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pleasure in cooking for her loved ones, hadn’t prepared a meal in months. Yet, she hadn’t starved. In fact, she had regained the weight she couldn’t afford to lose.
    But why hadn’t she cooked? Or danced? When they had socialized with their guests at the party, he had noticed that her command of the English language had greatly improved. Where had she been all this time? What had she been doing? And with whom?
    Tina bent her head as if the food on her plate required all of her concentration. “Why are you at home, Dev? Shouldn’t you be at work?”
    He glanced at his watch. He needed to go to the Arjun Studios and decided to take Tina with him. It may be too soon to reintroduce her to work, but what if she disappeared while he was away? There had been no hint, no discussion, when she had suddenly left him in Los Angeles. He couldn’t shake the feeling that she would do it again.
    She wouldn’t, Dev decided. Her career was too important to her and dangling his connections was just the right bait to keep her near. “I will this morning and you will come with me.” He raised his hand to stop her complaint. “You want my connections? This is the best way for directors and producers to get to know you. And we have special guests waiting for us there.”
    “Who?” She stopped chewing and glanced up at him. The pleasure fled from her face as resignation set in. “Your parents?”
    She didn’t know. Dev stared into her eyes and knew she wasn’t pretending. How could she not have known? It had been international news months ago. Even if she were in America she would have seen the headlines.
    “No,” he said gruffly. “Your family will be there.”
    “My family—my mother is at Arjun Studios?” Tina bolted from her seat. “Why? When?”
    Dev thought Tina would have been happy with the news. He hadn’t expected this level of panic. He had only met her family a handful of times as Tina had made an effort to keep her family away. He hadn’t thought much about it until now. “What’s wrong?”
    She paused and bit her lip. “How did they contact you? Do they know that I’m back?”
    “I contacted them. In fact, I’ve been in touch with them since you were missing.”
    She winced. “Oh, you have no idea what you’ve done.” Tina clapped her palms against her cheeks as she began to pace. “What did you tell them?”
    “What I told everyone. That you were recuperating from your miscarriage. They had no idea where you were. Why couldn’t you trust your mother with the truth?” What had she been hiding that was so horrible she couldn’t even tell her family?

CHAPTER FOUR
    T INA BRISTLED UNDER Dev’s question. She saw the disappointment in his eyes. He had no right to judge. She hadn’t been selfish or unkind. She needed to protect herself and she wasn’t going to feel guilty about her decision.
    “My mother would insist that I stay married,” she explained as she crossed her arms.
    Dev studied her. “So you disappeared?”
    Tina felt a sharp twist in her chest. “I did what was best for me.” She wasn’t going to feel guilty. She had taken care of her family for as long as she could remember and this time she had to protect herself.
    “By shutting everyone out,” Dev said with bitterness. “It’s what you do best. But I didn’t think you had it in you to turn your back on your family.”
    Tina whipped her head around and glared at her husband. “I didn’t! You don’t know anything about my mother or my sisters.” She had made sure of that. She didn’t want Dev to see the family dynamics. He would notice how she was treated differently.
    “I know your mother is confused and hurt by the silence she’s received for four months.”
    Tina rubbed her hands over her face. The secrecy had been necessary. Her mother wouldn’t have been sympathetic. Reema Sharma was not just her mother, she was also her manager. It was not the ideal situation. For a while Tina had recognized that her