The perfect nickname slipped from his tongue without him even realizing it. It wasn’t until Sunny was repeating Rani Sahiba with a kind of fascinated horror that he registered he’d even said it. “Yeh kya hain?” she demanded. “What is the meaning of this?”
“Hindi’s your first language, not mine. I’m sure you know the meaning better than I,” he pointed out mildly. When she gave him a hard look, downright mulish, he conceded he’d wound her up enough for one afternoon. “You called Trishna the queen of The Raj, but you ruled the day, Sunita. You rule this show, and your viewers are your loyal subjects.”
She’d clearly expected another bit of silliness, not complimentary sincerity. Her surprise took her over in beats. First, her gorgeous eyes widened. Then, her lips parted in a half circle. Last, her cheeks flushed with just the slightest hint of red. Like a sun-kissed peach. And he wanted nothing more than to lick the juice from her lips.
“Mr. Shaw…”
“Davey. Call me whatever else you wish, but at least call me that.” He rose and came round his desk to her. She stood still, but she was a livewire: vibrating with energy and heat. “You have everything you need to be a sensation, Sunita. The brass, the talent, the spark. Work with me, not against me, and we’ll take over the market…blowing those other talk shows out of the water. Stop viewing everything I do as an attack. I’m not your enemy.”
“No. You’re something far, far worse,” she snapped, reaching to shove him out of her orbit. “I don’t care how brilliant you are or how well we work together. You’re an outsider. You don’t belong here. Main tumko yaahan nahin chathi. I do not want you here. Understand? I want you gone.”
For a long moment, Davey could only gawp at her. Then, there was nothing to look at but the back of her as she sailed out of his office and slammed the door. It took him hours after that to puzzle together that it wasn’t anger in her voice; it was not disgust fueling her words.
It was fear.
After leaving Shaw’s office, Sunny had to stop a dozen different times to find her breath, as if she’d spilled it to the floor in a graceless scatter. She clung to the tape room door, nearly imprinting the knob on her palm as she rested her forehead against the painted surface and inhaled.
Rani Sahiba. Darling. Mr. Shaw couldn’t know that such sweet words fell on the bitterest of ears. Sunita couldn’t bear kindness, and flirtation was far worse. Both were lies parceled in pretty wrapping…designed to lull one into a false security. She couldn’t put her trust in a man who spoke in endearments, not in the workplace or anywhere else. How many times had Sam whispered loving things against the curve of her throat, voice addled by liquor and smoke, only to creep off in the night and say the very same words to some chokra in the back of a gay dance club? He’d held her and Jai hostage in a fragile bid to be a real family, until she finally broke free.
She refused to be a prisoner again. Not even for a jailer who looked like Davin Shaw, with his sun-burnished hair and sky-blue eyes. Rani Sahiba, he could call her. Darling, he could purr. Sweetheart, baby, jaanam, piya. He could write the lyrics for a classic Hindi love song and sing it beneath her window every day for a week. She would not believe in it. She couldn’t.
He was right: She was a queen. And she ruled her heart without mercy.
Chapter Five
The restaurant was bustling. The clink of glasses and plates kept time with the hum of conversation. But it was nothing but noise to Rahul as he went through e-mails on his BlackBerry. At least ten were from his father about the upcoming slate for the production house. Yeh picture, woh picture…and would he want to go on location to the Seychelles to check up on that Harsh Mathur-Sonia Thakral project? Nahin, he wouldn’t. Because he had no reason, no incentive. The movie’s item girl wasn’t Priya. Priya, who ruled his every thought.
The mere mention of her name pierced the veil of his concentration. “Woh jo hain na Priya?” someone said two tables away—You know that Priya?—and his ears pricked like antennae picking up a signal. It was a common name—it could be any Priya—but Rahul’s obsession was thoroughly uncommon. Nursed and cultivated over the course of six years. He knew when the mere thought of his Priya was in the air.
He set down his mobile, reaching for his coffee in its stead. He let the voices come into sharp focus as he sipped. “Wow, yeah, yaar!” one man marveled. “She is beautiful.”
“I am calling her in,” said the other. “I have an item role that’s bilkul perfect. Casting couch, yaar, casting couch!” he crowed.
In reality, the words were a gleeful whisper, but to Rahul they were the loud braying of a jackass. His coffee turned to ice on his tongue, and the cup clattered into his saucer as it slipped from his grasp. A red haze of anger floated in front of his eyes as he rose from his seat. By the time he’d reached their table, it was a full curtain of fury.
He only vaguely recognized the offenders: a minor director of cheap comedies that played to the lowest common denominator and a producer of equally tasteless music videos. But who they were was of no consequence. It was their laughter that mattered. Their assumptions. Their vulgar intent.
The casting couch was an ugly side of their business. So many girls were exploited, coming to Mumbai with big filmi dreams only to be abused by the worst sort of men…forced to prostitute themselves for a role or, worse, just forced. Rahul’s hands curled into fists as the bile rose in his throat. Priya would not be molested. No one would suffer such a fate if he could put a stop to it.
“Hey. Who in the hell do you think you are?” Before the words were even half out of his mouth, the men were struck silent. Not so much with shame, but with shock. “How dare you speak so loosely about a good Hindustani girl? Sharam nahin aata? You should be ashamed of yourselves.”
Immediately the kowtowing began. “Anand-ji, aap? So sorry!” and “Man, we didn’t know you were listening. No offense, please!”
As if such talk was perfectly okay as long as he wasn’t in earshot? Rahul stepped forward, fists rising up. “Mardho ka shakal ka niche janwar jaise mentality. You’re animals.”
“Rahul, yaar…chhoro.” Suddenly there was a hand on his shoulder. Firm. Steadying. “They’re not worth it. Let them be.” Sam Khanna, currently one of the closest things he had to a best mate, tugged him back toward the booth where his things still lay spread out on the table. “Think of your reputation, your bloody izzat. Don’t make a scene.”
It was absurd, really, considering that just a few months ago the shoe had been firmly on the other foot: him trying to keep Sam cool lest he fly off the handle and ruin his career.
“Priya will not be on anyone’s couch. She’s got a full slate. Tension maat karna.” Sam was still making soothing gestures as they each took their seats. “Soon she’ll be dueting with Ashraf and ten other heroes. No second-rate little shit will dare try pulling any haraami.”
Rahul stared at Sam, unblinking. “What do you mean dueting?” Did his voice sound calm? Or was it coiled like a whip, ready to be unleashed? Suddenly foreign to his own ears, he couldn’t tell.
Sam didn’t seem to care either way. He leaned back against the booth, taking a measured sip of the club soda that a ninja-like waiter had materialized with. “I meant exactly what it sounds like, yaar. I just got on the new Kuku Kapoor picture, and Priya’s essaying the role of Ashraf’s girlfriend. The bad girl. The khalnaika.” Sam wiggled his eyebrows lewdly. “It’s one of those dark, sexy dramas. Very sexy.”
“Ashraf Khan?” He didn’t know why he was looking for confirmation. There was only one Ashraf amongst the roster of new young heroes. One Ashraf, who was guaranteed to have a romantic bed scene in every film. It was his particular talent: doing what few other heroes would. And, in this instance, he would be reveling in that talent with Priya.
“Rahul, man, is the vein in your forehead supposed to bulge like that?”
“Sod off.” It was a useless insult to someone who did sod off on a regular basis, so he followed that up with something m
ore choice, more anatomically impossible.
Sam only laughed, toasting him with his glass. “If you hate the idea so much, maybe you should take the role. Phir hero banja. See if your acting muscles have rusted. Not to mention your zipper.”
On one level, Rahul registered the joke. On every other, it was a sudden stroke of genius. A brilliant idea. Maybe you should take the role. Work with Priya again. Take on the role of her boyfriend. Hadn’t he, above anyone else, already practiced for that part? He picked up his BlackBerry from where it had lain silent on the tabletop and thumbed through his address book. Kapoor, Kuku. It was a Delhi number, and it began ringing almost instantly.
“Hello, KK? Rahul Anand here.” Sam’s jaw dropped, and choice words began to fall from his lips. But Rahul tuned them out. “How would you like to host my return to the big screen?” After Kuku’s ecstatic whoop and a promise of details to come, he disconnected the call and leveled Sam with an arch look. “Done.”
“You’re totally mad, you know? This is completely insane for your career and your personal life. And Priya’s not going to like this one bit.” Sam was so amused it made him look almost beautiful. No doubt he was always beautiful to Vikram. Because that was love. That was devotion. And it was obsession also.
“I don’t give a damn what she likes. This is what I want.” Rahul had played by her rules for too long. Six years ago, he’d let Priya run from him. Now…now he was finally giving chase.
Priya set her land phone back in its cradle, frowning at it as though it, and not the caller, had done her an offense. She’d had a meeting with a comedy director scheduled for next week, but her assistant had called saying she was no longer needed for the role. Strange. Not unheard of, but definitely strange. There was no such thing as an audition process at most Mumbai production houses. A director or producer called you in because they wanted you, you either said yes or no, and the talking of crores and lakhs was left to secretaries and assistants. Kabir, who’d come with her from Kolkata, was particularly efficient at the money talk…and so discerning about the roles she took that he seldom brought word to her of anything he hadn’t already approved. When she’d asked after the cause of the abrupt cancellation, all he’d said was, “Director ta shubidar chilo na, Miss Priya,” in crisp, almost fond Bengali. The director was not of good character. As if that explained everything. In reality, it explained nothing. Most people in the industry did not have much in the way of strong moral fiber. After all, hadn’t she left Mumbai in less-than-pristine condition?
Every day for six years, Priya had counted her tiny store of blessings. If her parents had not been filmi folk, with money and connections and liberal ideals, she wouldn’t have seen her daughter grow up. Just a touch more conservative, a dash more religious, and they could have sent her away to her great uncle’s village in Bangladesh to marry someone twice her age. They could have disowned her. Beaten her. Forced an abortion. Forced a miscarriage.
She knew of students from her girls’ high school whose lives and hopes had been so cruelly wrenched from them, all to maintain propriety and a family’s good name. Seeing Shona laugh, watching the rise and fall of her chest as she slept…it was a gift. How could Priya ever complain that the package came tied with strings?
She hugged herself, as if to ward off a sudden chill, as she crossed her flat’s front room and came to stand in front of the windows. The wide expanse of the sea was spread out like a carpet of darkness, with the bright lights of buildings dotting the shore. Her palms pressed flat against her belly, that tiny cradle where Shona had spent nine months growing into being, and suddenly, it wasn’t the night-clad city that floated before her eyes. It was day…one perfect day.
Sunlight streamed in through the glass. Above her, he looked like a young god…all golden skin and unruly hair and the gleam of a diamond stud in his ear. He was so beautiful it hurt to look at him. It hurt elsewhere, too. A strange newness that didn’t make any sense…and yet made all the sense in the world.
“Rahul, are you sure? Yeh tik to hain?”
“Haan, Priya. Just there. Touch me.”
He was so confident. Confident of her fingers curling around him. Confident of his lips claiming hers. Confident they were going to last.
Priya couldn’t bear to tell him that she didn’t have the same confidence. In fact, all she had was doubt. But she took him into her anyway, arching her hips and winding one arm round his neck as she continued to stroke him where they were joined.
“Don’t stop,” he gasped, mouth hot and sharp on her earlobe. “Don’t stop.”
One day she would have to stop. She couldn’t bear that either.
Beyond those precious, stolen moments, there was one role she’d never gotten to play: Rahul’s girlfriend. And no one person had canceled it. Just Fate.
Chapter Six
Sunita, Sunita, Sunita. Her name reverberated through his skull even as his ears were being otherwise assaulted. “Why’ve you gone so far away, Davey? It’s not fair.” As he threaded through the brief maze of café tables, the pout came across loud and clear over the line. Petulant, spoiled…and ever so dear. “You know I’d love you closer at a time like this. At my beck and call. Catering to my every whim.”
God, George certainly knew how to push his buttons. Davey rolled his eyes heavenward for an instant, wondering how it was that he always found himself in these sorts of predicaments. Tied up with drama queens. Forever worrying about them, no matter how near—six tables away was a veritable gulf at the moment—or far. “Georgie, be serious.” He sighed. “Tell me you’re all right, darling. Don’t make me worry about you.”
“I like it when you worry about me. It makes me feel special.” This was offered up with just the right amount of tartness, so ridiculously familiar it was like he was standing in George’s living room in Surrey.
“I live to serve,” he murmured dryly before registering the sensation of being watched. No, of being pinned by a gaze far more calculating than his own. It was a thin trickle of ice water down the back of his shirt, an itch that spread across his shoulders. With a dawning horror, Davey turned and met the eyes of Nina Manjrekar…someone who, up until this point, he’d only known from Bollywood news sound bytes, grainy photographs in the trades and the flattering low lights of industry parties where he deliberately stayed across the room. The kind of gorgeous-at-forty that came purely from a surgeon’s scalpel and a few Botox injections, she was nonetheless rather stunning. In a terrifying sort of way. All artfully applied makeup and form-fitting suit…and undisguised interest.
“You’re Rahul’s school friend, na? David Shaw?” she trilled, giving him quite the once-over.
He didn’t know how long she’d been standing there—lurking, really, since the decorative potted tree was more hiding place than public thoroughfare—but he quickly said his goodbyes, switched off his mobile and returned it to his pocket.
He didn’t move to correct her on his name. He didn’t move, period. It was like being caught in the thrall of some sort of snake, or maybe the charmer…swaying helplessly in front of the wooden flute. Rahul had sincerely not been exaggerating about his stepmother’s wiles. Ex-stepmother, he could nearly hear him saying.
“Gunga ho, kya? Can’t you speak, handsome?” It was flirtation wrapped in scorn, or perhaps the other way around. Davey was just revolted enough by her tone to rise to the challenge.
“I’ve nothing to say to you, Ms. Manjrekar,” he said, stiffly. “Your reputation precedes you.”
“You mean Rahul’s badmouthing precedes me.” Nina didn’t blink. Blinking would require human response. “My reputation is spotless…aur meri power, boundless. You don’t want to make an enemy of me, Mr. Shaw,” she warned him.
“I don’t want to make anything of you, Ms. Manjrekar,” he said through his teeth in that pompous way he knew Sunny hated. “If you have something specific you’d like to discuss, please get to it. Otherwise, kindly get out of my way.”
She stood before him
for what felt like an ungodly eternity before she removed herself from his path, and Davey could fairly swear that she managed to leave some fundamental part of herself behind to keep tabs on him. It was an essence. A cloying scent of suspicion and deceit. A harbinger of certain doom.
I want you gone. She’d said it plainly, and yet here he still was…sitting before her at the café where they’d first met as though she’d never said a word. As though nothing had changed. Stupid angrezi ulloo.
“Sunita…?” Davey’s laugh was a low, husky noise that danced across the surface of her skin. “You’re calling me various animal names in your head, aren’t you?”
“Not ‘names’, plural. Sirf ek hi. Just the one.”
Sunny could not admit she was pleased…but she felt an odd sense of contentment at Davey’s insufferable presence these past few weeks. The show had never run more smoothly, and her pulse had never been more upbeat. She was being challenged. God, it was beautiful, na? Something about this maddening man Davey Shaw worked. Even when they were not precisely working together. She would not allow him near her heart, but her mind…oh, her mind found him bloody impossible to resist.
Davey’s mobile vibrated, dancing off the table like it was on fire. His brows winged together as he checked the screen, but that was that. He tucked the phone away into a pocket without keying out a reply.
Sunita’s natural—frequently overactive—curiosity couldn’t help but kick up. “What is it?” The question came out edged with glass, though she’d been trying, in the days since her outburst in his office, to keep her emotions under tighter wraps. “Is it something important? Something about the show?”
“No, it’s nothing, Rani Sahiba.” He pushed aside his dour expression, replacing it with the tease of that god-awful nickname. But the hair on Sunny’s arms stood at attention, and a prickly feeling crawled up her spine. She’d co-parented with an addict who couldn’t keep his pants on for nearly fifteen years. SMS messages were never “nothing”. They were a meeting with a dealer or a seedy hookup in a club. They were excuses to miss Jaidev’s Sports Day, his violin performance and his Diwali group dance. Texts meant a thousand different things to her…none of them good.
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