‘Hello stranger,’ I call out.
She nearly jumps out of her skin, the book falling to the grass, her hands rushing up to clutch her chest. Our eyes meet. Hers are as round and shining as a startled cat’s. Then a look of such wild joy rushes into them that the desire to throw her on the grass and take her is almost unbearable.
Her mouth opens. ‘What … Why …Why are you here?’ she stammers.
I take a step towards her. ‘Guess.’
She shakes her head as if in disbelief. ‘How did you find me?’
I shrug and go closer still. ‘I saw your passport while we were in France remember? Besides, Elizabeth Dilshaw is not a hard name to find in India.’
‘But how did you get in here?’
‘I scaled your neighbor’s wall and jumped into your compound.’
‘You did what?’
‘What’s so surprising about that?’ I grin. ‘Technically speaking, I’ve climbed mountains and crossed seas to get to you.’
She doesn’t smile. ‘You can’t fight Lenny. I don’t want you to, Shane.’
‘I’m not starting a war with Lenny.’
‘But he will hurt you if he finds out.’
‘Lenny’s taken care of,’ I say shortly.
Her eyes narrow suspiciously. ‘What do you mean?’
I shrug casually. ‘He’s given us his blessing.’
She stares at me. ‘That can’t be. Lenny would never give his blessing to us.’
‘You have my word that it is true.’
She frowns. ‘How can that be? I know him. I’ve seen him in action. Even Jake warned you how vindictive he can be.’
‘Tsk, tsk, you been listening at doors again,’ I say lightly.
‘Did you do something to him?’ she asks urgently.
I walk up to her and get down on my haunches in front of her. I take her soft small hands in mine. ‘I didn’t hurt him if that is what you are asking. Let’s just say that he and I have an understanding.’
She frowns. ‘You make it sound so easy. It couldn’t have been. The Lenny I know is very vindictive. He enjoys hurting people.’
‘Lenny is a psychopath. Like a reptile he’s motivated by self-interest at all times. He had something I wanted, but then I had something he wanted more than the thing he had that I wanted. So we made our exchange. Besides, he knows a war with the Edens would have left blood on the floor, most probably his.’
‘So what do we do now?’ Her voice is so soft I almost do not hear. I see her body tremble through the thin material of her outfit, and I remember again how she trembled with trepidation every time she wanted me in Saumur. I smile inwardly.
‘You had a dream. You have to follow it. Come back to England with me.’
‘Just leave. Just like that?’
I grin. ‘We can kiss first.’
She looks around nervously. There is no one around, but she shakes her head. ‘That would be a bad idea.’
‘I met your mother by the way.’
‘What? When?’
I grin. ‘Before I dropped over the wall. I tried the gate/front door route, but your mother gave me my marching orders.’ I change my voice to a falsetto. ‘This is not London, Mr. Eden. Certain niceties have to be observed.’
She giggles.
‘She also informed me that your father is in the process of arranging a suitable wedding for you. Obviously, no one had informed her that you are mine.’
‘What? My father is doing no such thing,’ she says crisply.
‘Mr. Eden,’ a stern voice calls from the French windows.
I wink at Snow. ‘I have to go, but will you come see me later at the Oberoi Grand?’
‘Yeah, I’ll come to see you,’ she says with a sultry look in her eyes.
And my fucking randy cock dances excitedly.
‘You’re not going to jump over the wall again, are you?’ she asks.
‘I think I’ll brave your mother one more time. See you later,’ I say, grinning at her.
‘Alligator,’ she says.
I turn. ‘Coming, Mrs. Dilshaw,’ I say, and start walking. As I get closer I can see how furious she is.
‘How dare you?’ she rasps.
‘Sorry, but you’d have done the same if you had travelled thousands of miles to see someone.’
‘Get out of my house.’
I smile widely. I’m in a good mood. So I’ll be generous. ‘I have a funny feeling, Mrs. Dilshaw, we’re going to be seeing a bit more of each other than you’re expecting, so it might be a good idea to keep it civil. Good day, Ma’am,’ I say, and walk out through the front door again.
My heart is soaring.
Thirty-eight
SNOW
I’ve been to The Oberoi grand a few times. It is one of the oldest heritage luxury hotels in Calcutta. As soon as you walk in from the crowded street, you enter a different world. Back to a time when the Indian Maharajas did ‘posh’ far better than the English. There are framed prints of birds and bejeweled, turbaned men on the walls. The reception floors are gleaming black marble with little diagonal white marble squares, and the dark wood paneling in the lobby is carried right through to the elevators and all the way to the toilet seat covers.
The door is held open for me by a uniformed doorlady. She is genuinely courteous and friendly. I walk up to the lobby and they call Shane’s suite for me. They probably think I am a prostitute, but I don’t care. With an impeccably polite smile, the receptionist passes the phone to me.
‘Hi,’ I say into the receiver.
‘Stay there. I’ll come down,’ he says.
‘No, I’ll come up. I know my way to the deluxe suite.’
I get into the lift and go up to his floor. I knock on the door and it opens after the first rap.
Before I can say anything he pulls me in and, fisting his hand in my hair, swoops down on my lips. I gasp with shock and his tongue enters my mouth. His other hand comes around my waist and slams me into his hard body. He sweeps his tongue through my mouth. The raw animal desire radiating out of him makes the blood pound in my veins. From the first day I have been helpless in its wake.
Never taking his mouth away from mine, he walks me backwards towards the bed and we fall in a tangle. Our clothes come off haphazardly. The sound of zips, something tearing, something else whispering, and our hearts booming, fill my starving senses. Then we are naked. I hear the sound of the foil. And then he fills the aching, empty hole inside me with his beautiful, big cock.
‘Ahhhh …’
The orgasm when it comes lasts and lasts. With white dots before my closed eyelids. I slump against the headboard, exhausted.
‘I was so hungry for your flesh I couldn’t wait to fuck you again,’ he growls.
‘The insides of my thighs … they are trembling … for more,’ I whisper.
‘Tell the insides of your thighs I haven’t even begun.’
Hours we are in that bed. I am aware of all the places his hands have been, my ankles, the soles of my feet … the insides of my wrist … the delicate skin at the nape of my neck.
And then his phone rings. ‘Aren’t you going to answer that?’
‘No,’ he says, and carries on kissing all the small bones of my spine.
But his mobile rings again. And again. He stops with a frown and answers it.
He sits up. ‘Yeah.’
He turns slightly away from me. ‘I’ll be there in a couple of days. Why?’ He listens again and sighs, his shoulders sagging. ‘Fuck. Right. Yeah. Tell Ma I’ll be there.’
He ends his call and turns to me. ‘Look, I wanted to meet your parents properly and all, but we have to go back tonight. My mother’s father is on his deathbed and he wants to see the whole family before he passes on. My mother wants me there.’
I sit up and touch his throat. He is so perfect I could weep. ‘You go ahead. I’ll join you in a couple of days. There’s something I must do first.’
He looks at me. ‘No, Snow. I don’t want to le
ave without you.’
‘I promise I will leave the day after tomorrow. I have to go and see Chitra.’
He looks at me curiously. ‘Why?’
‘I don’t know why. I just know I have to go and see her before I leave.’
‘Where is she?’
‘Kupu knows where she lives. He will take me.’
‘Is it far away or dangerous?’
‘No.’
‘Regardless, I’ll arrange for someone to go with you and Kupu. You’re not travelling around on your own.’
‘OK, but you don’t know anyone here,’ I say with a grimace.
‘Listen. You know me.’
‘Yeah. I know all about you.’ I smile gratefully.
‘When was the last time you saw her?’ he asks curiously.
‘I haven’t seen her since I was ten. Something happened and one day she was no longer there.’
‘All right, go and see her. I’ll arrange a ticket back for you for the day after tomorrow. Don’t let me down.’
‘I’ll never let you down.’
‘Chitra’s poor, isn’t she?’
‘Very,’ I say sadly.
‘Would you like to give her some money?’
Immediately my eyes fill with tears. ‘Yes,’ I say, swallowing hard, unable to believe that he would be so generous to someone he had never met.
‘Oh, sweet Snow. What a soft-hearted thing you are.’
‘Thank you, Shane. You have no idea what this means to me.’
‘Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to go see her and give her enough to change her life. Buy her a little house or something. You decide what is best for her, OK?’
I stare at him in astonishment. ‘You’d do that for a total stranger?’
‘You’re my baby and you love her. So she becomes part of my family.’
OMG! He called me his baby! I feel so happy I think my head is going to burst. And I almost blurt it out that I love him then, but I don’t. I just don’t have the guts.
‘You’re leaving tonight?’
‘Yeah. My brother’s secretary has already booked me a flight.’
I nod. ‘Go and meet the old devil.’
‘I really wanted you to come.’
‘I know, but I’ll be there the day after tomorrow.’
‘I will arrange for you to be picked up at Heathrow and brought to my grandfather’s place. Have you got a mobile phone?’
‘I haven’t got around to getting a new one yet.’
‘I’m going to transfer some money into your account tomorrow. Get a mobile phone immediately so you can call me, and more importantly I can call you anytime I want,’ he says with a grin.
‘OK, I will.’
We make love one more time. My body tingles, and then it is time for me to go. It feels strange to let him go again. At the door, I lay my cheek against his chest. I can hear his heart pounding, and wish I could stay there forever just listening to its steady beat.
‘Hey,’ he says softly. ‘It’s only two days. Nothing can keep us apart again.’
Thirty-nine
SNOW
To my horror, Kupu takes me to the slums in the outskirts of the city.
‘Chitra lives here?’ I ask in disbelief.
‘Yes, Snow,’ he says as if living in this rubbish heap is normal. ‘She lives here now.’
I am almost speechless with shock when we go down a dusty mud path filled on either side with corrugated iron roofed huts. Kupu stops outside one of the shanty huts and calls out for Chitra.
She shuffles out wearing an old sari and is holding a dirty, folded-up cloth pressed to her mouth. Her gaze falls on Kupu and then flutters over to me. For a few seconds her eyes squint and her head cranes forward with disbelief. Then her eyes widen and she stares at me as if she is seeing a ghost.
We look at each other. Then she screams with joy from behind the cloth pressed to her and almost trips over the doorway in her rush to hug me. Tears pour down her face.
I hug her tightly and join her in her tears. She is happy to see me, but I am horribly saddened and frightened to see the state of her. She is a shadow of her former self. Her eyes are deeply sunken and her body is a bag of bones. That she is very ill is clear. I can hardly believe this is my Chitra. Wiping her tears with the ends of her sari she bade us to enter her tiny hut.
I look around at the bare, pitiful surroundings. There is only one plastic chair, a little stove, some cooking utensils, and some cardboard boxes with her belongings in one corner. It is like an oven in this small space and I actually feel claustrophobic and oppressed. To think that Chitra spends her whole life here is unthinkable to me.
‘What’s wrong with you, Chitra?’ I ask.
‘I have tuberculosis,’ she says, suddenly breaking in a hacking cough that causes her to double over with its intensity.
‘But tuberculosis is curable. Why are you like this?’ I ask when the coughing fit is over.
‘I’ve been treated for lung problems for more than a year now, but because the doctors have been making wrong diagnoses and prescription errors, they have made the disease stronger rather than curing it. Now my doctors keep changing the drugs, but nothing seems to work. The only thing they have not yet attempted to do is surgery to remove the infected parts of the lungs, but I can’t afford it and anyway I am so weak now I don’t think I can even survive it. Because of all the wrong diagnoses I have hearing loss, terrible joint pain, you cannot imagine how they ache at night.’
That afternoon I call Shane on my new mobile and tell him exactly how I want his money for Chitra to be spent. I want her to have the best doctors in India to perform her surgery, and when she is better I want her to come and stay with us for a while. He says he will get someone to immediately start making the arrangements for her surgery and treatment. In less than an hour he calls back to give me the address of a private hospital to take Chitra to recuperate.
We admit her there and I breathe a sigh of relief. It is air-conditioned and clean and modern. The nurses there immediately take over. I stand at reception and cry from pure release of the fear and tension I had been holding ever since I saw the state Chitra was in.
I tell Chitra that I have to go to London, but I will be back for her.
She hangs on to my arm pitifully. ‘Go, my beloved daughter. I will always love you,’ she says, and both of us burst into tears.
When I tell my mother my plan to join Shane in London, a massive argument errupts. For the first time ever in my life my father takes my side.
‘Just let her go,’ he says.
‘Did you actually see the man she’s going to?’ my mother snaps.
‘No, but I trust Snow,’ my father says quietly.
‘Well, I saw him and he looks like the worst kind of player.’ She turns to me and demands. ‘What is he? Irish?’
‘He’s a gypsy.’
She clasps her hands and shakes her head in disbelief. ‘Oh my God! I can’t believe it. He’s a gypsy! They’re the worst. They’re just a bunch of thieves. What does he do?’
‘He’s in business.’
‘Business? What business? Stealing manhole covers during the night and selling them for scrap?’
‘Mum, please leave it. Even if he is poor, and he is not, I’m going to him.’
‘He’ll get you pregnant, break your heart, and he’ll leave, and then you’ll come running here with his bastard baby in tow.’ She turns angrily to my father. ‘Is that what you want for her?’
‘I want Snow to be happy,’ my father says stoically.
I look at my father and he quickly winks at me. My eyes widen with surprise. I swiftly look at my mother and thank God she missed the wink.
‘I’m talking to two brick walls here,’ she bursts out. ‘He won’t make her happy. She’s infatuated with his looks and superficial charm. It won’t last.’
‘I don’t believe that it won’t last.’ He turns to look at me. ‘Snow is special. It’s hard to leave her.’
/>
I smile at my father. And he smiles back.
‘Well, don’t turn around and say I didn’t warn you,’ she huffs.
My mother is so furious with me she refuses to come with me to the airport.
Shane had led me to believe that someone holding a placard would be picking me up at Heathrow airport. So it is a great shock to see him standing there with a massive bunch of flowers and an even bigger pink teddy bear. I don’t run into his arms. I stop so suddenly the person behind bangs into me, and I stare at the sight he makes. All at once he is cute, ridiculously edible, and heart-stoppingly gorgeous.
He crooks his finger at me so I rush to him and hug him while he holds the big bear and flowers at the sides of his body.
‘A teddy bear?’ I ask.
‘It’s Layla’s idea,’ he confesses sheepishly.
I laugh. ‘Your sister thought you should buy me a teddy bear?’
‘Yup, I get it.’ He spots a little girl standing nearby and he holds the bear out to her. ‘Want this?’ he asks.
The girl nods big-eyed and immediately takes it.
Her mother says, ‘Oh, that’s so kind of you. Thank you.’
‘No problem,’ he says and turns to me. ‘God, I’ve missed you. I actually can’t wait to get inside you.’
And that is what he does. We get into the car and, halfway to his grandfather’s home, we stop on a small country lane where he rips my panties off and gets inside me … perfection!
His grandfather’s home is a small bungalow with tarmac outside, and chintz curtains, lace covered armchairs, and a patterned carpet inside. His grandmother is a grey woman who has the cowed, beaten eyes of someone who has spent some of her teenage life and her entire adult life with a bully. A woman who lives like a silent ghost, terrified of provoking her husband’s rage, just for the crime of existing.
She is in the kitchen making a famous Romany dish that Shane tells me is called Jimmy Grey. Beefsteak, liver, chicken and pork, onions and swede, shallow fried in animal fat.
As a race, the Romany gypsies are proud people. They eat, sleep, grieve, and celebrate only with their own kind. Jealously guarding themselves from infiltration by non-gypsies, they neither trust nor like the ways of others. Perhaps their mistrust of other races comes from centuries of persecution and hatred they have suffered no matter where they go. As soon as I am brought into her presence, I feel that instant wariness and mistrust.
You Don't Own Me: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance (The Russian Don Book 1) Page 35