Beastly Passions (18 page)

“Gods!” she gasped, staring down at the woman now laying at her feet. She just about matched Asha in height and weight, neither bigger nor smaller, but awfully close. That was where the similarities ended however, as her victim was unconscious while she was not.

“Er…” Not completely sure what to do, Asha kneeled down and nudged the shoulder of the tigress. “Um…hi?”

A few seconds of silence rolled by before there was a groan. Asha nudged her again, getting a better look at her features and vaguely recalling them. “So I at least 
know 
the woman I violently accosted. Wonderful.”

Suddenly her lids parted and Asha found herself staring down into glowering green eyes. “You hit me,” a thickly accented voice accused. A signature of her husband’s people. The very one who she hadn’t laid eyes on since breakfast.

“Yes,” Asha quickly confirmed. “Yes, I did. And I’m incredibly sorry about that. Terribly sorry. But see, you startled me.”

“You punch people in the face when you are startled?!”

Asha winced and volunteered, “Sometimes it’s the chest.”

“Well then I shudder to think what you would do when aware that you are battering the features of others,” she retorted, pushed up on the palms of her hands, and grimaced. “Because loss of consciousness could be least of concerns.”

“Well that’s a bit dramatic, don’t you think?”

“You use heads as targets without any regard for human life as whole and think I am being a bit dramatic?”

“When you put it that way?” Asha snapped. “Yes!”

“Do not yell at me! I am suffering from concussion by 
your 
hands!”

“You don’t have a gods-damn concussion.”

“Of course you would negate this, seeing as how I can now place lawsuit against you for negligence and physical abuse.”

“Don’t tempt me into knocking you unconscious again!”

“I would love to see you try! I will not be caught off guard by deceptively small paws a second time!”

“What,” a third voice barked. “Is happening?”

The snarling stopped as abruptly as it had begun between the pair as their attention was split towards the male taking up space in the hallway. Alexei. Always polite and accommodating, he was one of the few in Taras’ men who seemed to have an issue with being silent. Wide and mischievous, the head of her husband’s security team wasn’t without the ability to be playful or witty whenever he saw fit.

“I was assaulted,” Asha’s victim announced. “Viciously assaulted.”

Alexei took his eyes from the female and put them on Asha as if to question her about what the truth was.

“The assault, while not vicious at all, did occur. Because of me. I sort of…knocked her unconscious.”

“Really?” Alexei queried as his eyes widened.

“But it was only for a minute or two!” she rushed on to add. “And it was completely by accident because she startled me!”

“Oh?” he only said in response. And then, much to Asha’s shock, he burst into booming laughter.

The tigress on the floor shot up with a snarl. “So glad to know my pain amuses you, horrible bastard.”

“It amuses me
greatly
.” Alexei declared, bent at the waist.

Confused, Asha stood too as the other woman went to stalk past. Alexei caught her by the arm. “Mischa, you torture the woman with theatrics and expect me to side with you?”

Mischa 
gave one of the haughtiest sniffs Asha had ever witnessed—and she’d spent years around British girls—and settled her hands on her hips. “I was not torturing her.”

“
Viciously
assaulted?” he ventured, lifting his brows.

“You also threatened to place a lawsuit against me,” Asha felt the need to point out.

“Because you damaged my beautiful face!”

“Mischa…”

“All right, all right!” she barked, throwing up her hands. “I thought it only fair to torment her a bit as she did hit me.” Amazingly, Mischa stamped her feet like a teenage girl. “And it hurt.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Alexei grunted, throwing an arm around her shoulders. “Let us go and find you cold steak to put over the ugly mar our boss’ wife has caused to lovely skin and bone structure.”

Mischa gasped and placed a hand over her mouth. “Do you think I will have big, intimidating scar now like Taras, but able to maintain startling beauty?”

“For fuck’s sake,” Asha muttered, rubbing her temples. “Speaking of my husband, have either of you seen him by chance?”

He’d sent a car to Verochka land for her, asking that she meet him at his parent tech company because he believed he’d finally found the perfect career choice for her. Asha had been helplessly wandering the third floor for the last several minutes because she’d come across his office but he wasn’t inside of it and no one around her seemed to be aware of where he’d gone.

“I have,” Mischa voiced. “And before you slapped me about like raging alcoholic, I had planned to tell you where he got off to.”

“Unless you desire for me to do it again, I suggest you keep those plans,” Asha growled.

“No, no, no. There will be no more slapping and no more torment.” Alexei pointed at both women “From either of you.” He focused on Asha. “Your male is on the eighth floor and to the right of the elevator just down the hall, first door on the left. He intended to meet you here but thought it would be a better idea for you to come up there for what he needs to show you. I was supposed to greet you downstairs in lobby to inform you of this, but you managed to get past me. Since there is rumor going about that you skulk more than husband does, I will not question my own stealth."

She tried her hand at 
not 
being insulted by that.

“You have his cock in firm knot so he is scattered,” Alexei went on. “Now you can find each other again and be twice as stubborn and iron willed together. In the meantime, I know there will be extra food in the lounge on second floor because of his absence, and like the scavenger I am, I plan to take advantage of this. Mischa, would you like to join me?”

“Scavenging is favorite pastime when I can see out of both eyes,” Mischa replied. “I would like to participate but am afraid that I cannot chew with broken jaw.”

Asha twisted her mouth. “Yet you still manage to speak.”

“Do not tell me what to do with lips, wicked female!”

“I’ve only just met you, and already I’d like to rip them off your face and set them aflame!”

“Enough!” Alexei cut in. “You,”—he motioned to Mischa—“will stop with strange, insidious provocations or I will let her,”—he motioned to Asha now—“perform whatever satanic ritual she just named with mouth.”

“That actually wasn’t—”

“And you,”—he jabbed a finger in Asha’s direction—“will get violent urges under control or I will be forced to handcuff you to something sturdy. Then make sure you don’t gnaw through own leg like trapped beast in the wild to escape and murder us all in the crazed rage you just exhibited minutes ago all over the poor, pathetic creature beside me.”

“Okay,” Asha said lowly. “Now 
you’re 
tormenting me.”

He rolled his shoulders with a slight grin. “I could not pass up such an opportunity. When you reunite with Taras, he will only usher you away from light of my boisterous and whimsical presence, depriving your life of my natural charisma.”

Blinking owlishly, she looked to Mischa and found the woman’s perfectly fine eyes on her.

“Yes,” Mischa said simply. “He is completely serious.”

Well…all right.

Asha watched the pair disappear; strangely amused by the way they interacted. Once they were gone and she felt foolish just standing there by herself, she followed the directions of where Alexei had told her she would find Taras. And then…well then she was able to do nothing aside from stand outside of a door that housed a placard with her name inscribed on it and stare dumbly.

“Do you plan to remain there?” her husband questioned from the inside. “Because I find myself growing impatient and we know my impatience is never good.”

She twisted the knob and pushed open the door to find Taras propped up against a rather large, well made desk with his hands tucked into the pockets of his slacks. The walls had been drenched in maroon and covered in artwork prints from the likes of Amrita Shergill and Raja Ravi Varma. There were comfortable armchairs and a small sitting area in the corner near an oversized bookshelf that held small statues of elephants who had been designed to look like those of Kerala celebrations along with book after book. The lotus flower, marigolds, and siroi lilies were potted in pretty vases and placed in various spaces. And the view…the view was undeniably beautiful. She could see the Russky Bridge and a great deal of the bay from where she stood.

“Taras…”

“Come closer,” he beckoned, remaining where he was perched. “And shut the door.”

Asha did as he bade and walked further into the nicely sized room, waiting for an explanation.

“I do not do well with words often, unless discussing polyalphabetic ciphers or what can be done to advance the key components of technology infrastructure. I am underwhelming at social cues and understand very little about interpersonal relationships due to the way that I was raised; due to who I was made to be, but here,”—he touched his chest—“has been opened little by little because of you. And though I was wrong in assuming needs before, though I was told to never remind you again of how far away home is from here, I am thinking now you couldn’t stomach what I was attempting because you knew, as much as I did, that it was thoughtless gesture in an attempt to alleviate guilt. You were made to leave behind much because it benefited the agendas of your pride and my father.” He stopped, focused on the carpeting and lifted his eyes again. “Because it benefited
me.
All you were offered in return was the comfort of safety in lieu of being without a pride and my pretty things.” Finally, he moved forward, pulling his right hand from his pocket and holding it out. Asha extended her palm and he unfurled his fingers to drop keys in it. “But now I see that that peace of mind, that self-worth, is carried with the weight of making sure those around you are aware that you are more than a woman, more than a tigress who has walked the rich roads of Bangalore, Malur, Chettinad, Magadi, and Nagamangala.”

The breath stuttered out of her and she couldn’t take the intensity of his stare anymore so she shuttered her own. Taras’ fingers whisked over her jaw. “You have a purpose. And it always includes bettering the lives of others.” His thumb skimmed her cheek. “I did research of my own to determine what it was that I could give back to you and came away with the knowledge that you dedicated your life’s work to your people, to your birthplace. Nonprofit organizations to aid the homeless. Businesses elevated through your ability to negotiate so that you could lift just a nth of debt from your father’s shoulders. You exerted your time and energy to stop poachers and build homes for those of our kind who had been displaced through sociocultural gentrification. You funded religious festivals that you had no true emotional or spiritual stake in so that hope—something so fickle—could be spread to those without it, no matter how fruitless the feeling can be. And still, you didn’t set fire to all around you when it was snatched away because they could not see your value.” He lifted her chin and she finally opened her eyes. “You didn’t withdraw sponsorships that have kept the cubs of your family enrolled in schools that they could not afford otherwise. You did not close down businesses that are keeping them afloat. You simply…retreated. And I had to question what it was I could return to you that you haven’t already obtained on your own. I came away with an answer.” Taras backed away from her and lifted his arms. “Control. Your pride took. My pride took.
I
took. Because your life has been poisoned with indulgent fucks that consider their needs before those of others no matter what their original creed says in regards to behaving differently.”

Asha stared in a mix of confusion and fascination.

“On your desk,” he continued, walking behind the piece of furniture to gesture down at the top. “Is a list of companies that I own the—for lack of better term—lion’s share of. My percentages range from sixty to seventy-five and despite what you may believe, each is legitimate and has practiced nothing aside from good business since opening, something I have made sure of. They all involve the sale of goods; the best vehicle manufacturers, the most lucrative franchises. I want you to look at them. Delve in as deeply as you need. Ask for help with questions you cannot find answers to and you can choose as many or as few as you desire.”

She felt her brow furrowing and managed to find her voice. “To do what with precisely?”

“Split my shares,” he answered casually. “
You
are going to split my shares. Then you are going to take control of each department that centers on statistical and diagnostic technique. You will be sent the soundest minds, minds like yours, to build teams that will report to you and no one else.” Her husband focused elsewhere momentarily. “And if you so desire, we will scout office locations in India so that you may work abroad when the mood strikes. I only had space created here,”—he motioned around—“because this is where I spend hours daily and admittedly, I am selfish enough to want you as close as possible. Forgive me for that. The choice is yours.
All
of it is yours, Asha. And it’s what should have been delivered on a platter as opposed to inane meal.”