It was just his luck that the name had to be Maartel, Juan, hailing from Argentina on a business trip to London. An antiquities dealer. And, if Krivi had done his research correctly, here on a shady business deal.
No, Juan Maartel would not report his passport theft to the proper authorities. He would just procure a new one through other means.
Krivi had to wonder if a God existed when he was given such small reprieves.
He’d been under an intense debriefing session for almost two weeks straight, where he’d had to account for his life in Kashmir. Where he’d had to give information on the target, Maarten, Ziya, twenty-nine, suspected sister of a terrorist, and he’d had to listen to them question and prod at his every action.
He’d had to tell them that he and the subject had become very intimate before his conscience had gotten the better of him and forced him to tell the truth.
But, finally, due to the data he had compiled, his daily reports and the very lack of visible or subtle evidence, they all had to conclude the same thing. Ziya Maarten was just an ordinary woman. No ties to any terrorist.
End of report.
End of assignment.
He just wished, as he had for a long time, that it could be that simple.
Ziya had never been ordinary. She’d been color and brightness and ruthless purpose when it suited her. She’d been laughter that was surprising for being so beautiful. She’d been golden hair and silver eyes that still caught him unawares in his sleep.
His nightmares held a new thread now.
That of Ziya’s condemning eyes, broken, so very broken there was no place for tears in them.
He’d put that broken, dead look in her eyes.
He wondered if there would come a day when he would stop hurting the people he cared about.
And now, when it was too late, when there wasn’t anything to do but count his regrets in this cold, motel room, he acknowledged to himself that he had cared about Ziya.
He had cared so dangerously much for her that, in order to save himself from inevitable hurt, he had used the truth as a destroying weapon.
He had told her such heinous things, such terrible truths.
No woman should have had to know these things about herself. Especially, not someone as fragile and strong as Ziya Maarten.
A terrorist’s sister.
He’d called her a terrorist’s sister, after wanting to kiss her blind.
There was no name foul enough for a monster like him, and he knew that.
He supposed regret was his best friend and he should learn to live with it but, in this case, in this one instance, he wanted forgiveness. If absolution were at all possible, he wanted that too.
Most of all, he just wanted to see her once.
Just see those quietly beautiful eyes without the shadows he’d put in them. For his own selfish, cowardly reasons.
He knew he wouldn’t ask for forgiveness or, even asking, it would be granted. She would as soon as spit at him as look at him. But he still wanted to see her.
She was here. In London.
He knew that, because Harold had snidely told him that his dead-end had landed at Heathrow for an engagement party to be given for the Indian major and his lady friend. Krivi had curbed all his instincts and not asked for pictures.
Not because she was a mission but because he’d wanted to look at her. Even if it was just at an image of her.
Krivi was afraid that he was losing his mind because the need, just to see her, just once, had not abated in the slightest in six months.
He had run, every day, on a small beach near his parents’ retirement community in Coimbatore. He’d visited them for the first time in years, and learned to talk to them in their language. Using their words. In Tamil.
And slowly, his parents had begun to see their only son. Instead of a killing machine.
But he’d come back to London a husk of a man, who had forgotten how to feel.
And was now frightened to.
He knew where Noor lived, knew too that Ziya was staying with her. He had hacked into the motor department ages ago and gotten all the information he needed, should the time come for contact in some exigency.
There was no exigency now.
But there was a need to at least try and make things right with the strongest, most blameless woman he had ever encountered in his life.
So, Krivi did something he had never considered in thirty-four years.
“Fuck it,” he said aloud, as he came to a decision.
He acted on impulse.
~~~~~~
It was the hardest conversation he would ever have.
Krivi knew it as he blew a hot breath into his frozen hands and rubbed them together for warmth, outside the burger joint in Notting Hill. If he knew his target well, she would be making an appearance here in the next ten minutes for her weekly fix of greasy fries.
Noor Saiyyed was a creature of habit in some ways.
And true to form, she came into view, juggling three shopping bags from exclusive stores, an Italian designer handbag, her cell phone, tucked in the crook of her neck and, tucked under her elbow was the last person Krivi wanted to see as he made his case.
Sam.
Sam stiffened and jerked Noor to a stop before she could take another step.
Damn, Krivi thought, he’d been made.
Noor shot Sam an enquiring look and he nodded at the awning of the joint where Krivi stood, shaded from view.
But Sam was Sam and he’d spotted Krivi, and that was that.
Noor’s lips tightened and he could see the steam coming out of her eyes. Sam bent low and spoke to her in hushed tones but Noor shook her hip length hair, wrapped under a cute beanie. She she shook off her fiancé’s restraining hand and marched up to him, hip-shot and ready to do him serious harm.
Krivi put his hands up in the classic gesture of surrender before Noor could take the first shot.
It didn’t stop her from plowing her fist into his rock-hard stomach. She whipped off her glasses and shot him her deadliest glare. It worked; a part of him shriveled under her condemning eyes.
“I fucked up,” he said quickly, before she could say something harsh and deserving. “I am sorry. I screwed up so badly with her and I want to make it right. I…I want to make it right.”
“Give me one good reason why I should not have Sam beat you to a pulp.”
“Because you like me and don’t really want to kill me?” Krivi tried for a grin.
She stared at him with a stony expression. “Wrong answer.”
“Because I am too handsome and brave to die?” he ventured again, while he fought the urge to back off and go back the way he had come.
Noor was not a bad person, in fact, she was one of the kindest souls he’d ever met in his life. But right now, with her blazing eyes and set face, and the fact that her army major fiancé was hulking nearby like a bouncer, made her look formidable indeed. She looked capable of damage.
Real damage.
“Screw you, Rambo,” she spat out.
“Succinct,” he agreed. And reached out one cold hand to touch her elbow.
In a flash, Sam was at her side, smiling an entirely not-pleasant smile.
Krivi was familiar with that smile. He had smiled that way before snapping off Sanjay Yug’s arm in two places and dislocating his shoulder.
“Problem, honey?” Sam asked, politely. He tipped his head at Krivi. The only acknowledgment of his presence.
“No, honey,” Noor replied easily. “Krivi was just leaving.”
“Awesome,” Sam dead-panned.
“Noor, come on.” Krivi tried to put every ounce of contrition he possessed into his voice and face. It didn’t immediately work but at least Sam wasn’t whaling on him. That was something.
“I am sorry. I messed up very, very badly with her. And there is no way to make it right with her.”
“What did you do to her?” Noor asked him, fury coating her low voice.
“She looked like hell. Like a woman living in a waking nightmare for weeks after you left. She was so sad, I found her crying one time in her bedroom. My Ziya never cries. Never cries…” Noor’s voice broke at the end and Sam put a comforting hand around her shoulder. Drew her close to his side.
He gave Krivi a semi-sympathetic smile. “Look, man. I don’t know what went down between you and Ziya. But maybe it’s best if you just leave her alone. Okay?”
“No,” Krivi replied.
Noor wiped angry tears from her eyes while Sam cast his eyes heavenward. “Dude, don’t.”
“NO!” Noor continued still in a low voice. “NO? Who the hell are you to tell us no, you won’t stay away from Ziya? She is my family. My sister. You don’t go within ten feet of her, Iyer. Come on, Sam. I am not in the mood for fries anymore.”
“Nuria. I am sorry. I will apologize till my throat is dry if you want me to, just let me see her once.” His voice was as low as hers had been. Heavy with emotion and apology. Noor gave him an imperious look and was about to turn away when he caught her hand and said, “Please. I beg you. Let me see your sister just once. I promise you won’t ever have to see me again.”
Noor stilled. So did Sam.
Krivi didn’t beg. Everyone knew that. He was too proud, too alpha-male to resort to begging.
She gave him another look from lowered brows. He didn’t look all that great either. There were shadows in his eyes to join the ones that already existed and he had lost weight, although it sat well on him.
“What did you say to her, Krivi?” she asked, curiously.
He sighed.
“I swear. If I could tell you, I would. But I can’t. All I can say is, I was wrong. Horribly, horrifically wrong and I need to…need to make it right with her before I can move on.” He waited a beat and Noor looked at him steadily. “If she wants me to.”
“You hurt me too, you know,” she said softly. “I missed you.”
“I know.” He held onto her hand with both hands. “I want to make it up to both of you.” He included Sam in his earnest gaze. “All of you. If you’ll let me.”
Noor and Sam shared a look. Couple’s shorthand honed over years of practice.
“Since it is Christmas and the season of giving, I guess we could give you a second chance,” she said, grudgingly.
“Awesome.” Krivi grinned. Happy and irrepressibly handsome and Noor understood why Ziya had cried her heart over this man. When he smiled, he was gorgeous.
“But if you do anything to upset her, you’re history, Rambo.”
“Deal.”
They shook hands on the deal, and then hugged as old friends do.
~~~~~
“I don’t understand why I have to be the damned third wheel on your lunch date,” Ziya complained as they stowed their coats and purses at the coat check at one of the trendier restaurants on Portobello Road.
Notting Hill was one of her favorite areas, with its flea-bargain markets and the constant humming of activity where people beat feet as they browsed and shopped and mulled. And there was entertainment in the evenings, with impromptu performances by street performers. It was the heart of London, in a way no museum could be.
Well, so was Harrods, but that was different.
Xenia’s Restaurant proclaimed world-class seafood cuisine.
And because she was such a sucker for lobster, she had reluctantly joined Noor and Sam on their lunch date. The chef was purported to have grown up with fins for limbs, so good he was in the preparation of lobster bisque.
“Maybe I am setting you up on a blind date.” Noor grinned irrepressibly, as she flashed a blinding smile at the coat check.
Ziya shook her head, the ends of her pixie cut hair shining fire-engine red.
The color had lifted her mood up some, but for the most part she still felt…depressed. And she actively despised herself for feeling that way.
So, she had the world’s worst taste when it came to picking men. So what?
Life went on.
There were many other blessings in her life, the chief of which was the gala that was tentatively titled ‘Noor and Sam’s Engagement Party’. The guest list was running at a cool thousand, and the caterer was agitated about the numbers increasing again, because ordering truffles for everyone was a nightmare for her.
“You forget we have a pact, honey,” she said, kindly, as they pocketed their stubs and walked into the restaurant smiling absently at the door keep. “No setting each other up on dates.”
“Blind dates, Ziya. We don’t set each other up on blind dates,” Noor corrected her smugly, as she looked around and smiled at the maître ‘d. “Qureshi. Party of four?”
The man gestured them to a more private part of the restaurant, where there were booths instead of regular tables. More intimate, with clever recessed lighting that gave a romantic and dreary mood to the drab London afternoon.
Ziya had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach because Noor had phrased her answer in a particular way. As if there was wiggle room in there for what she’d just asked about.
She looked at her hand, thin and a little pale even though she had gotten plenty of sun this summer, going for day trips to the saffron fields and the lumber mills and even helping with the apple pressing one week, when they were short of staff.
These hands had touched someone, something they shouldn’t have. And she had never really gotten over it. She knew that.
“Noor,” she asked, quietly. “You’re getting engaged tomorrow in the grandest party this side of the Thames. You have a hundred things to do, including a final fitting with that dressmaker who wants to be in therapy because of you,” she continued conversationally. “And you’re here on a lunch date with Sam, and you want me to join you. And you said, right now that we don’t set each other up on blind dates.”
Ziya gripped Noor’s elbow, hard enough for her to pause. “Who the hell is at that table, Nuria?”
Noor shook her hand off and shoved her nose closer to Ziya’s. “You’re moping. You’re a sad basket case, have been for the last six months and I can’t stand it anymore. So I did something about it. Deal with it.”
Then she flounced off and left Ziya to follow her to their table.
Ziya walked slowly, conscious of every step because the sinking sensation had turned into full-blown panic and anxiety now. And there was only one person on this planet who had made her a neurotic mess.
She pasted a cool, indifferent expression on her face, heart knocking on her throat and looked at the two men, rising up at Noor’s arrival.
Sam, beloved, familiar Sam, in his beat-up Army jacket and aviators. Smiling broadly at Noor. And then…
The other man.
Wearing the same outfit as Sam, dark glasses hooked to his jacket pocket, shoulders broad and forbidding. Hard, remote eyes on a hard, weathered face. Solid and stable and so familiar, it hurt like a motherfucker.
Krivi.
Twenty-Two
Except his eyes weren’t so hard anymore. They weren’t remote.
As Ziya walked closer, she wanted to believe, badly, that there was the faintest feeling of yearning in them as they tracked her progress.
But then she remembered, all the things he had accused her of being, just by being.
A terrorist’s sister.
And she straightened her spine and smiled coolly at the table and slid into the booth, next to Noor, so that there was an entire table width between her and him.
“Hey, Sam,” she said, levelly. “I thought you were going to be busy with helping Dadiji make the biryani for tomorrow.” Kashmiri Ghosht Biryani was a traditional spiced wild rice, full of chicken, lamb pieces, vegetables, sweeteners, nuts and spices cooked for hours in an earthen pot.
Ziya had had it exactly twice in her life and she had gone into gastronomic orgasms, each time. Nearly eating the skin off her fingers.
Sam leaned and kissed her on the cheek. “Dadiji knew I was too nervous, would probab
ly end up chopping my thumb so she forbade me entry into the barbecue pit.”
Noor snorted as she drank the water that the waiter had poured for Sam.
“Steady fingers are a military requirement, right, Krivi?” She batted her lashes and smiled at him.
Krivi shrugged, and still looked at Ziya.
His gaze, so intense and focused she was aware of it on every inch of her skin, even though she wanted to despise him. She did despise him.
“They are. But most of us fumble at some point or another,” he replied, dead pan.
Noor gave a sidelong glance to Ziya who fiddled with her cutlery. Straightening the fork, edging the spoon near the plate. Smoothing the lacy serviette.
Anything to not meet the eyes of the people around the table.
Him.
“How have you been, Ziya?”
She was startled, at the casual question and the utter casualness with which he posed it. As if they were acquaintances meeting after a prolonged absence. As if, he hadn’t tried to break her spirit one cold May night and left her reeling with revelations she couldn’t sleep for thinking about.
“I have been as I ever was. Thank you for asking.”
She smiled at the waiter, when he came to pour the water but not at Krivi.
~~~~~
Krivi’s lips tightened. He knew he had been a jackass, had been a bastard, but he had made the effort here. He was here, and there was no reason on earth for him to be here except to just see her and beg her forgiveness.
Then he could move on and forget…just forget.
Except, her looks were maiming him, straight through to the rusted heart he had forgotten existed. And he hurt. Even though, he had hurt her, now he hurt too.
At seeing her, with her bright red hair, and glinting nose ring, and the way the jeans and boots wrapped around her endless, fascinating legs. And the bright green of her sweater, which should have clashed against the red ends of her pixie hair, but somehow, the whole thing just worked…she just worked for him.
It was inexplicable and he couldn’t help but resent her for it.
“The foie gras is excellent here,” Noor said helpfully, after a minute of awkward silence.
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