A Distant Heart Read online

  Praise for the Novels of Sonali Dev

  A Change of Heart

  “In Dev’s seductive and complex story of love lost and then found, one layer of mystery leads to the next. Dev moves so expertly through the subtle layers of the tender love story that Nic and Jess—and even Jen—will hold a permanent place in readers’ hearts.”

  —Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW

  “Mystery, adventure, and romance are spiced with Bollywood glamour in this heart-stopping novel. Dev masterfully probes Jess’s and Nikhil’s rawest emotions through her multilayered Rubik’s cube of a plot. Every time the reader thinks he or she has figured out the end of the novel, the story’s quick-paced narrative, which races back and forth from the U.S. to India, takes another hairpin turn, leaving the reader breathless. This is riveting, heart-pounding drama. Dev takes the characters and the readers on a death-defying ride. A novelist at the height of her powers.”

  —Kirkus, STARRED REVIEW

  “Dev deftly navigates the complex themes of bereavement, motherhood, and how the culture of India exists in America. All the while, she swathes tough, fully realized characters in delicate prose and tackles tragedy with both grittiness and sensitivity. Most impressively, Dev manages to keep the vibrant spirit of the late Jen alive, be it through her diary entries or the way other characters talk about her. With richly rendered characters, heavy topics, and soulful writing, this is stunning all around.”

  —Booklist, STARRED REVIEW

  “Dev walks straight into the fire, building her narrative on an unlikely foundation of wrenching grief, gender discrimination and sexual assault trauma, addressing each issue thoroughly and with incredible compassion . . . Dev’s power to wrap the reader in her characters’ pain and then soothe it is nothing short of exhilarating . . . A Change of Heart cements this author’s standing as not only one of the best but also one of the bravest romance novelists working today.”

  —Shelf Awareness

  “It has only taken a few books for Dev to prove that she is an author on the fast track. Her ability to deliver richly layered and compelling stories filled with stunning emotional resonance is second to none. Utterly compelling and filled with wrenching emotion, this is one book readers will not soon forget!”

  —RT Book Reviews, 4.5 Stars, Top Pick

  The Bollywood Bride

  “Exquisitely written . . . The modern Indian-American setting offers a glimpse of a rich culture and enhances the book’s overt and subtle messages of love, compassion, hope and common ground. A bright, beautiful gem.”

  —Kirkus, STARRED REVIEW

  “A vibrant, emotional story . . . [R]eaders will rejoice at the results.”

  —The Washington Post, Best Romances of 2015 Selection

  “Dev’s second novel, following A Bollywood Affair, proves that she is a rising talent. Dev’s prose captures the rich and unique beauty of Indian culture while telling a story that is complex, culturally accurate, and full of emotion.”

  —Booklist

  “An exquisite, romantic novel with haunting universal themes.”

  —NPR.com, Best Books of 2015 Selection

  “For those who like substance with their steamy romance, this novel is both a sexy love story and an exploration of how a tormented young woman learns to overcome family turmoil and look forward to a future with the man she loves.”

  —Library Journal

  “The Bollywood Bride has it all: mystery, romance, and ghosts from the past that won’t be forgotten. It’s gorgeous, lush, and entirely consuming.”

  —BookRiot, Best of 2015

  “A lush, emotional, vivid story about the power of first love told in a breathtaking, lyrical voice. Sonali Dev is one of a kind.”

  —Kristan Higgins, New York Times bestselling author

  A Bollywood Affair

  “A fresh new voice . . . Deeply felt emotions that will keep readers turning pages. A Bollywood Affair has it all.”

  —Susan Elizabeth Phillips, New York Times–best-selling author

  “Deeply romantic and emotional, with characters I fell in love with, A Bollywood Affair is simply unputdownable. It’s sexy, it’s dramatic, but most of all, it’s a sweet, hot love story that made me sigh and smile and want to read it all over again as soon as I turned the last page.”

  —Nalini Singh, New York Times–best-selling author

  “An impressive debut and a charming contemporary Indian fairy tale . . . Vibrant and exuberantly romantic, A Bollywood Affair is chock full of details that reflect India’s social and cultural flux.”

  —NPR.com

  “As intricate as a henna tattoo and as sweet as gulab juman . . . this witty confection is sure to delight . . . Captures all the glamour, mix-ups and humor of a classic Bollywood film.”

  —Shelf Awareness

  “Dev’s heartfelt debut novel is rich in scenes and images illuminating Indian culture, leaving readers with a greater understanding and appreciation of Indian traditions while beautifully capturing the struggle between familial duty and self-discovery.”

  —Booklist

  “This tasty Indian American confection will satisfy female readers of any age . . . A contemporary, transcontinental romance told with a light touch and lots of sizzle.”

  —Library Journal

  Books by Sonali Dev

  A Bollywood Affair

  The Bollywood Bride

  A Change of Heart

  A Distant Heart

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corp.

  A DISTANT HEART

  SONALI DEV

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Praise for the Novels of Sonali Dev

  Books by Sonali Dev

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  A READING GROUP GUIDE

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  A BOLLYWOOD AFFAIR

  THE BOLLYWOOD BRIDE

  A CHANGE OF HEART

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2018 by Sonali Dev

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  eISBN-13: 978-1-4967-0577-8

  eISBN-10: 1-4967-0577-7

  First Kensington Electronic Edition: January 2018

  ISBN: 978-1-4967-0576-1

  For Rupali, because friendship

  is the sc
hoolhouse of love.

  And you are my entire education.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Kimi and Rahul’s story was an utter joy to write. From the moment they sprang up in my mind, these two knew exactly who they were and what they wanted to do (a bit like my children, so at least I knew how to handle them), and I feel fortunate to have been allowed along for the ride (also how I sometimes feel about my children).

  This story is set in India, in Mumbai’s suburb of Bandra, where I spent a large part of my own childhood. Bandra carries within its endlessly open heart a microcosm of the spirit of the rest of the country—from barely functional slums to wildly ostentatious mansions, from the oldest traditions to progressive new ideologies and everything in between. Bandra was where I made my first friendships and dreamed my first dreams, and I am eternally grateful to its shaded lanes and rocky beaches for affording me such a vibrant canvas first for my life and now for my story.

  I am also eternally grateful to my always generous editor, Martin Biro, for the gift of his excitement when I told him that this one would not be set in America. And to my agent, Claudia Cross; my publicist, Vida Engstrand; and everyone at Kensington Publishing for their boundless enthusiasm. Embarrassing though it is to admit, my own enthusiasm often needs theirs to rely on and they never fail me.

  As always, writing this story was only possible because of the veritable caravan of guiding stars who are my critique partners and beta readers. Without them, this story would only make sense in my head and not on the page. So, thank you, Tamar Bihari, Robin Kuss, Joanna Shupe, Heather Marshall, Clara Kensie, India Powers, Savannah Reynard, Nishaad Navkal, and Kalpana Thatte.

  Thanks also to Rutvika, my gorgeous and brilliant niece, and Sr. Inspector Ravindra Bhide for jointly helping me stay in the vicinity of authenticity in terms of the Mumbai police force. And to my dear friend Pallavi Divekar for helping me hunt down the various legal nuances of organ donation in India.

  Lastly, to the people who do not get to shut the book and walk away when the story ends—Manoj, Mihir, Annika, Mamma, Papa, and Aie—thank you for keeping me grounded and for letting me fly. And to you, dear readers, thank you for flying off with me on another adventure.

  1

  Rahul

  Present day

  Kimi had summoned Rahul to The Mansion and naturally he had come, because relationships, like people, were creatures of habit. He stood at one end of the massive gilded room and watched Kimi pace the silk-carpet-covered marble. The glow of the huge crystal chandelier picked out every nuance of her restlessness. If he didn’t know better he’d say she looked like an imprisoned princess. But she wasn’t. Not anymore.

  Earlier that morning she had sent him a text message saying: We need to talk.

  Those four words had never in the history of humankind ever led to anything good. Nonetheless, it had been two months since Kimi had shut him out after that bastard gangster, Asif Khan, attacked her in broad daylight on the streets of Mumbai, a city Rahul was tasked with keeping safe. So roughly half an hour after her text had arrived, here he was.

  The Mansion’s main living room never failed to make him feel like he had wandered up to the forbidden first-class deck on the Titanic. For all the time Kimi and he had spent in her home, they had barely ever been together in this royal-court-like living room. But today, Kimi had greeted him with nothing more than an uncharacteristically curt nod, led him here, and then wordlessly proceeded to pace. Watching her struggle with what she wanted to say made an all-too-familiar heaviness drag at Rahul’s limbs, the kind that made him restless to move while also digging him into place. Not being able to form words out of feelings was his special gift, not hers.

  Kimi and Rahul had been friends since he was sixteen years old—a friendship that had spanned fourteen years. For most of those years their friendship had been cloistered within these walls, where all that they shared had been safe, where they had been only who they were to each other. Over the past two years, their friendship had been let out into the world where it had never stood a chance.

  Suddenly, she stopped and spun around to face him. Her ever-present ponytail whipped around her neck and spilled across her shoulder. With a flip of her head she flung it all back in place. Her face was, as always, all eyes. He had missed her eyes. Missed all she was able to say with them. Now, every golden-brown fleck trapped her struggle to get the words out.

  “Just tell me what the bastard did to you, Kimi,” he pushed, finally abandoning the subtlety that had earned him his reputation for having some of the best interrogation skills in the Mumbai police force. His legendary patience was also suddenly nowhere in sight. The Asif Khan case had consumed him for two years, and he hated that the gangster had somehow found a way to drag Kimi into his cesspool of crime. The man’s evil wasn’t just inexhaustible but downright immortal in its power.

  Two months ago, Rahul had finally caught up with the bastard and emptied five bullets into him. But instead of dying, the gangster had slipped into a coma with all the answers Rahul needed trapped inside his seemingly indestructible brain, leaving Rahul, and all the people Khan had wreaked havoc on, holding their breath until he woke up.

  “Good is strong,” his father had loved to say. But ten years in this job and Rahul knew evil possessed all the real strength. Good just had to keep on faking it to stay in the fight.

  “Is the case all you care about?” she asked, and the sadness in her tone multiplied the weight dragging at Rahul’s limbs many times over. “Never mind,” she said before he could answer, letting him off the hook and reaching for the anger she had embraced so determinedly these past few months.

  Over the years, Rahul had marveled at how Kimi kept herself from anger. From real anger. Because whether she was throwing her playful bluster at him to push his boundaries, or trying to hide from him all the frustration of wanting impossible things, she never let the anger consume her. Not the way he did.

  Even now when she had every reason to be furious with him, it was taking her some effort—her shoulders squared, her jaw tight, the deliberate effort reminding him of the way she had once tried to walk in heels too high—and that made him feel at once too big and too small.

  The crystalline brown of her eyes darkened with the words she was about to say and Rahul braced himself. “I’m going to give you what you want. I’ll tell you what happened with Asif Khan. But after that you have to promise that you’ll leave me alone.” She took a breath, steadied her voice. “Forever. I never want to see you again, Rahul.”

  It was the ninth time in the span of their friendship that Kimi had said those words to him.

  Yes, he kept count. He kept count of everything.

  Four surgeries, one hundred and eight hospitalizations, twenty-six transfusions, seven times that the doctors had asked her family to say their good-byes. And nine “I never want to see you agains.”

  He gave her his disbelieving look. Because he couldn’t let her see how much he hated when she said those words. When he believed them for those first few seconds.

  “I mean it this time, Rahul,” she said with her jaw set, but then the impact of her declaration gathered in a sheen across her eyes. He was about to reach for her, but she caught the hesitation in his fingers and he stopped.

  The rush of longing in her gaze lasted the barest second before she turned it back into a glare. Her anger regained steam as she squeezed her eyes shut and stemmed the tears before they fell. She backed away from him without waiting for him to respond. She knew him too well for that.

  “Let’s do this in Papa’s office. He’s waiting for us.” She headed up the dramatically sweeping marble staircase that still felt alien beneath Rahul’s feet even though he’d stopped using the servants’ stairs years ago. “I want Papa to be there for this.”

  Kirit Patil greeted them without leaving his deep wing chair in his dark-paneled, high-ceilinged library office. The wall of windows behind him framed an orange morning sky over a blue-gray ocean. A
backdrop befitting the longest serving home minister of Maharashtra state, and one of Bollywood’s greatest erstwhile superstars. But Rahul’s mentor no longer looked anything like the larger-than-life hero who had saved Rahul from every roadblock and land mine life had thrown in his path. He looked defeated. After all these years, they were just two men equalized by their inability to protect the girl who tied them together.

  Kimi walked to the windows and stared out at the ocean across the building-covered hill that The Mansion was perched on top of. Rahul tried not to think about how a reckless trip down to that very strip of beach with her had changed the course of his life. Tried not to think of how well she wore the calm she’d always known how to pull on for the benefit of everyone around her. More than anything else, he had wanted her to learn how to pull it on for her own benefit. And now here it was.

  She rubbed the transplant scar that ran down her chest under the intricately embroidered silk of her kurta and threw him a glance that caught the flash of all they had shared in his eyes before he looked away.

  Kirit pointed to the chair next to him, but Rahul couldn’t sit. It had nothing to do with the fact that he never sat in the minister’s presence. He was too wound up to sit down.