by MK Schiller
“May I offer you something?” he asked, gesturing to the cart. “As it happens, I have an abundance of food.”
“I’m fine, thank you.”
He pulled out a chair. I stared at it in confusion, waiting for him to take it, but I soon realized it was for me.
“Please eat something, Miss Costa.”
I smiled, trying to downplay the giddiness that threatened to well up in me. I had to act professional…but maybe on this occasion, I could be friendly as well.
“Call me Mary, please.”
“Will you call me Liam?”
“No, sir. That’s improper.”
He sighed, taking a yellow legal pad and pencil from his briefcase. “As you wish, Mary.”
Perhaps I should not have asked him to call me by my first name. He said it slowly, emphasizing the syllables.
Maarry.
I’d never thought much of my name, but I enjoyed it a great deal when it came out of his sexy mouth.
“What would you like? I’ll fix you a plate.” He wanted to fix me a plate? If Prabhat knew I was cavorting with a guest socially, let alone dining with one—especially him—he’d kick me into the streets without a second thought. Still, it didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy it. Only that Prabhat couldn’t find out. Liam seemed to understand that. It gave me a measure of safety in this daring dance between us.
“I’ll only eat if you join me,” I said.
“With pleasure. What shall we try first?”
I removed the domes. “How about this?”
“What is it?”
“It’s called a dosa.”
“Dosa,” he said slowly.
“Yes, traditionally from south India, but it’s eaten everywhere. It’s a rice crepe flavored with masala. We stuff ours with potatoes and onions.”
He cut the long folded pancake in half, placing a portion on each plate. “Sounds good.”
I spooned a thick dollop of chutney on the side of his plate. He regarded it with suspicion.
“You should try it with chutney.”
“I don’t know. It looks spicy. It’s the same color as Wasabi.”
“I’ve never had Was—was—”
“Wasabi…used for sushi.”
“Raw fish? Do you enjoy that?” I asked, trying not to make a face.
“Yeah, I love it. But I can only handle a little bit of the Wasabi. You should try it sometime.” His statement had codified our differences. I couldn’t just go out to a restaurant on my budget.
“This particular chutney isn’t spicy. It’s made from coconut and mint.”
He cut into it gingerly.
“Use your hands, sir.” I demonstrated with my own plate. “If you are willing to eat with the natives, then you should eat as we do in all ways.”
“Very well.” He poured himself a glass of wine. “Do you drink?”
“Only during communion.”
“So you don’t drink?”
“I don’t have an aversion to it, but I don’t want any wine right now.” The last thing I needed was to lose the tiny shred of sense I had left.
“Would you like a soda? Water?”
“Water is good.”
He retrieved a bottle from the honor fridge for me.
He followed my lead, chewing the food slowly. I tried not to stare at the way his mouth moved. His lips were full and sensual, especially against his strong-set jaw.
“It’s tasty.”
We chatted about food. He told me about different kinds of sushi and other things I’d never heard of, like calamari and tilapia. I had no idea why anyone would find squid appetizing, but apparently it was one of Liam’s favorite things. He asked questions, too. I told him about the diverse cuisines of India. He finished the dosa, scraping his plate clean.
“Now what should we nosh on?” he asked, arching a brow.
My skin flushed as his gaze raked over me. We made our way through all the different dishes. I offered him suggestions on what to try next. Some things he appreciated more than others, but to his credit, he tasted them all.
“I’m full,” he declared after several plates. He patted his stomach again. The sound was as solid as the wooden base of nagara drums.
I started clearing the table, placing our dishes back on the trolley. He stood to help me.
“Please sir, I can clean up. It’s what I do.”
“It’s not your mess. It’s our mess, and you’re not working. You’re my guest. Let me take care of it.”
“I need to do it.” He regarded me for a second as I cleared the plates. The work kept my mind occupied. I stacked our dishes and wiped down the table. I hoped he’d understand. It wasn’t a servant mentality, but my need to always have order in my life.
Once it was done, I stared at the cart.
Before I could say anything, he pushed it to the other side of the room. He glanced at me and then opened the door. “I’ll be right back.”
It took a while for him to return.
“Where did you go?”
“I took the cart back to the kitchen. I gave the chef my compliments and apologized for keeping him busy all day.”
“That was nice of you.”
He shrugged, as if people brought their carts back to the kitchen all the time. “You would have kept looking at it, wouldn’t you?”
“Probably.”
“I figured. I wanted you to be here with me, not thinking about dirty dishes. Are you able to do that, or would you prefer to leave? You understand the choice belongs to you and you alone.”
“I want to be here, sir.” I twisted a strand of hair. The sun filtered through the windows, casting a golden glow. I swiped a napkin across the table, gathering a few stray crumbs. “Are you going to ask me questions now?”
“Sure,” he said, picking up the legal pad. He tapped the pencil against it. “Why are you here?”
“You ordered food.”
“I mean, at the hotel.”
I shrugged, not expecting such a personal question. Then again, it really wasn’t that personal. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Just wondering what motivates people.”
“I moved to Rajasthan from Mumbai when I was eighteen. In my search for work, I inquired if they had open positions, and they did. There is not much else to tell.”
“I doubt the story is that simple.”
How did he see right through me? “I am not as complicated as you seem to think.”
He leaned in. “And I’m much simpler than you think.”
I had no idea how to respond to that. He leaned back, not expecting an answer. “Why settle in Jaipur of all places?”
“I wanted a place bigger than a village, smaller than a metropolis. Here it was. A city with massive hilltops, overlooking clusters of castles occupied by Raj’s that are surrounded by a lake so pure it gleams brighter than any jewel.”
He listened to me with a quiet intensity. “You should be in charge of tourism. You make me want to explore it…every beautiful meter.”
My fingers gripped the armrests of the chair. Were we still talking about the city? A crisp breeze circulated, but it only fanned the sparks between us. This flirtation was dangerous and delicious. I licked my bottom lip.
“I’m going to Mumbai after this,” he said.
“You are?”
“We opened a hotel there a few years ago. I’m going to visit, and then my final destination will be Goa. That is actually one of our most profitable hotels.”
“Goa is lovely.” People from all over the world traveled to its lush beaches.
“You’ve been there?”
“No, but I’ve heard it is.”
“May I ask you something without sounding completely ignorant?”
“I doubt you ever sound ignorant, sir.” I braced myself for a difficult question.
“Why do you have a Spanish last name?”
All m
y bunched muscles relaxed. “As you probably know, the Brits ruled India before independence.”
He smirked. “Yes, I’m aware of that.”
“But before that, we belonged to Portugal. When the Portuguese came ashore on Goa, they brought missionaries along with the sailors and traders. The missionaries converted many families. Along with those conversions, they adopted Spanish names. Mine was one of them.”
“Interesting. I didn’t know that. So you come from Goa?”
“Originally, but this was centuries ago. We migrated to Bombay eventually…or Mumbai, depending if you use the new name.”
“Does your family still live in Mumbai?”
My quota for easy questions was up. “My parents are gone.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said, his striking green-brown eyes shining with a compassion I wasn’t prepared for.
I swallowed down a silent sob before taking an unladylike gulp of water from the bottle. “Thank you. But only my father passed away. My mother ran off years before. No one has heard from her since, not that we were looking.”
“Where did you live after your father passed?”
“In an orphanage until I turned eighteen.”
“Do you have any family?”
I opened my mouth, but was struck silent. The lump in my throat threatened to crack open. Shit.
Liam’s concerned expression only made it worse. Do not pity me, I wanted to scream. But I might have dissolved into a pool of tears if I opened my mouth.
“I’m sorry. Obviously I’m trespassing on your privacy. I noticed you didn’t have an emergency contact.” My mouth gaped, but before I could respond, he continued, “I checked the other employees, too. You’re the only one who doesn’t have one. I’d like to fill that line in for you. Who shall I put down?”
The silence between us stretched. I twisted the cheap silver band on my arm, reminding myself it was time to buy a new bracelet. “Leave it blank.”
He placed his hand flat on the table, close to mine, as if to offer an invitation to reach out. I refused the offer.
“I lost my mum in a car accident when I was sixteen.”
Guilt pricked at me. “Were you close?”
“Yes.”
“She bought you the book. I…I read the card. I’m sorry. The other ones fell out. I probably put them back in the wrong place.”
“I can figure out where they all go. I’ve read them enough times to know.”
“What do they mean? The note cards.”
He considered my question for a moment. We’d been tiptoeing around each other’s boundaries since I’d arrived. His reaction made me wonder if I’d unknowingly crossed into hostile territory. He smiled softly, putting me at ease. “Mum fancied herself a writer. She always bought me a book for my birthday. She put note cards inside with parables or lessons or thoughts she’d written for me. Sometimes, they had to do with the book. Most of the time, they were just generalizations to guide me.”
“What did she write?”
“Poems, short stories, and a novel that never saw an end. It was her dream, but dreams don’t pay rent. She worked as a supermarket cashier and crafted junk jewelry, too.”
The realization struck me our differences were not as vast as the oceans between our homes. Liam Montgomery had been poor once. “Her gifts were very thoughtful.”
He laughed, a sad, cynical laugh. “When I was a kid, I hated them. What the hell was I going to do with a book? I wanted a new bike or a skateboard or even a fucking shirt without a hole in it. I never read the books then…nope. Too busy playing rugby and chasing birds.” He looked disgusted with his admission, as if he’d eaten something spoiled.
“Birds? You’re a bird chaser?”
“Birds…girls.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Anyway.” He tapped on the notepad. But I didn’t want him to steer us again, so I took the reins from him.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“What doesn’t matter?”
“That you may not have shown gratitude at the time. We’re not always ready to appreciate every present in the…present.”
“Very true.”
“Obviously, you knew deep down how great they were because you saved them.”
“They were all destroyed except for Nicolas Nickleby.” His eyes darkened, the green overtaking the brown, a quiet hurricane of anger. I winced when he cracked the pencil in two. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
I was torn, searching for the right response to the swirling fog of emotion. He was inside some toxic mixture of anguish and anger. My heart broke, realizing he offered to lend me the only book he had left.
“Sir.”
He lifted his face to meet my gaze.
“You still have the words, right?” I pointed to my heart. “You have them here, don’t you? It doesn’t matter if they’re not on the same paper in her writing. Words never die.”
He blinked several times, focusing on me. His jaw tightened. “Are you a maid or a philosopher?”
“I am a maid.”
His hand reached for mine, but I pulled away before contact.
“I’m sorry. I am.” He shook his head. “God, I can’t believe I said that.”
“Why? It’s the truth.”
“It’s me being a complete dick is what it is.”
I understood why he’d snapped. It wasn’t to lash out at me, but to protect himself. I employed the same exact methods. I shouldn’t have pressed. Each of his movements had been a clear warning, a plea even, to step lightly.
He offered me an apologetic smile. “It’s the funny thing about childhood. You think it’s the worst of times when you’re living it.”
“And the best of times when it’s over.” I finished his thought. “Very Dickensian, sir.”
“Please don’t call me ‘sir,’ especially when I’m referring to you by your first name.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Will you tell me something she wrote?”
“I’m supposed to ask you questions, remember?”
“Questions about the hotel, but we’re not doing that, are we?”
“No, I suppose we’re not.”
“Motherly advice is something I’ve never had.” Unless it involved whitening creams or the proper way to apply kohl. “If you share the words with me, I’ll pass them on. They’ll go into the universe and then maybe, one day, you’ll hear them again. You’ll see what I mean about words not dying.”
“Your persistence surprises me, Miss Costa.”
It surprised me, too…my persistence and my lack of resistance. “Sorry, sir. We can move on.” I folded my hands in my lap and waited for him to ask me something.
“Here’s one I rather like. It’s the story of two roads. There are only two roads in life. The high road and the easy road. The high road is difficult, full of jagged rocks and pits and steep curves, but the journey is worth it. The easy road is smooth and straight, but it’s also paved with regret. Always travel the high road, Liam. Always the high road. That’s what she wrote.”
“Good advice. Do you follow it?”
“I wish I could tell you I did, but I don’t always.”
“Maybe there’s a place where both roads intersect.”
I hoped a place like that existed because being with Liam Montgomery was both easy and difficult. Which path did I want more? Or was there even an open path for me to choose? The way he looked at me said yes. But all the ways of the world said no.
I jumped as Liam’s phone buzzed, the harsh sound sawing through the thick tension in the room.
He glared at the screen. “Excuse me, please. I have to take this.” He answered the phone and told the other person to hang on the line. I wondered if it was a bird calling him.
“I’m going to go now.” I stood and walked toward the door. As I turned the handle, his husky voice coiled around me, almo
st pulling me back into the room.
“Next time I order room service, don’t make me do it four times, Miss Costa.”
Thankfully, I wasn’t facing him, because I smiled so wide, my jaw protested. “Yes, sir.”
Chapter 7
Liam
Stephen argued we needed to execute the contract soon. The lawyers had signed off, and the buyers were anxious. I stared at the vacant chair across from me the whole time he spoke. At least he was sober.
“I’ll call you tomorrow, Stephen.”
“What? No, we need to talk about this. We have—”
“Fuck. Off.”
I slammed the phone on the bed. It bounced three times before landing on the pillow.
Why the hell did I tell her all that stuff? Details I had never told anyone. The girl was calm and chaos rolled into one. Every time she called me ‘sir,’ it was a reminder our relationship was imbalanced and improper. Still, the fucking term turned me on. I had slapped it back in her face, hadn’t I? I’d stung her with my words…and guess what?
Words. Don’t. Die.
The girl, both subservient and rebellious, was becoming more of a mystery to me. How brave was she? She’d lost her entire family and moved to a new city on her own. Although my stepmother, father, and Stephen weren’t exactly loving people, at least I’d had a home. I had a fucking emergency contact, and I didn’t have to worry about supporting myself.
She had no one. Yet, somehow that made her stronger. The questions I had asked Mary harpooned straight into inappropriateness. They discredited my reputation as an honest businessman. But she’d turned the tables on me.
Get your shit together.
Maybe I needed to take Mum’s advice. Take the high road and not order room service tomorrow night. I’d forget about her. Forget the way her body moved as she walked across a room. Forget her long limbs and soft curves. I’d forget about her pouty lips and silky hair. Or the way she parted her mouth or the crimson blush that settled over her face when I flirted. I’d forget how hard I was, too. Well…some things couldn’t be ignored.
* * * *
I spent the next day convincing myself I’d forgotten all about her. Even as I dialed room service, I blamed it on hunger. Yeah, I was hungry all right.