No Strings Attached

by Sheila Kumar

  ‘What are we celebrating, Manish?’ Nina asked.

  ‘We are celebrating pack-up, my dear girl,’ he replied. ‘It was one of the most arduous shoots of my career. But wait for the film: it will put me firmly in the number one slot.’

  ‘Oh, and here I thought you just didn’t believe in or play the numbers game,’ Nina told him, opening her eyes wide.

  Manish’s mouth twisted. ‘Yeah, right,’ he told her. ‘Me and the whole of Bollywood. But Tara’s done a terrific job, too. She plays a widow getting a second chance at life and at love.’ Smiling an unselfconsciously complacent smile, he then told Nina, ‘A pile of awards coming our way, Tara’s and mine.’ And Nina had to laugh again.

  They turned to watch Tara, who was chatting animatedly to a group of completely star-struck journalists, her hand firmly in the crook of Samar Singh’s arm. Nina looked at him hungrily. He was looking decidedly dishy in a chocolate brown suit cut in a manner that suggested bespoke tailoring. His sexual impact was now overlaid by all that had happened between them, and Nina felt very low for a second.

  Striving for a casual tone, she asked Manish, ‘How do those two know each other?’

  He said, ‘Who? Samar and Tara? They both belong to Jaipur or Jaisalmer, or some such place in Rajasthan. Samar did her a special favour and shot her portfolio back when Tara was a model, and he has been looking out for her ever since.’

  I bet he has, Nina thought coldly. Her mind flashed on the ways Samar Singh could take care of Tara. In ways she, Nina, did not want to imagine.

  However, Nina had herself well in hand when Samar did come up to her later in the evening. People were curiously watching while pretending not to. She smiled a neutral smile, her mind racing furiously, her mouth dry, and he shot her a sardonic look. They stood looking at each other for a fraught minute.

  Samar spoke first, in an even tone that did not match his smouldering eyes. ‘I heard about your car going into a pothole. That must have been harrowing.’

  There was no doubt about it, his concern was very real and it nearly did Nina in. But she was not going to let this smooth player get under her skin any longer. Her moments of weakness were over.

  ‘Yes, that was a bad time. Luckily, Devaiah came to my rescue, a real knight in shining armour. You know Dev, don’t you?’ she asked, gesticulating vaguely to a knot of sales and marketing people standing at the edge of the lawns.

  Samar looked down at her broodingly. She looked stunning in that dress, her hair backlit by the party lights to look like some kind of glorious halo, her eyes shining. And cold. Her earrings dangled tantalizingly from her ears; he wanted to bend down, remove one of them and nibble softly at her lobes, the way he had often done in the not-so-distant past. He wanted to bend down and trail kisses on her silky smooth skin, all along her collarbone. Damn, but he wanted to do a lot … including punching that silly ass Manish Mann in the face. The way the man had been holding Nina on the dance floor had been positively outrageous.

  For the life of him, Samar Singh couldn’t fathom just why Nina Sabharwal was giving him the big freeze. But it was clear that she felt strongly about something, and was just not prepared to talk about that something with him. Over the past ten days, he had wished he could just consign the whole Nina dilemma to the devil and be done with it. But he just couldn’t and that was the problem.

  Heart hammering so loud she was sure he could hear it, Nina stared away, pretending to watch the dancers with a lot of interest. And then she remembered and looked up at him.

  ‘I heard your aunt was unwell. How is she now?’

  ‘Yes, Hemant was in hospital with a ruptured appendix. But she’s a tough old girl and is recovering very well now.’ Nina could hear the very real affection in his voice. If he remembered how he had rushed to Delhi without even informing Nina, he wasn’t showing any remorse.

  Apparently tired of making polite conversation, Samar asked Nina, ‘Dance?’ The tone was so arrogant that Nina wanted to slap that handsome face of his.

  She shook her head. ‘No,’ she told him, not meeting his eyes. ‘I’m feeling a bit tired.’

  He shrugged and smiled coldly. ‘Well then,’ he told her, ‘let me go find someone who will dance with me.’ And then he walked away, away from her. She watched him go, a smile on her lips, the pain in her heart not reflected on her tranquil face.

  Nina headed to the banquet table with the idea of grabbing a quick bite, more for a convincing show of normality than anything else, before retiring for the night. Unlike the food on offer at breakfast, the dinner menu was entirely Indian, and south Indian at that. There were dosa stations, there were frilly-bordered appams with a side accompaniment of chicken stew, there was platters of fragrant white and red rice as well as a host of local delicacies made from locally grown vegetables, and there were at least three different bean dishes, another very popular local staple. The dessert table held gulab jamun, payasam, the impossibly sweet Mysore Pak and incongruously enough, large vats of ice cream, too. There were people from all over the country and the O’Connors were clearly catering to all tastes.

  Nina had lost her appetite long ago, but Mini joined her now and under the other girl’s watchful stare, she helped herself to some food, trying not to peck listlessly at it. A few minutes later, she gave up.

  ‘Not really having fun, are you?’ asked Mini sympathetically, and suddenly Nina found tears close to the surface. ‘Not really,’ she said, attempting a smile. ‘I’ll slip away now. Tell Manish bye from me.’

  She made a discreet exit and wound her way back to her cottage. The pitch darkness was alleviated somewhat by the rather dim glow of the hunting lodge lamp that was affixed to the cottage wall. As she stood fumbling with the key in the lock, trying to unlock the door, she heard someone come up behind her. Even before she turned, she knew who it was.

  Samar came up to Nina and just as she turned, caught her up in one smooth motion, locking his mouth onto hers. It was a hot and urgent kiss, his lips determined to wring a response from her. She could feel his heart crashing against his rib cage beneath the fine white dress shirt he had on. But she remained stiff and unresponsive, cold as stone. His mouth gentled after a while, but still there was no response from her. Eventually, he lifted his head.

  ‘So,’ Samar said bleakly, ‘this is it, then. You really are dumping me, aren’t you, Nina Sabharwal?’

  Nina thought back to what Mini had told her a few days earlier, quoting a popular saying, often heard in Hindi films. Dil mein patthar rakhna. Placing a stone on your heart. That was what she needed to do. For her own good.

  ‘You still haven’t got it? Don’t pester me, Samar,’ she said, enunciating each word clearly and coldly, and Samar Singh went white. She knew she had effectively pushed him away with those words. Samar was too proud a man to chase after someone who was not interested in him.

  They stared at each other for a long moment, the air charged with both electricity and animosity. And then, Samar spun on his heel and walked away from Nina. And this time too she watched him go with an aching heart, tears prickling at her eyelids.

  Much later that night, she sat at the window alcove, staring out with unseeing eyes at the thick white mist that obliterated everything outside. As Samar Singh had said, that then was that. Except Nina didn’t think she could continue to stay on in Bangalore and see him every day. She would have to leave. She would have to go back home. And try to start over.

  FOURTEEN

  THE DAY DAWNED AND predictably enough, it was another grey, sunless morning. There were patches of frost on the small piece of lawn in front of the ground floor apartment that Sue and Nina shared. Nina stood at the picture window, staring out at the bare and stark black outline of the trees in the compound. No leaves, no flowers, no colour. London this morning looked as bleak as Nina felt inside. The silence of an early winter was suffocating.

  She hadn’t slept well, but most nights now she wasn’t sleeping well. Nina’s head told her she had made
the right decision but she was still quite a long way away from making her heart accept that decision. It was a little better when Sue was around; they tried their hand at some new dish, they watched a favourite TV show, they fine-tuned the master plan for Sue’s and Adam’s upcoming wedding. They did everything but talk of Samar Pratap Singh. All the Sabharwal women were possessed of an innate reluctance to wear their emotions on their sleeves, leave alone let those emotions run riot. As long as Nina didn’t look as if she were wilting from blighted love, and that she certainly did not, Susan was content to let matters be. After those late night phone calls from Bangalore, Sue knew just how seriously her sister had fallen for Samar, but she was a pragmatic girl and firmly believed that time would make that crucial difference.

  If only Nina could buy into that concept herself. It had been three weeks now since she had returned home. India! had allowed her to cut short her stint with the Bangalore office and return to London. Back home, she had chosen to work on her book rather than go find a job, and she found the writing slow going, even frustrating at times. But she went over to the Cotswolds to visit her mother twice, she went for the occasional drink with friends. For all intents and purposes, she had picked up where she had left off her London life.

  Some days, Nina managed to fool even herself. Other days, she faced up to the fact that she had left a piece of her heart behind in India, in Bangalore. Oh, she would get on without it, but life would never be quite the same. Samar Singh was not Nina Sabharwal’s first love, but he was quite definitely her most serious love. And there it was.

  There were other things she missed. She missed Bangalore’s balmy winter, she missed the sight of the tabebuia and laburnum trees shedding their blush pink and sunshine yellow blossoms. She missed sitting at her dining table, gazing out on the neem and gulmohur trees just outside, sipping her coffee, a fragrant blend of chicory and coffee beans.

  She missed Samar.

  She closed her eyes and saw him clearly, like he was imprinted on the inside of her eyelids. The sharp jut of his cheekbone, the chiselled slant of his jawline, the way he flexed it when tense or angry. Those devilishly arched eyebrows, one forever raised in humorous query. Those eyes the colour of molten chocolate, eyes that you could drown most happily in. The deep dimple in his cheek. The fine line of his mouth, that slow sexy smile. The way he kissed.

  Drawing in a sharp breath that actually hurt, Nina opened her eyes. Only to see Samar Singh outside her small gate. This was nonsense; had she conjured him up on the sheer strength of her need to see him?

  But no, Samar was paying off the cab and lifting the metal hinge of the gate. He was dressed for the weather, in a beautifully cut duffle coat that kept the cold out and in style, at that. The wind momentarily lifted a strand of his hair and he impatiently smoothed it back. Nina’s heart stopped at that familiar gesture and she felt a wave of love roil inside her.

  The doorbell rang, and then Nina knew this was no dream. Taking a deep breath and calling for her usual calm, she went to the door and opened it.

  Samar Singh stared at her. He did his level best not to stare like a man who had been starved of this particular sight. Because he had been starved, there was no doubt about that. She was looking as lovely as ever, dressed in a roomy pair of brown corduroy pants that he recognized, with a thick chambray shirt in cream and brown checks over it. She was wearing thick virulent purple woollen socks, and he felt a moment of tenderness as he glanced down. Her hair was caught up in a knot and there were the usual irresistible curls framing her oval face. He also noticed the faint shadows beneath the blue eyes.

  He curled his fists and attempted a neutral tone. ‘Good morning, Nina,’ he said, for all the world as if he was a casual visitor.

  But for some reason Nina wasn’t playing. ‘Samar,’ she said, her voice carrying the faintest undertone of uncertainty. Just ‘Samar.’ She didn’t greet him. She didn’t invite him in, either, so Samar decided to take matters into his own hands.

  ‘May I come in?’ he asked with a pleasant smile.

  Her blue eyes were locked onto his face. ‘Yes, of course,’ she murmured, opening the door wider, and Samar entered the front room, immediately owning the space. His swift glance took in the airy room done up in soft greys and blues. He took off his overcoat, looked around, then hung it on the peg behind the door. After which he turned to Nina and simply stood there, hands in the pockets of his beautifully cut grey gabardine trousers, feet well apart, rocking back lightly on his heels.

  They looked at each other, all barriers up and firmly in place, for what seemed to be an interminably long while. Then Nina remembered her manners, and asked politely, ‘Will you have coffee?’

  Samar shook his head. The silence stretched between them, becoming heavy with something intangible. Finally, Nina felt compelled to ask, ‘What are you doing here, Samar?’

  It was as if he had been waiting for her to ask. Relaxing visibly, Samar moved to the deep couch and sat down in one fluid gesture.

  ‘I had business in London,’ he told her evenly. ‘A new photo series for Nat Geo’s UK edition. And then I wanted to meet you, Nina. Because we have unfinished business.’

  Nina could hear her heartbeat thudding heavily in her ears. ‘We do?’ she found herself asking Samar. Then she shook her head. ‘We don’t, Samar. We had, to put it plainly, an affair. It was good while it lasted but it is over.’

  And then, feeling particularly vicious, she asked him, ‘What’s the matter, Samar? Never been dumped before?’

  Samar Singh’s eyes flashed. He opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it. He smiled, a slightly feral smile.

  ‘Oh, I’ve been dumped before as you so elegantly put it, Nina,’ he told her, almost purring the words out. ‘But I’ve never been dumped without good reason.’

  He leaned forward, linking his hands. ‘There’s something about you and me, about us, which has been troubling me. I thought what we had was going well. What I want to know is, just why did you call it quits? I want you to look me in the eye and tell me just why we are over.’

  Their eyes met and held, cold brown clashing with cautious blue. Samar continued to speak in a conversational tone.

  ‘I met Jenny Hamilton the other evening. She seemed to feel that I was two-timing you. I don’t know if I was more surprised or angry to hear that.’

  Now he got off the sofa in one seamless motion and moved over to where Nina stood rooted to the spot. His voice low and steady, he asked, ‘Just who was I cheating on you with, Nina? Did you really believe that?’

  He was angry, very angry. Nina immediately understood that whatever Jenny had hinted at, it had cut deep with Samar. He prided himself on being an honourable man, that much Nina knew; not for him the petty cheating and lying other men indulged in. Even as she completed that thought, she realized that Samar Singh had not been two-timing her. She had used the unknown woman incident as an excuse to end something which she realized was going nowhere and worse, would leave her utterly vulnerable and heartbroken.

  Nina was in a dilemma. If she mentioned the woman in his flat, he would clear the air … and then what? Did they go back to being lovers in bed and casual friends outside it? No, Nina couldn’t bear that, wouldn’t bear that, not any more.

  And then, even as she was casting about in her mind for something definitive to say, Samar took a deep breath and spoke.

  ‘I can’t do without you, Nina,’ he said hoarsely. Nina’s head whipped up. She stared at him, confused. Had he really said that? Did his eyes actually have the sheen of tears? Then he continued, on a very real note of despair that she just could not miss, ‘But I suspect you can do very well without me.’

  He spun away, his back to her, staring out of the large windows. Nina stared at his ramrod straight back, her lips quivering. He really loved her! He had come all the way to London to tell her that, despite having a very real conviction that she would spurn him in her cold English manner, the manner he had often teas
ed her about in the past. Samar was a proud man, and he had just lowered his defences.

  She moved swiftly, sliding her arms around his slender waist, feeling him tense. ‘Darling,’ she breathed tremulously, ‘I adore you. I can’t live a moment without you. I tried hard to these past months and much good it did me.’ She laid her head gently on his shoulder blades, breathing in the very male, very Samar scent of him.

  Samar turned swiftly, crushing her to him so hard she couldn’t breathe. Putting a finger under her chin, he lifted her face up and stared searchingly into her eyes. His eyes still held a trace of vulnerability. There was a time to drop her natural reserve and Nina knew this was it. Letting all her love show in her eyes, she linked her arms behind his head and drew his mouth down to hers.

  They kissed like they had never kissed before, seeking each other’s mouths desperately, their lips conveying the depth of their emotions. Eventually though, they had to come up for air.

  ‘Do you know what you put me through these last few months?’ demanded Samar. ‘You were fast developing the personality of a porcupine, my darling. A cold reserved English porcupine,’ he told her, his voice full of laughter.

  Nina reached up and kissed the side of his jaw lovingly. ‘I thought you didn’t love me,’ she told him.

  The eyebrow flew up. ‘Didn’t love you? You have an appallingly short memory, my love. I distinctly remember telling you I loved you, at least twice.’

  Nina stared into his eyes, wondering if she could risk telling him that she had doubted the very nature of that love. It would keep for later, she decided. Nestling closer, she told him with mock severity, ‘Don’t let’s move away from the subject. Who was the tart in your arms?’

  He raised a genuinely puzzled eyebrow. Keeping it admirably brief, Nina told him about her impromptu visit to his apartment, and the scene she had chanced upon.