A Reckless Night

by Van,P. G.

  “You were in touch with him all along? Did you stalk me for him? Holy crap, Myra loves you to death. Was it part of the plan?”

  “No…do not say that. I want Myra as much as you want her, and you need to let me deal with it.” He raised his voice, the first time she had heard him be assertive.

  “When did you last talk to him?”

  “He had called to thank me for recommending Mike a few months ago.”

  “If he is your cousin’s friend, how is it that he called you?”

  “I—I’m also an investor in his company.” She felt the blow, not sure where it came from but it made a gaping hole inside her.

  “Get out, Kris. I’m done with you. I don’t want anything to do with you.”

  “I’m not going anywhere Varsha.”

  “Stay out of this. I don’t want you anywhere near Myra or me. Lock the door on your way out.” She turned away before the tears surfaced and ran upstairs and locked the bedroom door collapsing to the carpeted floor weeping.

  Why? Why me?

  *****

  “It’s been ages since you stayed for the entire weekend.” Her sister was thrilled to have her and Myra for a sleepover. She couldn’t bear the thought of being in the house by herself after what she found out about Kris and had showed up at her sister’s door. Her sister didn’t ask, and she didn’t speak about what came to light about Kris and her ex.

  She could not believe the connection and would not have linked the two together in a million years. She was in disbelief when Kris told her about her ex being his roommate, and he had in a way helped him get one of the best family lawyers in the country. She wasn’t entirely sure why she was angry with Kris but felt insecure about being around him only because he knew her ex.

  Her heart wanted her to trust him, but her mind kept reminding her of her old wounds deep inside. She needed some space; she needed to figure out how to get out of the problem at hand. She had not given the situation of her ex wanting Myra much thought, as she was confident Kris would find a way and seeing him in the chaotic state made her even more nervous.

  “Varsha?”

  “Sorry, what was that Meena?” she asked when her sister’s voice interrupted her thoughts.

  “We are gonna go get ice cream. Do you wanna go?”

  “I’m good. I should go home.” She didn’t want to go home.

  “You’ll need to stay because I’m taking Myra to the ice cream store.”

  “Don’t give her any ice cream, please.”

  Her sister shook her head laughing. “You can chill and enjoy your solitude.”

  “Sure, I’ll be in the backyard.”

  She grabbed her sunglasses and headed to her sister’s yard and climbed onto the hammock. She took a deep breath shutting out all thoughts and tried to relax as her body was suspended mid-air.

  “I was told I could find you here.” Her state of daze was interrupted by the overly familiar male voice.

  Kris stood a few feet away from the hammock, his palms in his shorts’ pockets. He looked tired like he hadn’t slept in days, and all she could think of doing was taking him into her arms and comforting him.

  “I thought I could trust my sister,” she snickered angry about the situation.

  “Varsha, you need to give me a chance to redeem myself. What I did was stupid. I didn’t assess if the person asking for help meant well or was causing grief to someone. It was very irresponsible of me, and this is a real life lesson.”

  She stayed frozen on the hammock looking at him in silence.

  “Please say something, babe.”

  “The only way out is for you to get that fucking moron to shut up and never think about doing something like this in the future,” she snarled.

  “I promise, I will do what it takes. Please come back home.”

  “Is there anything else I need to know?”

  “Yes, my company has been a major investor in his business for the past year and as of this morning, I have given my legal team instructions to end all contracts effective immediately.”

  “This is unbelievable!! How is it that you guys were roommates and business partners, and you had no idea what was going on with him or who he married?”

  “Like I said, when I’m working on a project, I am just off the grid and he wasn’t really a friend, he was my cousin’s friend and they spent a lot of time together on and off campus.”

  “You and my ex didn’t go to the same college, how did he end up as your housemate?”

  “My cousin and he did and when my cousin moved in, he brought this guy with him as they were in the same program.” He shook his head in utter disbelief.

  “Small world.”

  “Are you still mad at me?”

  “I’m not mad at you…I’m just mad that I didn’t see this coming and that it’s happening to us.”

  “I’ll fix it, I’ll fix everything.” He took a few steps towards her and stood looking at her.

  “Kris, please don’t take Myra away from me,” she pleaded her eyes pooling with tears behind her sunglasses.

  “I promise, I won’t.” He pulled her into his arms feeling the burn from her tears deep in his gut. He would do anything for her to be happy.

  “We have a few things we need to talk about, can we go in?”

  “Yes.”

  They sat at the breakfast table in her sister’s massive kitchen and looked at each other in silence.

  “I can’t think of spending one more night without you,” he confessed.

  “We can go back home tonight,” her voice was weak, but that’s all he wanted to hear.

  “We need a solid strategy for this case, Varsha. That bastard has been planning this for the past six months.”

  “What is there to plan? If he wanted to take the legal route, he could have sent me a notice six months ago.”

  “Oh, he did. He had a multi-step approach.”

  “Why?”

  “It took me a full twenty-four hours to get to the bottom of this, and it’s convoluted.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “That bastard doesn’t care for Myra. He wants her to promote his father’s political image.”

  “What? How would Myra be…”

  “That’s what I thought at first but turns out a politician needs to have a well-rounded family to be successful. Kids, grandkids, but Rahul’s brother doesn’t have kids, his wife is apparently not around and with the elections around the corner, they want Myra as an accent piece.”

  “How dare they…I knew he didn’t care for Myra.”

  “I need to find out more, but I need you to stay calm if you were to talk to him.”

  “It’s going to be hard, but I will try.”

  “Rahul wants some custody of Myra for his own selfish reasons, but he is trying for full custody.”

  “That is just not possible, there is no way he can get full custody of her.”

  “Remember, it’s all about showing a perfect family for the political campaign. He is going to try and get you to go with Myra.”

  “He can’t, I am not going back to him.” She got up from her chair to sit in his lap and put her arms around him. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. I was scared.”

  “I’m the one who caused all the chaos. I’m sorry, love. I’ll fix this.”

  “Why is this happening to me?” She sounded dejected.

  “Hey…I don’t want you to worry about this. Let me be the one to worry. He doesn’t stand a chance of getting Myra.”

  “I wonder why he took all this time to have the lawyer contact me when he has been talking to him for the past six months?”

  “Part of his plan.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ideally, he would have wanted you and Myra back. Married nine years ago, baby in hand. Looks good with the media.”

  “It worries me that he didn’t contact me until a few months ago when he started thinking about this six months ago.” Varsha wondered what else her ex
was up to.

  “Rahul wants this badly, he wants this for his father’s political career and the benefits he is going to have from that power.”

  “I should have guessed when I got the email four months ago. It was unbelievable that he wrote the email.”

  “Do you mind printing out the emails unless you have deleted them.”

  “I’ll give you my password. You can login and read all the emails. I never delete any email.”

  “Are you sure you want to do that?”

  “If you really want to read all my emails, I’m sure you can hack into it so why bother. I’ll give you my password.”

  “Hey…you know I won’t use my skills for personal use,” he objected.

  “I know,” she laughed feeling the stress shatter.

  “Did you know his wife left him and is asking him for a divorce, but Rahul is paying her a lump some to keep her quiet?”

  “What? I knew she left so why not divorce her instead of paying her?” It puzzled her.

  “Remember, it’s all about the image. They cannot have anything shy of perfection.”

  “And his dad is a tyrant and scares the shit out of everybody,” Varsha declared.

  “Yup, he would toast Rahul’s ass if he didn’t get this right so he had to plan very carefully, and now he is executing his well-laid plans.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Good morning Jack. You wanted to see me?” Varsha was in her boss’s office.

  “Yes,” his voice was grim and she wondered what was bothering him.

  “What is it, Jack?”

  “We got a request from our legal department last week to release details about the amount of time you spent in the building and on the company network after work in the last six months. I wanted you to know we submitted the information to our legal department today.”

  “What? Why do they need that information?”

  “Our legal department doesn’t need it. They are gathering this for an external legal proceeding.”

  “What other legal proceeding?”

  “I was hoping you would know since they seem to be from a family lawyer.”

  “Oh no!!” she gasped and grabbed on to the chair for support. She felt the blood rush to her heart to keep up with the rapid beating making her dizzy.

  “Varsha, is everything alright?”

  “I don’t know, Jack. I’ll know soon, I guess.” She managed a weak smile.

  “Please let me know if I can help. I had to look at that report to realize how hard you worked on the project that went live a few months ago.”

  “Thanks, Jack.”

  “I need you to plan a vacation so you can relax. You have been working too hard.”

  “Will do.” She responded and managed to get her knees to stay steady as they trembled.

  She took a deep breath as her vision started to blur with the moisture gathering in her eyes. She ran down the flight of stairs to Kris’s office. She had no idea why she was heading to his office, but she just had to see him.

  He was in his office, his door shut, and she could tell he was on the phone through the glass opening on the side of the door. He signaled for her to come in while he wrapped up his call. “I got it guys, I need to drop off the call. I will follow up on the notes if I have any questions.”

  “Close the door, Varsha, and please sit down.” Kris’s office was set up in such a way that the person sitting across from him had their back to the door.

  She sat in silence, and he let her figure out when she was going to say something.

  “Drink a few sips.” He put his water bottle in front of her.

  “Thanks.” She didn’t know what to say. They were at work, and they were both way too professional to be discussing personal stuff at work. She decided not to bring up the conversation she had with Jack until they got home, but she felt a great sense of calm just by being in his presence.

  “I’m sure Jack discussed the information we had to disclose to the legal department.” His voice was tempered as he explained in detail the type of data that was requested and what was sent.

  “How do you know?” She was pleasantly surprised.

  “I am the security guy, and Jack pinged to see if it was okay to send out the information.”

  Her chest started to heave. “And…”

  “The information does not cause any damage to the company or your profile. It was merely timestamps and the data itself was not sensitive.”

  “What does the data signify?”

  “The data indicates that you are a hard worker that some people may translate to a workaholic.”

  She gasped when she realized why the lawyer had requested the information. Her ex was probably trying to show how much time she spent away from Myra. Bastard!!

  “Do I need to be concerned about that?”

  “Not really. We also submitted data to the legal department about the hours other members of the leadership team spend on work-related stuff and yours are well within the average over a span of six months.”

  She looked at him with a puzzled expression knowing he was trying to say something, but she wasn’t quite getting it.

  “Your average hours were balanced by the reasonable hours you put in over the last three and a half months, specifically the last three and a half months.”

  She blushed and knew her faced turned crimson and saw the look of pride in his eyes.

  “Well, the only reason why I was putting in all those hours those couple of months was because we had a project that needed to go live.”

  “Understood, and the company appreciates everyone’s hard work. Whatever happened in the last three and half months seems to be working for you. Please maintain that for a healthy work-life balance,” he smirked.

  “Will do. Thank you for your time. I truly appreciate it.” She left his office smiling and proud of herself that she didn’t have to break any of her work rules while she discussed her concern with Kris to ease her concerns.

  Later that night, she sat with her legs curled up on the sofa looking at Kris as he soothed Myra back to sleep on his shoulder.

  “You know, Kris, I almost broke my own office rule today when I walked into your office.”

  “You ain’t alone there darlin. I almost broke several of mine. Thank goodness for that conference call. It gave me the twenty second thinking space.”

  “You did good. Thanks!!” she winked stretching out her leg to tease his thigh with her big toe.

  “You want another foot massage?”

  She laughed remembering the time she had a mind-numbing orgasm with a foot rub.

  “You know I’ll take one anytime.”

  “Stop distracting me, I’m busy being a good mattress for Myra.”

  “Let’s go upstairs.” She put the book she was reading away to turn off the lights as he walked towards the stairs.

  “Kris…”

  He stopped and turned to look at her without responding to her, holding her sleeping baby in his hands. She walked up to him in the semi-dark room to wrap her arms around him.

  “Thank you. Thank you for everything. I didn’t realize I was running my life like a hamster until you showed up.”

  “Can I say ‘you’re welcome’ with a foot rub?” He planted a kiss on her forehead and walked upstairs.

  “I’m sure I’ll benefit from a good foot massage,” she teased following him.

  *****

  “Hey…your phone is ringing.” It was Saturday morning and she wasn’t sure who was calling her. She hadn’t heard her phone until Kris woke her up.

  She looked at the phone screen and recognized the number to be an international number and knew who it was instantly.

  “It’s him, and I don’t want to talk to him.”

  “You need to talk to him so you know what he is up to. I’ll be quite. Talk to him,” Kris urged sitting up to lean against the headboard.

  “Hello.”

  “Who have you been talking to?” His voice had
the familiar impatience in it.

  “You better slow down. You don’t call me at six in the morning on a Saturday and blast away.”

  “I lost one of my investors last week and now my father lost one of his political supporters, and the supporter he lost told my dad that he didn’t want to support someone that didn’t treat women with respect. What the heck is happening?” he barked.

  She looked at Kris as he looked at her with anticipation and mouthed ‘I love you’.

  “I don’t know what you are talking about. I made it very clear to your lawyer I have no interest in any of your offers and if you are done, I would like to go back to sleep.”

  “You are a fuc…” She didn’t let him finish. She ended the call and dove into Kris’s chest hugging him.

  “It’s mean, but I’m getting a lot of happiness out of his misery.”

  “It’s not mean. Its just payback.”

  “I know you ended your partnership with him, but how did you get his dad’s supporters to back out?”

  “I do have family in India, you know,” he teased running his lips along her hairline.

  “Who lives in India?”

  “My mom and dad.”

  “What? When you said your parents were in India, I thought they were on vacation. They live there?”

  “Yup, they moved back after my graduation. My dad is pretty adventurous and my mom is worse.”

  “That’s awesome!!”

  “Yeah…they like it there, they enjoy being with family, and they have ways to keep themselves busy.”

  “How often do you go visit them?”

  “The last time I was there was almost two years ago. I was there for a product launch and was back in a week.”

  “You need to spend more time with your parents, Kris.”

  “I know, I promised I would spend more time with them when we go to India.”

  “We?”

  “Yeah, you, me, and Myra.”

  She sat up looking at him in disbelief.

  “Your parents know about us?”

  “Yes, why wouldn’t they?”

  “Umm…I don’t know if they should because I…”

  “I told them about you when I moved from New York.”

  “What do they know?”