Falling For Her Bad Boy Boss (Island Girls: 3 Sisters In Mauritius)

by Zee Monodee

  “Ow.” Tyler groaned in pain.

  Logan released his grip, recalling the shoulder wound. He’d been so happy to finally hold his brother in his arms, feel him well and alive, he hadn’t given any consideration to the injury.

  “Bugger.”

  “She’ll be right,” his brother said when he had caught his breath. Throwing the door shut behind Logan, he hobbled slowly, using his arm brace, into the flat.

  Logan couldn’t help but glance at the heavy plaster cast on Tyler’s right foot.

  “You really fucked up this time, eh,” he said as he followed into the big, airy room and flopped down onto a sofa.

  Ty slowly lowered himself onto a couch opposite him. “Mate, I’m alive and kicking. What more do you want?”

  Again, the simmering anger re-surfaced, and he shook his head. “You nearly got yourself killed, you clown.”

  “Exactly like you used to set yourself up for a brain aneurysm every time you stepped onto the ring, bro.”

  If not for the fact that Ty had closed his eyes as if completely weary, Logan would have pounced on the retort and shot something back. He’d been boxing not by choice but because it had been a means to an end. Why did Ty need to risk his life when Logan had made sure he’d been provided with everything he might ever need?

  “Let’s not argue, eh.” Talking about the whole incident would be adding a spark to gunpowder.

  “Suits me,” Ty replied as he popped his eyes open.

  As his brother sat up straighter, Logan allowed his gaze to roam over the chic and cosily appointed interior. He chuckled. The feminine touch screamed from everywhere. Plants, flowers in crystal vases, cushions, and no man-made mess. Like at Neha’s house.

  Stop it right there.

  Closing his eyes tightly shut for a second, he then glanced at Ty. “So, where’s Tara?”

  “Out, on a job assignment. Don’t worry. You’ll meet her soon enough.”

  “She’s out working one day after her wedding?”

  “Wasn’t anything grand. It simply made things official between us.”

  Logan kept his eyes on the other man.

  “What are you not telling me?” he asked softly.

  His brother leaned forward, braced his forearms on his thighs, and sighed. “I’m going to be a father.”

  Bloody hell. “You married her simply because you got her up the duff? Thought Mum and I had brought you up better than this, Ty!”

  “My child ain’t gonna be a bastard, Logan.”

  He pressed his back into the sofa. Despite his instant indignation, he could understand his brother’s reasoning all too well. If the tables were turned, he’d do the same thing.

  He trailed his focus over the younger man. The two of them shared a striking resemblance. They also looked nothing like their mother, who’d been a dainty blue-eyed blonde with an English rose complexion. While Logan had her hair and some hints of her facial features, Tyler had no physical affinity with her. This fact had always told Logan that Tyler probably looked like the spitting image of the man who had sired both of them. Who’d toyed with their mother and made bastards out of them.

  “Would you have considered marrying her, if she hadn’t been pregnant?”

  “In another few years, yeah.” Tyler chuckled. “I never saw myself as married and a family man at twenty-nine.”

  Never thought I’d want to take on three teens either at my age. Logan swiftly pushed the thought away. Dead end.

  “And then me getting shot seemed to drive it all home. Life’s short sometimes,” Ty said.

  The last words hung between them. Life’s also a bitch. Why else would it dangle something right out of your reach and then snatch it back as you were about to close your hand around this prize?

  Bloody hell! He’d come here with the hope he’d forget about Neha at least for a while. Far from the eyes, far from the heart. Guess his brain had never gotten the memo about how things were supposed to be.

  “Logan,” Tyler said, a note of worry, and warning, obvious in his tone.

  “What?”

  “You’re not thinking of getting a drink, are ya?”

  He frowned. “Not at all. Why the hell would you ask this?”

  “Because you got that look on your face.”

  “What look?”

  “The one spelling a craving.”

  At this, he closed his eyes and groaned.

  “You haven’t piked out, have you?” Tyler asked.

  He ran his hands over his face and into his hair. Doing so, he couldn’t help but recall how Neha’s touch felt in the short locks. She loved sitting with his head in her lap, and she’d play with his hair. When he asked her why the fascination, she replied his hair was the only thing soft about him, and how the softness clashed with the rest of him.

  What about his insides, he’d yearned to ask. He turned all too soft for her inside—couldn’t she see this?

  “Logan?”

  He snapped out of his thoughts and stood. “I haven’t fallen back onto the bottle, Ty. Nothing like it.”

  “Then what—” Tyler started, but abruptly stopped. A laugh escaped him. “Well, blow me down. You are done for, mate.”

  He wanted to find some snappy remark to counter the obvious humour and disbelief in his brother’s words, but what would it help? Instead, he snorted, which had Ty in fits of obvious hilarity.

  “If I thought I’d live to see the day.”

  “You nearly bloody didn’t.” He snapped the words.

  “Bugger off, Logan. No pissing around this time. Come on. Tell.”

  “Tell what?”

  Tyler laughed even harder. “Her name, you drongo.”

  What good would it do to fight or deny it? No one knew him as well as his brother. He sighed. “Neha.”

  “Your co-anchor? This keeps getting better.”

  “You watch my bulletins?”

  “Every chance I get. And a fine one, too, she is.”

  “She’s also older than me, widowed, and the mother of three teens.”

  “And your point would be?”

  He remained silent at the jab.

  “Oh, bro. Don’t tell me. You had a tiff.”

  “Worse than a tiff.”

  “Bugger,” his brother said. “And now, you’re running away.”

  He growled in reply.

  “Thirty-seven you may be, big brother, but you’re still an idiot in love.”

  “And you would know a lot about love, eh.”

  His fighting spirit left, weariness and a feeling of being completely in over his head in this whole matter settling in its place.

  “What’d she do?” Tyler asked. “Cheat on you, treat you like dirt, slum it with you? No?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Come on, mate. You got more sense than this. If she’d done any of this, you would’ve been over her a long time ago.”

  True. This then forced him to acknowledge what Neha had really done to him. She’d hurt him; that’s what she’d done. Delivered blow after blow and hit right where it hurt. Because she hadn’t trusted in him. Not even a little.

  “She’s got this warped idea in her mind,” he said, “that she has to abide by everyone’s standards but her own.”

  “And what are her standards?”

  “That’s just it. She ain’t got any.”

  “Crikey dick, mate.”

  Logan snorted. “It came out completely wrong, eh. Not what I meant. I have a feeling she’s never paused in her life to do anything she has wanted to do.”

  “Maybe she’s scared,” came Tyler’s soft reply. “In that case, you need to give her time.”

  Logan glanced up at his brother. How could a twenty-something baby sound so wise? He also noticed the strained features on Tyler’s face. The clock on the wall indicated the wee hours of the night. Ty had probably stayed up to wait for him.

  “Go get some sleep,” he said. “We’ll have ample time later to talk.”


  “Cheers, bro. I’ll show you to your room.”

  “Don’t worry. Tell me where it is, and I’ll find it.”

  “Third door on the left in the corridor.” Ty pulled himself up and leaned heavily on his arm brace.

  Logan’s throat closed. Here stood the sprog he’d loved and protected all his life. “You sure you’re okay, eh.”

  Ty stopped by his side. “Yeah, mate. It’s good to have you here.”

  He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

  After Tyler had retired, he went in search of the guest room. Finding it, he placed his suitcase near the bed and headed for the adjoining loo. He craved a shower, and he also needed to clear his thoughts. The sight of Tyler with his cast and wound, the thought of Neha, the talk them two brothers had had—all this swirled in his mind, and he needed to blank them all away for a little while so he could recover his composure.

  Getting out of the shower, he thought he heard sounds coming from the living room. After dressing in jeans and a light jumper, he went out and stopped in the corridor at the sight of the tall, dusky-skinned girl who potted around in the open-plan kitchen. Despite the late hour, she appeared bright as a button.

  She turned, then, and her pretty face broke out into a smile.

  “No need for anyone to point out you two are brothers,” she said.

  He nodded in greeting. “You must be Tara.”

  “Yup. Want some coffee? I started a pot.”

  “Wouldn’t say no.”

  He wished to get to know her, this woman his brother had married. What better way than through some conversation? He really didn’t feel up to sleeping. Jet lag hadn’t yet caught up with him.

  Walking over to the counter, he stopped at finding her open laptop on the wooden surface. The device sat turned so anyone around could see it. To sit next to it would feel like prying, but since he had no place to settle down without seeing the computer, he reckoned Tara didn’t mind if everyone saw the screen.

  She placed a steaming mug in front of him and then sat down on the bar stool opposite.

  “So, I assume you just got in,” Logan said.

  She nodded. “Work assignment. Had to cover a party over in Bandra East.”

  “You’re a reporter, then?”

  “Page Three.”

  He frowned, not understanding what she meant.

  “It’s the society pages in India,” she said.

  “Bit like a Who’s who.”

  “Exactly.”

  He took a sip of his coffee. “Good stuff.”

  “You’d never know it’s decaff.”

  He glared at the mug.

  Tara laughed. “Had you fooled, too, didn’t it?”

  “Decaff. ’Cause of the baby.”

  “Ty told you?” Her voice took on a hesitant tone.

  He nodded. “Congratulations.”

  “Listen, you’re his only family, and I don’t want you to think I set him up, okay? I didn’t.”

  He watched her carefully as she delivered the rushed words. Somehow, he knew she spoke the truth. There hovered an aura of honesty and innocence about her that struck him as authentic.

  “It never crossed my mind, Tara.”

  “Oh.”

  Did she blush? Logan thought he saw her cheeks tinge from colour, but given her dark skin, he couldn’t be sure. Not like with Neha, whose pale complexion— Bloody hell!

  A beep from the computer broke through the air. Automatically, his gaze went to the screen.

  “Accept this for me, will you?” Tara asked.

  He looked up at her in surprise.

  She laughed, a soft, throaty sound full of mirth and lightness. “No, I don’t mind. And you’re closer to the mouse than I am.”

  Chuckling, too, he clicked the button, and a series of images slid across the screen.

  “It’s from the party I attended tonight. I needed to get the pics from the photographer to be able to write up the captions. Figured I’d do it while all those names are still fresh in my mind.”

  He’d started to turn the other way when an image flashed through and burnt itself in his mind.

  It couldn’t be …

  His heart accelerated, and he directed his gaze at Tara. “You know everyone in those pics?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “Who was the man in the previous picture?”

  “Who?” She reached over for the laptop and went back through the slideshow.

  “This man,” he said when his gaze landed on the tall, handsome dark-haired guy.

  “Sandeep Jain, a local industrialist. Why?”

  “He looks familiar,” he said cautiously, even though his brain and every one of his senses screamed on full alert. “What can you tell me about him?”

  She shrugged. “Nobody knows much about his past. Happened on the scene about two years ago, when he married the daughter of a powerful businessman who is also rumoured to be an underworld don. Worked his way up the ladder, and is now his father-in-law’s right hand man.”

  Two years ago. No wonder. Sometimes, coincidences happened, but in this case?

  He locked his gaze on Sandeep Jain’s face. He had never seen the man before, but he knew a youth the spitting image of this bloke. Jain had mysteriously ‘appeared’ two years ago, at around the same time Rahul Kiran had gone missing in this same city.

  Could they be one and the same?

  Chapter Sixteen

  Neha put the phone down in its cradle.

  “Suzanne,” she called out.

  When she received no reply after a minute, she shouted.

  “What are you screaming the place down for?” her daughter asked as she trudged into the kitchen.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about the trip to India?”

  Suzanne shrugged. “Nadine said she’d call.”

  “And you didn’t think to notify me? Seeing as maybe I’ll need to take a week off work?”

  Lately, every encounter between them rolled out like a duel à la Old West. Guns cocked, stances up—except Suzanne shot the bullets through either the silent treatment accompanied by a glare, or biting words to sting and burn.

  Neha had just heard, over the phone, that Angénue would launch a collection in Mumbai the following week, and since this would be Suzanne’s first official event, the designers wanted her to accompany the girl.

  “Suze, how am I going to get a week’s leave at such short notice?”

  She sighed as the magnitude of the whole deal struck her.

  Suzanne’s gaze narrowed.

  “Ask Logan.” A pause followed; the sulky teen was gathering her ammunition. “He’s not the monster you think he is, you know.”

  Neha closed her eyes for a second. “Suze ...”

  “Don’t Suze me, Mum. There’s this great guy completely ballistic over you, and you dumped him.”

  And then, Suzanne whirled around and left. Neha inhaled deeply as the tension in the room fizzled and died. Drat. If Suzanne kept this up, she’d be an old woman in no time.

  “Mum?” a male voice asked, startling her.

  She turned and stared at Rishi. Try as she might, she hadn’t yet been able to reconcile this deep, ‘broken’ voice with the boy. Boy, she laughed softly. This lad standing there was no boy, but a young man. In the past few weeks, he seemed to have shot up by a foot and bulked up, too. The voice had changed, as well, even if the face still carried the innocence of childhood.

  All too soon, he’d lose this naive edge and morph into a ‘stranger.’ She sent a silent prayer out that he didn’t turn into a hellion like Suzanne had. “What is it, honey?”

  He rolled his eyes at the term of endearment.

  “When you see Logan, can you ask him to return my omnibus copy of The Lord of the Rings? Only for a few days. I’ll lend it back after next week.”

  Logan had Rishi’s copy of a gigantic fantasy epic book. Right. Say that again, she wanted to ask.

  “I’ll buy you a new one.” She craved to deal wit
h Logan as much as one desired to get pushed into a panther’s lair. To think she’d already have to ask him for a week off because of her daughter’s modelling business—she didn’t need another complication featuring yet another of her kids with the man.

  “It’s got all my notes in it,” Rishi whined. “I wanted Logan to read them, too, but now, I need it back for a project.”

  Another question crossed her mind. When had Logan gotten so chummy with her children? First Kunal, then Suzanne, and Rishi, too?

  Then, the blow hit home. Their father hadn’t ever been so involved in their lives. What did this say about Logan?

  “Mum!”

  “Yes, darling,” she replied, snapping out of her thoughts.

  The lad nodded and left. Neha groaned. He probably thought she’d accepted to get his book back.

  The sound of the back door flapping open caught her attention. With a silent prayer, she prayed Kunal wouldn’t come in and talk about yet another topic involving her boss.

  And former lover.

  She needn’t have worried, for her parents, not her eldest son, stepped in.

  Neha let out a different kind of groan. She didn’t need them on top of everything. Recalling the last serious conversation she’d had with her mother, she recoiled into herself. That talk had been the ultimate push point to send a messed-up existence down the drain.

  Pasting on a smile, she greeted them. “Hey, Mum and Dad.”

  “Ah, darling, you are looking much better,” her mother said. “Almost got that ghostly air off you.”

  She grimaced and, glancing away, caught sight of her father’s twitching lips.

  The two settled at the table, her mother happily babbling away. Neha didn’t even turn half an ear to the non-stop chatter. Frankly, she couldn’t be bothered any more. Listening to her mother almost resembled turning yourself into a kamikaze. She of all people should know this. Why hadn’t she paid any heed to her sisters’ talks in the past, when they’d complained about this very fact? She’d thought they exaggerated and tore holes in the truth. Today, she knew better.

  A car’s horn blared outside. Her mother jumped to her feet.

  “Oh, dear. Yazmin is here. She’s taking her mother shopping. Now, that’s a nice girl. Zubeida asked me to come along. I’m off, darling ...” the older woman said all while she went to the door. The last of her words trailed away as the panel closed upon her departing figure.