NOVONEEL CHAKRABORTY
ALL YOURS, STRANGER
RANDOM HOUSE INDIA
Contents
About the Author
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
Acknowledgements
Follow Random House
Copyright
About the Author
Novoneel Chakraborty is the author of five bestselling romantic thriller novels. He works in Indian television and films and lives in Mumbai. You can reach him at:
www.facebook.com/officialnbc
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @novoxeno
Instagram: @novoneelchakraborty
Also by the same author
Marry Me, Stranger
Ex
How About a Sin Tonight?
That Kiss in the Rain
A Thing beyond Forever
For my father . . .
Thanks for that Howard Roark gene. I shall be forever indebted to you for this and a lot more.
Prologue
The photograph of love is sometimes so big that you can’t fit it into the frame of your relationship. If you force it, you are sure to lose some of it. Maybe most of it.
Sitting at the bar, Rivanah watched as her boyfriend Danny danced with the ‘other’ girl in a close embrace. Rivanah had promised herself she wouldn’t drink since the next day was Monday and Monday-morning hangovers made her feel the world was conspiring to bring her down. Minutes back the three of them had been sitting on a couch. It was when Rivanah had stood up to get her Virgin Mojito refilled that the ‘other’ girl Nitya had asked, ‘May I ask your boyfriend for a dance?’ Rivanah had given her a tight smile of acknowledgement.
Nitya was one of those people you could never be ‘friends’ with and there was no reason why. But Rivanah couldn’t afford to be indifferent to her because Nitya was her boyfriend’s best friend. On other days, Rivanah neither liked nor disliked Nitya but she hated her whenever she started a statement with ‘May I ask your boyfriend for . . . ?’ Why this seeking of permission? To Rivanah, it always sounded as if the statement was gravid with a hidden taunt for her to decipher. As if Nitya would have left Danny alone had Rivanah said no. As if Danny too would have said no to Nitya if Rivanah had said no. Rivanah would have skipped accompanying them to the nightclub but today was Nitya’s birthday and Danny had requested Rivanah to join them. As usual she couldn’t say no to Danny and now she was sitting at the bar, like a loser, watching her boyfriend and his best friend groove to the latest chartbuster.
‘Absolut,’ Rivanah said to the bartender instead of asking for a refill of her Virgin Mojito. The bartender was quick to serve her and she was quicker to gulp it. She noticed Danny flash a smile at her (did he?) and then his face was turned the other way by his best friend. Have they slept behind her back? Rivanah was ashamed of asking herself this question but it was not the first time she was doing so. There were questions she could never answer. Questions about loyalty, trust and infidelity in a relationship. If love was really no contract then how does cheating come into being? Or was love an unsaid emotional contract after all? She gulped three more shots of Absolut and ordered the fourth, turning her face spitefully away from the ‘best friends’.
‘You remind me of someone.’
Rivanah turned her head to see an insanely handsome man standing behind her. No such man should happen to a girl when she is emotionally vulnerable, she thought. The handsome guy was leaning sideways on the bar, looking obliquely at her: dark complexion, clean-shaven, clear jawline, sharp nose, thin lips and deep eyes. Rivanah flashed an abrupt smile which she knew was timed all wrong. A smiling girl emboldens a guy like nothing else. She should have given him a you-talking-to-me glance instead, or better still, no reaction at all.
‘Your smile confirms that you indeed are that girl,’ the guy said.
‘Now you’ll say my voice seals it.’ The vodka was clearly getting to her head.
‘Not if you let me buy you the next drink.’ The way his smile redesigned his face took his desirability quotient to temptation level.
‘I’ve already had enough,’ she said.
‘For tonight, let’s presume enough isn’t enough.’ In the next breath, he called for another drink for her.
In a kinky way, pushy men turned Rivanah on, especially when she was a few vodka shots down. This was one major difference between her former boyfriend Ekansh and Danny: Ekansh would decide for her while the latter would always let her have her way without batting an eyelid. Even now if she stood and flirted with Mr Handsome, she was sure Danny would only smile at her. If it were Ekansh . . . well, she wouldn’t have been in the nightclub in the first place.
‘Do you always think and speak?’ the guy asked.
‘Huh?’ Before she came across as a dumb person, Rivanah blurted out, ‘One more shot and then we hit the floor.’
‘Sounds like a plan.’
A minute later the two were grooving to the same number which, minutes back, had irked Rivanah because Nitya and Danny had been dancing to it. She did glance towards them but, as expected, her boyfriend’s thumbs-up gesture told her he was happy she too had got someone to dance with. One shouldn’t be this open-minded, Rivanah told herself, feeling the handsome guy’s hands tightening around her waist. With Danny only a few feet away, Rivanah felt uncomfortable with the man’s proximity to her, but the disgust triggered in her by Danny’s desire to be with Nitya instead of her didn’t let the feeling of discomfort last for long. To distract her mind from Danny, she focused on the handsome guy who, she now knew, was looking at her the way a predator looks at a prey. It aroused her.
The handsome guy came close to her and spoke softly into her ears, ‘How about we take a stroll outside?’ His breath tickled her ears. Rivanah looked at him and nodded. She could do with some fresh air. She didn’t care to glance at Danny before stepping out.
The cacophony of the nightclub suddenly vanished the moment they stepped out.
‘Do you believe in magic?’ the guy asked.
Rivanah thought he was trying to be funny and that she was supposed to laugh. Then she found herself nodding.
‘Want to see some now?’
Rivanah nodded again. He smiled at her mischievously and stood facing her. Then slowly he started retreating, one step at a time.
‘What are you doing?’ she gasped, not knowing what to expect next.
‘Wait. And watch.’
Like a teenager, Rivanah waited for some magic trick to unfold itself while watching the handsome guy disappear into the darkness. Then she realized she didn’t even know his name. She called out to him only to feel a tap on her back. Rivanah turned in a flash to see the handsome guy standing right behind her, still smiling mischievously.
‘What the fuck!’ She turned to look at the other end where he had disappeared seconds back and then again at him standing in front of her. She had no clue how he had come behind her so quickly.
‘How did you manage to do that?’
‘Magic!’ the handsome guy said, raising both his hands animatedly in the air.
Rivanah nodded, this time confident she would catch him in the act. The guy yet again started walking backwards from where he stood. Rivanah took a few steps forward, curious to know if there was a shortcut or something but once he disappeared at a distance she knew there was no way he could come up behind her— not this quick. Rivanah kept looking either way eagerly. Half a minute later the handsome guy appeared neither from behind her nor from front, but—to her shock—from inside the nightclub.
‘Holy shit!’ Rivanah exclaimed.
The guy came up to her and said in a naughty tone, ‘I know far more pleasurable magic tricks. Want to give them a try?’
Rivanah knew what he was hinting at: a one-night stand. Something she had never done earlier while involved with Ekansh or Danny. An Audi appeared from nowhere and stopped right in front of her. The front window slowly rolled down. Rivanah bent down to look inside. The same handsome guy who was standing beside her was behind the steering wheel and was also sitting in one of the back seats. How is that possible? Before she could decipher if she was hallucinating, Rivanah felt a pair of hands grabbing her from behind. In no time she was bundled into the car by the guy standing beside her. Rivanah found herself sandwiched between the two similar-looking guys while the third drove the Audi.
They were fucking triplets! That seemed like the only plausible explanation.
She tried shouting only to have a hand press her mouth with force. The car was speeding away on the lonely road as she heard the guys tell each other to get her under control. The one who was driving had already switched on some music at top volume to mute her cries. Rivanah was throwing her legs and hands at them in desperation. One of the guys held her hands, while the other held her legs. She tried to move but couldn’t. She shouted but it didn’t matter. She could now see the two guys looking at her with a sadistic smile. As if her struggle was giving them a kick. Would she able to break free before it was too late? Or was this a nightmare like the ones she had had before? The lusty stares the guys gave her told her otherwise. She felt the will to fight slowly slip away from the grasp of her conscious.
And then the car suddenly came to a halt, throwing everyone in the back seat off balance. The guys beside Rivanah took their hands off her and sat still. Everyone in the car looked out ahead through the windshield. The triplets’ faces paled one by one while a bright smile appeared on Rivanah’s face. Someone was waiting right in front. Rivanah knew well who this someone could be. He hasn’t forgotten me after all, Rivanah thought, feeling relieved. Only she knew how much she had missed him all these days . . .
1
Rivanah’s parents were pleasantly surprised when she told them she was flying down to Kolkata a fortnight after her call to her mother inquiring about Hiya Chowdhury. This was the first time she was visiting without any apparent reason since she had moved to Mumbai. Rivanah wanted to come down immediately after she spoke to her mother on the phone about Hiya, but she couldn’t manage a leave because the client for her project in office was in India. And the first thing she did after her client left was book a flight to Kolkata.
Rivanah hadn’t slept properly for over fourteen days. Her mind kept drifting to one single name: Hiya Chowdhury. All Rivanah remembered was that Hiya was her batchmate when she was studying engineering. Strangely enough, she remembered the name and even her laughter, but couldn’t recall her face. Yet, she was there in her scrapbook. Why was her laughter made to substitute for the normal doorbell in the flat where the stranger supposedly put up? Why were Hiya’s interests similar to what the stranger wanted her to do? It was obvious there was a link but what was the link—that was something that stole Rivanah’s peace of mind. To add to it, Inspector Kamble, along with the crime branch officer, hadn’t been able to trace the stranger after Abhiraj was wrongly nabbed at Starbucks. Most importantly, even the stranger hadn’t contacted her in the last fourteen days.
Rivanah’s mother was waiting for her on the veranda but, the moment she stepped out of her cab, Rivanah rushed to her room. She didn’t even stop to greet her mother.
‘Ki hoyeche ki?’ Before her mother’s words could reach her, Rivanah was already in her room upstairs. The first thing she did was go to her study table, kneeling down while pulling the last drawer. What her mother had told her over the phone about Hiya Chowdhury, she had to read for herself. What if her mother had missed something in the scrapbook which was essential in order to track the stranger down or at least activate the link that connected her to Hiya? As Rivanah pulled out almost the entire drawer, a few notebooks fell out of it. She looked thoroughly but there was no scrapbook. She opened the other two drawers above the last but didn’t find it there either. She looked on top of her table. Nothing. She called out to her mother, only to realize she was standing by the door, looking slightly taken aback.
‘What are you up to, Mini?’ her mother asked.
‘Mumma, where’s my scrapbook?’
‘What book?’
‘The one you read to me from, couple of weeks back on the phone? Remember?’
‘Oh!’ Her mother came inside the room. ‘I kept it where it was. Inside the last drawer.’
‘But it’s not there now!’
Her mother looked as confused as she was.
‘But I had kept it here only.’
Rivanah let out a helpless sigh and watched her mother search her table like she had done only seconds back. The result was the same: the scrapbook was not there.
‘But why do you need the scrapbook all of a sudden?’
‘Nothing.’ Rivanah was resigned to her fate. ‘Please let me know when you find it,’ she said, throwing herself on the bed.
‘How long are you staying, Mini?’ her mother asked.
‘Only this weekend,’ Rivanah said, staring at the ceiling. Her mind was elsewhere. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that the stranger had saved Hiya’s laughter as the doorbell sound in the Mumbai flat. But why? Is the stranger related to Hiya? Or is she . . . ? But she only knew Hiya from college. That’s all . . . like she knew so many other students. If she had been close to her she would have at least remembered her face. Perhaps her other friends would have some more information.
‘Did you get it, Mumma?’ she said, sitting up.
‘I’m looking for it.’
For the first time she had had one single lead to who the stranger could be and the scrapbook had gone missing! ‘Misplaced’, if her mother was to be believed. In the evening, an irritated Rivanah went to the house of her best friend from college, Pooja, in Kalighat. Pooja’s marriage was scheduled for the next month but she had come home early to take care of her trousseau and to enjoy her pre-marriage time to the fullest with her parents and siblings. She was delighted to see Rivanah after more than a year.
‘You look different, Rivanah!’ Pooja exclaimed.
‘Really? Like how?’
‘I don’t know but you do. Come in now.’
The two friends had a lot to catch up on. Pooja had so much to share and so did Rivanah. But all through the conversation, Rivanah kept getting the feeling that she somehow withheld much more than she shared with Pooja. That way she had indeed changed. Over the past year, Rivanah had understood that sharing your emotional woes didn’t lead to anything.
‘Won’t you be working after marriage?’ Rivanah asked after she learnt that Pooja had actually resigned from her job.
‘I haven’t thought about it yet. Right now all I want to do is enjoy this attention that I’m getting from everyone. It is my marriage, after all!’
Rivanah only smiled at her as a reaction.
‘Honestly, sometimes I wonder if I even deserve so much happiness. I mean, Rishi and I have been in a relationship from some time now. From the time we first talked to actually marrying him . . . I can’t describe it to you, Rivanah. I only want to live this moment as much as I can.’
‘It’s so important to marry the person you love, isn’t it?�
� Rivanah said.
‘Or love the person you marry. I mean, love has to be there.’
‘The second option isn’t for me and the first I don’t know will happen or not,’ Rivanah said with a hint of dismay.
‘Did you talk to Kaku–Kakima about Danny?’
‘I did but talking won’t help much I’m afraid. They have a perception and I don’t think I’ll be able to break it.’
‘Think positive,’ Pooja said, clasping her friend’s hand.
‘Remember how Ekansh and I were labelled the fairy-tale couple in college? Everyone thought we were sure to get married. Even we thought so.’ A pause later Rivanah added, ‘At least I thought so.’ She broke the clasp and drew her hand back, saying, ‘I don’t think I’ll cry a lot this time. I mean I’ll feel bad, maybe I’ll be irreversibly damaged too, but still I don’t think I will cry if Danny and I don’t make the distance, if you know what I mean.’
‘No, I don’t. What are you saying? Is there any problem between you and . . .’
‘Danny is alright. It’s just that I haven’t been able to move on from Ekansh yet. It’s like every day I lie to myself that I have moved on, that I don’t love him any more, that it’s good that he walked out of our relationship, but whenever I go to bed at night my own lies catch up with me. And mock me in the most painful of ways.’
‘Do you really still love Ekansh?’ There was a hint of surprise in Pooja’s voice which hit Rivanah hard. As if her friend was subtly accusing her: how could you be in love with two people at the same time?
‘I have asked myself that question several times but not once have I dared to answer it.’
There was an awkward silence.
‘Anyway,’ Rivanah said, ‘tell me, what do you know about Hiya Chowdhury?’
‘Hiya who?’
For a moment Rivanah thought Pooja was kidding. When she had called her right after calling her mother two weeks back, it didn’t take her one second to identify Hiya as the girl who had hanged herself.
All Yours, Stranger: Some Mysteries are Dangerously Sexy Page 1