Spice and Secrets

by Suleikha Snyder

  Main tumhara bin ji nahin saktha, Priya. I can’t keep living without you.

  He would have to. Because, surely, they’d gone too far, hurt one another too much, to make a real go of it together, na? And because Garuda himself had brought Shona to her parents for safekeeping, and who could argue with Vishnu’s right hand?

  Rahul could argue, whispered a small voice beneath the jumble of far louder ones crowding her thoughts. Rahul would pull forth his mobile phone and text Vishnu’s left hand to give his right a swift punch. Priya trembled, not with the effort of lifting her bags onto the X-ray conveyer, but with the effort of silencing that rebellious voice. “Aage dekho, Priya,” she said to herself. “Look forward.” There was no use in looking back, na?

  Once done with the business of the security line, she headed for her gate, stopping along the way for a coffee—the only way to guarantee that she’d be moderately alert when they landed in Kolkata. At home, Shona would be wide awake, bouncing up and down, ready to tell her Prithu Didi everything she’d missed…and she didn’t want to miss a single moment of it. She needed to cherish that innocence before she changed everything her daughter had known as truth. She would cherish it and keep it next to the beats of her heart, alongside each draw of her breath…all of which would belong only to Rahul till the end of her days.

  Priya’s thoughts were so occupied with reunions, practice monologues about fathers who were flesh and blood—not simply imaginary—and a future spent alone that she didn’t realize she’d strayed into someone’s path until the half-empty coffee cup was plucked out of her hand. And that was all it took to bring her back to the here and now: a brushing of fingers. Like a match to the side of a matchbox, it ignited, and she recognized the heat. Her body knew him before her eyes even focused.

  Rahul. Here, in the airport lounge. Flesh and blood indeed…looking exhausted and angry, his shirt haphazardly buttoned, his sports coat hanging off one shoulder. A boarding pass was tucked into his top pocket like a crisp, white handkerchief. “Hello, Pree. All checked in?”

  All the breath left her lungs, and a sharp blade of pain pierced her chest. Her fingers went numb, loosening on the handle of her roller bag. It tilted over, clattering to the floor. “R-rahul…kaise…how?”

  He sipped from her coffee before answering, his gaze bloodshot. He was drinking from the exact spot she’d put her mouth to; the paper was stained the pale pink of her gloss. “I’ve shown you all the things I can get done with one phone call. Contrary to your disappointing lack of faith, I can make things happen.”

  “Why? Kya faidha?” She bent to right her bag, and to give herself a few seconds to breathe, to collect and don her armor. When she stood, gripping her bag with a white-knuckled fist—clenched with the sheer effort of not reaching for him, of not pulling him close—her defense was in place. “So you are on my flight. You want to come to Kolkata. What will come of it? What is the point?”

  Again he drank from her cup, as if joining their lips in a kiss. She couldn’t restrain the shiver that traveled through her…and, of course, he saw it—he noticed everything about her—but his smile was not so much victorious as it was cynical and tired. “The point is, I love you, Pree.” He said this matter-of-factly, not in the passionate way of a filmi hero or the man who had declared his emotions to her in bed. “I love you, and I want Shona to know us as her parents, and I don’t want anyone to ever again question how much you had to give up to keep her near you. So, I’m not letting you go anywhere without me, whether that’s Calcutta or the bloody dark side of the moon.”

  “Love was never our problem. That was the easy part. It’s everything else that matters,” she pointed out. “It’s Shona that matters. Woh meri sab kuch hain. She is everything to me. She is the main concern here.” A concern that she’d left behind while she pursued her own dreams…and look where that had brought her? To a beautifully selfish place, where she longed to believe Rahul could indeed follow her to the moon and back. Priya closed her eyes against a sudden rush of tears, against a far more insidious rush of want. “One phone call will not make this happen, Rahul. It requires more work than that.”

  “Of course it does.” His hand curled around her shoulder. He drew her toward him in careful centimeters, until she could nearly taste the hints of coffee and mint on his breath and they were entirely too close for it to be proper. “You think I don’t want the hard parts, too? Tum paagal ho, kya? Have you gone mad, Priya? Do you think I move mountains and rearrange movie plots because I only want simple things? Because I want it easy? I want it all. I want a whole, full life, with you and our daughter. I want to make up for six years we should’ve had together. And I want to wake up with you every single morning for the rest of my days.

  “But do you know what I want even more than that beautiful reality? I want you to trust me and love me with your whole being. I want all of you. This requires work, but it doesn’t require self-sacrifice. Don’t be noble. Don’t be a martyr. Don’t let your parents or your fear dictate your life. Be selfish in the best way, Pree. Give yourself over to me, put your heart in my hands. Because we both know that is where it belongs.”

  Oh. There was the big, romantic movie moment, in the dark warmth of his eyes and the rough velvet of his voice. In the words he’d no doubt scripted for the express purpose of breaking and re-setting her heart. Priya would’ve stumbled had he not been holding her up. She would have collapsed had he not been her foundation. “But Sh-shona…” she heard herself gasp, a frail argument if there ever was one. One she made even as she found her bearings and her strength—in him. Always in him. “It’s too much, na? I have to explain…to tell her—”

  “Shonali only needs us,” he cut in, stroking her cheek with the backs of his fingers. It was another stand-in for a kiss. This one more tender, more generous, than any sort of play with the rim of a paper cup. “We will explain together. We will do all of it together, Priya. We will fight your family and the whole world if we have to, and we will win. I promise. Just let me in. Let me stay.”

  Months ago, in Premnagar, she had opened a door and accepted the inevitable. She’d said yes. It wasn’t a word that would remotely cover what needed to be said in this instant. So, she used three words instead—and she repeated the sentiment in every language she knew: “Main tumse pyar karthi hu. Ami tomake bhalobashi. Ti amo. I love you.”

  And then Priya took Rahul’s hand and crossed the threshold.

  Epilogue

  Shorot-kal, autumn, had always been Priya’s favorite season—a time of so many festivals, of food and music and family. It was twice as beautiful away from the hustle and bustle of the city, here on the edge of the Bay of Bengal. The sun hung low in the darkening sky, colors shifting like a half-peeled orange. Sunny-ji—for, even now, Priya couldn’t bring herself to drop the respectful address—and Shaw’s heads were bent together as they laughed at some private joke. There was just enough light to shadow the children playing in the surf. Their children.

  Shona had taken the truth of her parentage with the typical straightforward approach of a small child. “Okay,” she’d said, when Priya was finally able to tell her, “This is Rahul—he is your real baba”, and immediately reached for his hand. Then, when Priya whispered, “And I’m your mom, not your didi”, Shona had simply smiled, showing the gaps in her milk teeth.

  “Ami jaani!” I know!

  “You know? How do you know?”

  “Because Anita Didi said that when your ma loves you more than anything, it does not matter where she is. And you loved me in Mumbai.”

  In Mumbai and Calcutta and heaven and hell.

  Shona was wiser than the adults in her life, by far—and already in the throes of her first crush. Jai was endlessly patient with the little girl who’d decorated his sand castles with shells and now gazed up at him like he’d dragged the sun down for their viewing. Priya understood, wholly, the inclination, because she could not keep from staring at Rahul in the same fashion.

  A
faint beard framed his cheeks, and his loose, collarless shirt was damp from the spray of the sea. The breeze had mussed his hair and, for a moment, she imagined a gold ring in the lobe of his ear. A memory of the boy she’d known.

  This was no fantasy, spun as she swayed to the beat of an item song. This was real. Her daughter and the man she’d loved for half her life with her on the beach in Cox’s Bazar, along with two dear friends. They’d extended the invitation to Sam and Viki, of course. “Happy family vacation with the ex-wife?” Sam had laughed. “Sorry, friends, but even a Bollywood audience wouldn’t buy that ending. You enjoy your honeymoon travels. Vikram and I…we’ll make our own fun, na?”

  Priya wasn’t so sure about Sam’s take. She could picture him and Viki on the sand perfectly well, stretched out on a towel nearby. Perhaps not so close to Sunny and Shaw, but linked. By Jai, by joy. That, she thought, was not so unbelievable. Not after all that they had each overcome.

  “She’s gone, you know.” For weeks, Rahul hadn’t uttered Nina Manjrekar’s name. As if the act of doing so would invoke her like the gods. She, he would say. Or her. On rare occasions, when Shona wasn’t in earshot, he would refer to that bitch. But never the specifics. Never any acknowledgment that she’d mattered in his life at all. He held to that private rule even now, as grains of sand slipped through the sieve of his fingers. “Pitaji called her to Delhi and forced her to sell him her shares of the company. Thanks to my father, thanks to me, she’s effectively been banished from Bombay.” It was only a small measure of satisfaction. Priya had never taken pleasure in the failures of others. Not like Rahul, who looked ferociously satisfied as he imparted the news. “She won’t hurt you again, Pree. Ever.”

  She caught his wrist, held him still. “I’m not afraid to be hurt, Rahul,” she assured, stroking his wild pulse with her thumb. Just the slightest touch set her own senses spinning. “Sukh ki saath, dukh ki zaroorath bhi hain. You can’t know happiness unless you’ve known suffering. Pain builds strength, na? It builds character.”

  “Does it build bungalows with grand names?” Amusement sparkled in his dark, insightful eyes. Amusement—and the promise of things to come.

  She raised his hand to her lips and kissed his beach-roughened knuckles. “Nahin, I think that is our task…and we don’t need a grand name.”

  All they needed was a simple one. Home.

  About the Author

  Writer and editor Suleikha Snyder always dreamed of being a published author…but she took the long way around and got a little lost en route! Cue fifteen years of detours involving a degree in English literature, a job in college administration, and a gig in entertainment media. After publishing her first romantic short story in early 2011, she’s finally putting pedal to the metal on the fiction freeway.

  Suleikha lives in New York City with her neuroses, her sense of humor and a menagerie of stuffed animals. Find her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/suleikhasnyder and online at suleikhasnyder.blogspot.com.

  Look for these titles by Suleikha Snyder

  Now Available:

  Bollywood Confidential

  Spice and Smoke

  Spice and Secrets

  When the cameras stop rolling, the real scene begins.

  Spice and Smoke

  © 2012 Suleikha Snyder

  To their adoring public, Avi Kumar and Trishna Chaudhury are Bollywood’s sweethearts. Behind closed doors, their open marriage lets them freely indulge in all manner of forbidden passions. The arrangement suits them both, but as they begin filming on the set of their new movie, the heat of new and rekindled flames singes the pages of what they thought would be a fresh script.

  When costars Michael Gill and Harsh Mathur arrive on set, the sexual temperature goes up exponentially—at least for Trish. She can’t take her eyes of Harsh, for whom she’s carried a torch for years. Avi’s instant attraction to Michael, however, bounces off Michael’s solid wall of resistance.

  Meanwhile, ex-boyfriends Vikram Malhotra and Sam Khanna, cast as fictional enemies, are finding it harder and harder to control the very real demons that once cost them the love of a lifetime.

  Once the music starts, though, they all have no choice but to dance. And pray the fallout doesn’t ruin all their careers…and destroy their love.

  Warning: This book contains gay and straight sexytimes, smoking, drinking, references to drug use, and a gratuitous musical number involving The Beatles.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Spice and Smoke:

  The ceremonial coconut shattered into pieces against the floor of the dais, and flashbulbs popped in tandem, capturing the auspicious sign that everything beyond the film’s first shot would be a success. Trishna tried not to shade her eyes from the glare, focusing on a spot on the far wall of the set. Cracks spider-webbed out from a hole, and if she were to squint—which she wouldn’t, because she’d look half-blind in all the photos—she would probably see a tiny lizard peering out from the gap.

  A “tamasha”, Avi had called it when they readied themselves this morning. Noise and silly business. “Hollywood films don’t have a muhurat,” he’d complained, finishing tying his tie and then moving on to helping her with the draping of her sari.

  “You know what else Hollywood films don’t have, big shot?” She’d undone his tie, shoving him backwards towards their bed. “You.”

  Avi had tangled one huge hand in her hair while his other unwound her sari, leaving her in nothing but blouse and petticoat. Silk pooled to the floor at her feet, like the softness already gathered between her thighs.

  If they were ten minutes late, so be it. The tamasha would wait.

  Sure, The Raj was Govind Joshi’s baby, his latest historical blockbuster, but only when she and Avi had signed on had the real buzz begun. They were Mumbai’s newest power couple, Bollywood’s sweethearts despite being so very spicy. They hadn’t done a film together since their marriage six years ago, and it was a coup to get them to sign on for Joshi’s project. So if that meant delaying the first shot…which was just an establishing interior of the old palatial mansion anyway…then the whole crew would just have to deal.

  Their fashionably late, and slightly mussed, entrance had only been marred by one thing: two stragglers who had come even later.

  Trish’s gaze flickered across the stage, where Harsh Mathur and Michael Gill were shaking hands with the music director. Avi’s hand tightened in hers, his thumb tracing filthy words on her skin. It was a trick he’d perfected over the years, smiling beatifically while spelling out, “I want to fuck you” against her palm or her wrist. Only this time, it wasn’t “I want to fuck you”, it was, “I want to fuck him”.

  Him. Michael Gill. A model-turned-actor, he was half-British and half-Indian. People always seemed surprised at how fluent he was in Urdu and Hindi, not realizing he’d lived most of his life in Punjab. Those in the industry practically forgot he was English at all. His dark brown hair and dark eyes weren’t a dead giveaway, and his tan was just as much natural as it was a product of too much surfing. But he was a casting director’s dream, because he could play the Hindi-speaking Englishman with just as much ease as he could the fully Indian hero.

  He was stunning; there was no denying it. He was also gay. There was no denying that either. Not with her husband sketching out his lurid list of sexual demands. But even her own pulse jumped at how Michael’s jeans hung tantalizingly low on his hips, as though they were about to fall off. Clothes were an afterthought on Michael Gill, and a crime against his body. Funny how not a single designer who’d clamored for him to walk their runway had figured that out.

  Trish squeezed Avi’s fingers in warning. “Don’t be obvious, Avinash,” she chided as they crossed to greet their costars.

  If Michael was stunning, then Harsh was beautiful. Green eyed, with long, black hair, it was he whom most people assumed was mixed and gay. He had the face of an angel and the body of a god. Masala magazine had conducted a poll of the hottest Bollywood heroes, and he’d easi
ly beaten all the Khans, Michael and Avi to land the top spot. Harsh was the polar opposite of what his name meant in English, and the very definition of its Hindi meaning: happiness and delight. He was kind and generous. He never gossiped, never was the subject of gossip. He’d opened a girls’ school in his family’s ancestral village and funded a scholarship for low-caste orphans. He was practically a saint.

  He’d always been too much of a saint for a sinner like her.

  Her chest ached with sudden memory, and she shoved the pain deep down, back where it belonged. “Don’t be obvious, Trishna,” Avi mimicked, brushing a chaste kiss across her temple.

  She wasn’t obvious. Of course not. She was a professional. When she warmly extended her hand to the man she’d been in love with since she was sixteen years old, it didn’t shake at all. Neither did her eyes betray what she was thinking, what she was imagining…

  Their true colors are hidden…until one woman turns everything upside down.

  Colors of Love