Authors: Suleikha Snyder
“Good morning.” He greeted her as though it was an everyday occurrence, this waking up together and starting the day. “It’s a beautiful day,
na
? Have breakfast, restore your energy, and we’ll spend the rest of it in bed.” His eyebrows danced with deliciously lewd intent.
Perhaps it was the actress in her who instinctively responded in kind, teasing and domestic, holding the sheets to her chest as she studied the contents of the tray more thoroughly. “Breakfast
kyu
? You know I have to work out. I have an appointment with my trainer in two hours.”
Rahul flicked his hand as if shooing away a mosquito. “
Badh main
. Later. Your discipline can be delayed, Pree. Let me take care of you today…let me feed you…and don’t worry about how many sit-ups you need to make up for it.”
“A-ha.”
She made a face and tossed a pillow at him, hitting him square in the chest. “So easy for you to say, Mr. Rahul Anand. It’s a mid
riff
, not a mid
rough
,
na
? You don’t have to wear a
choli
blouse in your next dance number.”
He frowned, pulling up his shirt to study his belly—her fingers remembered the flat-hard expanse, the soft dusting of hair, and her mouth easily recalled the salty taste of his skin. “Who says I don’t? In
Khoon
, I will wear the
choli
and you will wear the jeans. Let me call KK…” Smoothing the
panjabi
back into place, he pretended to look for his cellular phone.
“
Khabardar!
Don’t you dare!” she gasped in mock horror.
“Why not? My mobile is magic, you know. Almost as magic as my—”
“Rahul! Don’t be vulgar!” She sent another pillow sailing at his head, only for him to catch it square in the chest and then fall from the bed in a stunt roll.
“
Hai Rama
, you’ve killed me.” He pitched the melodramatic dialogue from the smooth tiles of the floor. “I’m dying. I made you breakfast, and now I’m dying. You’re a cruel woman, Priya Roy…but at least I’m going to
Swargha
having known the pleasures of your—”
“My what?” She watched him flail and stagger his way back to the bed, infinitely amused.
“—item numbers,” he finished, blinking innocently. “You’re a bloody good dancer, you know.”
Her shoulders shook with laughter, and when he crawled across the mattress and pulled her against him, her whole body rocked with joy. “Anand”, after all, was happiness.
Sunny allowed herself a scant few hours in Shaw’s arms before she gathered her things and went home to her flat. Lingering the whole night was a luxury she couldn’t afford. Jai was old enough to be home alone, but he did not need to wonder where his mother had spent her evening. “Stay,” Davey had murmured sleepily into the crook of her neck. “He won’t know the difference between you coming in at three and coming in at six. I promise.” But
she
would know, and that was enough to propel her from the warmth of his body, from the curve of that blade-like smile.
It wasn’t until she’d returned the last pin to her hair and reapplied her lipstick—as if the
taxiwallah
would take notice—that Shaw sat up against the pillows, his drowsy sensuality replaced by seriousness. “Are you truly all right, Sunita? After everything that happened tonight?”
It wasn’t a question she could answer, not when her emotions were still tangled in the love they’d made…so fierce and possessive and
fleeting
. “Perhaps
Sam
and I will be all right,” she allowed. “It was the most honest we’ve been with one another in years.”
“Fair enough.” He propped his knees on his elbows, uncaring of his nudity…but perfectly aware of how it drew her eyes to him, how it made her hunger. There was nothing Davey did that was spontaneous or unknowing. He measured every word, every action, with tiny brass scales. “I’m
not
like him, you know. You can trust me.”
He spoke of trust so easily, as though it was sold in every corner
chai
shop and laced with sugar and cardamom. She wanted to give it to him. She very much wished she was capable of it. More than her body, more than even her constantly warring heart, Sunny wanted to offer him this fragile thing that he gave to her so freely. But all she could gift him with before she left was a kiss goodbye. She took his face between her palms, skimming his morning beard with her thumbs, and pressed her mouth to his. Open, unabashed,
paagal
and carefree, the kiss was everything she didn’t dare put into words. It was a conversation that went on for minutes, until her carefully applied lip liner left a red smudge against his mouth and his tongue left a mark on her soul.
Was she truly all right?
Nahin.
After meeting this impossible, infuriating man—meeting him, craving him, shagging him till dawn and desiring so much more—Sunita knew that she would never be right again.
Chapter Nineteen
It was amazing to her how quickly her defenses melted. How touching Rahul, being near him, made the snow in her veins turn to mercury. Hot. Unstable. Sitting beside him on the soft guest sofas at the
Sunny Days
studio was like curling against him naked in bed, like tasting the place where neck met shoulder. Priya didn’t think of the secrets she should keep. She was obsessed only by his nearness. How moving one centimeter would align their thighs and shifting just slightly would brush their shoulders.
Perhaps that was why she was weak when the cameras actually began to roll. When Sunny-
ji
began with the questions they’d approved beforehand, Priya’s walls were nonexistent, replaced by the girlish passion she’d thought banished years ago. Surely the cameras recorded her
bewakoofi
, how she gazed at Rahul with moon-sized eyes. Surely they captured her glowing with the aftereffects of loving him for the past several nights. When they edited the roll, they would see the imprints of his fingers around her wrists, the star maps drawn by the rub of his beard stubble against her skin.
Fortunately, Sunita quizzed them on subjects she could speak to without much thought. As they chatted about the premise of
Khoon
, Priya allowed herself the pleasure of reaching for Rahul’s hand, for entwining their fingers and squeezing tightly. When they were asked how much they’d changed in the years since
Hain Apna Dil To Awara
, she let her fondness shine in full strength.
“Rahul’s become a man.” She smiled, offering a flirtatious tilt of her head. “He was just a silly boy then. Now see…he’s a big producer. He writes, he directs…he does everything.”
Rahul took his cue like a professional. “Priya…she’s half the woman she used to be,” he sighed, clicking his tongue…and lest the audience think it was an insult, he added, “You know, Sunny-
ji
, this modern trend of the size-zero heroine is very dangerous,
na
?” They’d had a long chat over a breakfast of toast and
chai
, agreeing that it was a nice publicity platform to climb on—a social issue that could balance the gossip about their love affair. “Beauty comes in all sizes. Priya was as lovely before as she is now. But
yeh
weight loss
ka
trend in Bollywood…it should only be done if the heroine is
happy
to do so. To say otherwise sends a bad message to our young Indian girls.”
“So, Rahul is sending a message to my stomach,” she laughed. “He has been cooking for me nonstop. I’ve forgotten the direction to my gym!”
Their hostess looked at them, first one and then the other, her gaze almost shrewd. As if she could
see
them sharing Rahul’s cooking while wrapped in nothing but cotton sheets. “So, your
dil
is no longer
awara
,
na
? It sounds like your wandering hearts have found home.”
This, Priya knew, was Sunny-
ji
’s segue into airing an old clip from HADTA. Something young and fun and light. Perhaps their frolic in the Simla snow with a dozen backup dancers wearing unwieldy winter coats. But her thoughts caught on the word
home
and clung there. Home.
Ghar
.
Sangsar
. A real family with Shona. All of these years, she had denied herself the hope, the dream. She met Rahul’s eyes as the screen came down behind them. Mirrored in them was, surely, the same sudden longing.
Nearly
the same. Priya choked on the tightness in her throat, even as she twisted to look up at the footage.
And her heart stopped.
For it wasn’t her baby-round face and Rahul’s easy smile on the monitor.
Nahin.
It was a combination of them both.
Shona.
On the screen.
Filling it, as if she’d practically climbed into the webcam.
“Didi?”
She tapped at the lens, brows furrowed, small mouth puckered with annoyance. “Hello?”
“No.” The word exploded from Priya’s throat like a gunshot.
“Nahin. Na.”
Her stomach lurched, her limbs went numb and the sensation of choking was that much more terrible. This was not happening. This could
not
be happening. Her baby wasn’t on a TV in front of a studio full of people. Her secret, so long kept, so hard and painful, wasn’t loosed to the world. But one glance at Rahul—still, like a stone statue, white like the insides of a broken coconut—and she knew it was no illusion. In an instant, her hope and her dream had become a nightmare.
“Turn it off! Somebody shut it down.” She could hear Sunny-
ji
barking orders, but her voice seemed distant, as if the shouts were from kilometers away. “For God’s sake, stop tape!”
Responses to Sunita’s orders were like the buzzing of bees, a wall of sound that made little sense to her.
Shona looked stricken, confused, wondering why the chat was not working correctly. “
Didi koi?
” she demanded. “Where are you? Anita
Didi
, where is Prithu? Make it work!” Anita appeared over her shoulder, and then, in what was the cruelest of mercies, the feed went pitch black. It was the same blackness that darkened Rahul’s eyes.
Shona’s cries of
Didi
had not fooled him one bit, not when the truth was in every line of her little face. He’d leapt up when she appeared on the screen, and now he loomed over Priya like a thundercloud. “She’s my child.” It was a certainty, not a question, and she felt it like a physical blow. “
Our
daughter.”
She rose on rickety legs. “Yes. Shonali. She is five years old. Nearly six.” Somehow the lines came, as if fed to her from offstage. Better that someone should dub for her in the booth, because her voice sounded like someone had stuck pins in her tongue. “When I left Bombay, I was pregnant.”
“When you left
me
you were pregnant.” Rahul made the distinction sound like a curse. “That…that is why your father shut the door in my face.
Hai Bhagwan
, Priya. What the hell?” He dug his hands through his hair, shutting his eyes tightly. The dampness that suddenly gathered at the edges of his lashes and spilled over was so damning that her knees almost gave out.
The studio lights had suddenly gone low, and the cameras swiveled away, with their operators nowhere to be found. But still, Priya felt pinned by the lenses. Surely they would catch every frame of her regret. No doubt they would cast her sins in sharp relief.
Rahul generally had a structured view of the world. He saw it in outlines, in storyboards. In neatly ordered columns and rows. He believed in broad concepts, like truth and honor and loyalty and safety…except that safety was an illusion, wasn’t it? It tasted like gunmetal and locked doors and panic buttons, but it was, fundamentally, a construct. A giant load of
bakwas
, of horseshit. His daughter, in a city clear across the country, shut away from him, unaware of his existence, was
not
safe. How could she be, when she didn’t know her father was somewhere in this world? He’d never seen her before today, never held her, never heard her laugh…never even
known
of her. One giant door had been locked—with him on the other side. Rahul balled his hands into fists, feeling the anger rise within him like the tide. “Shonali,” he murmured, testing out her name. “Shonali Anand.”
“Roy.” Priya’s correction was like a whip crack. “Shonali Roy. Shona has never had your name.”
Rahul’s fingers flexed, and he dug them into his sides so he wouldn’t be tempted to turn and strike her. Just the temptation was ugly, heinous, the impulses of the kind of man he did not want to be…but, of course, she saw his tiny movements and assumed the worst.
“Do it.” Her words flicked at him like the tongue of the lash. “
Maaro mujhe.
Hit me, Rahul, and prove my father was right to have kept you from us.”
He buried his fists in his jacket pockets, until it seemed they would burst through the bottom and tear out the fabric. “Your father was
not
right. How could he be? How dare he play with our lives? Who does he think he is, God himself?”
Priya flinched. Just barely. “I’ve had a good life. So have you. Do not pretend you’ve suffered so terribly from
Baba
’s scheme. He did what he felt was best for us at the time,” she recited as if by rote. “It was for us, for our family’s name and honor.”
“And was it best for Shona?”
Shona.
Gold. That’s what that little child on the screen was…something rare and precious and lovely. Something being locked away from him in a Kolkata vault. “Can you really say the same for her?”
“
Haan
. I can. I will.” Priya raised her chin, staring him down like prey. And she chased her whip strokes with tiger claws. “Shona has a family. She does not need you.
We
don’t need you.”