by Zee Monodee
Finally, the blonde cut the call and pushed the device back into her bag. “What the bloody hell …” she mumbled.
“Anything the matter?” Megha asked.
“That bitch just bailed out on me. There’s an event for a charity I’m on the board of, and now, since she is not going to attend, there won’t be anyone high enough on the board in attendance. I have to go fill her spot. With just two hours to spare!”
Silence settled over the room, then Finn stepped forward.
“We can do your hair and makeup here. Megs, can’t you get someone to bring a dress over from London? She could change at the back.”
Megha nodded. “Good idea.”
Agneta watched them with a furrowed brow then she seemed to catch up to speed. She pulled her phone out and dialled the Mayfair house.
Tindra would bring over a dress and shoes at the Trammells’ manor; Agneta could rush there after being done here, and they’d go back to London.
“There’s still one problem,” Agneta said. “I need a date. Which one of you hunks will accompany me?”
Finn threw his hands up. “As much as I’d love to, I can’t. Got a five-a-side game with Liam against the other town’s team. He’ll kill me if I don’t show up, and I value my life, thank you very much.”
Agneta turned her gaze to Patrick. “So it’s got to be you, then.”
To his credit, Patrick didn’t so much as wince under the predatory stare Agneta directed onto him. Megha watched it all with wide eyes. Things seemed like they would be heating up very soon here.
***
An hour and a half later, she was a wreck as Tindra dropped her in front of Ben&Jari’s and then sped ahead to make it to London before Agneta’s event started. She didn’t even want to know what that would entail, as it took an hour of regular driving to get from the village to the city and vice versa. Tindra had about thirty-five minutes to make it.
A kind of warped lull descended over her, making her feel strangely out of it as she stood there all alone. She hadn’t been on her own for almost four days, the Trammells being veritable forces of nature that seemed to suck the air out of anyone else’s surroundings.
As she blinked, the sounds of the village reached her. Birds chirping. The swish of the breeze in the many tress around the green. The laughter of little kids playing in the park across the square. It was all broken now and again by the rumble of cars that however respected the speed limit and crawled into the village centre at ten miles an hour.
This was her home. The place where she would spend the rest of her life.
Not London, and certainly not a townhouse in the middle of Mayfair, with a man named Magnus Trammell.
A tear raced down her cheek. She would never have him—best she come to terms with that once and for all. She had something going for her here, something good. It never paid to strive for perfect when good would be totally acceptable.
So, forcing this knowledge into her heart, she wiped the tear track and turned around towards the restaurant. The smell of spices came at her on the wave of chippy grease scent; home as she knew it. When she pushed the door open, it enveloped her in a warm embrace that somehow still felt empty. Because it lacked something which had become fundamental to her now.
The sight of her father at the maître d’ pulpit forced her to tamp the feel of loss and force a smile onto her face. She flew into his arms, drinking in his presence and the light whiff of his aftershave as he closed his arms around her.
“I missed you,” she mumbled, the sound muffled in his shoulder.
He laughed, letting her go so another pair of arms could engulf her. Ben. She hugged him tight, too, relishing this feeling of being loved and cherished.
“You’re alright, beti?” her dad asked.
She could only nod, her throat clogged by a lump of tears.
“Megha, there’s something you should know,” he said as he placed his hands on her shoulders.
She frowned at the note of caution in his tone and blinked up at him.
“There’s … someone,” he continued. “He came here to find you. He’s been waiting since this morning.”
Who …? Magnus? Her heart thundered in her chest even as she could do nothing else but blink.
Her father’s gaze left her to travel up to her side. She felt the presence, knowing already it wasn’t Magnus.
“Megha?” the man said softly.
The hesitation in the tone softened something in her. He meant her no harm; this much she knew already, her soul singing it to her. Softly, she squirmed out of her father’s touch and turned.
Her gaze landed on a tall man dressed in tailored trousers and a button-down, long-sleeved shirt. His thick black hair fell in a mop of unruly curls around his dark-skinned face with the perfectly chiselled features and piercing dark eyes.
She didn’t know him, but her heart knew already who he was. Because looking at him, she saw what she would’ve looked like if she’d been born a boy.
“What’s … your name?” she croaked.
“Adam,” he replied.
“Adam,” she repeated, then closed the distance between them to wrap her arms around him. He returned the embrace, sighing in her neck as he held her close.
No, she might not have Magnus and wouldn’t have him in the future, either, but she had people who loved her. People who’d be there for her. She wasn’t alone. The pain inside her eased somewhat as part of the emptiness in her heart filled with the love she could already feel coming from this man, Adam.
From the brother she hadn’t known she had.
Chapter Nine
Two weeks passed. Two weeks in which she didn’t see Magnus as he was away on a trip to Spain, apparently.
Just as well, the rational part of her kept saying. Her heart, it said something else … but she’d stopped listening. The events had also conspired to make her forget his absence. Adam had been spending most of his free time at the restaurant, getting to know her. The young doctor he was certainly had to bow to the strict dictates of his hospital shifts, but the rest of his time, he spent it with her.
She relished these moments spent with her brother, she who’d always thought herself an only child. It didn’t matter that they had just one parent in common—he was a part of her family. Even Jari had welcomed him in the Saran and Hamidi household. He’d found her through the magazine article. His siblings and he had always known their mother had been married before, but they hadn’t known about her. His sister had seen the article and through the pictures, the insane resemblance between Megha and Adam. A bit of prodding had unearthed that their mother had indeed been married to a man with the surname Saran, having borne him a daughter.
Because of their dark skin, the two of them shared something his other siblings didn’t—the contempt of their fair-skinned mother. Megha and Adam had united their hearts though this common pain. She’d met her other half-siblings for coffee, but there hadn’t been the same bond with them. Just some affection and awe.
The biggest time suck had come from where she’d least expected it, though. The true identity of their hired help, Missy Taylor, had been revealed, and for a time, Megha had thought them to be in a soap opera at the best of times and in a total circus at the worst. Missy had gotten involved with famous male model Luke Morelli—Liam’s brother—when he’d been in town, and in an all-or-nothing moment, had decided to come clean about who she really was. They’d always known she was running away from something … and that something had turned out to be a super-wealthy family in Texas who had however treated her like a pretty bauble.
When Missy had slammed the news onto her, Megha had known she would need all the reinforcements possible. There’d been Finn and Patrick to get rid of Missy’s badly dyed crow-black hair, then she’d called on the Trammell girls to dress Missy in the kind of clothing a wealthy heiress would wear.
All hell had broken loose when Luke had found out the truth and gotten stuck on the fact that Missy had been lyin
g to him all along. Missy took that breakup bad, ending up in Megha’s flat, where they spent the night with the Trammell sisters bashing men and downing gallons of ice cream.
But all had been well when Luke had reckoned what an arsehole he was being to Missy. The two had publicly made up and professed their love for each other right in front of the restaurant during the middle of lunch rush.
And now, a few days later, Megha still reeled from all that high drama. She hadn’t had time to miss Magnus, and when she had, she had most probably been with Adam. The man had an uncanny knack of knowing her, as if the blood they shared made her an open book for him. He seemed to know everything about her heartbreak even if she hadn’t said anything, when she hardly even knew if he had a girlfriend or not back in Kent.
It was Saturday now, the day of the gala. She still hadn’t met Magnus ever since that last dinner evening with Lars and Simmi. He’d stayed in Spain all this time, claiming more and more matters concerning the clinic to be requiring his attention. From what she’d gathered, he’d be joining them directly at the gala coming from his trip.
She sat in the car taking her west of London to Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire. The babble of the Trammell sisters around her kept her in a haze where she didn’t have to focus on anything except add a non-committal grunt here and there to make it seem like she was following the conversation. The two-hour drive passed by in a blur. She was then handed from one person to the other once at the palace—the women for the mani-pedi, the beautician, the hair and makeup people, the stylist.
By the time they were done with her, she was a bit numb, the many shrieks and loud laughs of her companions having attacked her brain with an ice pick. Still, all of it faded as they pushed her in front of a standing mirror so she could finally see what they’d made of her.
She’d told them she would use her regular wig, to the great dismay of the hairdresser who had wanted to use one of her own wigs of flowing curls once she’d found out the bob wasn’t Megha’s real hair. So the woman had reluctantly made do, lifting little strands that framed her face and twisting and tying them back with glittering diamond barrettes that had been provided to them from the Trammell personal collection. Megha had balked upon finding this out, but one sharp word from dragon lady Amelia and she had shut up.
Her makeup was flawless—she still looked like herself but just ‘better’, like she’d gone under an airbrushing filter or something. She usually steered clear of makeup because nothing worked with her dusky complexion, but the makeup artist today had made her discover that she was actually cool-toned and not warm. No wonder the regular yellow-based makeup for Indian skin made her look like she had jaundice. Also because of the cool tones, she wore platinum jewels, gold being a total no-no for her.
“Don’t you look like a dream,” Amelia said as she entered the room.
Megha turned to her with a smile, and this time, she did curtsy to the regal woman dressed like a queen. “Thank you, ma’m.”
Amelia patted her cheek. “Aren’t you precious.”
“Not fair,” Tindra whined as she entered the room. “You have eyes just for Megha. What about us?”
Amelia laughed. “You are all looking wonderful, my darlings.”
“Oh, Megha!” Agneta exclaimed as she came in. “Our idiot brother won’t know what hit him when he sees you.”
A hot blush crept up her cheeks upon hearing those words. How she wanted Magnus to lose his marbles upon seeing her. This was the best she had ever looked in her entire life. The wig and makeup had erased all traces of the cancer on her, black satin elbow gloves covering her forearms where the veins still resembled a dark spider network.
Nothing could make her more beautiful—this was as good as it could get. If only her dad and Ben could see her now. Adam, too. She’d been told there’d be pictures, though. That would have to do.
“All right, girls,” Elsa Trammell said as she marched in, her tanzanite-blue dress swishing around her feet with her every step. “Let’s go, the guests are arriving. Don’t you look like dolls, the lot of you. And Megha, smile, my darling. Everything will be fine.”
She forced a smile and picked up the skirt of her dress. The stylist had made her wear a contraption of black froufrou under the garment, so the skirt billowed and rustled around her legs as she moved. She hardly trusted herself to take two steps and not fall. That was also the reason why she hardly ever wore Indian saris—that thick fold of fabric touching her feet? A weapon of mass torture. She also didn’t trust the delicate straps of the high-heeled sandals on her feet.
The others flew down the magnificent staircase to the ground floor where the gala was taking place. The din of hushed conversation, tinkling champagne flutes, and the subtle notes of a harp playing in the background registered in her as she touched the last step with her foot. She’d preferred to take her time coming down so as not to end up tumbling into an undignified heap by getting her feet or heels tangled in the petticoats.
The crowd engulfed her when she came down, and as she let herself drift around the room, a sense of calm came over her. Nobody was looking at her like she had no business being here, and she relaxed her shoulders a little. Some people smiled when they caught her eye, and she smiled back. Okay—frankly, she could do this.
Still, there was someone she craved to see. He surely wouldn’t dare not attend his own family’s very important gala.
Someone called her name. She turned to find Stellan making his way towards her with a smile on his face. She couldn’t help but smile in return, a little taken aback when he bent and placed a light kiss on her cheek. She’d always admired the quiet man who seemed to have a gentle soul despite the pain she’d often fathomed in the depths of his blue-green eyes.
“You look magnificent,” he told her.
It should’ve made her feel awkward hearing a man say this, but she could totally imagine Adam saying those words in the same tone, and that made her lower her guard around him.
“You’re not looking so bad yourself,” she replied. And that was an understatement, as Stellan Elriksen seemed to have been born to wear a tuxedo with a white dinner jacket.
“Won’t you introduce us?” a syrupy female voice asked.
Megha cut her gaze from Stellan to the overly thin blonde now clinging to his arm in a manner that clearly stated she had her claws in him and he was off-limits for any other woman.
“Of course,” he replied. Was that a wince she saw cross his face for a fleeting second? “Pippa, this is Megha Saran, a close family friend of the Trammells. Megha, this is Pippa Carlisle-Brown.”
He didn’t say who she was to him; both Megha and this Pippa seemed to wait for more, but he didn’t add anything. She quickly blinked away the frown that touched her eyebrows upon realising how he had introduced her. And was it her imagination, or was this Pippa girl no longer looking down at her from her straight nose with too much contouring?
“There’s Judge Campbell over there,” he said to Pippa. “Didn’t you say you wanted to speak to him?”
If Pippa had heard the dismissal in Stellan’s voice as clearly as Megha had, she didn’t let it show. Instead, she excused herself and cut a path across the room towards the judge.
Stellan gave her a little smile and pressed a hand to the small of her back, gently steering her towards the opened doorway leading to the grand space they used as the throne room on The Royals. She lost her breath at the beauty of the locale, wordlessly accepting the flute of champagne Stellan pushed into her gloved hand.
As she was running her awed gaze over the space, her eyes glimpsed someone. This time, her chest actually constricted.
She hadn’t seen him in two long weeks, and the mere sight of him proved enough to slake the sensory thirst she had been experiencing in his absence. His hair had grown a little; his fingers would leave track marks now in the locks when he’d run them through. Plus, he’d grown a beard. A little scruffy, to be honest, yet it suited him. The tux hung a little askew on
his shoulders, but she could be picking this up because she was drinking in every square inch of him.
He looked … a little like a wreck, if she were honest.
Could it be he’d missed her, too?
Wishful thinking on her part, but she couldn’t help it.
And neither could she help the horror that froze her when she saw what was happening.
A tall, skinny, and leggy blonde sank her hands into his jacket sleeve, clinging to him so hard, it looked like she was trying to suction-attach her gigantic knockers that threatened to overflow from her skimpy lace dress.
Megha froze when he didn’t push the woman away. They appeared … cosy … was what she’d say.
“The bloody idiot,” she heard Stellan mutter next to her.
Still, she could hardly move, not registering her grip tightening on the fragile champagne flute until it snapped with a crash of crystal in her hand. The liquid in the glass fell away from her, missing the hem of her dress by a scant inch, the gloves protecting her palm from the broken shards.
Maybe it would have been best if the glass had actually broken through her skin. Then, she would’ve felt something—anything. Now she understood what Missy had told her about needing the pain to feel.
Then suddenly, her feet unglued from the floor, and she could turn around, grab the thick skirts of her gown, and hightail it out of there. Because she had no place in that world—in his world. Women existed as commodities for him; he must’ve been having a very good time with Miss Giant Boobs back in Spain or wherever else he’d been. She had deluded herself all this time, but not anymore.
She rushed out of the room, then had to stop when she oomph-smacked into someone. Withered yet still-strong hands clenched her arms, and she found herself being righted by Amelia Trammell.
“Megha, what is wrong, dear?”
She couldn’t tell her the truth. Amelia would laugh in her face, not hesitating to let her know that she was aiming way too high above her station. And the woman would be right. Megha was the fool who had let her heart believe …