Dirty Laundry by Disha Bose

Author:Disha Bose [Bose, Disha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2023-04-04T00:00:00+00:00

September 13

It annoyed Ciara how Mishti had taken it upon herself to whisk Finn away from the dinner table. Although she supposed it was nicer to have Finn out of the room. So much easier to carry on a conversation.

As soon as they’d left, Ciara began clearing the table. Neither of the men offered to help and sat drinking their wine. The girls chased each other around the kitchen.

“Bella, why don’t you take Maya up to your room? You can show her your new teepee,” Ciara suggested. She didn’t care what the girls got up to in Bella’s room, as long as they were out of her sight.

They went screeching and bounding up the stairs. Gerry got up to follow them, to make sure they did end up in Bella’s room and didn’t get into any trouble along the way.

For the first time that night, she and Parth were alone together.

“Shall we retreat to the couch?” Ciara said, placing an empty salad dish with a shallow puddle of vinaigrette on the kitchen island. “We’ll be more comfortable there.”

They walked to the sitting room together a little tipsily, holding their drinks. They collapsed on the couch, like kids falling into beanbags. Her leg touched his, and neither of them pulled away.

He sat with his arm thrown over the back of the couch. Just a few inches in the wrong direction, and she would have been in his arms. Ciara was already too warm from the wine, and she slipped her shoes off. She rubbed the toes of her left foot on her right ankle and watched him watching her. Brown eyes traveling over her body, surveying her shape and every movement.

“You know, I feel like I’ve finally gotten to know you a little bit tonight.” She spoke when the silence between them felt explosive.

“I don’t think I’ve examined my life like this before. I hope I haven’t bored you to death.”

“I am far from bored. I’m fascinated.”

He was looking at her mouth. There could have been only one thing on his mind. “Where is Gerry?” he asked, in a deep, gravelly growl.

“I don’t think he’s coming back down, not right now. He’s probably on his phone, writing an email he’s told himself could cost him his job.”

Parth reached for her, stroking her knee lightly. She allowed his fingers to linger on the inside of her thigh. She leaned in closer to him, breathing in his stuffing-and-wine breath.

“I don’t think you know how beautiful you are, Ciara. How absolutely magnetic.”

She had to laugh at that—at his assumption that she wasn’t aware. Men liked it better when a woman was unwittingly charming. As though the very knowledge of her own desirability would ruin the appeal.

“I have some idea.”

“Of course you do. I’m sure every man who has ever met you has wanted you.”

He was parroting lines he thought every woman would love to hear. She was disappointed in him. She’d expected more originality from a man like him, an academic. Now that she watched him closely, she saw that there was something distinctively childish about him.

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