Annika's Pride by Kennedy Claire

Author:Kennedy Claire
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance, contemporary, india, romance humor, new adult, india religion, romance adult, romance love, fictionromance, romance humour
Publisher: Kennedy Claire

~9~

No Looking Back

There was only one person who would make everything better right now, but he wasn’t answering his phone. Annika buried herself under the covers—the same one Kiran had pulled over the two of them each night—and pressed redial.

Today had been a disaster. She didn’t have as many willing character witnesses as she thought. The people she grew up with and went to school with, and worked with, they didn’t know her anymore.

Or maybe they knew her too well.

Most of her acquaintances at lunch were reluctant to commit to being a character witness. They didn’t know the new Annika, and she couldn’t just blackmail each person like she did with her former professor. Or could she?

No, I can’t, she told her herself. That’s not who I am anymore. Just the professor because he deserves it for being a letch.

After the lunch and getting caught in the rain ruining her suede pumps, Annika came home and dialed Kiran’s number non-stop. She must have called him thirty times since she crawled into bed.

“Annika?” his voice rang out from the phone.

Finally!

She sat up quickly and put the phone to her ear. “Kiran, where were you? I was calling for the past hour.” Her voice was shaky and weak.

“Darling, I’m sorry, I was in surgery. Is everything okay?” he asked, worried, just the way she wanted him right now.

“I just needed to hear your voice,” she explained, trying to hold back tears for just the right moment.

“Call anytime, my love. Or better yet, come to India.”

“I can’t. The trial’s gonna start soon. I need to be here and defend myself.”

“To prove you’re a good person to a bunch of people who don’t care about you.”

“You care about me,” she pointed out.

“Yes, which means you don’t have to prove anything to me. I love you the way you are. That means loving everything about you, including your past, which is hardly scandalous, my love.”

Annika looked out the window, the spring storm still battering the city, rain running down the glass distorting the view. She was about to tell him how scandalized everyone made her feel, but stopped when she heard something strange on the end of line. It was a woman’s voice. And it was giggling.

“Is someone there with you?” she asked.

“Oh, I’m at a restaurant with Lucy Vanderbilt.”

“The American who wants to fund the orphanage?”

“Yes, that’s the one.”

Annika didn’t like this. She sounded young and full of life and not the old, wrinkled bitty she was expecting would show up. She grabbed her laptop and opened up Google while still talking to Kiran. As he went on about plans for the orphanage and how maybe they didn’t really need an atrium, she typed ‘lucy vanderbilt’ into the search bar.

She hit enter.

Up popped photos of a beautiful blonde woman.

What?

And, according to Wikipedia, she was newly divorced. Kiran was hot and rich and a doctor—perfect rebound material for a lonely, wealthy divorcee…and that laugh had an air of flirtation to it, Annika being a leading world expert at subtle flirting techniques.

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