The One She Was Warned About (5 page)

Shweta shook her head in exasperation. ‘Forget it,’ she said. ‘I’m making a muddle of things as usual.’

‘No—rewind a bit and let me understand this.’

His eyes were amused and caressing as he looked at her, and she felt her knees go just a little bit wobbly.

‘You think I’m asking you out because I want to be your
buddy
?’

‘Something like that,’ she muttered—and gave an undignified little squawk as she was efficiently swept into his arms.

‘A buddy?’ Nikhil said. ‘Hmm, that’s an idea. Purely platonic, right?’

Shweta could feel her heart hammering, and pressed so close against his chest she was sure he could feel it too. When he bent his head to kiss her lips she tensed, going rigid in his arms. He kissed her very lightly, as if just tasting her lips, but when she unconsciously leaned towards him the kiss grew harder, more demanding. The sensation was exquisite, and Shweta felt positively bereft when he drew away.

She took a couple of quick breaths. ‘Not purely platonic, then?’ she asked, fighting to keep her voice steady.

‘Not platonic,’ he said, and his slow, incredibly sexy smile set her heart pounding away like a trip-hammer on steroids. ‘That OK with you?’

It was more than OK, but Shweta couldn’t say so without sounding impossibly over-keen. Trying to play it cool, she gave him a flippant smile. ‘I can live with it,’ she said—and gasped as he pulled her close for another scorching-hot kiss.

‘I’ll see you in Mumbai, then,’ he said.

And before she could gather her senses enough to reply he was off.

Shweta watched him stride into the hotel. So much for there being no chemistry between them, she thought as a feeling of pure euphoria swept over her. Somewhere at the back of her head she knew that she shouldn’t rush into a relationship blindly, but just now she wanted to enjoy the moment without bothering about the future.

FOUR

It was more
than two weeks after she’d returned to Mumbai that Shweta managed to meet Nikhil for dinner. He’d been out of town for a few days, and then she’d had a project to finish within some pretty crazy deadlines. After that, she’d gone down to Pune to meet her dad and her aunt. Now that she was finally back Nikhil had reserved a table at a rather swanky new restaurant at the Mahalakshmi race course for Saturday evening.

‘Where are you off to?’ Priya asked, lounging on her bed as Shweta made yet another attempt to get her eyeliner on straight.

‘Nowhere special.’ She wasn’t sure why she was keeping her dinner date with Nikhil a secret, but she hadn’t told Priya earlier and it would be more than a little embarrassing to tell her now. ‘I’m meeting a couple of old college friends for drinks, and we might go out for dinner afterwards.’

‘Can I come with you?’ Priya asked. ‘Rahul’s out of town, and I’m so bored... Maybe one of your college friends could help cheer me up?’

‘Sorry,’ Shweta said, shooting Priya an amused glance over her shoulder. ‘They’re not your type, and we have a lot of catching up to do. I’ll tell you what—I’ll lend you some of my DVDs. You can watch a nice movie.’

‘You have rubbish taste in movies,’ Priya said moodily, going over to the drawer where Shweta kept her DVD collection. ‘It’s all such grim, arty stuff—no chick flicks, and you don’t even have a good action movie in this lot.’ She watched Shweta as she outlined her mouth with lipliner and proceeded to colour it in with lipstick.

‘You’re meeting a
guy
,’ she said. Shweta glared at her as she broke into a wide smile.

‘Of
course—
that’s why you don’t want me to come along! I haven’t seen you make so much effort over your face in months, and you changed in and out of three dresses before you chose this one. Who is it?’

‘No one you know,’ Shweta said, slamming her make-up drawer shut and squirting a last bit of perfume over herself.

‘Nonsense. I know everything about you.’ Priya thought for a bit. ‘I know! It’s that hottie from the Kerala trip. What was his name again? Naveen? Nirav? No—Nikhil. That’s it—you’re meeting Nikhil, aren’t you?’

Despite herself, Shweta felt a warm tide of colour stain her cheeks.

Priya crowed with delight. ‘I knew it! I knew something was happening. Come here and let me look at you—a special date needs some special advice.’

Shweta submitted to being examined from every angle. Priya had a good sense of style, and it wouldn’t hurt to take her opinion.

‘Pretty good,’ she pronounced finally. ‘Except you could do with a little more colour in your cheeks. And I can’t believe you didn’t buy a new dress. This one’s nice, but you’ve worn it lots of times before.’

‘Nikhil’s not seen it,’ Shweta pointed out as she warded off Priya’s attempts to put some more blusher on her cheeks. ‘I don’t want to look like I’m trying too hard.’

She gave herself a last look in the mirror. The midnight-blue dress was deceptively simple in cut and it showed off her curves to perfection. She wore a simple diamond pendant on a white-gold chain with matching earrings, and her shoes—as usual—were the exact shade of the dress.

‘Are the shoes a bit much?’ she asked anxiously.

Priya hesitated. ‘A little too matching-matching, but that’s OK—guys never notice such stuff.’

But Shweta was already kicking the shoes off, exchanging them for strappy silver sandals.

The intercom rang, and Priya ran to pick it up. ‘Your cab’s here,’ she said.

Shweta had called for a taxi rather than hailing a black-and-yellow cab on the street as she usually did. It was normally a half-hour drive from where she lived to the race course, but a mixer truck had broken down in the middle of the road and the traffic was terrible. In spite of that, she got there a few minutes early. Nikhil wasn’t there yet, and they had arranged to meet for a drink at the bar before they went down for dinner.

Feeling a little awkward and out of place, Shweta ordered a drink and sipped at it gingerly, surveying the room. The whole building had been redecorated recently—the bar had a high wooden ceiling with fake beams and lots of
faux
-antique wooden furniture and panelling. Shweta wrinkled her nose a little. She couldn’t see why places that weren’t really old tried to look that way.

‘You don’t look pleased,’ Nikhil observed as he walked up to her.

Shweta jumped, spilling a bit of her drink. ‘It’s the way this place is done up,’ she confided. ‘They’ve tried to make it look like an old English pub, but it’s not old and it’s not English—and anyway the roof’s all wrong. Pubs have low ceilings normally.’

‘I’ll tell the architect if I ever meet him,’ Nikhil said, sounding amused. ‘I’d apologise for being late—but I’m not, am I?’

‘No. I have a pathological fear of being late myself,’ Shweta said, ‘so I end up being early for everything. I’ve even gone to weddings where I’ve reached the venue before either the bride or the groom. You’re looking nice, by the way.’

That last bit had just slipped out—but he
was
looking exceptionally good.
Nice
didn’t even begin to cover it. He’d had his hair cut since she’d seen him last, and the new, shorter hairstyle suited him. He was wearing a striped button-down shirt open at the collar, and black formal-looking jeans. The shirt was rolled up at the sleeves, and she could see his strong forearms, with a smattering of hair covering them. The temptation to reach out and touch was overwhelming.

‘So are you,’ Nikhil said, sounding more amused than ever. ‘That’s a lovely dress.’

‘But most of the other women are wearing black,’ she said. ‘I’m feeling terribly out of place.’

Nikhil shrugged. ‘Black is like a uniform,’ he said. ‘Pretty boring, if you ask me. Come on—let me get you another drink.’

Shweta hadn’t even noticed that her first drink had gone. Something was not quite right. Nikhil seemed a lot more formal than he had when he’d met her last—and, while he was smiling a lot, the smile didn’t reach his eyes.

‘Is everything OK?’ she asked.

Nikhil sighed and rubbed at his face. ‘It’s been a crazy week,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I’m tempted to throw this whole thing over and go and do something else. Maybe work in an office—it’s got to be simpler.’

‘More stars throwing tantrums?’

He shook his head. ‘I wish. That’s the easiest thing to handle. No, some of my clients are delaying payments. Big corporates. Apparently they hadn’t got all the internal approvals in place before they hired me, and the bills aren’t getting cleared. I’ve had to threaten legal action in two cases to get them to pay up. It isn’t hurting me right now, because business is doing well, but unless I play hardball with these guys I’ll have other clients trying to take me for a ride.’

Shweta was looking mildly shocked.

He laughed. ‘Let’s change the topic before your eyes glaze over and you fall asleep on the table. How was your Pune trip?’

‘Pretty good,’ she said cautiously. Nikhil still looked on edge, and she would bet anything that it wasn’t about a few missed payments.

‘Your dad happy to see you?’

‘I guess so.’ Her father rarely displayed any emotion, but he’d cancelled his weekly bridge game to spend time with her, and that was saying a lot. ‘He’s growing old,’ she said. ‘He was forty when I was born, so he’s pushing seventy now... I get a little worried sometimes.’

Shweta had grown up without a mother, and losing her father was one of her biggest fears. She rarely spoke about it, not acknowledging it even to herself, but the expression in Nikhil’s eyes showed that he understood.

She hurried on before he could say anything. ‘How’s Veena Aunty doing?’ she asked. She knew how fond Nikhil was of his stepmother—he was probably closer to her than to his own mother.

Nikhil’s face clouded over. ‘I haven’t seen her for a while,’ he said tightly. ‘I had a bit of a bust-up with my parents. She lives with them, and I’m not keen on going there if I can help it. Amma’s taken their side on the whole thing.’

‘Maybe she has her reasons,’ Shweta couldn’t help saying. She’d always thought that Nikhil was a bit too hung up on the whole being illegitimate business. She could see why it had bothered him during his growing up years, but surely it was time to let go now?

Nikhil didn’t seem to have heard her. ‘I asked her to move here and stay with me,’ he said. ‘I have a decent flat, and I could hire someone to look after her during the day. It would be so much more dignified than letting those two take care of her. I told you, didn’t I, that she’s pretending to be Mom’s cousin now?’

‘Go to Kerala and try speaking to her,’ Shweta said. ‘You don’t need to talk to your parents unless absolutely necessary.’

‘My father’s told me not to come near until I’ve apologised to him for what I said during our last argument,’ he said. He stared broodingly into space for a few minutes.

Having run out of useful suggestions, Shweta stayed silent.

After a while Nikhil shook himself and seemed to come back to earth. He took a largish swig out of his glass and turned to Shweta. ‘I’m not the best of company today, am I?’ he asked, forcing a smile. ‘It’s just that you know the whole story—it’s so much easier talking to you than to anyone else...’

Of course it was. For a few seconds Shweta felt such an acute sense of disappointment that she could hardly speak. That explained why Nikhil was seeking her out, she thought. He must have kept all this stuff about his parents bottled up for years, and it would be a relief being able to pour it out to someone who knew all about it—save him the embarrassment of having to tell whoever his current friends were that he was illegitimate.

But after the first wave of anger ebbed she was able to think about it more rationally. It was natural, his wanting to talk to her. And the kisses and dinner dates—perhaps he sensed how attracted she was to him and those were his means of keeping her hooked. Unbidden, her thoughts went back to that conversation she’d overheard between members of his team.

‘I’ll have another drink, I think,’ she said.

Her mind was working overtime, she knew—maybe she was imagining things. Nikhil got up and went to the bar to fetch a refill, and she watched him silently.

‘I resented you for a long time, you know,’ he said quietly after handing her the glass. ‘That’s why I used to give you a hard time. You were the first person who made me realise that there was something wrong with my family.’

‘Me?’ Shweta’s voice was incredulous. ‘What did I do?’

‘You asked me who my real mother was,’ he said. ‘I told you that both of them were my moms, but you said, “Whose tummy did you live in before you were born?” Until then I think I’d believed implicitly in the “babies are a gift from God” story. So it was a revelation in more ways than one.’

‘I don’t even remember,’ Shweta said remorsefully. ‘But I can quite imagine myself saying that. I went around once telling the whole class that Santa Claus didn’t exist—some of the kids actually started crying.’

‘Now,
that
I don’t remember,’ he said, and the smile was back in his voice. ‘Maybe I got off lightly, then.’

‘I thought it was very unfair,’ she said after a brief pause.

Nikhil raised his eyebrows. ‘What was? No Santa Claus?’

‘You having two moms when I didn’t have even one,’ she said.

There was an awkward pause, and then Nikhil said, ‘I never thought of it that way.’

The realisation that he was illegitimate had tainted most of his childhood. He’d grown up in a stolidly middle-class neighbourhood and the very fact that most of the rigidly conventional people around him had felt sorry for him had been a constant thorn in his flesh. It had never occurred to him that Shweta had envied him.

‘It must have been tough for you, losing your mom when you were so young.’ As soon as the words were out, he wished them unsaid. Shweta’s face had closed up in an instant.

‘I hardly remember her,’ she said. ‘And my aunt was there. She took good care of me.’

She’d always been like that when her mother was mentioned, Nikhil remembered. Something made him look down at her hands and he noticed a familiar mannerism—just like she’d used to in school she was tracing out words on her left palm with the fingers of her right hand. It was something she did when she was tense. Unconsciously he leaned a little closer, to try and make out the words, but her hands clenched into little fists, and when he looked up she was scowling at him.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, his voice gentle.

‘You’re so
annoying
!’ she burst out. ‘You used to do that when we were kids—try and read what I was scribbling into my hand. I hate it! No one else—’

She broke off, realising that she sounded impossibly petulant and childish. No one else had ever noticed the habit, though she did it all the time. Not her father, or her aunt, or her boss, or Siddhant. Somehow that made her feel even more annoyed with Nikhil.

‘Aren’t we getting late for dinner?’ she asked, sounding stiff and ungracious even to herself. ‘I thought you had a reservation for nine o’clock?’

Nikhil nodded and got to his feet. ‘Let’s go,’ he said.

She didn’t even feel hungry, Shweta realised as she went down the stairs.

The ground floor of the restaurant was full now—and several people seemed to recognise Nikhil, turning to wave as he escorted her to the outdoor seating area. The women gave her curious looks, and she felt acutely conscious of her off-the-rack dress and casually done hair. Everyone else was dressed far more expensively than she was, and that somehow made her feel worse than ever. The evening was turning out to be a total disaster—the quicker she left the better it would be for both of them.

‘I’m not really very hungry,’ she muttered, glancing down at the menu.

Supposedly the food was Indian, but she hadn’t even heard of half the dishes before. Probably they were designed to appeal to the large number of foreigners who were thronging the place. Shweta cast a quick look around. Most of the tables were occupied by glitzy types, except for one where a bunch of older people were celebrating someone’s fortieth birthday. They were expensively but casually dressed, and seemed very comfortable in their own skins. The woman whose birthday it was caught Shweta’s eye and gave her a wink. Instantly she started feeling better.