a good portion, too. There was no place to turn without seeing misery.

I stuck my hands into my pockets and shrugged. “I’m not going to force you into anything, but my friends will wonder. I could always tell them you’re splitting time between us and your sister. That’s believable.”

Her shoulders slumped. “My sister is working while I’m here, and she’ll get on me if I don’t actually leave the villa. Okay. What excursions and when?”

Bane dutifully entered dates and times for our outings: dinners, drinks, hiking, an afternoon on a boat, et cetera. At least there wasn’t a rehearsal dinner. That was saved for the immediate family flying in.

She huffed, muttering, “Tourist things.”

“Well, yes, we are tourists.”

“Not even one cultural or local thing. Something that only this land can offer?” She tsked, as if it were a damn shame. It probably was, but the couple had set the events and we simply complied.

“I’m sure we can find time to wander off and be cultural,” I added, not thinking she’d take my suggestion seriously.

“I have shorts and shirts aplenty for these excursions.”

“And something to swim in?”

Her eyes flickered and heat rose to my face as I quickly added, “If you want to swim. I don’t plan on swimming in the ocean. It’s too…unsettling.”

“It’s dangerous for a dev. Sharks and sharp coral lurking, waiting for their chance to bite some of that coding off.”

“Sharks?” I recalled how vast and deep the ocean was from the plane.

“Yes. There’s a particularly territorial tiger shark in the dark water, but we’d never swim out there. I’m sure a bunch of tourists will want to see clear waters, not dark and murky straight out of Jaws. They can smell tourists like fresh chum, all bloody and gooey and ripe for snatching up.”

“Noted.” Not that I’d planned on it, but no way in hell was I getting into the ocean.

Seven Bhanu

We hitched a ride on a golf cart while Sunny explained the dynamics of his friends’ group. “Bored” wasn’t exactly the word to describe this short soliloquy, never with that voice of his. To my chagrin, his voice was unfathomably pleasant to listen to, particularly when he wasn’t demanding anything of my team or insinuating that my own work was behind deadline.

The gist was thus:

“You met Sam, the groom. He’s marrying his college sweetheart, April. They’ve had many ups and downs between work, both engineers at Boeing. Her wanting to get her master’s degree when he wanted to have kids led to a separation for a bit. Then there was drama when he considered leaving the company and she was briefly seeing someone else.

“His parents are a bit hard to please and her parents butted heads with his; therefore, they’re flying in the day before the wedding for a rehearsal dinner that’s more of a family calm-down dinner. The entire reason they’re having a destination wedding is to keep the parents out of it, and to keep it small. Her parents wanted to invite everyone they’d ever met, and his parents wanted April to cut back on some things.”

“Are they Indian?” I joked.

Sunny, to my shocked disbelief, actually hinted at a smirk. Gasp! Did his mouth know such things? It made his side profile attractive, if I were to forget what an ass he could be.

He replied, “You’d think. You met Aamar, the best man, also an engineer at Boeing. He brought his fiancée, Maya, who happens to be good friends with April and is her maid of honor. They’re a relaxed couple, but Aamar’s overseeing a lot of things for Sam, despite them having a wedding planner. Sam is a perfectionist, which drives April up the wall. And you met Sejal,” he grumbled.

Ouch. Talk about a sore spot.

“She’s a bridesmaid, for some damn reason, and here with her boyfriend.”

Then he went quiet, but I wanted to know more. Strangely, I wanted to know about his life, these people I’d inadvertently agreed to sharing my vacation with, and this menacing former lover who appeared to be the archetypal ex.

“Is that all?” I pressed.

“Yep.”

“Nothing else I should know about these people? Their dislikes? Points of discussions to avoid?”

“Nope. I’m sure they’ll try to pry into you or us, but I’ll be quick to cut them off.”

“Speaking of us, what’s our story?”

“Story?”

I sighed dramatically. “Yes. Basic facts. How did we meet? How long have we been together? Should we know each other’s allergies, birthdays, tidbits about parents and siblings?”

“No.”

I scowled.

“You don’t need to know more about my life.” And there was that clenched jaw again. The asshole was back.

“If this falls apart, then that’s on you. I can only master the information that I have. Otherwise, I’ll start making things up when they ask. And they will ask.”

A few minutes later, he conceded. “We met at your work party a year ago, started dating two months ago. That’s enough time, right? To bring you for a wedding but not long enough that they’d question why I didn’t tell them? Besides, your sister lives here, so you were coming anyway. A last-minute coincidence.”

“Sounds believable.”

He continued to stew on other broad aspects of our fake relationship when we pulled up to the villa, the point being not to get too chatty. “It won’t be an issue since you’d rather be doing your own thing with your own family.”

If by “my own thing,” he meant sneaking into work, then yes. Since I saw Diya on a regular basis, and this was a long trip for me, she couldn’t take every day off. And I wouldn’t want her to, not when I was content to lounge around. She was back to work, giving me time to relax without filling the void with conversation and plans.