by Zee Monodee
Drat, no. It couldn’t—shouldn’t—come down to this.
“Sweetie, are you sure you’re okay?” Lara hitched in a breath. “You weren’t taken by force, were you?”
“Of course not!”
Upon hearing the note of horror in her sister’s voice, she’d known she couldn’t let anyone think Logan had abused her. He’d done no such thing. In fact, she’d abused his trust ...
Oh, no. She’d done just that, hadn’t she?
“Listen to me.”
Something in Lara’s voice made her peer up and pay close attention.
“You must be scared and thinking you’re completely out of your mind.”
You have it right, sister.
“But remember what you once told me.”
“What?”
An ominous tension had fallen between them, and whatever would be said wouldn’t be good for her.
“You once told me to decide what to do about Eric because I had to base myself on how he made me feel.” There came a pause. “You said, ‘if he makes you feel better than anyone else can, then you’ll know’.”
Oh, yes, she remembered those words. And she didn’t like the sound of them one bit.
“Think about it, will you?” Lara said.
Neha only nodded.
“Okay, I’ll be off, then. Will be late for my luncheon, otherwise.”
“Yeah, run along. Thanks for taking the children for the night.”
Her sister smiled and hugged her. “Anytime.”
When alone once more in the kitchen, she let out the breath she’d been holding.
What to do? She literally stood between a rock and a hard place.
On one hand, she had no idea what to make of the future—whatever that could or would be—with Logan. A dead end, she had a feeling.
On the other hand, given the advice Lara had returned to her ...
How did Logan make her feel? She closed her eyes, and heat consumed her body.
He made her feel hot. Bothered. Uneasy. Desired. Cherished. Good.
And therein lay the damn scary part. If she believed her own words of advice, if she should choose a man because he made her feel better than anyone else could, then, the decision was already made, for Logan fitted the bill to a T.
Neha gasped. She was totally screwed!
Chapter Eleven
She had to put an end to this whole thing fast. But this would imply confronting Logan, and after realizing she’d made a terrible mistake by cutting and running the other night, Neha no longer knew on what foot to stand.
Should she go see him? Call him? Text him?
No, she couldn’t rely on a smokescreen of technology between them to deliver her parting words. They’d have to meet face to face.
How to gather the guts to do this, though? Her mind went back to their encounter on the beach. The one that had started her down this path to land her where she now lay entangled. Drat. Why couldn’t she have chickened out of the deal back then? Why had she heeded this irrational urge to prove to him there existed more to her than what he believed?
So, there she stood when Monday came, still debating the proper way to approach the man who had scorched a path into her mind and soul. She had no idea how to tell him the other night had been a mistake and that they better stick to a professional relationship between them.
Wait a second. Work with him? How, when one glance at his hands would remind her of how these fingertips had trailed along her skin? In what way could she take a cue from the words his lips formed when she’d imagine his sensual mouth saying her name in the throes of passion?
No, no, no, no! He represented danger, and the furthest distance between them, the better. She couldn’t work alongside him anymore.
There, she’d resign from her position. She would go to the station early in the afternoon, before the news team started work on the evening bulletin, and tell them she was quitting. It would give them enough time to bring in her replacement, the girl who freelanced for the station on the weekends. Who cared about extreme prejudice in the terms of her contract? She’d put up with any claims they made on her in order to get out.
Clean, swift, easy. Nothing to get anyone worked up over. They were all adults who could handle things in a sensible manner. Well, mostly.
Neha dashed into her bedroom to change. She caught a glimpse of her neck in the reflection of the mirror, zeroing on the now-purple mark pointing its tip above the collar of the turtleneck.
Her first instinct clamoured she couldn’t wear the top—the Wardrobe section always told her such a collar made one really appear like a neck-less turtle on the screen. About ready to discard the garment, she paused. She didn’t have to worry about this, since she wouldn’t be in front of the camera today.
She did need to conceal the hickey, though. It would be weird to drape another thick scarf around her neck. It might get cold in winter here, but not that cold.
In the bathroom where she kept her makeup, she went over the sparse supplies of war paint. The only tube of concealer she owned, and that she didn’t know how to use, was a very pale beige shade. Hardly the kind of cover-up she’d need for the task.
Neha sighed. What to do? Then, a brainwave hit.
Suzanne’s makeup.
The search through the girl’s stash, worthy of a whole display counter at a beauty store, revealed no concealer significantly darker than her own. Blast it. Why couldn’t her daughter have a darker complexion, instead of the alabaster skin she’d inherited from her mother?
Think, girl, think. What could she do? Nothing here. Unless ... The Goth paint. Logically, if a dark shade would conceal a bruise, a white, opaque one should work, too. Fishing the bottle of foundation from the back of Suzanne’s array of products, she sent silent thanks out because her daughter had not listened to her when she’d told her to throw out the extreme-type makeup.
Concentrating on her task, she jumped when her cell phone screeched from the other room. In the process, she splattered her sweater with a hefty dose of white foundation.
The phone kept up its insistent ringing. After a final glance at the mirror, she went in search of the device. The screen indicated Suzanne calling. Worry spread inside her body. Why would her daughter be calling her at one o’clock on a school day?
“Mum!” the girl shrieked as soon as she picked up. “Where are you?”
“Home,” she said, confused by the unconcealed impatience in Suzanne’s voice.
“I can’t believe you forgot! I knew it! I knew you wouldn’t remember! Mum, this has got to be the most important day of my life—”
“Suze, calm down. What happened?”
“It’s today, Mum! The final meeting with the contest’s organizers. You’re supposed to be taking me. I cannot believe you didn’t remember!”
Oh, no. She really had forgotten. How could she? “Suze, wait for me at the school. I’ll pick you up in fifteen minutes, okay?”
“We have to make it to the hotel in Balaclava by two p.m.”
“We will.”
Diya was the asphalt burner in the family, Neha always being teased because she never went over sixty kilometres an hour even on the motorway where the limit reached one-hundred-and-ten.
Guess I’ll prove them all wrong today. About to leave the bedroom, she glimpsed her reflection in the antique standing mirror in the corner. The white splatter on the dark chocolate jumper looked almost like an art deco statement.
She couldn’t go out like this. Panic-stricken, she opened her wardrobe after removing the jumper. Donning a tank top, she then wrapped a scarf a few times around her neck and placed a thick, tailored blazer on top. Buttoning it up to the final collar button, she surveyed her work.
It’d have to do, especially if she didn’t want Suzanne to kill her.
After grabbing her bag and car keys before stepping out of the house, she sped all the way to the school, picked her daughter up, and landed them in the parking lot of the hotel in the northwest
of the island at five minutes to two.
Diya would be proud of me, she thought as she accompanied Suzanne inside.
The elation of having completed the journey in time evaporated when she realized the organizers would never let her leave right away. Neha almost slapped herself on her forehead at another thought. What sort of mother and responsible party was she that she’d consider leaving her seventeen-year-old daughter alone among people she knew next to nothing about?
Drat. That’s what happened when one got involved in clandestine affairs. The maddening secrecy and guilt completely took over conscious and rational thought.
Over the next hour, she busied herself by getting acquainted with the people behind the Isle Looks Contest. Many of them recognized her from her job. She smiled and accepted their compliments and other such comments about the station and her news casting.
Not for much longer, she wanted to say. I’m resigning today.
Speaking of which ... She glanced at her watch and gasped. Already past three o’clock. She needed to get to the station at five, and with a groan this time, reckoned she’d have to go through the capital city, Port Louis, during after-office rush hour to get to Ebène.
“Oh, Mum. This is so much fun.” Suzanne all but jumped around in her excitement.
About as fun as being made to go up the hanging platform. Neha however smiled at her. “Darling, you’ll be here ’til late, innit?”
Suzanne nodded. “Yups. We start the rehearsals for the show later. Don’t worry, they’ve organized for transport to drop us all back at home when it’s over.”
“I know. I spoke to Mr. Langlois a little while ago, and he told me all about it.”
“I’m in good hands, Mum.”
Neha smiled. “I know you are.”
After meeting the organizers, she had a good feeling they were professional people who knew what they were doing.
“Oh, you’ll never guess!”
“What?” The way the girl jumped in excitement, this couldn’t be good.
“Each contestant gets to invite two people to the VIP corner and the cocktail party after the show. Now, Mum, since we only have two spots, it wouldn’t be fair to Kunal and Rishi to choose one of them. So I came up with the perfect solution.”
“Go on.” This could be worse than what she’d expected.
“Easy. You’ll just ask Logan to come along with you.”
Blast it, no. Not again. All through the weekend, Suzanne had sung Logan’s praise at each and every opportunity she’d gotten. Neha suspected the girl harboured a huge crush on him. Should she be worried? The question had plagued her at the same time she’d tried her best to forget the man and the mere thought of him. She’d hoped touching base with the contest’s organizers today would take him off Suzanne’s mind, but it hadn’t been the case.
What to do? Quarter past three already. She really had to run out if she wanted to be at the station in time to warn them that she wouldn’t do the broadcast tonight.
Logan will no longer be a part of my life when Saturday comes, she yearned to tell her daughter. But she couldn’t. A huge hand had closed around her heart and now squeezed the organ with all its might. She lost her breath under the intensity of the pain.
“We’ll talk about this later, okay? I really have to run now, or I’ll be late.”
After a hug and a kiss for Suzanne, and a few words with Guy Langlois, her daughter’s backer in the contest, she left the hotel’s premises and merged into the afternoon traffic.
Neha sent a silent prayer out, asking for luck to be on her side on the trip.
***
As it turned out, luck hadn’t sided with her, or with any other person travelling the same route that afternoon. An accident, thankfully making no victim, had put a stranglehold on the motorway. Traffic had trickled along like thick slush.
Neha’s watch read close to half-past-five when she punched the up button on the lift of the cyber tower. She kept peeking at her phone, dreading to see one particular number appear on the screen. So far, he hadn’t called, and while this made her think she had time on her side, it also snowballed terrible dread inside her. She was late, and if he wasn’t calling, it meant ...
Don’t think about it. You’ll know soon enough. Indeed, the ding to indicate she’d reached the station’s floor resounded then.
The corridor in front of her lay empty. A heavy shroud of silence lingered along its depth. Her breath hitched in her throat. Bad sign ...
The door on the right side, leading to the offices and the radio station, opened, and a man came out.
Neha stopped. Logan. There hung an air of bustling energy around him. In his hands, he held a thick wad of paper. Someone came out from the door that hadn’t closed yet. Ned, her former assistant, who handed the boss another sheaf of documents.
Logan ran his gaze up and down the sheets, then he froze and lifted his head to face her.
Fire burnt in his eyes, and his wide jaw clamped with tension.
I won’t make it hard on you. Just let me say my piece, and I’ll be gone.
“Logan—” she said, but stopped when the door to the TV station on the left flew open and someone shouted for him from inside.
“Is she here yet?” Debbie’s loud voice rang out.
Without taking his gaze off her, Logan nodded. “She got here right this minute.”
Where the hell have you been? The dark depths seemed to ask with spite and fury.
“I … I’m sorry,” she blurted.
Sorry I’m late. Sorry I ran out on you the other night.
He pursed his lips to a tight line and nodded at the station’s door. “There’s lots to do. Come on.”
He went through the doorway, and alone in the corridor, Neha had to catch up with him. Making it to the clear glass panel, she pulled it open and went in, only to stop dead in her tracks. The station didn’t look like a beehive today—it resembled an asylum. Everyone was running all over the place, and it dawned on her something out of the ordinary was taking place.
As the professional competence she’d achieved in the past months flew through her almost like instinct, she went up to Logan where he stood with someone from the news-editing department. “What’s going on?”
He gave her a cursory glance. “The office in South Africa reported on a military coup that’s taken place on the continent. Seems like we’ll be the first to run the piece for the station worldwide.”
So that was the reason for all the buzzing and madness. And she’d been late on this very day. She couldn’t leave. There hardly remained twenty-five minutes to go on air.
“Run to Wardrobe and Makeup,” Logan said. “I’ll brief you on the situation as you’re getting ready.”
“No!”
If he came with her in there, he’d see the marks. He’d then have questions for her, like why she’d left. She couldn’t risk this happening. The explanation would have to take place on her terms, when she’d feel ready. Otherwise, she had no idea how she’d work her way through it.
“Neha, we don’t exactly have time here.”
He’d snapped the words in a clenched tone.
Think of something, fast. “I only need to do makeup and I’ll be ready. My clothes will be fine. I’ll meet you at the desk in five minutes.”
She turned on her heel and went into the room where she got ready every afternoon.
“The clothes on me stay,” she told Stacey the minute the woman swooped down on her. “Got the beginnings of a sore throat, and I need the scarf to keep me from getting sick with this freezing air-con you’re all so fond of. Just get Lily to paint me up, and we’ll be done.”
She cringed at the stricken expression of the faces of the two women in the room. Not only had she lied her way convincingly through the need for the scarf, but she’d also sounded like cold and haughty bitch Pam in the process.
Either this, or letting them see the neck your passionate lover ravaged two nights ago. Right, like she could
let that happen. Everyone knew she was a widow and not seeing anyone. Would it be too much of a coincidence if she walked in with huge love bites on her skin after the same weekend she had spent with her boss and co-anchor?
The garish colour applied, she walked back to the news desk with a confidence belying the tremors rippling inside her. She took a deep breath as she slid into her seat. “What have we got?”
Logan turned all business when he outlined to her the current political situation they would be covering. Neha congratulated herself for having kept an eye on the news editing team in the past months despite no longer working in the position of editor. Her work had paid off. She didn’t feel like a fish out of water while he went through the briefing.
A lull fell between them when he’d finished talking. All around, the sounds of the broadcast’s preparation kept up, but in her mind, they droned in distorted echoes as all her focus directed itself onto the man beside her. His gaze caught hers, and held.
So many questions brewed in there. She had to be a monster for inflicting this turmoil on him.
“We have to talk,” she said softly.
He clenched his jaw, which sent her into a panic.
“Not now, I mean, later, maybe when we’re done here—”
“Is there anything left to say, Neha?”
She recoiled, startled, and hurt, by the curt and cold tone of his voice.
“Logan, I’m sor—”
“Okay everyone, we’re on in fifteen seconds!”
Debbie’s voice cut through the fog, and Neha snapped out of the tension-filled moment between them. He turned towards the camera, arranging the sheets in front of him in the process.
She let her gaze go to those hands, and clearly recalled how they’d felt over her skin.
Get a grip! You’re going on air in ten seconds, and your cheeks are flaming.
It took all her willpower and mental strength to focus her attention on the task at hand.
As if from a far, far away place, she heard her cool and calm voice opening the bulletin with the breaking news of the day.