Twelve Hours of Temptation

by Shoma Narayanan

  ‘Is everyone in the office, Devdeep?’ he asked.

  Devdeep wrinkled his forehead. ‘Yes, I think so,’ he said. ‘Was there someone you’d like to meet in particular? Because I’ve already lined up discussions with the team heads, but I can rejig them if needed.’

  Distracted for a second by a vivid mental image of jigging team heads, Samir shook his head. ‘No. There were a couple of women Brian introduced me to the first day I was here. I can’t see either of them around.’

  ‘Ah, Neera and Melissa,’ Devdeep said. ‘Neera’s not well, but Melissa should be around—actually, she should be here already. I’ll speak to her about it. She’s normally never late.’

  Samir heroically resisted the impulse to tell Devdeep not to get his panties in a twist and said instead, ‘Don’t worry about it. I was just wondering if she was on leave today.’

  Ten minutes later he was left in no doubt as a pink-cheeked Melissa bounced into his office.

  ‘Devdeep said you were looking for me,’ she said. She’d already had a bit of a spat with Devdeep, and she was all set to do battle. ‘I got little delayed because there wasn’t a single cab on the roads today. There’s some kind of a strike. I’d have called and told someone if I’d known you needed to talk to me.’ She came to an abrupt halt, realising that it sounded as if she was making excuses. Damn, she’d wanted to come across as being completely cool and in charge of the situation.

  Samir waited patiently till she was done. ‘I asked where you were because I was looking around for familiar faces,’ he said. ‘I didn’t see you all of last week.’

  She was even prettier than he’d remembered—large, expressive chocolate-brown eyes in a piquant little face framed by masses of spun-silk hair. Right now, she looked defensive, and a lot less fiery than when he’d first met her, and he smiled at her reassuringly. The last thing he wanted was to terrorise the junior members of what he suspected was already a very apprehensive team.

  Unfortunately Samir’s reassuring smile had the effect of making Melissa’s knees go just a little wobbly, and she took a few seconds to regroup before she said, ‘I was in a creative writing workshop last week. Brian suggested it, actually—he felt that it’d help with my work.’

  ‘That’s OK,’ Samir said, but Melissa still hesitated.

  ‘I paid for it myself,’ she volunteered.

  At that, Samir looked up. ‘I think it would have made more sense for the agency to pay if Brian asked you to take the workshop,’ he said crisply. ‘I’ll speak to someone about it. And at some point I’d like you to take me through what you do—I’ll drop you a line and schedule a time. Is there something else you’d like to talk about now?’

  Melissa’s slightly belligerent expression had vanished, but she still looked as if she wanted to get something off her chest.

  ‘Um, he mightn’t have told you, but it’s Devdeep’s birthday today,’ she said. ‘Brian’s secretary normally orders a cake, but this time she wasn’t sure what to do, so...’

  ‘She can order a cake,’ Samir said. ‘You know what? It’d help if you could spread the word—for now everything continues as usual. I’ll be making changes, but they’ll take time, and they’ll definitely not be about things like birthday cakes and what time people land up in office.’

  Melissa’s eyes narrowed, but she didn’t say anything, whisking herself out of his office instead. In spite of his brusqueness there was a magnetic pull about Samir that was difficult to ignore. OK, magnetic pull was a really cheesy way of putting it, but that was how it felt. He was dressed casually, probably with the intention of blending in with the agency staff—but even in a linen shirt and faded jeans he exuded an aura of sheer masculine power that was difficult to ignore.

  ‘He said you should order the cake, Kash,’ she told Samir’s secretary on her way back to her desk. ‘Tell me when it’s here and we’ll set up the pantry for a party.’

  Devdeep was dreadfully embarrassed by the fuss.

  ‘He’ll think we’re completely flaky,’ he protested, when Melissa and Kash told him.

  ‘Nonsense, even the president celebrates her birthday,’ Melissa said briskly. ‘Samir won’t think you’re flaky at all, and if he does we’ll put cockroaches in his room and spit in his water jug.’

  ‘Thanks for warning me,’ a dry voice said behind her, and Melissa jumped.

  There he was, standing right behind her—all six foot two inches of scorching hot masculinity—and for the first time in her life Melissa found herself completely tongue-tied.

  Devdeep turned a bright purple and said, ‘She was just joking, sir, of course we’d do nothing of the sort.’

  ‘Joking, was she?’ Samir gave her a long look that didn’t betray an iota of what he was thinking. ‘Many happy returns of the day, Devdeep. And you can call me Samir. I haven’t been knighted yet—and “sir” is a bit over the top, don’t you think?’

  Devdeep was still in the midst of a rather incoherent reply when Samir interrupted.

  ‘Can I speak to you for a bit, Melissa?’

  ‘If you were trying to put him at ease it didn’t work,’ Melissa muttered once they were out of earshot. ‘Soon he’ll be thanking you for allowing him to breathe the same air as you.’

  At that Samir finally laughed. ‘I can see I’ve been set up as a bit of an ogre, haven’t I?’

  Melissa looked him squarely in the eyes. ‘No, you haven’t,’ she said. ‘Brian decided to sell you the agency, and we trust his judgement. But you sitting in your room and poring over financial statements day after day isn’t making people feel very confident.’

  ‘Right,’ Samir said. ‘I guess I should have explained that I’m only handling the take-over—I’ll have someone else actually managing the agency once I’ve got it fully integrated into Maximus. Look, Brian told me I could trust you to call things as they are. And that you’d be discreet even though you’re one of the younger members of the team.’

  Melissa nodded in what she hoped was a suitably responsible and discreet manner. So far in every interaction with Samir she’d come across as being a lot more immature and irresponsible than she actually was, and she was keen to correct the impression before he wrote her off as a complete airhead. Staying calm and focussed was difficult, though, with the completely unexpected effect that he was having on her.

  ‘So it’d help if you told me exactly what people are worried about,’ he said, leading the way into his room. ‘I plan to address the team tomorrow, but I want to get my bearings first.’

  ‘The older guys think you’ll sack them,’ she said bluntly. ‘Especially the copywriters who work on regional languages. And people like me are worried that we’ll no longer be doing the kind of work Brian trained us for—we’ll just be churning out run-of-the-mill advertising. And a few, like Devdeep, just want to know how they can impress you and get promoted as soon as possible.’

  Samir raised an eyebrow, and she went on.

  ‘I’m not criticising him. He’s probably the most sensible of the lot, and he has a wife and two kids to think of. It’s just that for the rest of us there was a reason we joined Mendonca’s, and the reason’s now gone.’

  ‘The work you’re talking about,’ Samir said. ‘Could I see some of the things the agency’s done in the past?’

  ‘It’s all around you!’ Melissa exclaimed, but then the bare walls of the room registered. ‘It’s been taken down,’ she said in surprise. ‘Brian had all our best work framed and put up on the walls. And there were the awards and certificates we won...’

  She sounded distinctly upset now, and Samir found himself explaining.

  ‘I can’t work in clutter,’ he said. ‘I didn’t really look at the walls last time I was here, but I asked for the office to be cleared out completely before I joined. I assume Brian took the ads home.’

  He
was probably right—Brian had been inordinately proud of the collection of award-winning ads his walls had been plastered with and it was more than likely he hadn’t wanted to leave them behind. It felt a little as if the soul of the agency had been torn away, Melissa thought, and then gave herself a quick mental shake. Brian was gone, and agonising over the past wasn’t going to do her any good.

  ‘There are soft copies of everything saved on the common drive that we all have access to,’ she said briskly. ‘I can show you if you like.’

  She went around to his side of the table so that she could show him where the ads were stored. As he turned the laptop, his hand touched hers briefly, and she pulled away as if from an electric shock. His lips tightened imperceptibly, making her flush. For a few seconds she’d forgotten that she was dealing with a rather dangerously good-looking man, and the sudden jolt of attraction had made her react stupidly.

  ‘So, the ads are here,’ she muttered, pointing at the screen. ‘I’ll...um...leave you to it, then.’

  He looked up. ‘Which one is the ad you wrote—the one Brian said was nominated for an award?’

  ‘It’s in the Robinson folder,’ she said. ‘The third one.’

  He pulled the ad up onto the screen and looked at it silently for a while. It was a text-only ad for a range of baby products, and she’d written it from the point of view of a first-time mum. It was charming, and a little whimsical, and it wasn’t really an ad in the traditional sense because it didn’t talk about the products at all—it just said ‘Happy Mother’s Day’ and the brand name at the end.

  ‘Interesting,’ Samir said. ‘Any idea on how it impacted sales?’

  Melissa stared at him as if he’d suddenly grown a second head. ‘It doesn’t work that way,’ she protested. ‘Ads like these make customers connect with the brand. There’s no immediate effect on sales.’

  ‘Right...’ he said, but he was evidently not convinced. ‘Always helps to have sales figures, though.’

  It took all Melissa’s willpower not to snap at him. ‘I work on the creative side,’ she said finally. ‘It’s the client servicing guys who work on the numbers.’

  ‘You’re not curious enough to ask for them?’

  ‘I did ask!’ she said. ‘The sales figures were good, but I’ve forgotten exactly what percent they went up by. Devdeep would have the details.’

  Samir didn’t react, and she wondered if he’d even heard what she’d said. He was gazing intently at a spreadsheet now, his brows narrowed in concentration. In spite of her annoyance, one part of Melissa’s brain noted that he managed to look very, very hot in an intense, brooding kind of way. Even when he clearly found his spreadsheet more fascinating than her ad.

  She moved towards the door in what she hoped was an unobtrusive manner, and her hand was on the doorknob when he looked up, his rather stern features lightened by a genuine smile.

  ‘It’s a great ad, by the way,’ he said. ‘I can see why Brian thought so highly of you.’

  The smile made his eyes crinkle up at the corners—suddenly he seemed a lot more human and approachable, like a movie star morphing into the local college football hero. Except that he was far more potently male than the average college heartthrob, and Melissa felt her breath come a little faster.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, all her usual poise deserting her. ‘I’ll...um...I’ll see you around, then, OK?’

  She slipped out of the door, but it was a few minutes before Samir went back to his spreadsheet.

  TWO

  ‘Where is everyone?’

  Melissa looked up. ‘Devdeep and Shivani are in Goa for the ad awards,’ she said. ‘The rest of us are all here. As in they’re around,’ she added as Samir surveyed the empty cubicles and raised an eyebrow. ‘They’ve gone for breakfast, I think.’

  Samir had been travelling, and it was a week since she’d last seen him. He looked tanned and fit and almost good enough to eat.

  His brow creased in a frown. ‘If you wrote the ad why aren’t you on your way to Goa? Didn’t Devdeep think of taking you along?’

  ‘He did.’ Melissa bit her lip. She didn’t like Devdeep much, but the poor man wasn’t to blame for this particular situation.

  ‘And you decided not to go?’ Samir sounded positively incredulous now.

  There was no way out of this other than admitting the embarrassing truth. ‘I...um...I have a slight phobia about flying,’ Melissa said in a rush. ‘The trains were booked solid because it’s a long weekend, and Devdeep said that going alone on a bus might not be safe.’

  ‘And a bullock cart would take too much time, I assume?’ Samir said, his lips twitching. ‘How about cycling to Goa? Did you consider that?’

  ‘Very funny,’ Melissa said crossly. ‘I did want to go. I’m just trying to tell you that it didn’t work out.’

  Too late, she realised that snapping at the new agency head was probably not very bright of her. Luckily, he looked more amused than offended.

  ‘You could come with me,’ Samir said, taking even himself by surprise. ‘I’m driving down—I’m leaving early tomorrow morning and I can pick you up. Where d’you live?’

  ‘Colaba,’ Melissa said, trying not to gape at him. ‘But are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ Samir said, though he was wondering whether he’d suddenly gone quite mad.

  There was no way Melissa could know it, but he never volunteered to spend time with a woman—let alone thirteen hours closeted with one in a car. For a second he wondered whether he should retract the offer, but there was no way he could back out of it without coming across as being incredibly rude.

  Oh, really, Razdan? he said wryly to himself as he took down her address and mobile number. As if the fear of being thought rude had ever stopped him in the past.

  * * *

  Melissa was ready on the dot of six, perched on her bed. It had taken some time to decide what to wear—too dressed up and he might think she was making a play for him—too casual and he mightn’t want to be seen with her. She’d finally settled for denim cut-offs with a long-sleeved white cotton shirt and sat down to wait.

  Her phone rang at a quarter past six, and she picked it up, her heart suddenly beating a lot faster.

  ‘Hi,’ she said tentatively.

  ‘Ready to leave?’ he asked, not bothering to return her greeting. ‘I’m in a black car, right outside your hostel gate.’

  And what a car it was. Melissa found it difficult to take her eyes off the sleek, powerfully built machine. Then she saw Samir, and her mouth went dry with longing. So far she’d only seen him in office clothes—in an open-necked T-shirt and cargo shorts he looked even hotter than he did in formals.

  She took a deep breath before she crossed the road to join him. Letting him know how much he affected her was a bad, bad idea.

  ‘Thanks for doing this,’ she said politely as she got into the car. ‘I’m really looking forward to the awards festival, even if we don’t win anything.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ Samir said.

  She looked very young and appealing, with a little rucksack slung over one shoulder, and her hair held back with an Alice band, but there was something innocently sensual in the way she twisted her slim body around to toss the rucksack into the backseat. Her hair fell over her shoulder, and he caught a whiff of a fresh floral scent that made him want to reach out and touch—it took a strong effort of will to remain unaffected by her nearness.

  ‘Car rules,’ he said, passing her a bottle of water and hoping she hadn’t noticed him looking at her. ‘Seat belt on at all times. No eating in the car. And absolutely no attempts to change the music.’

  Melissa peeked at his face to see if he was joking. Apparently not. With uncharacteristic meekness she tugged at the seat belt—the seat belt, however, seemed to have firm ideas of it
s own, and refused to budge.

  ‘I can’t—’ she started to say, and with an impatient shrug he leaned across to help her.

  Melissa immediately froze. Her first thought was that he was much...much larger than she’d thought he was—the second was that if she moved just an inch she’d be touching him, and there was something terribly tempting about the thought. Then there was the smell of his aftershave... Woody, with a slight hint of citrus, it teased at her nostrils as he released the seat belt from where it was snagged behind her seat.

  ‘Here—it’s free now,’ he said.

  He moved away from her, apparently completely unaffected by her proximity. Oh, well, maybe her three-hundred-rupee perfume and demure clothes just didn’t do it for him. Despite herself, she felt a little miffed. Sure, he was a hotshot executive and all that, but she would have liked him to take just a little interest in her as a woman. And her own reaction to him was annoying—she wasn’t usually the swooning-over-a-hot-man type. Then common sense reasserted itself. Samir was undeniably gorgeous, and there was absolutely nothing to be ashamed of in finding him lust-worthy. As long as she restricted herself to a purely aesthetic appreciation of his hotness she’d be fine.

  Samir put the car into gear, his lips thinning. The tiny gasp that Melissa had let out when he’d leaned over her hadn’t escaped him, and he was regretting his offer of a lift more than ever.

  Melissa was wrong about his reactions—one look at her long, tanned brown legs and her slim but curvy figure and everything male in him had responded enthusiastically. Being older and more experienced, he was just a great deal better at concealing his reactions.

  They were both silent as the car sped through nearly empty streets all the way past Dadar and Chembur, and over the creek at Vashi. The sky was beginning to lighten, and the city looked as if it had just been through an extensive makeover. It was a wonder the amount of difference the lack of traffic and pollutants made.