Spice and Secrets (10 page)

You would be my wife, Priya. We would be a family.

Na.
She would only be his enemy. Those beautiful pictures of a love lost that he’d drawn so vividly in his mind…they would crumble to dust, just like his heart. Just like the last, fragile threads of her hope for a new life.

Chapter Fourteen

There were days in Mumbai that moved with the slow pace of a fly drowning in honey and others that buzzed past him like a bee. Half the time, Davey barely had time to think, much less check his mobile…which, inevitably, was loaded full with frantic messages and voicemails from George. Ever desperate for his insight, his attention. In between segments for
Sunny Days
, he found a new addition to the log: an unknown number. Twice. He didn’t pay it any mind until the phone rang again while he was sprawled in his office chair, fucking around and pretending to look over projected ratings for the next few months. He answered with only a cursory glance at the display, with a curt “Yes?” in lieu of a traditional greeting.

The reply, a “Hullo. Is this Mr. Shaw?” was made in a high, sweet voice just barely beginning to deepen, laced with that typical accent of English medium-educated Mumbai youth.

Were they taking up a collection for footie uniforms or some such? How in the hell had he gotten on a registry for that? “Er, yes. Who’re you?”

“Jai,” piped the voice, as if this was obvious. And, after a moment, it was.

“Sunita’s Jai?” He felt like someone was about to jump out of the bushes and yell “Surprise!” Despite the obvious dearth of bushes in his immediate surroundings. “Er…um…what can I do for you?” God, he sounded like a prat. Like any number of prats he’d grown up thoroughly mocking.

“You can marry my mom.”

It was such smooth, confident line delivery that, for an instant, Davey just had to marvel at the cadence, the crispness, before the content actually sank in. “I’m sorry, what? Say again?”

Jai barreled on before he could continue to sputter like he’d come up from the deep end of a swimming hole. “You make her happy.
Woh bahut khush hai
. And I think you should marry her straightaway. Before she runs off.”

Either the boy had watched far too many Bollywood films, or he knew his mother’s habits inside and out. Davey would venture to guess that it was a little of both. “Well, Jai, I rather think that’s up to her. Women don’t really respond to just being wedded, you know.”

“Are you making an excuse, Mr. Shaw?” He could practically
hear
the suspicion on the other end of the line. “You
do
want to marry her, don’t you? Do the
pheras
?” There was a tad bit of wheedling that followed. “My papa can’t get married to Viki Uncle—that’s his boyfriend—so if you marry my mom, I will get to experience the whole
desi
wedding
tamasha
,
na
? You wouldn’t want to deprive me of that,
hain na
, Mr. Shaw?”

Well, hell. Davey held the phone away from his ear, so he could stare at it in abject awe. Jaidev Khanna was a natural manipulator, a performer in the making. He’d just hooked him with
both
the old intentions speech
and
added cultural guilt. When Davey safely settled the mobile once more, he sighed. “Look, Jai, I appreciate the call. Really, I do. And I think we’d get on if Sunita would actually let us meet…but I’m not going to make any promises to you without making them to her first.
Samjhe
? I’m in a relationship with
her
, not you.”

It was a risky bit of dialogue, a gamble, and he waited for the silence on the connection to shift, to become charged with teenage annoyance. What he got instead was delighted laughter. Rather like Sunny’s, which he heard entirely too rarely. “I like you, Mr. Shaw,” Jai bubbled in that disarmingly precise English. “Mom likes you, too.”

He was glad to hear it.
Christ
, was he glad to hear it. “Thank you, Jai.” He chuckled, rubbing a palm along his cheek and sighing. “That’s good to hear.”

What wasn’t nearly as good to hear was the sharp intake of breath, the slew of Hindi curses, as Sunita appeared in his office doorway.

She watched Davey end his call through a haze of…of what? Anger? Hurt? She couldn’t even define the emotion that surged through her. “Y-you’re talking to Jai?” she heard herself say, though she could barely feel her lips form the words. “
Kyu?
Why?”

He placed his mobile on the desk, pushing the chair backwards and making to stand. “Because he called me, darling, and it’s only polite.”

Perhaps that was a rational argument to some, to
anyone
else, but to her it was a war cry. “I don’t need you to be polite,” she snapped. “I don’t need you anywhere
near
him.”

Shaw was maddeningly calm. Superior. He approached her slowly, like she was a wild animal in need of taming. “We’re involved, Sunita. At work and personally. It’s only natural that he be curious.” He shrugged.

“Then we can be uninvolved.” She shrugged in return, though her shoulders felt brittle, like dried curry leaves. “It’s simple, Shaw-
saab
. I have Jai. I have a career. A life. I’m filled to the brim, Davin. I don’t have room for you.”

His sharp blue eyes sparked like a flame. “Bullshit. There’s plenty of empty space in your bed, Sunita, and you’ve got endless amounts of room in that gargantuan heart of yours as well. You’re just scared.”

Sunita had fought to be fearless. She’d fought and
won
, goddammit. “Scared? Of you? Breaking news,
ulloo
, the British Raj ended in 1947. I fear nothing.”

Davey shook his head, still treating her as though she was rabid and bordering on biting him. “That’s not true,” he soothed. “You’re terrified of letting me in. Of letting
anyone
in besides a fourteen-year-old boy who needs his father just as much as he needs you.”

“Fuck off.” Her skin felt suddenly cold. Clammy. “Did Sam put you up to this?” It was possible, wasn’t it? After all, Rahul was close friends with them both. They probably all went drinking together and laughed about what a horrible bitch she was. It was, no doubt, a rousing night’s entertainment. “That’s it,
na
? This is all Sam. He and his Romeo want to take Jai from me, and you’re my consolation prize?”

“Don’t be absurd,” he scoffed, reaching for her hands and squeezing them between his. Part assurance, part comfort. “I barely know Sam, and we certainly wouldn’t be discussing your custody issues. I am worried about you. Period. Full stop.”

“It sounds to me like you’re more worried about getting your rocks off,” she spat, trying to jerk from his grip. But he only held on, shaking his head as though he were a forbidding master and she an unruly student.

“Then you’re not listening, which is typical. You just tune out what doesn’t suit you,” he accused. “And it doesn’t suit you to think that I could be there for you. That I could be trusted to have a simple phone conversation with Jai. That I, God forbid, might want to make a life with you. You don’t want to accept that any man can be trusted to care for you and your child.”

Because a man
couldn’t
care for her and her child. That wasn’t speculation, it was fact. Proven a thousand times over. “Brilliant psychoanalysis, Dr. Shaw.” She let sarcasm drip from her tone like rainwater. “But the reality is not so complicated. You see, I happen to like my independence. Like India did.”

“Goddammit.” Davey’s eyes darkened, and he released her hands so he could grasp her by the shoulders. “If you are so bloody determined to beat this colonial metaphor into the ground, I guess I have to show you how a proper takeover is done.”

He was rational to the point of ridiculousness. Unflappable. Always unruffled. But when he grabbed her now, tugging her close and bringing his lips down on hers, it was anything but cool and calm. It was wild. All tongue and teeth and demanding to be let in, to be made a part of her.

Sunny gave as good as she got, hooking her fingers in the ends of his shirt and tearing it open. She kissed him back with equal fervor, showing him the full extent of her desire. That was when he pulled back from her and stepped away, leaving her still reaching for him,
breathing
for him. “
That
is how we colonize,” he said fiercely. “We make you want us.
Need
us. Until you don’t remember what life was like before we conquered you.” He brushed the backs of his fingers against her cheek. “But I don’t want to conquer you,
Rani Sahiba
. I just want to rule by your side.”

I just want to rule by your side.

Hai, Bhagwan.
Such strong, beautiful, words…they needed to come from a film hero, not a TV producer. Not this man who was so tall and powerful…secure and safe. It had been so bloody
long
since she’d felt safe. But here was the illusion: in his arms, in the power of his chest. As he brushed his lips against her hair and splayed his palm across her back, she could almost fool herself into thinking it meant something. That it had permanence beyond the ten steps to and from his bedroom, beyond the few strides to the sturdy surface of his desk.

He whispered to her in that
angrezi
-accented Hindi, related all the filthy, gorgeous things he wished to do to her. Worse, he made her promises that she knew he couldn’t keep. That he would stay with her always. That he would marry her. That he and Jai would team up and make her life a joyous, merry hell. “
Bas
, Davey,” she begged. “Just stop. Stop talking such nonsense.”

“Kabhi nahin.”
He tilted her chin with his fingertips, angling her mouth against his insufferably British stiff upper lip. “Never. I’m not going to stop with the nonsense, darling, and I’m not going anywhere,” he murmured, the words a tantalizing vibration on her skin. “I’m here for the duration. The sooner you believe that, the sooner we can go to bed.”

Believing in genies and
churails
would be easier, and far more realistic. But Sunny had been slinging gossip in front of an audience for years. If there was one thing she knew how to do with finesse and sincerity, it was lie. “I believe you,” she said, reaching between them to stroke him through his trousers. “I believe you,” she sighed, licking along the warm line of his jaw and the hot beat of the pulse in his neck. “I. Believe. You. Now
chalo
…take me. Anywhere you wish.”

Anywhere but to the marriage
mandap
, because that way…that way lay nothing but heartbreak.

Chapter Fifteen

The invitations went out on a Sunday for a cocktail party the following Saturday. An e-mail, simple and to the point, with no possibility for scandal. It was all completely respectable. Nina was almost proud of herself…only almost, because she was storing up her pride for later, for her own victory party after the big bash.

She’d cast the picture perfectly, chosen the right players. The conflict was ready-made. The setting inspired. There was no need for a script, because they would all improvise on cue. And,
vah
, what a show it would be. A superhit. One that, if all went as planned, would end the Rahul-Priya
jodi
, and begin a whole new era.

Nina smoothed a hand over the blazing red satin of the party sari she’d spilled across her bed. It looked like a river of blood…and like a cascade of triumph.

Unlike the floor-to-ceiling photo panels some stars opted for, Nina had actual, authentic paintings of herself decorating the walls. Gaudy, historical-themed portraits. Nina as Jhansi
Ki Rani
, as Messalina, as Cleopatra. Rahul half expected to see the Bandit Queen and Sultana Razia. The brushwork was terrible—something you’d see posted on the wall at a cheap roadside guesthouse. He wondered who’d paid for the commissioning. One of her young stable of lovers? Unlikely. His father? Probably. The poor bastard. If it weren’t all so vulgar, it would be funny.

“Good God, man.” Davey echoed his thinking. “It’s like being in artists’ hell.”

“Trust me,
yaar
: if it involves Nina, it’s like being in
everyone
’s hell.” He feigned a smile, giving the expression a thorough trial run since he would need it throughout the course of the evening.

As he and Shaw made their way through the bungalow to where the party was in full swing, Rahul felt like he was being monitored. There was a prickling sensation at the back of his neck, not unlike the warning one’s body gave them just before someone loosed a volley of arrows or bullets at their spine. Nina likely had her security cameras trained to record him from every angle so she could study the tapes later…like a sports team watching game footage to improve their plays.

“Bit of a shoe-on-the-other-foot, isn’t it? Being the stalkee instead of the stalker?” was Davey’s only observation when Rahul related his collection of metaphors. “At least you haven’t taken to videotaping Priya’s every move. Have you?”

“Sod off.” He frowned in response. “It’s not the same thing at all.”

“Trying to wear down her resistance? Controlling her career moves? No, no, that bears no resemblance to your darling
sautali-ma
at all. You’re nothing like your stepmum. What was I thinking?”

“Your pronunciation is wretched, and you’re just smug because you’re getting shagged on a regular basis,” he snapped.

“My pronunciation is impeccable.” Davey popped his Ps for emphasis. “And you’re damn right I’m getting shagged on a regular basis. Quite beautifully.”