Ziya hadn’t had to do much except help Habib explain the new agreement to the members and the arbitrator.
He didn’t say a word, but she was aware of Krivi’s silent, reassuring presence right beside her. Large and just as threatening to everyone else as he was to her. Except, she was reminded of what he’d done for her in the morning.
Not seven hours ago.
He’d pulled a strong man off her and thrown him down some stairs in such a way that his hand was broken in two places and he had dislocated his shoulder. And, Sanjay Yug, with his connections, had not called the police,
It took a special type of man to put the fear of God into another without so much as breathing hard.
Krivi was his usual silent self as he put the big four-wheel drive in gear and started their drive back home.
Most days they traveled separately, Ziya more out of irritation at having to endure more of his company than convenience.
But today, he’d just texted her that he would drive them both down and they could ride back home together. And, because he’d texted her immediately after she’d stumbled back to her office she’d been too dazed to do anything more than reply a grateful yes.
His timely appearance was still fresh on her mind.
But, that was seven hours ago, and he hadn’t changed drastically to Superman with the red tights and blue underwear. He was still Clark Kent with remote eyes and a thousand secrets behind them.
“Dada Akhtar,” she said suddenly. “He doesn’t need to know about…this morning. Ok?”
“Why not?”
“Because.” She took a deep breath and listed all the reasons as logically as she could. “He is extremely protective of me. And he would have a coronary if he found out that Yug had tried to manhandle me.”
“He didn’t try, Ziya,” Krivi pointed out mildly. “He succeeded.”
She shot him an annoyed look. “You know what I mean. Also, Yug is a pretty influential man to have on our side; the laborers do look up to him. So it wouldn’t do to send that kind of message to the union, firing their head or worse. And besides,” she added calmly. “I will not give that bastard that kind of satisfaction. And he would get it if Dada went after him with his Army gun.”
Krivi gave her a single measured glance and continued driving. “Have dinner with me.”
“I beg your pardon?” There was no time to leech the surprise out of her voice or her face.
“I said, have dinner with me,” he repeated. “If you want me to keep a secret from your family, then have dinner with me.”
“I don’t—"
He shrugged, and shifted into third.
“It’s your call. You have dinner with me one time, and I will not tell your grandfather that a man tried to attack you in your office. Or I tell him the truth and he goes after the guy with a gun, probably kills him which he fucking well should…and ends up spending his golden years in prison.”
His matter-of-fact voice was so comforting and annoying at the same time that she gave a watery chuckle and laid her head back on the rest.
The sky was pitch-dark and the stars were out in full force because it was a clear night. Spring really was the best season to enjoy this beautiful place in. And she felt infinitely glad of the night, the moment and this man…
This man with all his secrets and distance. And now he wanted to have dinner with her.
“At best, it would be second-degree manslaughter, self-defense.”
“No,” Krivi replied promptly. “It would be in defense of you and I would be holding that low-down piece of rotting scum in place while Salman loaded up, but do you want to take that chance?”
She gave him a speculative glance, one that he returned with equanimity he was far from feeling.
“I will have dinner with you if only to save Dada from prison, but I want the answer to one question.”
He was silent for a minute.
“Ask.”
“That day…after the bomb… you smoked a cigarette when I know you don’t smoke. What was that about?”
Krivi smiled and it touched her because she could see he was genuinely surprised by her question. She didn’t want to let him know how upsetting and infuriating and plain hot she’d found him then. Or since.
“So, are you going to tell me or what?”
“It’s something like the Last Supper.”
“Sorry?”
“You know, when you know you’re going to die in prison, they ask you for your last meal. Your last wish.”
“Yeah.”
“I have my last wish after I come back from cheating death.”
“Why?”
She faced him squarely, wanting to catch every last nuance on his hard-planed face. It was not easy getting this man to confess to something and now that he had…and something so mysterious and intriguing she wanted to know more.
Of course, she wanted to know more.
“Ziya.” There was a wealth of exasperation in the way he said her name.
“Why?”
“Because, I am not sure I want to come back alive. That’s why. Anything else?”
~~~~~
Ziya opened her mouth but nothing came out. Finally she said, “When I was a little girl, I would dream that I was dead and that all the angels in heaven would come and take me to heaven in a bed made of clouds and I would get to call Jesus Daddy and Mom would be the prettiest angel ever.”
“Shit.” The succinct exclamation summed up exactly how she’d felt.
“I know what it feels like to think that your life is over because something happens that makes it seem like that. But, you know what? Life happens. You have to grow up, grow thicker skin and move on. I learned that in foster care and it’s a lesson I haven’t forgotten.”
“I understand—"
“Are your parents dead, Krivi?”
He had to shake his head at that.
“Then you don’t understand. And I am glad that you don’t.” Ziya smiled, deliberately lightening her countenance because she had now gotten a singular insight into Krivi’s character.
He was deeply sad, almost morbidly so.
“Now, what are we having for dinner? And is it available already?”
He didn’t smile, but he glanced over at her and her heart gave a single thump because she’d found something in his dark eyes that she hadn’t thought possible.
Warmth.
Fourteen
Time, Ziya thought, waits for no man.
And yet it waited for her, catching her in moments, fleeting ones. Sometimes it dripped away in hours and days and she would forget that it existed. But then something would trip her off, an innocuous movement, a reluctant smile and she would remember time again.
The chill of May had finally given way to the sunnier climes of June.
During this time, Krivi Iyer, loner extraordinaire had blackmailed her to dinner and she had accepted and now, they were…dating. For all intents and purposes.
She couldn’t exactly define their relationship as a relationship because he well, never made a move on her. They caught dinner a few times a week at his place, he came more often for breakfast and dinners at the main house, and he was a solid, comforting presence beside her when they went for site inspections and field trips.
He was there.
That was the only way she could describe it.
Whatever this ‘thing’ they had going on between them, he was there.
Silent, unthreatening and yet somehow dangerous for all that.
Maybe because she’d seen him go against an explosive and win, maybe because he’d broken a man without being unduly bothered by it…whatever the reason, she was reasonably sure that Krivi Iyer was not just a man of secrets but a man of violence.
There were so many signs to that anger, that violence shimmering in him. Huge pockets of the capacity to hurt someone if he wished to, and not because he had the height and the weight. But because he had the inclination and the training to back it up.<
br />
Now that she could freely admit her own attraction to him, and now that she knew, God, she hoped, that attraction was returned, she watched him more carefully. More often. Thought about him when she wasn’t thinking about work.
There was a rigidity to his bearing that she’d often seen in Dada Akhtar. A kind of alertness for the first few seconds when he entered a room, as if he was taking snapshots of everything in his immediate vicinity, cataloging them for future reference. And he had held a live unexploded ordnance in his hands as casually as if she was a woman.
He had been in the military.
There was no other explanation for it. He had been in the military and he had seen action in a way she couldn’t comprehend.
He smoked death-wish cigarettes, for god’s sake!
She was uncomfortable knowing that there were these latent pockets of violence and anger in him. She was more uncomfortable that she still wanted him, even though he wasn’t the right man at all for her.
Ziya had gone a long time without having her hormones get the better of her. But now that they had woken up after one mind-blowing kiss from the man she was in a ‘thing’ with, it was payback time for all those years of celibacy.
They wanted. They were very emphatic about the wanting.
They wanted the hands that wielded a fork and knife at the dinner table with the same delicacy that he’d disarmed a bomb. They wanted the dark eyes resting on her, flaming with uncontrollable desire while he looked at her. They wanted to know how that saturnine face would look, while he went mindless in the aftermath of passion.
They wanted to know the scars and the strength hidden behind the thick layers of clothes, the limbs and toes and everything in between.
Hell, she wanted.
And she was very afraid that the want hid deeper feelings she couldn’t examine in the cold light of day.
Ziya smiled in relief, as her cell phone vibrated, signaling an incoming text.
It was Noor.
Dinner date. Birthday plan. You in?
Ziya texted back: Wouldn’t miss it for the world. Xoxo-Z.
She turned her attention back to the computer. First up on her schedule was a tasting session with the apple cider press today, when they would uncork the first bottle of the new line. And she had to check in on the status of the saffron field, their newest investment.
The cricket bat company’s sales arm, had gotten a call from an Irish cricketer who wanted a bat exclusively made for himself and, in return, would use the bat as an endorsement vehicle. It was a pretty good deal, but it was still in the negotiation stage and no one negotiated quite like Ziya Maarten.
Secure in the knowledge that her Krivi problem would be resolved in the same way as she did everything else; Ziya turned her full attention and considerable energy back to her work.
For the moment, time was ticking and she was okay with that.
~~~~~~
“Dating is a minefield, Zee,” Noor, intoned wisely, when they were setting up the table for dinner.
Dada Akhtar had gone to Dalhousie for the honoring ceremony of an ex-Army crony, so they had more relaxed eating habits and hours now.
For instance, tonight was make your own sandwich day. This meant that all Noor, whose bright idea dinner had been, had to do was dump a bunch of chips in a bowl, set out frozen cut veggies and marinated meats.
They were having local beer instead of fancy wine and the men, meaning Sam had made noises about firing up the grill and Krivi had not offered to help him.
Ziya had been excused from kitchen duty because she was dragooned for cleanup afterwards.
“Hmm?” Ziya was fiddling around with the ketchup bottle, seeing if it needed refilling and not paying much attention to her friend’s non-sequitors.
“I said, dating is a minefield you need to tread carefully on with a certain Hottie Iyer.”
Noor reached over and poked Ziya sharply in the shoulder. She smiled sweetly, “And the pun was absolutely intended.”
Ziya considered squirting some of the ketchup on Noor’s face but Sam showed up in the kitchen and asked, “You guys know where DA keeps the fuel for the grill?”
Noor gave a sidelong glance at Ziya who sighed and pointed at the mudroom. “Third cabinet on the right. Bottom drawer. You should find lighting fluid and coal.”
Sam gave her a wink and wave. “Thanks, Zee. You’re the best.”
Noor followed him out with a wicked smile at her best friend.
Ziya continued setting the table even though it was Noor’s turn to do so.
~~~~~
Noor had never had a close shave in her life. Her gentle, academic, humdrum existence didn’t run to guns and bombs.
But it was just her luck to fall hopelessly in love with a career soldier, one whose job it was to walk into dark and dangerous situations and expect to make it out of there alive. Or if not, die happy knowing he had served his country well.
It was in the oath they took when they joined the Army.
She’d looked it up.
Noor thought about the last fifteen years, when she’d always been this blindly in love with the boy next door who’d moved away and joined the damn Army and was now a hot Major in it.
“Marry me,” she said, as she stalked into the mudroom.
Sam squatted before the third cabinet and looked under for the lighting fluid and charcoal.
“Are you sure Ziya knows what she was talking about because I can’t—"
Noor whirled him around and he kind of toppled forward with the force of motion and she grabbed his head between her ears, shoved her nose close to his, so he could see the serious intent in her grass-green eyes.
“I am serious now, Sameth. I came here…to Goonj… for you. And if I don’t get you now, I don’t know what I am going to do. So please, just…please, marry me,” she ended in a whisper.
Sam closed his eyes and grabbed her wrists which were clutching his face so close.
“I love you, Noor,” he said, thickly. “So much, you don’t even know how much.”
“Then prove it,” she challenged him.
Brushing his lips with hers, tempting him, and teasing him with her body and her mouth and all the love he could see shining in her beautiful eyes. All that love and all just for him.
“Say yes. Marry me. I don’t need a big ceremony. I don’t need witnesses or a nikahnaama. Just marry me. Give me the words. Please.”
She encouraged him to come closer to her, so that they were plastered together from chest to thigh.
~~~~~~
Sam placed shaking hands under her tee shirt and found bare woman underneath. Silken flesh and sultry scent, trapping him, enslaving him. Just as she had, when she was nine years old and she had boldly kissed him in front of all his cool, teenage friends.
He had been a goner since then and he knew it.
So he kissed her. Sweetly, gently, using all the love he had for her to keep his touch light. But Noor wanted everything, all at once. She always had. So the kiss turned deep, wild, consuming in seconds.
Tongues tangled, breaths mingled and hands shoved at unnecessary clothes.
She moaned as he sucked in the hardening nipple, playing his rough soldierly hands over hers. She raked her nails down his stomach, unzipping his jeans and wrapped her legs around his waist.
He braced his hands on the cold floor and rasped out a breath. “Here, love?”
She nodded and kissed him sumptuously and took him inside. Where, for this moment, she could pretend he was all hers. He was hers in a way he couldn’t belong to his country.
And the knowledge made their loving all the more poignant.
~~~~~~
“You want to go to Ladakh for your birthday?” Ziya repeated, as she bit into her jalapeno and olives and garden tomatoes with two, count ‘em two, slices of processed cheese between the bread.
“Isn’t that a little...remote?” There was a wealth of doubt in her voice.
Sam shook his head
, his fingers lingering on Noor’s hair, brushing it back from her shoulder. “It’s the perfect season to go there. Summer in Ladakh means less chance of landslide and virtually no snow, which would mean that all the roads would be open. Come on, Zee, where’s the adventurer in you? Where’s the camp girl gone?”
Ziya grinned ruefully, aware that her date was ominously silent as he continued eating his meat-and-veggie-filled sandwich…technically three sandwiches somehow compressed into one.
“She settled into the boss man’s life and now refuses to slum it,” she retorted tartly.
Noor smiled goofily as she popped a chip into her mouth. “Ladakh. Sounds lovely.”
Ziya gave her a disgusted look. “Stop acting like a teenager, dummy. Make him work for it,” she advised.
Noor grinned, the goofy turning to stunning beauty that made even Krivi blink.
~~~~~~
Most days, he forgot that the woman he called Kid was a serious stunner when she wanted to be. To him, she was just a little sister he wanted to protect.
Not like her friend, with her mysterious eyes and a thousand questions.
And he was still no closer to figuring out if she could be in cahoots with the most dangerous criminal the free world had seen since bin Laden.
She was so honest, so open and she’d told him all about her cold childhood and adolescence, her Uni years and the various places she had traveled to, that he just knew she had to be hiding something. No one would tell a complete stranger all their secrets unless they had something they wanted to hide very badly.
“Yeah, that would be like shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted,” Noor said, smugly.
“Far, far away,” Sam reiterated, giving the same goofy smile that had lit Noor’s face.
Ziya narrowed her eyes on their faces and her mouth dropped open.
Krivi shut her mouth with his free hand, while he continued chomping on his own. She moved her lips against his hard fingers, her eyes bulging.
“Whatever it is you want to spit out, don’t,” he advised, taking his hand away.
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