The Rishta Rebellion
"Amna has rejected every rishta her parents have arranged, but when they threaten to cut her off, she enlists Kamran—her brother's best friend—to pose as her boyfriend. Fake turns real faster than either expected."
The Rishta Rebellion
"I need you to pretend to be my boyfriend."
Kamran nearly choked on his samosa. "I'm sorry, what?"
Amna grabbed his arm, pulling him into the corner of her brother's engagement party. "My parents have given me an ultimatum. Accept the next rishta or they're cutting me off. I need someone to pretend to date me until they calm down."
"And you chose me because...?"
"Because you're here, you're single, and my mother already thinks you're a shareef bacha." She looked up at him with desperate eyes. "Please, Kamran. Three months. Just until they stop threatening to marry me to that banker from Leeds."
Kamran looked at his best friend's little sister—though at twenty-eight, "little" no longer applied. Amna was brilliant, beautiful, and absolutely off-limits.
"Your brother will kill me," he said.
"Bilal doesn't have to know it's fake."
"You want me to lie to my best friend?"
"I want you to save me from an arranged marriage to a man who unironically uses the phrase 'actually, according to my portfolio.'"
Kamran laughed despite himself. "Fine. Three months. But we're setting ground rules."
"Obviously."
The rules lasted approximately two weeks.
It started small—holding hands at family dinners, his arm around her at parties. But somewhere between the fake smiles and staged Instagram posts, something shifted.
"You're staring," Amna said, catching him at her cousin's mehndi.
"I'm supposed to be your besotted boyfriend. Staring comes with the territory."
"That's not your besotted face. That's your confused face."
He was confused. Because Amna laughing at his jokes shouldn't make his chest tight. Her head on his shoulder during a boring speech shouldn't feel so right.
"Kamran?" She was looking at him with those enormous eyes. "What are you thinking?"
That I want this to be real. That I've wanted you for years and this proximity is killing me.
"That we're convincing," he lied. "Your mother looked ready to cry with happiness."
"Hmm." She didn't look away. "We are good at this."
"Practice makes perfect."
The tension between them crackled.
The breaking point came at her flat.
"Thanks for walking me up," Amna said at her door. "You didn't have to."
"Your father asked me to. I think he's testing my shareef bacha credentials."
She laughed, but it died quickly. "Kamran... what are we doing?"
"What do you mean?"
"This. Us." She gestured between them. "It stopped feeling fake weeks ago. At least for me."
His heart stopped. "Amna—"
"If I'm wrong, tell me. We can go back to pretending and in a month this will be over and—"
He kissed her.
It was desperate and relieved and everything he'd been holding back. Amna melted into him, her hands fisting in his shirt.
"Inside," she gasped. "Now."
They barely made it past the door.
Kamran lifted her, and she wrapped her legs around him, guiding them toward the bedroom between frantic kisses.
"We shouldn't," he managed. "Your brother—"
"Is not here." She pulled his shirt over his head. "And I've wanted this for years. Since before you were his friend."
"Kya?"
"You were at Bilal's twenty-first birthday. That blue kameez." She traced his chest. "I was eighteen and completely gone. Why do you think I transferred to London? To be near you."
"Amna..." He cupped her face. "If we do this, it's not fake anymore. I can't go back to pretending."
"Good." She pulled him down to the bed. "I don't want to pretend."
He made love to her slowly, reverently—learning every sound, every response. When he finally slid inside her, Amna cried out, and he caught the sound with his kiss.
"Meri jaan," he breathed, moving within her. "I've loved you for so long."
"Show me." Her nails raked his back. "Show me how long."
He did.
"Bilal is going to murder you," Amna said afterward, draped across his chest.
"Worth it." Kamran kissed her hair. "I'll talk to him tomorrow. Tell him this started as a favor but became something more."
"He might believe it. I've never been good at faking anything."
"You convinced your parents for two months."
"Because I wasn't faking." She looked up at him. "I was just finally letting myself want what I wanted."
"And what do you want?"
"You. Properly. No more pretending."
He smiled. "Then let's stop pretending."
Bilal did not, in fact, murder Kamran—though he made him sweat for a full week before admitting he'd suspected something for years.
The wedding was six months later, and Amna's mother cried with joy—completely unaware that her rishta rebellion had succeeded beyond her wildest dreams.