Книга - Monsoon Wedding Fever

Monsoon Wedding Fever
Shoma Narayanan


Coming home from a night out, Riya is not expecting to trip over the man who once broke her heart sleeping on her living room floor! He's over for her flatmate's wedding - which means she's got to spend 24/7 with the guy, and the sparks are already flying!Six years ago, Riya had fallen for him, totally-innocent-head over heels, whereas Dhruv didn’t believe in love, not then and not now. After all, the other reason he's in India is to consider an arranged marriage! But as the monsoons start, Riya and Dhruv are forced to confront what drove them apart back then.Only then does Riya start to hope that this wedding fever could be perhaps… contagious…







Confetti and confessions!

Coming home one night, Riya was not expecting to find the man who broke her heart sleeping on her floor! He’s a guest at her roommate’s wedding, so she’s stuck with him 24/7—and the sparks are already flying!

Six years ago Riya fell for Dhruv, whereas he didn’t believe in love. Not then, not now—the other reason he’s in India is to consider an arranged marriage! But as the monsoons start, Riya and Dhruv are forced to confront what drove them apart. Could this wedding fever be...contagious?


Tears welled in Riya’s eyes.

It was ridiculous how susceptible she was to Dhruv, and how easily he could hurt her even without trying. He’d probably be bewildered if he knew that she was upset at the thought of him meeting a lineup of prospective brides, and she couldn’t blame him. He’d made no promises to her, no commitments—only asked for some time together to get to know each other. A request that she was now almost a hundred percent sure she should have refused. So much for trying to act like a sophisticated woman of the world. She was still the stupid lovesick girl she’d been in college, and the quicker she accepted it the better.


This is Shoma Narayanan’s fabulous first book!

We couldn’t be more excited about this uniquely talented author.

Her witty, contemporary writing will take you to a whole new world of romance!

Keep a look out for more titles by Shoma,

coming soon....


Monsoon Wedding Fever

Shoma Narayanan




www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


Shoma Narayanan started reading Harlequin® Romance novels at the age of eleven, borrowing them from neighbors and hiding them inside textbooks so that her parents didn’t find out. At that time the thought of writing one herself never entered her head—she was convinced she wanted to be a teacher when she grew up. When she was a little older she decided to become an engineer instead, and took a degree in electronics and telecommunications. Then she thought a career in management was probably a better bet, and went off to do an MBA. That was a decision she never regretted, because she met the man of her dreams in the first year of B-school; fifteen years later they’re married with two adorable kids, whom they’re raising with the same careful attention to detail that they gave their second-year project on organizational behavior.

A couple of years ago Shoma took up writing as a hobby (after successively trying her hand at baking, sewing, knitting, crochet and patchwork), and was amazed at how much she enjoyed it. Now she works grimly at her banking job through the week, and tries to balance writing with household chores during weekends. Her family has been unfailingly supportive of her latest hobby, and are also secretly very, very relieved that they don’t have to eat, wear or display the results.

This is Shoma’s first book!


To my mom, who believed in romance,

and to my dad, who didn’t.


Contents

CHAPTER ONE (#ucd3c3332-1ace-5fe9-8e93-627f4d88feb2)

CHAPTER TWO (#u3f5111cd-df8e-513a-a5fb-0ecf06ab45e1)

CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

EXCERPT (#litres_trial_promo)


CHAPTER ONE

‘DUBEYJI, UTHO. Wake up!’ Riya hissed at the watchman snoring away behind the locked gates of her apartment building.

It was a Friday, and she’d gone out for dinner with a bunch of colleagues in central Mumbai to celebrate a deal they’d just cracked. She’d not bothered to check if the gate was open when her friends dropped her off, and now she was standing all alone on a deserted and not very safe road in the middle of the night, dressed in form-fitting black and fake designer jewellery. She pulled her scarf around her a little more closely as a pair of young men roared past her on a bike. For a minute she contemplated calling her flatmate—only he had a cousin coming down from Singapore that evening, and was likely to be out partying as well.

The snoring rose to a crescendo as Dubeyji settled himself into a more comfortable spot on his plastic chair. Riya rattled the gate a few times, then picked up a handful of little blue pebbles from one of the fancy flowerpots flanking the entrance. The third pebble did the trick, shaking Dubeyji out of what was probably a most interesting dream starring a bevy of luscious Bhojpuri beauties.

‘Yeh koi time hai, ghar aane ka—madam, is this any time to come home?’ he grumbled as he unlocked the gate.

Dubeyji hadn’t got over his disapproval yet that the multinational firm Riya worked for provided accommodation for both male and female employees. He still liked Riya, though, partly because she looked a bit like his favourite movie star, and partly because she came from his part of the country.

Riya was still giggling to herself when she reached the flat, remembering Dubeyji’s outraged expression when the pebble hit him. It took her a minute to open the door—Gaurav had dutifully left it on the latch. He had, however, neglected to leave a single light on, and the living room was in complete and utter darkness when she finally got in.

‘Dumb idiot,’ she said out loud, and then she struggled to get her strappy high-heeled sandals off in the dark. ‘Damn these shoes!’

Barefoot at last, she began padding across the room—to find herself suddenly tripping and falling down in a heap right onto the warm, hard, very muscular and very male body sprawled across the middle of the floor.

For a wild moment Riya wondered if she was in the wrong flat. Then, as she yelped in alarm and tried to push herself off the man, an amused voice drawled in her ear.

‘Gaurav’s missing flatmate, I presume?’

By then she’d found her footing, and she bounced off in a hurry and snapped a switch on. Bright fluorescent light bathed the room as she glared at the man trying to get free of the scarf that had landed on his face. An extremely appealing-looking man, she thought, her annoyance abating as she took in the perfectly sculpted physique, the rumpled hair, and...hang on...the extremely familiar face. Not to mention the extremely, familiar golden-brown eyes, blinking now as they adjusted to the bright light, and the excruciatingly familiar, eminently kissable lips, and the strong hands, with their long, sensitive fingers...

‘Dhruv Malhotra!’ she wailed, sitting down abruptly on the nearest sofa.

‘Shh...people are sleeping inside,’ he said, his deep voice with its slight gravelly undertone as sexy as ever.

‘But—but I don’t understand,’ Riya stammered. ‘What are you doing here? Are you Gaurav’s cousin?’

Dhruv nodded, standing up from the makeshift bed spread out on the floor.

Riya automatically ran her eyes over him. Even in a ratty black vest and faded jogging bottoms, he looked gorgeous. He’d filled out since college—the once boyish frame had morphed into a body worthy of an athlete, all lean limbs, broad shoulders and taut muscle.

‘I’m sorry I couldn’t warn you—I figured out you lived here only when we arrived and I saw your name on the door. We came in quite late and I thought we could deal with the situation in the morning—I wasn’t expecting you to fall over me.’

‘And you were sleeping right in the middle of the living room because...?’

‘My kid sister decided to come along at the last moment, so she’s in the spare room and there was no place left for me.’ He flashed her a sudden grin. ‘I didn’t think you’d appreciate coming home and finding me in your bed.’

‘You’re right. I wouldn’t have,’ Riya said firmly.

She walked up to him and took the scarf from him, willing herself not to touch his hand while she did so. She’d thought about him a lot in the twelve years since they’d last met, and rehearsed countless scenarios in which she confronted him/pretended he didn’t exist/made crazy, wild love to him... Now that they were finally face to face, all she wanted to do was run away and keep going.

‘Goodnight, Dhruv.’

‘Riya?’

She turned. He was looking at her, an oddly appealing glimmer in his eyes.

‘It’s good to see you again.’

Riya gave him a tight little smile and went on to her room without answering.

Dhruv switched off the light and got back into bed. He’d been awake when Riya came in, and had smiled to himself when he’d heard her cursing in her adorably husky voice. Seeing her again had been more of a jolt than he’d expected, even though he had been mentally prepared. She had changed. Not so much in appearance, though she’d probably put on a few kilos—she’d been waif-like in college, so thin that he’d been able to pick her up with one hand, but so energetic and full of life that she’d seemed twice her real size. Now she’d developed some womanly curves—as he’d discovered when she landed on top of him.

For a few seconds he’d been tempted to drag her closer, enjoy the feeling of her soft breasts heavy on his arm and her silky hair spread over his chest. Her hair had been short in college, and she’d always been bundled either into a shapeless salwar kameez—the traditional Asian tunic and loose trousers—or an over-sized T-shirt and scruffy jeans. She looked far more sophisticated now, with figure-hugging clothes and long, wavy perfectly styled hair cascading down her back. Her face was unchanged, with large eyes, sooty eyelashes, flawless dusky skin, rosebud mouth and dainty little tip-tilted nose all present and correct. The eyes were wary, though. Nowhere near as open or as trusting as they’d used to be.

Dhruv punched his pillow in frustration. Five minutes and the woman had already got him tied up in knots. He should make some excuse to Gaurav and move into a hotel for the remaining two days he needed to be in Mumbai. On the other hand Gaurav was getting married in a week, and the whole point of this visit was to spend time with him before the wedding—they’d been very close when they were younger, but hadn’t met in the last six years. Moving out wasn’t the best option—perhaps he should try talking to Riya, laying old ghosts to rest.

Riya latched the door to her room and slowly started clearing the mess of books off her bed. Dhruv still affected her strongly, she noted, feeling extremely displeased with herself.

Over the years she’d come to believe that he had only managed to completely bowl her off her feet because he’d been the first really attractive man she’d come across in the seventeen years she’d spent growing up in a small, conservative North Indian university town. Her schoolmates had been OK, but she’d known them all her life, and the fact that some were male hadn’t really registered even when she was in her teens. It was difficult to lust after someone you’d seen peeing in their pants in kindergarten!

In college Dhruv had stood out among a largely nerdy and uncouth crowd like...like a peacock in a yard full of sparrows. Or, she thought, trying to think of a more appropriate simile, a Swiss chocolate in a bowl of peppermints. Or a Ferrari in a line-up of taxis.

But after college she’d met at least a dozen men who displayed at least as good a combination of looks and brains as Dhruv, and not a single one of them had made her heart race the teensiest bit. Not Sandeep, the hottest man on her graduate course, nor Sikandar, serial heartbreaker and her second boss. Not Marcelo, the drop-dead gorgeous Brazilian she’d met in a training course last year. Not Vinay, whom she’d dated for almost two years before deciding not to marry him. Not even Anurag, the CFO of one of her top corporate clients. Well, maybe Anurag. Just a little bit. Even though he was married and at least fifteen years older than her. But compared to the effect Dhruv had on her even Anurag faded into insignificance.

‘Concentrate on the bad things,’ Riya told herself firmly, chewing on her toothbrush fiercely. ‘He walked away from you without any explanation whatsoever—’ she spat into the sink and rinsed her mouth vigorously ‘—and never bothered to get in touch with you afterwards.’

She climbed into her pyjamas and got into bed. She lay for a while looking up at the ceiling, remembering the feeling of utter bewilderment and loss that had stayed with her every waking minute for months after Dhruv had stepped out of her life. Even now just thinking about it made her feel empty inside... Humiliating as it was to admit, unless she was very, very careful she was in just as much danger of falling for him now as she had been when she was seventeen.

‘Pathetic, man-crazy moron,’ she said sternly to herself, but it didn’t help. Not when Dhruv lay stretched out on the floor in the next room. So close...

‘He might be married,’ the pragmatic part of her brain prompted, and her eyes flew open at the thought. No, he wasn’t married—she distinctly remembered Gaurav saying that his cousin was single, thank goodness. Not that it should affect her; she shouldn’t care even if he’d turned Mormon and married seven wives.

Riya finally managed to fall asleep around five a.m., and slept soundly till well after nine. She was still groggy when Ranjana, their stickler of a cook-cleaner, marched firmly into her room and prodded her awake.

‘Utho, didi—wake up. Everyone else woke up hours ago.’

‘Good for them,’ Riya mumbled, rolling over in bed.

‘The little didi also just woke up.’

Riya opened her eyes, wondering if Dhruv had been enterprising enough to smuggle a girlfriend into the flat. Or not. Hadn’t he said his sister had come down with him? Curiosity stirred. Dhruv had talked a lot about his kid sister when they were in college. She must be around twenty now, as she was some twelve years younger than him. Clearly an afterthought on the part of their parents, but her older brother adored her.

Dhruv was sitting at the breakfast table watching Gaurav efficiently work his way through a triple-egg omelette and a small mountain of buttered toast. If possible, Dhruv looked even better than he had the previous night. His hair was damp from the shower and curling slightly at the nape of his neck, and his white T-shirt set off the honey-gold of his skin perfectly. Riya’s treacherous heart started doing a little jig of excitement inside her chest. Evidently the previous night’s self-administered homily had gone to waste.

‘Hey there, Sleeping Beauty!’ Gaurav said as he caught sight of Riya. ‘Come here—meet my cousin.’

Dhruv gave her a brief smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

‘We’ve met,’ Riya said, sliding into the chair opposite her stocky flatmate. ‘Gaurav, don’t use the jam knife for the butter—no wonder the chicken butter masala Ranjana made last week was pink!’

‘I thought that was for Valentine’s Day,’ Gaurav said cheerfully. ‘I’ve suspected Ranjana of nursing a secret passion for me for the last five years.’

‘Who’s Ranjana—the cook?’ A curvy, impish-looking girl walked into the room. She was wearing a black T-shirt with a skull embroidered on it—the skull sported a pink bow—and the matching pyjama trousers had ‘Sweet Devil’ embroidered over the butt in pink.

‘Look who’s awake!’ Gaurav said. ‘Riya, this is Chutki—Dhruv’s little sister and officially the most painful brat alive. Chutki, say hello to Riya like a good girl.’

Chutki stuck her tongue out at him. ‘Stop calling me by my nickname. It makes me sound like a two-year-old. Hi, I’m Drishti,’ she said, smiling at Riya. Then she looked a little closer. ‘Hey, you look awfully familiar. Have we met?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Riya replied, wondering if Dhruv had told his sister something about her.

She’d never met Chutki before, but she’d heard a lot about his cute little sister. She was the only person in Dhruv’s family that he’d ever talked about. They had a brother, too, who was a couple of years younger than Dhruv, she remembered, but Dhruv had only mentioned him once in passing, saying that he was crazy about photography. He’d never talked about his parents, giving evasive answers to even the most pointed questions, and very early on in their relationship Riya had learnt not to ask too many questions about them.

Chutki was still observing Riya closely, trying to puzzle something out.

‘I get it,’ she said suddenly. ‘Dhruv—doesn’t she look just like that girl whose photo you used to keep hidden in your cupboard?’

Riya couldn’t help it. Her cheeks flamed in embarrassment and Gaurav, who’d opened his mouth to make a wisecrack, shut it hastily after one look at her face.

Dhruv looked up.

‘Thanks, Chutki.’ He’d been furious with her when she’d found a faded photograph of Riya hidden under a stack of T-shirts in his cupboard, and he’d caught her and shaken her hard when she’d gone dancing out of his room with the photo to show it to their mother. He still remembered the shock on her little face, the tears filling her eyes—it was the first time her beloved big brother had lost his temper with her.

She looked almost as upset now. ‘You mean she’s the same... Oh, God, I’m so sorry. Open mouth, change feet—that’s me. But if you guys know each other, how come you didn’t realise you were...?’ She shut up abruptly as Dhruv gave her a look.

‘It was a long time ago—we knew each other in college,’ said Dhruv curtly, wishing he’d never been a sentimental idiot and hung on to the photograph. ‘We haven’t been in touch since then.’

‘Oh, right,’ Gaurav said easily. ‘I knew you went to the same college. Never thought to ask Riya if she knew you. I just assumed you’d have graduated before she joined. Given how ancient you are and all.’

Dhruv smiled. ‘I’m three years older than the two of you. Architecture is a five-year course, remember?’ He was hoping that they were safely off the topic—he could see that Riya had tensed up, and it boded ill for his chances of having any kind of sensible conversation on the subject with her later on. He hadn’t reckoned on his little sister’s never-ending curiosity, though.

‘You were dating, weren’t you? Why’d you split up?’ Chutki asked, interested.

Suddenly Riya had had enough. ‘We weren’t dating,’ she said crisply. ‘We were friends and, like Dhruv said, he was three years ahead of me. We didn’t stay in touch after he left college.’

Chutki looked a little abashed, and Riya felt guilty about snapping at her. It wasn’t her fault. She was just curious, and she belonged to the reality TV generation in which everyone discussed their past and current relationships in loud and public detail. She’d probably be hugely amused if she knew how Riya went all shivery and tingly each time she looked at Dhruv.

Riya pushed her chair back from the table. ‘I’m done,’ she said. ‘I’m going down to the gym for an hour. You guys staying in? Or do you plan to go out?’

Gaurav said, ‘We haven’t decided yet. Dhruv wants to buy something for Madhulika, only I’m not sure what she’d like. I was hoping you’d have some ideas...’

‘Given that you’re marrying the woman in a week, I’d have expected you to have some clue,’ Riya retorted, irritated at her flatmate for trying to palm off the decision onto her. ‘If you can’t think of something yourself, try Googling “gift ideas for morons”.’

‘I’ll make her come up with something,’ Gaurav said to Dhruv as he got up to clear the dishes. ‘She’s spent hours chatting to Madhulika on the phone about the wedding. By the way, I’ve never seen her being this snippy, and I’ve known her for some years now. Bad break-up?’

Dhruv shook his head, irritated with his cousin. ‘We weren’t in a relationship. I told you. She told you. What does it take to drive that simple fact into your skull?’

‘A lot more than just you idiots telling me so every two minutes,’ Gaurav said tartly. ‘You may not have been dating, but you were definitely not “just good friends”. Sparks fly all over the place when you look at each other.’

He would have probably continued in that vein for a few more minutes if Riya’s door hadn’t opened. She came out wearing a no-nonsense sleeveless navy vest with a pair of dry-fit tracksuit bottoms. The outfit had obviously been chosen for comfort rather than elegance, but the stretchy material of the top clung to her near-perfect hourglass figure in a way that made Dhruv’s mouth immediately go dry.

She hardly looked at him on her way out, just pausing to say over her shoulder, ‘Order the groceries, please, Gaurav. Ranjana’s made a list.’

‘Just good friends,’ Gaurav muttered, taking in Dhruv’s expression as he continued gazing at the door a good five minutes after Riya had shut it behind her.

Dhruv stood up abruptly. ‘I have some work calls to make,’ he said. ‘And, if we’re going out, isn’t it about time you had a wash and changed? Unless, of course, you’re planning to stun Mumbai with a glimpse of those psychedelic pyjamas.’

Gaurav grimaced and went to the bathroom. Dhruv was still his favourite cousin, but his tongue was as barbed as ever—he made a mental note not to bug him about Riya ever again.

* * *

‘For God’s sake, Chang, you should be able to handle this!’ Dhruv exploded forty minutes later.

He strode over to the window and looked out, frowning as his second-in-command launched into a lengthy explanation for the current crisis at work. He very rarely lost his temper with his team, but he was now at the end of his tether. This trip wasn’t going as planned, he thought as he closed the call, cutting off his employee’s explanation midway. He’d been unnecessarily harsh with Chang, and he knew the reason had nothing to do with work. Meeting Riya had unsettled him more than he would have imagined possible.

He’d thought of her often since they’d parted—for many years the memory of how he’d treated her had filled him with guilt, and an unexplained feeling of anger. She’d been head-over-heels in love with him, and he’d spurned her without much of an explanation. At that time he had thought he was acting for the best, but in hindsight he’d acted like an immature idiot.

He’d known very early on that they didn’t have a future together. For a twenty-year-old, he’d had very fixed ideas, utterly convinced by his parents’ disastrous marriage that falling in love was a mug’s game. Till he met Riya, he’d never even been tempted. She’d been doing an undergraduate degree in Computer Science, while he’d been in his final year of his architecture course, and the first time he’d met her what had struck him was her vitality—her enthusiasm for life. It had stepped out of her and grabbed him around the throat before he’d known what was happening. She was beautiful as well, and intelligent, but those were things that he’d noticed only later.

Dhruv grimly thought back to how he’d deluded himself for several months, trying to think of her as an interesting companion—more of an intellectual sparring partner than a flesh-and-blood woman. Reality had hit while he’d been helping her with an engineering drawing assignment, leaning over her shoulder to loosen her death-grip on the pencil. Her hair had smelt of lemons and tangerines, and as she’d turned laughingly towards him he’d looked into her wide cinnamon eyes and found himself unable to look away. The sudden attraction had blindsided him, shaking him temporarily out of the carefully erected emotional barriers he had surrounded himself with.

She’d stopped mid-sentence when she’d seen the naked longing in his eyes, and blushed deeply, her long, sooty eyelashes dropping down to cover her eyes. If nothing else, Dhruv thought wryly, that was the only time he’d ever seen her at a loss for words. Nothing had been said, but there had been a new kind of awareness between them from that day onwards, an always present undercurrent of sexual tension that had made the simplest gestures take on immense significance.

A door slammed in the flat, and Dhruv’s thoughts jerked back to the present. Riya was home. She was sweating slightly after her hour in the gym, and her cheeks were slightly flushed. Dhruv felt his heartbeat accelerate as he saw her—his first thought was that this was exactly how she’d look after being made love to, and he shook himself mentally to get rid of the further images that this conjured up. A second wave of lust hit him as he noticed the hint of cleavage that showed as she bent down to untie the laces of her gym shoes, and he looked hastily away.

Riya checked for a second when she saw Dhruv in the living room. She’d been half hoping that he’d be out of the house by the time she returned, so that she wouldn’t have to struggle to keep up the coolly sophisticated front she’d donned. Her initial impulse was to run to her room, but she forced herself to walk slowly—partly because she didn’t want Dhruv to think he affected her in any way, and partly because she didn’t want to trip and fall flat on her face. Her sense of balance had improved significantly since college days, when she’d fallen over at least once a week, but she didn’t trust herself while Dhruv was around.

‘Where’s Gaurav?’ she heard herself ask.

‘Gone for a bath. By the way, he’s still not come up with any ideas for a gift for Madhulika, so if you can think of something I’d be really, really grateful.’

He smiled up at her, and Riya found herself unable to tear her eyes away from him. He was still impossibly good-looking, she decided. A beam of sunlight from the window glinted off his dark brown hair and highlighted the honey-gold planes of his almost perfectly chiselled face. His lips were just the right shape—not too thin, and not too full—quirking up a little at the corners to offset the firm cast of his jaw. But his best features were still his eyes—golden-brown with flecks of green, framed in impossibly long lashes.

Something in his expression finally cued her that she’d been staring at him like an idiot.

‘Gift?’ she repeated, parrot-like, dragging her eyes away from his. ‘A watch, maybe?’

Dhruv was still looking at her and she kept talking, as if the sound of her own voice would keep her from doing something moderately embarrassing, like reaching a hand out to brush back the straight hair falling over his forehead, or really, really stupid, like flinging herself into his arms.

‘Madhu collects watches, and there’s a new one with a purple dial she likes—Gaurav won’t get it for her because he has this crazy theory about watches being a countdown till the day you die.’

‘Yes, I know about that one,’ Dhruv said drily. ‘It also explains why he’s late for pretty much everything. Thanks for the idea, Riya.’

Riya said politely that he was most welcome, and escaped to her room to collapse onto the bed and stare at the ceiling. Dhruv had changed, she thought. She’d known him very well at one time, and she could sense that something fundamental about him was different. His looks hadn’t altered much—he looked older, of course, and there were a few strands of silver in his thick, floppy hair, and of course his body had...improved.

Riya had to pull her mind back from dwelling lovingly on those improvements. No, that wasn’t it. In college he’d given the initial impression of being laid-back, slightly lazy, even, and that had been part of his charm—the fact that he never really exerted himself to make a good impression, but made one anyway. When she’d got to know him better, however, she’d figured that appearances were deceptive. The chilled-out exterior covered a lot of inner turmoil, the reasons for which, at seventeen, she hadn’t even begun to understand. Now it seemed to be the other way around. Dhruv’s personality was far more compelling, dynamic, but internally he seemed more detached than he’d been before, his wild streak completely dormant. Maybe he’d just grown up.

‘I’ve grown up, too,’ she informed the bedpost. ‘I’m no longer a lovesick donkey. So there’s no way I’m going to make a fool of myself over him again.’

The words were brave, but Riya felt about as confident as she had as a quaking four-year-old on her first day of school. Dhruv Malhotra meant trouble, and the less she saw of him the better.


CHAPTER TWO

GAURAV knocked gently on Riya’s door. ‘Come in!’ she yelled out. He came in quietly and sat down, gingerly perching his bulky frame next to her.

‘I’m sorry about foisting Dhruv on you,’ he said, tugging gently at a lock of her hair. ‘I wish I’d known—I wouldn’t have asked him to stay here.’

‘Relax. You’re not a clairvoyant, so there’s no way you could have known. It doesn’t matter, anyway.’

‘Should I ask him to move to a hotel? He’s offered to, in case you’re uncomfortable with him being around. Chutki’s staying over at a friend’s place from tonight anyway.’

Riya shook her head and laughed. ‘It’s not that big a deal, Gaurav. Really. Dhruv and I used to hang around in college—I took it a little too seriously and scared him off.’

Gaurav hesitated. ‘He seemed to think it’d be better if he moved out.’

‘So let him move, then, for God’s sake,’ Riya snapped. ‘It doesn’t matter to me.’ But it did. It mattered a lot. Chutki’s saying that he’d held on to her picture had made her think that maybe, after all, Dhruv had cared for her—just a little. But if he still wanted to run away from her, even after twelve years, she couldn’t help feeling some of the old hurt creep back.

Gaurav said gently, ‘Do you want to tell me about it?’

Riya shook her head decisively. ‘No, thanks. I made enough of a fool of myself over your cousin the first time around, and I don’t want to think about it any more.’

‘Poor girl.’ Gaurav pulled her against himself for a quick hug. ‘You know what? I think you guys should talk it over now, put it behind you.’

‘Yeah, thanks for the advice, Oprah, but I think I’ll pass.’ The last thing she wanted was more time talking to Dhruv—it wouldn’t be possible to conceal how much he affected her for more than ten minutes.

‘Is it OK if he comes for my surprise party tonight?’

Riya groaned. ‘Gaurav, you aren’t supposed to know that there is a surprise party. Who blabbed?’

He gave her a smug grin. ‘That’s for me to know and you to find out... Come on, Riya, did you really think anything in the office would stay a secret?’

It didn’t. Her office was the original leaky sieve—one of a dozen people could have told Gaurav, and she had been crazy to think that she’d be able to keep the surprise party actually a surprise.

‘You can help clean the house before the party, then,’ she told Gaurav, ‘now that you know. Remember to put all your smelly socks in the wash.’

Gaurav groaned. ‘I should have just pretended to be surprised. Like my grandmother says, there’s no room for honesty in this black era. So, can Dhruv come?’

‘I guess so,’ Riya replied grudgingly, and he beamed back at her, evidently convinced that all was forgiven and forgotten between his cousin and his best friend.

* * *

The house was chock-full of people by eight p.m., and more kept arriving. Gaurav was popular in the firm, and because he was in HR he knew everyone. It was a bring your own booze party, and the food was Chinese takeaway and pizzas—it hadn’t been much trouble to organise—but Riya was finding it difficult to concentrate even on simple things, like making sure someone responsible was in charge of the drinks, and that people didn’t spill ketchup on the company-owned sofas. Her eyes automatically went to the door every time the doorbell rang—Dhruv had said he’d be late, but she couldn’t help searching for him among every group of entrants.

It was nine-thirty when Dhruv finally made an appearance. Riya was perched on the balcony, swinging her legs against the parapet as she talked to a group of colleagues. The atmosphere in the room seemed to change as he walked in, looking around the room and hesitating a little before coming up to her. Riya gave him a polite, noncommittal smile, noticing bitterly that even with a day’s stubble and rumpled clothes he was by far the best-looking man in the room.

As he walked towards her more than a few heads swung in his direction. The reaction in the little group on the balcony was palpable. The two women smoothed their hair, clearly in a bit of a flutter. Rishabh, the only man in the group, straightened up and squared his shoulders—the typical male reaction to a man several inches taller. Riya tried to stay unaffected, but she knew that she more than anyone else was conscious of every movement he made, every change of expression.

‘So, what do you do, Dhruv?’ one of the women asked after Riya had introduced Dhruv. ‘Let me guess... Not a banker, obviously—not boring enough. Lawyer? Businessman?’

‘I’m an architect,’ Dhruv replied quietly.

‘Really? What’s your firm called?’ Her expression was one of animated interest.

Dhruv, used to female attention, hardly noticed the effort she was making to capture his attention. It had been a long day, and he’d come back hoping for a relaxed evening, but with the house full of guests it didn’t look likely. The woman was still looking at him expectantly, so he answered.

‘Icarus Designs,’ he said, wishing they would all go away and leave him with Riya. She was wearing a sleeveless turquoise top in some silky material over jeans, and her hair was loose over her shoulders—she looked younger, and far more as he remembered her from college, and if they had been alone he’d have been tempted to take her into his arms and kiss her senseless.

Rishabh looked up. ‘There’s a Singapore-based firm of that name—any connection?’

‘I’ve been working out of Singapore the last few years, but I started in Delhi and I still have an office there,’ Dhruv said. He had an eye on Riya, sensing that she was withdrawing from the conversation. He figured that while she was on friendly terms with Rishabh, she didn’t really like him.

‘Dude, I love the buildings you guys have done in Singapore,’ Rishabh was saying. ‘I worked in one of them, and the design was out of this world. I actually researched the firm as part of a project. Are you setting up something in Mumbai?’

‘I’m considering it,’ Dhruv said. ‘I’ll be coming back to Mumbai after Gaurav’s wedding to scout for office space, and if things work out I’ll set up here by the end of the year.’

Rishabh hopped down from the parapet onto the balcony and took a card out of his pocket. ‘Maybe we can meet up once you’re back? My contact details are on this—or I can call you if that’s OK?’

‘Sure,’ Dhruv said, taking the card but not offering one of his own in return.

Riya frowned. It hadn’t even occurred to her to ask Dhruv about his work, but Rishabh had sensed a business opportunity and honed in. That was how he managed to hold his own at work, she thought. They had joined CYB around the same time, and got along well at least on the surface, but professionally they had been at loggerheads since the day they’d started working together. Riya knew that she was technically far more competent than he was—where she fell behind was on the ability to spot new business.

She looked over the parapet, down at the city. She needed to get at least a couple of new clients on board this quarter to secure a decent bonus. God knew she needed the money. She earned a good salary, but a lot of it went home to her parents. Her mother didn’t work, and her dad had retired on a very small pension—and he’d had a lot of health problems recently.

She pursed her lips worriedly. If Icarus Designs was big—and Rishabh evidently thought they were—she should speak to Dhruv about a possible project. He’d be far more inclined to talk to her than to Rishabh, but she felt very reluctant to broach the topic with him.

She cast a quick look in his direction, and all thoughts of work immediately flew out of her head. He was impossibly good-looking, she thought, confused, and his rumpled hair and unshaven chin only added to his dangerous bad-boy looks.

Dhruv looked up at her suddenly. ‘Riya, don’t lean so far back—you’ll topple. We’re on the twenty-second floor.’

Gaurav walked up to them, drink in hand, slinging a careless arm around Dhruv’s shoulders. ‘Yeah, you’ll make a lovely splat on the concrete. You guys heard the joke about the idiot who fell from the roof of a ten-storey building?’

Rishabh grinned—he and Gaurav were the clowns of the bunch. ‘He heard the doorbell ring and ran to open the door.’

‘Right. And the one who drove his truck off a cliff?’

‘He wanted to check his air brakes!’

Dhruv moved closer to Riya and said in an undertone, ‘Riya, please get down.’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘Dhruv, I’m not about to fall. Back off.’

Rishabh said, ‘And the one who fell out of the window?’

‘He tripped over the cordless phone,’ Gaurav said, grinning, as the girls groaned in mock exasperation.

Riya was still stubbornly perched on the balcony railing, giving Dhruv a defiant little look as she laughed at Gaurav’s completely pathetic jokes. Dhruv had had these sudden bouts of over-protectiveness in college as well—worrying about her getting home when it was getting dark, insisting on dropping her home on his motorbike from college after she’d had an accident on her two-wheeler. She’d never objected then, thinking it was a sign of how much he cared for her, but there was no way she was going to take orders from him now.

‘Don’t be childish, Riya. What are you trying to prove?’ he said, and Riya immediately saw red.

‘Leave me alone,’ she said.

Dhruv gritted his teeth and moved closer to her, putting one arm on either side in a protective stance.

‘Get away, Dhruv,’ Riya said angrily, not sure which was stronger—her irritation at his bossiness, or her intense awareness of his proximity. His sleeves were rolled up, and she could see the smattering of fine hair on his forearms. Her fingers ached to run up his arm, feel the muscles under the warm, velvety skin. His face was really close too, and she had a sudden mad impulse to touch his silky hair and pull his head closer till his mouth touched hers.

A surge of annoyance at her own susceptibility made her shove at his shoulder—hard. He didn’t budge, but the movement made her lose her balance. She teetered on the edge for a second, and then Dhruv’s arms came around her, steadying her and firmly lowering her to the balcony. His arms felt every bit as delicious as she had imagined. She looked up at him mistily—to encounter two golden eyes glaring furiously down at her as his hands came up to her shoulders.

He gave her a little shake. ‘What did you think you were doing?’ he demanded. His heart was still thudding loudly in his chest—for a moment he had really thought she was going to fall.

‘I was perfectly OK till you tried to play the hero,’ Riya retorted, shaking herself free from his clasp and storming off into her room.

Dhruv stared after her, a sense of déjà vu sweeping over him. The last time they’d spoken in college...

The circumstances had been very different, of course. Things had gone wrong between them, and he’d started cold-shouldering Riya, hoping she’d get the message and stay away from him. She hadn’t stood for that very long, and had confronted him as he was leaving his hostel for a morning class. The altercation had turned bad very quickly. In the long years of hearing his parents fight he’d unconsciously acquired a knack of saying bitter, hurtful things, and it had taken him barely minutes to rip apart the delicate fabric of their relationship.

Riya’s chin had gone up, and she’d said in a voice that was very firm, though tears were trembling on her long eyelashes, ‘I don’t believe you mean any of the nonsense you’re saying, Dhruv. You’re hurting yourself as much as you’re hurting me, and that’s just plain stupid.’

She’d turned and started walking away, and a blind wave of anger had ripped through him. He’d stretched out an arm and grabbed her, swinging her around against him. Her eyes had blazed up into his, and for a second he’d had a crazy impulse to crush her ridiculously childish little mouth under his. She’d felt very light against him, very fragile, and as he’d held her the fight had seemed to go out of her slim little body. He’d closed his eyes for a second, and then, very slowly, he’d released her, turning her away from him and pushing her gently back onto the path that led away from his rooms.

She’d turned back once to look at him as she walked away. If he’d made the smallest gesture he knew she’d have run back into his arms, but he’d kept his face blank, wiped clean of all expression and emotion. She hadn’t looked back again.

Back in her room, Riya was thinking of the same morning, and the sense of utter desolation that had swept over her when she’d left Dhruv. A light tap on the door made her restrain herself from bursting into a flood of uncharacteristic tears.

‘Come in,’ she said gruffly.

Dhruv opened the door and stepped in, shutting it behind himself. He sat down next to her and took her hand in both of his.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said softly. ‘I overreacted. I have a bit of a thing about heights.’

Riya nodded, not trusting herself to speak. His hands were warm, slightly rough, and the temptation to fling herself into his arms was stronger than ever. Then a thought struck.

‘You were OK with heights in college,’ she remembered. ‘You used to go on all those treks and things.’

Dhruv squeezed her hand slightly, and said after a brief pause, ‘Yes, well, I’m not acrophobic. I saw a worker on one of my projects fall from the roof of a thirty-story building many years ago. Died instantly. I haven’t been able to stand seeing anyone even lean out of a window since that.’

Riya’s marshmallow heart immediately brimmed over with sympathy. ‘That must have been terrible,’ she blurted.

Dhruv shrugged, wishing he hadn’t brought the subject up. It wasn’t something he normally did—exposing vulnerability to win someone’s sympathy. He hadn’t done it consciously this time, either, but he’d felt a need to justify his behaviour. And not just his behaviour today. He looked away, pushing a hand through his hair. God, this was difficult. Seeing her walk away from him in anger today had brought back the guilt about how unfairly he’d treated her in the past, and he wasn’t prepared to deal with it right now.

Riya felt her throat close up as she surveyed his back. The instant of sympathy she’d felt for him had temporarily breached her defences, and the old, confused sense of loss threatened to swamp her. She gritted her teeth and looked down for a second. She’d spent the day trying to convince herself that she’d put the past behind her, but who was she kidding? The past was right there, waiting for her to let her guard slip, and the sooner she figured out a way to deal with it the better.

‘Dhruv?’ she said finally, and he turned back to her. ‘I never did get to ask you in college, but it’s bothered me all these years—why did you change?’ Her heart was pounding in her chest so hard that she could hardly hear herself speak, but she couldn’t stop herself continuing. ‘I know I threw myself at you a bit at the end, and you kept trying to knock some sense into me—was that it?’

‘Not really,’ Dhruv said, and after a little pause he continued very formally with a shuttered look on his face that she remembered from college. ‘I don’t believe in explanations, Riya—they always end up sounding like excuses. But I do apologise. You deserved a lot better from me, and I let you down.’

The temptation to say more was almost irresistible, but his reasons for dumping her were too closely linked to the crisis his family had been going through at that time. The old habits of reticence and concealment died hard—even after so much time. It seemed preferable that she think him fickle and irresponsible rather than know the real reason.

‘I’d better join the others—Gaurav looked like he needed help with the food.’ While Riya stared at him in disbelief, he turned around and went out of the room, shutting the door gently but firmly behind him.

‘So much for waiting half a lifetime to figure out what the hell happened,’ Riya said out loud to the closed door.

The sense of frustration was so strong she felt like screaming. Twelve years since they’d parted, and explanations still didn’t seem to be among Dhruv Malhotra’s strong points. In a way, she felt worse than she would have if he hadn’t apologised—his getting angry or avoiding the topic would have made her feel that it really bothered him deep down, but the empty token of an apology relegated the whole college episode to an unfortunate but not very important incident in his distant past.

Suddenly furious, she picked up a little ceramic troll from her bedside table and hurled it across the room. It hit the wall and smashed into pieces with a most satisfying crash.

Her door opened a little, and Gaurav poked his head inside cautiously. ‘All OK?’ he asked.

Riya looked up and gave him a tight little smile. ‘Yes. Your cousin is the...the most infuriating man I’ve met in my life—not that I care!’ She didn’t want to let Gaurav know quite how upset she was. He seemed to be fairly close to Dhruv, and given his general ineptitude at keeping his mouth shut the chances of him letting something slip were high.

Gaurav’s pleasant face was creased with worry. ‘He’s leaving tomorrow, but he’ll be there at the wedding. You sure it’s OK?’

‘I’ll avoid him,’ Riya said. And when Gaurav’s frown didn’t go away she said, ‘Relax. I won’t smash his face in during the ceremony. Or will it be simpler if I don’t come?’

Gaurav’s expression changed and he came in swiftly, sitting down next to her and saying earnestly, ‘I wouldn’t be getting married if you hadn’t helped sort out things with Madhulika’s parents. If anyone needs to skip the wedding, it’ll be Dhruv.’

Sudden tears came to Riya’s eyes, and she fumbled for Gaurav’s hand and squeezed it hard. He’d been her best friend for many years now, and he’d been miserable when Madhulika’s parents had refused to let their daughter marry him. They’d picked out a Bengali bridegroom for her, and had had no time for the brash, burly Punjabi man their daughter had chosen. Riya had played the go-between for some months, gradually bringing them round to the idea, and Gaurav had been absurdly grateful ever since.

‘Don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘He’s family—you can’t tell him not to come. I promise I’ll behave.’

‘Come on out and join us, then,’ Gaurav said, gently tugging her to her feet. ‘I’m setting up the karaoke thing on the TV. Don’t bother about Dhruv. Every unmarried girl in the room is making a beeline for him, and he’ll be too busy fighting them off to bother you.’

Riya frowned as she followed Gaurav out. He was right—Dhruv was knee-deep in women, and in spite of herself she couldn’t suppress a little flare of annoyance.

* * *

It was almost three in the morning when the last people left. Chutki had left for her friend’s place at eleven, and Gaurav was dozing on the sofa. Riya started clearing up—there were beer cans and empty disposable plates and glasses scattered all over the room. Dhruv began to help, stacking boxes of half-eaten pizza and carrying them into the kitchen. She silently handed him a few garbage disposal bags, and picked up a broom and mop to clean the floor.

‘Won’t the maid do that tomorrow?’

‘The place will be overrun by cockroaches by then,’ Riya said. ‘Armies of them come crawling in under the door if there’s the slightest bit of food lying around.’

Gaurav looked at them sleepily. ‘A cockroach can live for a week without its head,’ he informed them, and fell asleep quite suddenly, his mouth wide open.

Both Dhruv and Riya cracked up, the tension of the evening dissolving in gales of laughter.

‘Let me get him to his room,’ Dhruv said finally, and putting his arm around Gaurav, he half dragged him to bed.

Gaurav’s room was a mess as well, but he decided not to do anything about it other than clear a couple of ashtrays off the bed before he headed back to the living room.

He was still undecided about Riya. One part of him felt that he should leave things as they were. The other would sell his soul to get within touching distance of her. His lips twisted as he acknowledged that, at present, the second was definitely winning.

After Riya had rejoined the party he’d spent the evening watching her unobtrusively as she circulated around the room, laughing and joking with people she obviously knew well. Little things had caught his attention and held it. The way she threw her head back when she laughed, exposing the long, perfectly shaped column of her throat. The way the silky material of her top clung to her body as she moved. The curve of her lush red lips betraying her amusement as she mock-frowned at something Gaurav said to her. He had never been so aware of a woman in his life. And now that they were finally alone in the room together it took every last ounce of his self-control to stop himself from dragging her into his arms and crushing her lovely mouth under his.

Oblivious to the direction Dhruv’s thoughts were taking, Riya finished clearing the room and went to draw the curtains, groaning as she saw more mess on the balcony.

Dhruv came up behind her. ‘I’ll take care of that,’ he said gently. ‘Go to bed.’

‘Why’re you being so nice?’ she demanded. Her voice came out sounding a little more petulant than she’d intended, and Dhruv’s lips curved into his trademark sexy smile that started slowly at his mouth and went up all the way to his eyes. Riya’s insides promptly turned to mush, in spite of her head telling her firmly to get a grip.

‘We could forget college and try to be friends again,’ he said, the words coming out before he had a chance to think. ‘We’ll be at the wedding for three days. We could use that time to catch up, get to know each other better?’

Riya closed her eyes briefly. It was such a tempting thought—getting to know Dhruv all over again. It would be stupid to deny that she was still strongly attracted to him—only she didn’t know if he felt the same way, or if he was just trying to make amends for having hurt her earlier.

He was still looking at her expectantly. She forced a smile and said, as formally as she could, ‘I guess we could try. I’m sorry if I’ve been less than gracious, Dhruv, but it’s been a shock seeing you again. I thought I’d put all that nonsense from college behind me. Evidently it’s still bothering me somewhere at some level, or I wouldn’t have got so worked up when I saw you again.’

‘I haven’t managed to put it behind me, either,’ Dhruv said softly. It seemed vital that he convince her to trust him—just a little. He took her hand and squeezed it gently. ‘I don’t think I expressed myself very well when we spoke earlier, but I truly am sorry I treated you the way I did. If you can forgive me for being such an idiot, let’s spend some time together when we’re in Kolkata. I swear I’ve improved with age.’

Riya looked into the familiar golden eyes for a second, and looked away hastily.

‘OK,’ she said, drawing her hand out of his warm clasp and brushing it clumsily across her forehead. ‘I...I think I’ll get to bed now. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

The last lot of empty beer cans cleared away, Dhruv gave the kitchen a cursory glance before snapping off the light. Riya’s reaction bothered him more than he cared to admit. Till the day they’d split up he had been used to Riya’s adoration—she had concealed it under a layer of sassiness, but it had always been there. He hadn’t expected it to remain, of course—not after so many years, and definitely not after the way they’d parted—but it was still a shock, looking into Riya’s eyes and seeing wariness and distrust in their lovely depths. She was perfectly polite to him—only the genuine warmth that showed through when she spoke to Gaurav and even to Chutki was missing.

Regret and frustrated desire churned through him. Without realising it he’d had Riya captured in a time-warp in his mind, forever seventeen, forever willing and forever his. Rationally he knew that she’d have changed, but the reality of not having her come running when he beckoned was difficult to deal with.

He was about to go into the room Chutki had been using the night before when Riya’s door opened again. She came out, wearing a white oversized T-shirt and little cotton shorts that left most of her long brown legs bare.

‘I need a bottle of water,’ she muttered, brushing past him to go into the kitchen and opening the fridge. Her throat was parched, and she hadn’t been able to get to sleep, otherwise the last thing she’d have wanted was to run into Dhruv again. ‘Great—someone drank all the cold water.’

She straightened up, and she looked so adorable with her wavy hair tousled around her sleepy face that Dhruv couldn’t help pulling her close, all his good resolutions lost. She melted in his arms, closing her eyes as Dhruv trailed a finger down her cheek. His body tightened as he saw her reaction to him, and he lowered his lips slowly onto hers.

Dhruv’s lips felt reassuringly familiar and wildly exciting at the same time, and Riya heard herself moan softly as she strained her body closer to his. The small part of her brain that was still functioning kept telling her that she was being stupid, only her body found it impossible to stop.

‘You’re so beautiful,’ Dhruv said thickly, as his lips travelled down her neck and lower.

His hands were slipping under the loose T-shirt when Riya’s brain finally kicked in.

‘No,’ she said. ‘No, Dhruv...please, I need time to think.’ And, grabbing the nearest bottle of not cold drinking water, she turned away and almost ran back to her room.

Riya was shaking as she sank down onto her bed. Another minute and they’d have been making love on the kitchen floor, oblivious of Gaurav sleeping in the next room. Or maybe that was just her. Going by past experience, Dhruv had probably had all his wits around him, however carried away he’d seemed. He’d probably thought it out fully—how they’d move to her room, make love the whole night through, and the next day he could pretend that nothing had happened. And, being the colossal fool that she was, she’d almost let it happen.

Slow tears began sliding down her cheeks. Of all things, she hated feeling vulnerable the most, and with Dhruv around all her carefully built armour was melting away.

Dhruv slowly turned off the lights in his room and got into bed. Kissing Riya had been a mistake—especially when she’d just started warming up to him. But it had been impossible to resist. The attraction between them had flared up as hot and sweet as it had so many years ago.

Dhruv had had several girlfriends since, and had thought he was fairly serious about at least two of them. It had been different with Riya, though. She was the first girl he’d ever kissed, one rain-soaked day at her home when her parents were away. Twelve years later he still remembered the feel of her eager, inexperienced lips under his, and her young body straining to be closer to him. It had taken every last ounce of sanity for him to leave her with just a kiss. She’d pouted and tried to pull him back, but he’d left anyway, muttering a hasty excuse. He hadn’t trusted himself near her again, telling himself that he didn’t need the added complication of a girlfriend in his already messy life.

He wasn’t sure he wanted the complication in his life even now. He’d been thinking of settling down—his parents were pressing him to marry, and while he was cynical about their motives the idea made sense. None of his earlier girlfriends were the kind he’d want to marry—in the last twelve years he’d never met a woman he could imagine spending the rest of his life with. Which was one of the reasons why he’d even contemplated an arranged marriage. It had worked for several of his friends who lived overseas and didn’t end up meeting too many Indian girls. Falling in love was a combination of hormones and stupidity in his view—his parents had supposedly married for love, and they had the worst relationship he’d ever seen.

After meeting Riya again, however, the thought of an arranged marriage seemed less appealing. The closest he’d come to falling in love had been with her. In the intervening years he’d tried to dismiss the episode as a piece of hormone-driven madness, but he knew it wasn’t quite so simple. There was something between them that was very real, and while he didn’t believe in love he had felt the absence of that spark in all his subsequent relationships.

* * *

The next day was less awkward than either Riya or Dhruv had anticipated. Gaurav hogged the limelight by waking up at ten when he had to catch a one-thirty flight, and announcing calmly over breakfast that he ‘still needed to get his stuff together.’ He panicked when Riya pointed out that as he’d need to be at the airport an hour before the flight, and it took forty-five minutes to get there, he had exactly an hour and a half within which to bathe, shave and pack for the wedding as well as the honeymoon.

In the ensuing flurry of activity to get Gaurav ready in time, Riya found herself and Dhruv slipping into a semblance of the easy camaraderie that had existed between them in the early days of their friendship.

‘Why would you leave packing to the last minute?’ Chutki moaned as she sat on a suitcase in an attempt to make it close.

‘I thought I’d just need to take a couple of shirts and jeans and the wedding sherwani,’ Gaurav said in a harassed voice.

‘And a few suits, and gifts for a dozen people, and clothes for the honeymoon,’ said Dhruv, pulling a heap of boxes out of the cupboard where Gaurav had stacked and then conveniently forgotten about all the things he’d bought for the wedding. ‘Not to mention the jewellery for Madhu. A psychoanalyst might think you wanted to miss the flight because of a deep-rooted subconscious phobia over marriage.’ He took the suitcase from Chutki and, forcing the lid closed, snapped the clasps shut. ‘Don’t even try opening this till you reach Kolkata,’ he warned, his deep voice betraying some of his affection for his cousin.

‘No fear,’ said Gaurav. ‘It’s full of girlie junk my mum bought for Madhu when she came to Mumbai. On my credit card, if I may add. By the way—I don’t have a deep whatever you said marriage phobia.’

‘I didn’t say you did,’ Dhruv retorted. ‘I said a psychoanalyst might think that. A normal person would think you’re an irresponsible idiot.’

Riya frowned at Dhruv, but then gasped as one of the boxes Gaurav was cramming into a second suitcase fell open to reveal a heavy gold necklace.

‘You’re mad, G-boy,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe you left all this jewellery just lying around. What if we got burgled?’

‘Ah, we wouldn’t,’ Gaurav said. ‘I’m way too lucky for that. But I probably should have started packing earlier.’ He slammed the last suitcase lid down and stood up, grinning at them proudly. ‘All done.’

‘He isn’t going to make the flight,’ Dhruv said flatly. ‘Have you called for a cab, Gaurav?’

‘Riya’s going to drive us,’ he said with an anxious glance towards her. ‘Aren’t you, Riya?’

She pretended to frown. ‘Am I? I don’t seem to recall you asking me.’

‘Ah, Riya, sweetheart, please...’ Gaurav went down on his knees. ‘I’ll be eternally grateful. Your slave for life. Please, please get me to airport—or I’ll miss my wedding and my life will be ruined.’

‘You’re such a clown,’ she said and, grabbing his hand, dragged him to his feet. ‘Your wedding isn’t for days. I’ll drive you to the airport, though. One doesn’t get promised eternal servitude every day.’

Gaurav threw his arms around her, hugging her exuberantly. She came out of his arms laughing, but stopped abruptly when she caught Dhruv’s eye. There was a faintly condemning look on his face and she felt absurdly guilty.

Gaurav was probably her most favourite person outside her family. They had hit it off the day they met, and in spite of her initial awkwardness at sharing a flat with a man they had been best buddies ever since—to the extent that a lot of people thought they were related. Something about Dhruv’s expression made her feel that he disapproved of her being so close to Gaurav, though—or at least that he disapproved of her hugging him.

The thought that he could be jealous crossed her mind, only to be dismissed immediately. She was reading too much into everything he said or did, she told herself firmly. It was about time she pulled herself together and started acting like a mature adult rather than a sixteen-year-old in the throes of her first crush.

‘Maybe we should get the luggage loaded,’ Dhruv said abruptly, cutting into her thoughts. ‘Riya, come downstairs with me and show me where your car is parked.’

She nodded silently, wondering why she didn’t object to him ordering her about. Dhruv had grabbed two of the heaviest suitcases, and his muscles rippled impressively under his tight-fitting T-shirt. Riya followed him to the door, dragging Chutki’s wheeled bag behind her and trying not to ogle his perfectly shaped body too obviously.

‘I’ll bring the car up to the first floor, G-boy,’ she called out as she shut the door. ‘Be there in five minutes—Chutki, don’t let him dawdle.’

‘Chutki’s a world champion dawdler herself,’ Dhruv grunted as he put the suitcases down and hit the lift button. ‘I’ll be very surprised if they make it out of the flat before twelve.’

The lift was more than half full when it stopped at their floor, and there was only just about space for the two of them and the luggage. Riya had to squeeze in very, very close to Dhruv—and she was intensely conscious of the hard length of his body pressed against hers. If she moved her head a fraction her face would be buried in his chest, and she had to very firmly repress a desire to do just that. The scent of his woody cologne teased at her nostrils, and she was immensely relieved when the elderly lift finally made it to the ground floor, creaking noisily to a halt.

‘This building needs some repairs,’ Dhruv said as he stepped out. ‘Decent construction, but very badly maintained. The stairwell’s a garbage dump, too.’

‘Shh, the secretary of the building society’s just behind us,’ Riya hissed, not sure whether she was more annoyed at his rudeness or about the fact that he had been thinking about the condition of the stairwell when she had been busy lusting after his near-perfect body.

Dhruv shrugged. ‘So?’ he asked. ‘I’m sure he’s noticed that the building’s about to fall down, and if he hasn’t, it’s about time someone pointed it out to him.’

‘Lots of buildings in Mumbai are like that,’ Riya retorted over her shoulder as she marched off towards her car.

She’d bought a spanking new, bright red Hyundai i10 a few months back, and was intensely proud of it—in spite of the niggling feeling that she shouldn’t have spent so much money on herself when her parents were so hard up. Gaurav had held off buying his own car because the flat came with only one parking space, and in return she chauffeured him around whenever he wanted, and nobly refrained from retaliating when he made remarks about her somewhat reckless driving.

‘Is this it?’ Dhruv asked in disbelief as she used the button on her keychain to remotely unlock the car. ‘Where does the luggage go? The car doesn’t have a trunk.’

‘Of course it does,’ Riya said crossly, swinging up the back. ‘The luggage goes right here. And what’s left of it goes in the rear seat.’

‘Well, I’m sitting in front, then,’ Dhruv said decisively, opening the passenger door and moving the seat back to accommodate his long legs. ‘Who’s this car made for? Under-eights?’

Riya slammed her own door shut with a very final thud. ‘Don’t you dare insult my baby, Dhruv Malhotra,’ she said firmly. ‘Otherwise you may just find yourself chucked out on the road halfway to the airport if McQueen decides he doesn’t like you.’

Dhruv’s lips twitched. ‘Is that its name? Wouldn’t a car be female?’

‘Only if it belonged to a dumb male,’ Riya said, backing out of the parking lot and speeding up the ramp to stop in front of the first floor lobby.

Gaurav and Chutki were nowhere in sight, and it was drizzling slightly so she couldn’t get out of the car. Stuck in a confined space with Dhruv, she was even more conscious of the sheer animal attraction of the man. He was probably thinking about trusses and beams again, though, she thought as she saw him look up at the building critically.

‘About last night...’ he began slowly.

Riya rushed into speech. ‘Let’s forget about it, shall we?’ she said. ‘I think we both got a little carried away.’

‘“A little” being an understatement,’ Dhruv murmured, but he let it drop. Riya reminded him of a high-spirited but nervous filly, shying away whenever he got too close. She hadn’t been that way when he first knew her, nor had she been so worried about appearances. He’d picked up on the way she’d carefully tried to hide any hint of the conflict between them from Chutki, from the guests at the party last night, even to an extent from Gaurav. Twelve years ago she wouldn’t have cared who knew about it if she was upset with him.

‘So the car’s a favourite, is it?’ he asked her, and she immediately brightened up as the conversation moved to neutral ground.

‘Yes,’ she said, looking adorably embarrassed. ‘It’s my first car. Actually, it’s the first car in my family—my parents had a scooter, and my sister uses a two-wheeler, too.’

Dhruv nodded. Most people in small towns used two-wheelers, cars being reserved only for the well-to-do. His family had always owned a car, though, and his own first car hadn’t been a novelty—just a set of wheels to get him from one place to another.

He gave Riya a slow, sexy smile, and her insides promptly turned to mush. It was positively sinful the way the man could turn her on with just a look, she thought despairingly. His proximity was like a drug, slowly dulling her instincts for self-preservation.

Dragging her eyes away from his, she spotted Chutki and Gaurav coming out of the foyer loaded with luggage. ‘There they are,’ she said in relief. Any more time with Dhruv and she’d do something stupid—the more people around the better. Ideally, she’d have liked him to move to the back seat, as even with Chutki and Gaurav there she was intensely aware of his closeness, of his knee almost touching hers, his arm loosely slung around the back of his seat as he turned to speak to Gaurav.

Riya drove off the second Gaurav and Chutki had loaded the remaining luggage and got into the car, barely giving Gaurav time to shut the door. He normally teased her about her driving—today, though, he had reason to thank her for her careless disregard for speed limits. They made it to the airport barely ten minutes before the check-in counter closed. She got out of the driver’s seat to help load the suitcases onto two trolleys.

‘See you in a couple of days,’ she said to Gaurav, and hugged him hard, giving Dhruv a slightly defiant look, as if to tell him he could take his disapproval and shove it.

Chutki hugged her, too, saying breathlessly, ‘Thanks a million, Riya. Crazy driving, girl.’

Dhruv was standing next to her, and he touched her hand briefly. ‘Thank you for getting us here in one piece,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you at the wedding.’

The feel of his hand sent a little tingle of sensation up Riya’s arm, and she felt her heart do a dutiful little flip-flop inside her chest when he smiled at her. She wanted to hold on to his hand, but she managed to step back, waving to the three of them as they went into the departure terminal.

* * *

The next day was Monday, and Riya dragged herself to work with more than the normal amount of reluctance. She’d spent the night dreaming embarrassingly erotic dreams about Dhruv, and she wanted to get right back into bed and continue dreaming them. She’d finally convinced her very reluctant self that she needed to steer clear of him, and the dreams were a kind of consolation prize to make up for renouncing the real thing. Especially the ones in which he took off his clothes. Of course her imagination had to supply a fair bit there, given that she’d never actually seen him naked. For all she knew the dreams were better than reality, and they had the advantage of no embarrassing mornings after.

Grumpily getting into the office half an hour late, she found that the finance team had decided to assert their importance by rejecting a proposal she’d sent them the previous Thursday. The first half of the day was spent fighting a royal battle with them, and second half went in convincing a client not to ditch them and go with someone else.

Riya was bushed by the time she got home. The landline was ringing when she let herself in, and she dropped her laptop on her toes in her hurry to pick it up.

‘Good evening, CYB. Riya Kumar speaking,’ she said.

There was a pause, and then an amused male voice said, ‘I thought this was your home number?’

‘Damn. Yes, it is. I’m just so used to answering my desk phone at work. Sorry, who’s this?’

‘Dhruv.’

Riya’s heart did its little pitter-patter number again as she strove to simultaneously keep her voice under control and stop herself from saying anything stupid. ‘Oh,’ she said lamely at last. ‘Hi.’

‘Hi,’ he replied, his spirits rising absurdly high at the sound of her voice. He’d spent the whole day thinking about her almost constantly, and about arranged marriages, and had decided that whatever he had with her needed to be fully explored before he committed to life with a stranger. It might not end up being anything more than a short fling, but even that would give him a chance to work the powerful attraction he felt for her out of his system.

‘When are you reaching Kolkata, Riya?’ he asked.

‘Um, around ten a.m. on Wednesday, I think,’ she said guardedly. She wasn’t sure why he was asking, and she had a bad feeling about where this conversation was going.

‘I’ll come and pick you up, if that’s all right? We’re in the same guest house, and I’ve hired a driver for the week. I thought we could go round the city a bit—Gaurav and Madhu will be busy with wedding preparations, and we only need to be at the engagement party at eight.’ Then, as she hesitated, ‘Just one day, Riya. There’s no harm in that, is there?’ He was careful to keep his voice as platonically friendly as possible, not wanting to scare her off.

No harm, a little imp prompted in Riya’s brain. No harm at all.

She squished the imp firmly. No imp was going to tell her when and how to make a fool of herself over a man who’d already done his best to break her heart once. On the other hand, the imp had a point. Maybe if she spent some time with Dhruv she’d find that she’d been fooling herself all along, and that she didn’t really like the man.

Her tongue sprang into action before she had time to complete the thought. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Only...look, I’m not trying to be rude, but I don’t want you to get the wrong impression. I’m really, really not in the market for a random fling right now. In spite of all the dumb things I did that night.’

‘I’m not rushing you into anything,’ Dhruv said, trying to maintain his calm and platonic approach, though the thought of spending several days with Riya without touching her sounded like a not very refined kind of torture. Something that an old-time sage of the Rishi Vishwamitra variety might cook up, meditating in solitary splendour while scantily clad nymphs danced around him.

The distracting thought of Riya in an apsara costume crossed his mind, and he desperately tried to dispel the image from his head. ‘You said you wanted time to think, and I respect that.’

‘Well, I’ve thunk. I mean, I’ve thought,’ she said, getting irritated both with him and herself. ‘Being friends is fine, but I don’t want to get into any kind of a physical relationship with you. And before you say it, I know it’s quite as much my fault as yours. I am planning to exercise extreme levels of self-control, and I hope you can do the same.’

The amusement back in his voice, Dhruv said, ‘Can do. OK if I pick you up, then?’

‘Yes,’ Riya said grudgingly, and put the phone down, hating how easily he’d agreed. He at least could have pretended to be a little upset at the thought of having to exercise self-control, she thought crossly to herself. Or at least pretended that he would need to exercise some self-control.

Of course he’d probably had a spectacular sex life the last few years. Dozens of women could have been queuing up to sleep with him in Singapore for all she knew. She’d only almost lost her virginity once, in a disastrous encounter with her almost-fiancé, and the experience had been enough to put her off the thought of sex for years. It had also been enough for her to break off her almost-engagement with Vinay.





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