The One She Was Warned About (6 page)

‘I like the look of that group,’ she told Nikhil. ‘Especially the husband of the birthday girl. He’s cute.’

‘He’s twice your age,’ Nikhil said, following her gaze.

‘But so what? He looks nice. I bet he was quite a heartbreaker when he was younger. And look at him now—he’s so wrapped up in his wife, and she must be about the same age as him...’

Nikhil reached across and firmly took her glass out of her hand. ‘I agree. They’re very cute. But you need to stop staring,’ he said. ‘And they’re forty—not eighty. It’s perfectly normal to be wrapped up in each other even at that age. I didn’t know you were such a romantic.’

‘I’m not romantic at all!’ Shweta gave him an indignant look. ‘And I’m not drunk either. So you can give me back my glass, thank you very much.’

‘I didn’t say you were drunk,’ Nikhil said, and gave her the glass back. ‘Shall I order for you? You’re holding your menu upside down.’

‘It makes the same amount of sense both ways,’ she said, and he laughed out loud.

After he’d finished ordering and the waiter had gone away, he reached out and took her hand across the table. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘The evening’s not gone the way it was supposed to, has it?’

‘I’m not sure
how
it was supposed to go,’ she said, meeting his gaze squarely across the table. ‘But if it was supposed to be a date it’s not been very date-like so far.’

Nikhil toyed with her hand for a few seconds without looking up. Then he lifted it and gently kissed her fingers one by one, his lips lingering against her skin. Completely taken by surprise, she watched him as if turned to stone. There was something incredibly erotic about the gesture—quite suddenly the date was living up to expectations after all.

‘Why did you do that?’ she asked when he finally looked up, and her voice was trembling slightly.

He took his time answering, bending to press one more kiss on her palm before he spoke. ‘You looked like you could do with a kiss,’ he said. ‘And you’re too far away for me to kiss you properly. We’ll have to wait until we’re out of here for that.’

She tried to be annoyed at being told that she looked as if she needed kissing, but she was so strung up at the thought of getting to kiss him properly later that she couldn’t bother to be upset. The rest of her appetite seemed to have disappeared as well, but she obediently picked at her food when it arrived. After the first few mouthfuls she discovered that the taste was out of the world—and that she was hungry after all.

‘I like watching you eat,’ Nikhil said. ‘You look like you’re enjoying the meal, not counting calories.’

‘I’ll probably be as fat as a tub by the time I’m forty,’ Shweta said.

She said no to dessert, however, and Nikhil asked for the bill. Shweta was almost jigging around in impatience while he waited for his credit card to be swiped and then signed the charge slip.

‘Let’s go,’ he said finally, and she slipped her arm in his to walk out of the restaurant.

‘I’ll drop you home,’ he said. ‘But first...’

The path to the car park was deserted, and Nikhil pulled her into his arms and kissed her very, very thoroughly. ‘I’ve been dreaming about this,’ he said huskily. ‘It drove me crazy, waiting two weeks till I could see you again.’

Shweta nodded in agreement before fisting her hands in his hair and pulling his head down for another kiss. This was one situation where his new haircut wasn’t an improvement—it had been so much easier to get a grip when his hair was longer. Still, she did the best she could, and he reciprocated admirably. Both of them were a little breathless when they broke apart a few minutes later.

‘I wish I could take you home with me,’ he said. ‘But it’s too soon—I don’t want to rush you.’

One part of Shweta’s brain was quite sure that she didn’t mind being rushed—the other part, however, grudgingly admitted that he was right.

‘I’ll call the car,’ he said.

Shweta gave him a curious look. ‘You mean you’ll whistle to it and it’ll come to you? Like in a Bond movie?’

Nikhil laughed. ‘No, I brought my driver along because I knew I’d be drinking,’ he said. ‘Come here—we have time for one last kiss.’

And what a kiss it was. Shweta thought of protesting that she was in no hurry, that they could spend the rest of the night in the car park as far as she was concerned, but she had to bite the words back. Also, the kisses were getting a little too much for her self-control—another few and she’d be clawing the clothes off him. It was probably best that she go home before she completely disgraced herself. Either he wasn’t quite as attracted to her as he said he was, or he had super-human self-control, she thought resentfully as they waited for the driver to bring the car around.

Once they were in the car Nikhil kept his hands off her completely. After he’d foiled her first two attempts to get closer to him Shweta sat grumpily in one corner, resisting his attempts to make polite conversation.

‘Are you free next weekend?’ he asked as she got out of the car.

She nodded. Definitely not as attracted as she was, she thought. Next weekend seemed like aeons away, with the week yawning like a bottomless abyss in between.

‘Only I don’t think I can wait that long to see you again,’ he said, with a laugh in his voice as if he’d gauged exactly how frustrated she was feeling. ‘OK if I pick you up after work on Tuesday?’

‘Tuesday sounds good,’ she said politely. ‘Dinner again?’

He thought it over. ‘Well, I guess we would need to eat,’ he said. ‘Though it wasn’t exactly dinner that I had in mind...’

In her high heels she was almost as tall as he was. She stood on tiptoe and put a hand to the side of his face. Slowly she brought her lips close to his mouth and pressed them there. For a few seconds he stood frozen. Worried that he’d move away, she moved her hands up to clasp his head and deepened the kiss, leaning into him, her body pressed provocatively against his. This time his response was far more satisfactory and he returned the kiss, his lips hot and hungry against hers, while his arms held her in a possessive embrace.

A piercing whistle from an upstairs window make them break apart and look up. Priya was leaning out of the window, waving madly.

‘Stupid cow,’ Shweta said crossly, once she’d got over her initial embarrassment. She made a face at Priya and gestured to her to go back inside. Priya gave her a huge grin, and mimed kissing. It took a particularly hard glare to get her to shut the window and go inside.

‘I’ll see you on Tuesday,’ she said to Nikhil, but he gave her a quizzical look. ‘Why do you and Priya share a flat? You don’t seem to like each other much.’

Shweta stared at him. ‘She’s my best friend,’ she said sharply. ‘I thought you’d be able to figure that out without me having to tell you.’

She was unlocking her front door when she heard his powerful car start up and she gave a little groan. She’d been stupid, she realised, snapping at him like that. But Priya was the closest thing she had to a sister, and she’d reacted without thinking.

‘You’re a pestilence and a disease,’ she told Priya crossly as Priya came out of her room with a big grin plastered on her face. ‘A foul blot on humanity. A Nosey Parker. The worst excuse for a flatmate in all creation. The only—’

‘Dry up,’ Priya said firmly. ‘I’ve saved you from a terrible fate. Just think—what if Mrs Ahuja had looked out of the window and seen you standing on the pavement, making out in public? She’d throw both of us out of the flat before you could say
hot
hunk
. Which he is, by the way. But that would have only annoyed her more.’

Sidetracked for a second by the thought of their terrifying landlady having spotted her kissing Nikhil, Shweta protested, ‘She should be happy! She’s always nagging me to find a “good boy” and marry him and have twenty children.’

‘Reached that stage, has it?’ Priya teased. ‘Daydreaming about marrying Nikhil and having his children...? And without doing a single online compatibility test? What have you done with the real Shweta?’

Shweta flushed. Priya had caught her checking her compatibility with Siddhant on a matrimonial website’s compatibility scorer, and she hadn’t let Shweta forget it. But her words brought her back to reality with a rather sickening thump. She’d been so carried away the last few weeks, she hadn’t really thought things through at all. Living in the moment was all very well, but she was in real danger of falling in love with Nikhil now.

Seeing the changing expressions on her face, Priya groaned. ‘I shouldn’t have opened my big mouth,’ she said. ‘Spit it out, now. What’s bothering you?’

‘I’m in this way too deep!’ Shweta wailed. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’ve never made a fool of myself over a man like this before.’

‘Then it’s about time you did,’ Priya said briskly. ‘It’s natural, Shweta. You’re young—you need to loosen up, live life a little. I fully approve of this Nikhil person, by the way. He’s super-hot, and he’ll be amazing in bed. Even if he doesn’t turn out to be the love of your life he’ll give you a rocking time.’

‘I don’t want a rocking time,’ Shweta muttered. ‘I’m not the kind of person who rocks. I’m more into stones and pebbles.’

Priya ignored her feeble stab at humour and eyed her with misgiving. ‘Don’t tell me you’re thinking of going back to Siddhant?’ she asked. ‘I hope you’ve told him it’s off?’

‘I told him the day after we got back from Kerala,’ Shweta said.

It had been a difficult conversation. She’d expected Siddhant to be offended, but he’d been genuinely upset and hurt, and she’d felt dreadfully guilty. Not so guilty that she’d wanted to go back to him, obviously, but enough to stay awake a couple of nights beating herself up about it.

‘He thought I hated you!’ Shweta burst out suddenly. ‘Nikhil, I mean. Not Siddhant. He doesn’t know the first thing about me.’

‘We bicker all the time,’ Priya pointed out reasonably. ‘You can’t blame him if he thought we don’t get along.’

‘I did an internet search on him last week,’ Shweta said. ‘He hangs out at celebrity parties, and there are pictures of him with all these glamorous women... There’s no reason for him to choose me over them. The novelty will wear off in no time, and then where will I be?’

‘Right where you are now,’ Priya said. ‘But at least you’ll have taken a shot at making things work with him so you don’t have to wonder about it for the rest of your life.’

It was sound advice, and Shweta knew it, but when she was in her room, trying to go to sleep, the doubts all crept back. She’d never had a very high opinion of her own attractions, and the more she thought about it the more convinced she was that Nikhil would lose interest pretty soon.

She dozed off finally, but her dreams were troubled with images of Nikhil striding away from her as she ran faster and faster, trying to keep up with him.

FIVE

‘So, what do
you think, Shweta?’

Shweta looked up from her notepad in alarm. Busy daydreaming about Nikhil, she hadn’t heard a word of what her boss had said to her. Across the table, Priya was nodding at her vigorously, so Shweta said, ‘Um, I agree, of course.’

Deepa gave her a strange look. ‘Were you listening, Shweta?’ she asked. ‘I asked if you had any major projects lined up for this week.’

‘No, I don’t,’ Shweta said, wondering why Priya was still making faces at her.

‘Good. Then you can fly down to Delhi and take over the audit Faisal was doing. The silly man’s had an accident and broken his wrist—he won’t be back to work for a week at least.’

Oh, great.
‘When do I need to leave?’ Shweta asked, hoping Deepa would say next week, or even Wednesday.

‘Well, this afternoon would be good,’ Deepa said briskly. ‘Then you can meet Faisal before he goes for surgery. He’s in no state to give you a proper hand-over, but at least he can tell you what to watch out for.’

‘Serves you right for wool-gathering during a meeting,’ Priya said when they met for lunch a couple of hours later. ‘Have you told Nikhil?’

Shweta nodded glumly. ‘I won’t be able to see him for a few weeks now,’ she said. ‘He’s leaving for Europe this Saturday, and he isn’t back till the end of the month.
Damn
Faisal and his stupid wrist—he should have more sense than to go around breaking bones at his age.’

‘It was hardly his fault,’ Priya said. ‘From what Deepa said, someone had spilt a drink on a dance floor and he slipped.’

‘Whatever,’ Shweta said, in no mood to be sympathetic. ‘Pretty mess he’s made of my plans.’

When she actually saw Faisal, though, she felt quite sorry for him. He was in a lot of pain, having broken his wrist in three places, and obviously terrified about going through surgery.

‘Deepa must be furious,’ he said, smiling up at Shweta wanly. ‘This is a complicated audit, and now you’ve had to come down to take care of things. There’ll be an additional cost which we can’t bill to the client...’

‘Stop stressing about it,’ Shweta advised. ‘Deepa knows you didn’t fall down on purpose, and she’ll figure out a way of recovering the costs. She’s pretty smart about that sort of stuff.’

In the evening, while she was headed back from her client’s office to the company’s guest house, she couldn’t help thinking that she could have been with Nikhil instead. He hadn’t even called—maybe he was going out with someone else instead. The thought almost made her stop in her tracks.

‘There’s a parcel for you,’ the guest house clerk said as she came in. ‘And you didn’t leave your room keys with me this morning, so your room’s not been cleaned. Should I send someone in now?’

‘Yes, sure,’ Shweta said, eyeing the parcel in puzzlement. It was a square box, done up in white paper, and it had her name on it in big bold letters. No courier slip or post office stamps. ‘Who brought this?’

The clerk shrugged. ‘A delivery boy. I thought it was someone from your office.’

Shweta picked up the surprisingly heavy parcel and carried it to her room. Her firm had a small office in Delhi—perhaps Deepa had asked for some files to be sent over.

But the parcel wasn’t from Deepa. Opening it, Shweta was more puzzled than ever. There was a book of Urdu poetry on top—one that she’d wanted to read for a while but which wasn’t available in Mumbai—and next to it was a box of expensive chocolates and a silk pashmina shawl. Under the shawl was a leather jewellery box that opened to reveal a pair of really beautiful earrings in antique silver. Right at the bottom of the box she found one of Nikhil’s business cards. There was no note.

Shweta slowly put everything back in the box except for the book, which she put on her bedside table. The gifts were lovely, but Nikhil hadn’t called or messaged her since she’d left Mumbai. Picking up her phone, she sat lost in thought for a few minutes. She could call
him
, of course—thanking him for the gifts would be the perfect excuse. On the other hand she might come across as being a little over-eager, perhaps even desperate. She wasn’t sure of her feelings for Nikhil yet, and she’d already gone much further with him after two dates than she would have with anyone else.

In exasperation at her own indecisiveness she picked up her phone and dialled Nikhil’s number before she could change her mind. It rang for a long while, and she was about to give up and put the phone down when he answered.

‘Hey, Shweta,’ he said. His voice was like liquid silk, making her go a little weak at the knees. Just as well she was already sitting down if two words could make her feel like this.

‘Hi,’ she said softly. ‘Just called to thank you for the gifts—they’re lovely.’

‘Glad you like them,’ he said. ‘I told a girl in my Delhi office what to get. She’s got pretty good taste.’

Shweta winced. It had crossed her mind that the gifts had been bought by someone else—there hadn’t been time for him to buy the stuff himself
and
have it shipped over. She wondered what the girl had thought—the one Nikhil said had ‘good taste’. Had she done this before? Bought gifts for Nikhil’s girlfriends? Or had he given her some other explanation? Maybe that Shweta was a client, or an old friend? The last had the added advantage of being actually true. She couldn’t help wondering how Nikhil would react if she told him that she didn’t
like
the thought of one of his employees having to buy gifts for her.

‘How did she find the book?’ she asked instead. ‘I checked with practically every bookstore in Mumbai, and I tried ordering it online as well.’

‘She spoke to the publisher,’ Nikhil said. ‘The book’s out of print, but he had some copies.’

‘Well, thank her from me,’ Shweta said, feeling awkward. ‘The earrings are lovely too, and so is the shawl—’

‘I’m missing you,’ Nikhil said, cutting her off before she could mention the chocolates.

He’d had the gifts sent to her on impulse, and he was wondering whether it had been such a good idea after all. Maybe flowers would have been a better bet. But with a major product launch event starting in just under fifteen minutes he didn’t have much time to speak to her.

‘Nikhil, darling, I need some help.’

Nikhil turned around, cursing under his breath. The voice belonged to a singer who’d recently won an all-India reality show—she was hugely popular, and Nikhil had engaged her for several events. She was rather high-maintenance, and presumably something about the current arrangements was not to her liking.

‘Give me a moment,’ he said into the phone. ‘What’s wrong, Ayesha?’

She pouted prettily, making Nikhil grit his teeth.

‘Your tech guys aren’t letting my accompanists set up—they’re saying that there’s some dance number billed just before mine. Come on, Nikhil, I need you!’

‘Right,’ he said, and then, into the phone, ‘Shweta...’

‘You need to go.’

It was like Anjalika dragging him away in Kerala—except that this Ayesha woman sounded even more irritating.

‘I don’t think I’ll be free till after twelve. Speak to you tomorrow, OK?’

‘OK,’ Shweta said. ‘And thanks for...’ But he’d already rung off.

When Nikhil called her the next afternoon Shweta was in a meeting and couldn’t take the call. She tried calling him back once she got home. He was on his way to the airport. There were other people with him, and he sounded so distracted that Shweta finally told him she’d speak to him once he got back from Europe.

The rest of the week was intensely depressing. One of her client meetings turned acrimonious, and she had to drag Deepa and the client company’s finance director into a conference call to sort things out. To say that neither of them was pleased was a serious understatement. The worst thing was that she knew no one in Delhi. She didn’t feel very safe going around alone after it was dark, so she ended up staying in the guest house and watching TV every evening.

‘I’ll start sticking straws in my hair and talking to the walls soon,’ she complained to Priya when she called. ‘Even Faisal’s gone back to Mumbai.’

‘What news of the boyfriend?’ Priya asked. ‘No e-mails or phone calls?’

‘None,’ Shweta said glumly. ‘He’s in Greece. He’s probably forgotten all about me. And don’t call him that. He’s just an old friend.’

Priya snorted disbelievingly. ‘Yeah, right—that’s why the two of you had your mouths glued together the other week. Don’t give up so easily.’

After Priya rang off Shweta looked at her phone thoughtfully for a while. There was nothing stopping
her
from calling or messaging Nikhil. Well, maybe not calling. She only had Nikhil’s India mobile number. International roaming rates were terribly high—however rich he was now, Nikhil might not appreciate shelling out a small fortune just to hear her voice! Messaging, then.

She spent a few minutes composing a suitably witty, non-desperate message in her head. Finally she gave up, and went with,
How are things?

Her phone rang after a few seconds and she picked it up, annoyed to find her hand shaking a little.

Nikhil’s warm voice said, ‘You wanted to know how things are?’

Feeling quite idiotically happy to hear his voice, she said, ‘I didn’t mean to disturb you. Just hadn’t heard from you for a long while... Isn’t it crazily expensive, calling from your India phone?’

‘Ah, well, if I’d called from a local number you wouldn’t have known it was me,’ he said. ‘And then you wouldn’t have picked up the phone, and I wouldn’t have got to speak to you.’

‘You can call me back if you want,’ she suggested.

Nikhil laughed. ‘No, it’s cool. Are you still in Delhi or have they let you come back home?’

‘Still in Delhi. I’ll be here for at least another week.’

Her voice must have sounded particularly mournful, because his softened immediately. ‘Bear up—you’ll hardly notice the time go by. Don’t you have friends there?’

‘No,’ she said, and then, worried that she was turning maudlin, went on, ‘But that’s OK. I’m having a lot of fun exploring the city. How’s Greece? Been partying a lot?’

‘I’ve been working my backside off,’ Nikhil said. ‘This has to be one of the most difficult trips I’ve ever had to co-ordinate. And it doesn’t help that I’ve been missing you like mad.’

Her heart suddenly thumping a lot louder than normal, Shweta said, ‘I’ve missed you too.’

There was a longish pause.

‘I’ll be back in Mumbai around the same time as you,’ he said softly. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing you again.’

She was looking forward to it too, more than anything ever before, but she was worried her voice would betray too much emotion if she said so.

‘Why’s this trip turning out to be so difficult?’ she asked instead, and she could hear the amusement in his voice when he answered.

‘It’s a huge sales convention for an insurance company. Very traditional Indian guys, half of them are vegetarian, and they want Indian food everywhere they go. I’ve had to fly out a platoon of cooks and enough rice and
dal
to feed the entire population of Bangladesh for the next three years. They want to dance to Bollywood music every night till four in the morning, and the DJ’s threatening to quit because he was hired for only two nights. And of course there’s all the minor stuff, like equipment breaking down, or the hotel booking two men and a woman into the same room... Anyway, it’s all sorted now, which is the main thing. And they’ve already confirmed that they’ll hire us for their next convention.’

He sounded remarkably cheerful for someone who had such a lot to deal with, Shweta thought. She was getting the shudders even listening to him—she was the kind of person who couldn’t bear the smallest thing not going according to plan.

‘Poor you,’ she said sympathetically. ‘Any more star tantrums?’

‘Anjalika’s here,’ Nikhil said. ‘No tantrums yet, but we had to hike her fees up from what we paid her last time.’

An unfamiliar little dart of jealousy shot through Shweta. Anjalika and he had been featured in yet another glossy magazine article, in which Nikhil had been referred to as one of Mumbai’s most sought-after bachelors and Anjalika as his ‘constant companion’. Heroically suppressing the urge to say something bitchy, she said, ‘I guess she’s good at what she does, so it’s OK.’

Nikhil wasn’t fooled. ‘She’s just someone I work with,’ he said. ‘Don’t let the gossip get to you.’

‘I haven’t heard...I mean, I have...but...’ She floundered to a halt, feeling very grateful that Nikhil couldn’t see her. It was bad enough reading every article about him with the eagerness of a celebrity stalker—his knowing she was doing it was a thousand times worse. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t help overhearing some of the people in your team when we were in Kerala.’

‘Let me guess—they said that Anjalika works with me because I sleep with her?’ She didn’t answer and he said exasperatedly, ‘She was the first celebrity who agreed to appear in one of my shows. She was short of cash and I paid her thrice her normal rate, but it’s not something I’ve discussed with the team.’

‘I guess it’s a tough business,’ Shweta said, feeling even more embarrassed by the explanation.

‘Hmm...I could have always taken up a nice, normal nine-to-five job,’ he said. ‘Like my parents wanted me to. As my father says, I’ve no one to blame for where I am other than myself.’

Nikhil probably earned more than the rest of their high school class put together, but his father had still been disappointed that he hadn’t taken up engineering or medicine. That was part of the reason why Nikhil hadn’t spoken to his father for so long.

‘I think you’re doing pretty well,’ she said. ‘Even if your dad doesn’t admit it, he must be very proud of you.’

‘Oh, I doubt it,’ Nikhil said lightly. ‘Look, I need to go now. I have a whole bunch of insurance salesmen bouncing in and out of the Parthenon, and I need to make sure they don’t do any damage.’

Shweta said goodbye to him, but she was sure he’d rung off because of what she’d said about his father. She’d met Mr Nair a few times in her schooldays, and he’d struck her as a rather nice man. Nothing like the cold-hearted villain Nikhil was making him out to be. And Nikhil’s mom had been nice as well, though a little quiet and shy.