Ridhi’s mother streaked across the room in another flash of color and grabbed the girl out of her mother’s arms. Or at least she tried, because the mother refused to let go. The two women yanked the girl by both arms like a partially naked human tug-of-war.
“Pinky!” Ridhi’s mother shouted at the top of her lungs. “
Hai hai,
let the girl go. What’s the matter with you? She’s a child. All these people, all this
tamasha.
Come come.”
She finally managed to yank the girl free and plunked her down next to the henna artist right on the lap of another girl, who, seeing an opportunity, had inserted herself into the spot. Both girls shrieked, Ridhi shrieked, arbitrary women in the crowd shrieked.
Mili looked up at the group of men who had gathered to see what all the commotion was about. She caught Samir’s eye and thought she was going to die. He looked exactly like she felt. Ready to explode. “I’ll kill you if you make me laugh,” she mouthed and looked back at the unfolding drama.
Ridhi’s mother threw a panic-stricken look at the men and hurriedly squashed the girl’s exposed breast back into her blouse. She yanked the girl’s sleeve up. “Here, here, give baby a tuttoo on her arm.
Beta,
that’s a better place for it. Come, there’s my good girl.” She pinched the girl’s cheek, patted the other girl she had displaced on the head, and put a twenty-dollar bill in the bowl next to the artist. Then she turned to the rest of her guests. “Come come, there’s food in the kitchen. Samosas are being fried hot-hot. Come, come.”
She pulled Mili along and deposited her closer to Samir, whose shoulders were shaking uncontrollably. Mili glared at him, but her stomach trembled with laughter she could no longer suppress. He pushed his way past the few people between them, grabbed her arm, and dragged her out of the room.
The house was so big they had to run past several rooms before they came to the French doors that led to the backyard. Samir pulled it open and they ran across the patio and collapsed on the grass, laughing.
“What the heck was that?” Samir said, tears streaming down his cheeks. “Where did you find these people?”
Mili couldn’t speak. She couldn’t stop laughing.
“Pinky? That big, scary auntie is called
Pinky?
” His voice squeaked on the name and he fell back, pressed his arm into his stomach, and laughed.
Mili doubled over. Her stomach hurt so much she held her breath to stop laughing. Samir sprang back up and yanked her sleeve up. “Here, here, put that tuttoo here.
Tuttoo?
Holy shit.” He burst into a fresh fit and Mili started to choke.
He rubbed her back, his hand shaking because all of him was shaking. “You okay?”
She nodded and tried to stop coughing and laughing at the same time but she couldn’t manage any of it. He kept rubbing, and laughing, and wiped the tears from his eyes.
He had the most beautiful golden eyes. But she’d never seen them like this, crinkled at the edges, lit with life, sparkling with humor and something more, something that made her breath catch. His eyes changed. The way his hand stroked up and down her back changed. His hand slowed to a caress and came to rest at the small of her back, where all the nerves in her body suddenly converged, where he found the springy ends of her curls and tangled his fingers in them.
She felt the gentlest tug. Her head tipped back and his lips touched hers. It was a whisper of a touch, so tentative, the sensation so light, she wasn’t sure she’d felt it at all. Before she knew what she was doing she reached up into it. He sucked in a breath and pulled back, just the slightest bit. His wild eyes searched hers.
Heat bloomed in her cheeks. Her wide-open heart drummed in her chest. A semblance of sense started to creep back into her head. Then it flew right out into the blazing afternoon. Because Samir gathered her hair, gathered her face, gathered all of her and claimed her lips with such force the world went up in flames around her.
His lips were soft, so very soft. And firm. And insistent. Without meaning to she pushed into them. He groaned deep in his chest and parted her lips. She gasped. Tongue and liquid skin slid and stroked and filled her mouth, her senses. He reached into her, tentative, then bold, touching sensitive, secret flesh, stripping every resistance, ripping a moan from the deepest part of her.
And she let him in. She let him jab into her, free her, tangle her. She tasted him, breathed him in. His smoky taste, clean and dark and hot. His tongue, hungry and probing and hot. His heavy shoulders under her fingers, firm and yielding and hot. Heat rose from him, from the back of his neck, from the raw silk of his hair, and burned through her. Fire blazed across her skin and down her belly. She pressed closer. His fingers molded her scalp, trailed over her collarbones, and reached lower to her breasts. She jumped. The electricity of the touch jolted through her. It was too much. It was all too much.
“No.” She heard her own voice, felt her hands pushing him away. “No, Samir, I can’t do this.” Oh God, what had she done?
She had no right to this. No right.
She tried to scamper away from him. But one stray curl wrapped itself around his button and yanked her back. She tugged at it, twisting it desperately, her fingers shaking too much to pry it loose. He held her fingers steady and unwound the lock, setting her free.
She stood up and broke into a run.
“Mili.” He was next to her before her name left his lips. He reached for her.
“No. God. Samir. I can’t do this.” She moved out of his reach.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t have the liberty to. I have something to tell you. I should’ve told you this before. Because . . . Oh God . . . Samir, I’m married.”
His face darkened, his eyes darkened, the air around him darkened. “No, you’re not.”
“Yes, yes, I am. I’m married.” Her heart was beating so hard it was going to break free of her chest. “God, that was . . . that should never have happened.”
Samir could not believe it. Could not believe what he was feeling. The earth, the wind, the skies, it was all shaking. Shaking with rage. What a royal fucking mess.
Mili’s chest was heaving. She was panting as if she’d run a mile. Guilt and confusion spilled from her face like the tears she couldn’t control and all he could think of was that kiss. The feel of her in his arms, her lips against his. Those collarbones under his fingers. They were heaving now. All of her was pulsing with sick, sick guilt.
“I should have told you.” Her voice shook.
“Then why didn’t you?”
“Because . . . because I didn’t think this would happen. I didn’t think you would do this. I didn’t think someone like . . . like you would fall for someone like me.”
“
Fall
for you? You think I’ve fallen for you?” Oh, this was precious. “And what do you mean ‘someone like you’?”
She shook her head so violently he thought she might hurt herself. “It doesn’t matter. None of this matters because I’m married. Married. I can’t be with you. I mean, not that I want to.”
“Why wouldn’t you want to be with me?”
She laughed. An incredulous, disbelieving laugh. “You’re, well. You’re
you.
”
“Thanks. That explains everything.”
“Well, for one, you look like
that.
” She pointed at him as if he had an extra pair of ears sticking out of his head.
“What’s wrong with the way I look?”
“Wrong? You look like you stepped off a stupid billboard. You smile like you’re in a toothpaste commercial. I mean, who wants to be with a man who’s more pretty than them? Would you want to?”
“No, I wouldn’t say that I want to be with a man more pretty than me.” Had she really just called him—fuck, he couldn’t even think it.
“See, and nothing is serious to you. Nothing is sacred. You’re not even horrified that you kissed a married woman.”
Was she crazy? “You are not a married woman.”
“Stop saying that.”
“Then where is this husband of yours? Where’s your
mangalsutra?
Where’s your wedding ring? Where’s your
sindoor?
”
“It’s not that simple. My husband, he’s . . . I haven’t . . .”
“You haven’t what, Mili? You haven’t ever seen him?”
“We were married when I was very young. And . . . it’s really hard to explain.”
His rage started to take everything else over. “Try anyway.”
“No. I can’t. I can’t explain it. I can’t be with you right now. Please. I just can’t.” She backed away, but no fucking way was he letting her go.
“How young, Mili?” Her arms were so slender in his hands, so delicate, he gentled his grip.
She squeezed her eyes shut. “I was four.”
“That’s not a marriage.”
Her eyes blazed open. “Someone like you can never understand it. It is a marriage where I come from. It is a marriage for me, Samir.” She struggled to free herself from his hold.
He didn’t let her go. “What about what just happened between us? What do you call that where you come from?”
And the guilt was back. He wanted to shake her, to kiss it off her face, every last bit of it.
“That should never have happened. These past weeks, these past days. Oh, Samir, it should never have happened. You should not be holding me like this. Let me go.”
She yanked her arm, fighting to get away, but he wouldn’t let go. He couldn’t.
“Hold still, Mili, you’re going to hurt yourself. I’m not going to let you walk away from me. Not until you tell me everything.”
She stopped struggling. “There’s nothing to tell. Nothing more than what I just told you.”
“If you’re married, what are you doing here by yourself?” He tried to swallow but he couldn’t.
“He’s an officer in the Indian Air Force. And I . . . I have . . .”
“When was the last time you saw him?” He had no idea what he was doing. But he couldn’t stop.
Tears started streaming down her face. “I haven’t seen him since I was four years old.”
“Then he is not your husband.”
“He is my husband because I believe he is. Because I’m sworn to spend the rest of my life with him. It’s what I’ve dreamed of for as long as I can remember. Because, because I love him.”
Samir let her arm go. “How can you love someone you’ve never met?” He rubbed his hand against his jeans, but the feel of her wouldn’t come off.
“You can. I can. I do. I’m sorry. I’m sorry if I hurt you. If I let you believe anything could happen between us.”
“Could happen? What about what just happened?”
“That meant nothing.”
He grabbed her arm again and stuck his face inches from hers. She didn’t flinch.
“I’ve stuck my tongue into so many women’s mouths I’ve lost count. And
that
—that did
not
mean nothing to you.”
She looked horrified. Round eyes, open mouth. “You’ve lost count?”
“Oh, that’s what you picked up from what I just said?”
She swiped her hand across her mouth, rubbed her lips, and made vehement spitting sounds.
“You’re wiping away my kiss? What are you, two years old?” God help him, he had never wanted to shake someone so bad.
“Samir, I do not want to talk to any man who . . . who . . . yuck!” She turned around and stormed off again.
He was next to her in a second. “That’s it, you kiss me, like . . . like
that,
then tell me you’re married, then you run off.”
“You’ve survived
countless
kisses, you’ll survive this one.” She didn’t stop.
This was ridiculous. He stopped. “I am not going to run after you, Mili.”
“Good. Just leave me alone.”
This had to be the craziest thing that had ever happened to him in his entire godforsaken life. He was not going to run after this crazy woman. He sank down on the patio steps and dropped his head into his palms. Of all the . . . she had wiped off his kiss, spat it out. She had called it . . . God, the kiss was seared into his fucking soul and she’d said . . .
yuck?
18
F
or the rest of the afternoon Mili refused to talk to Samir. She refused to look at him. She refused to so much as be in the same room as him. Fortunately, Samir was beyond ever being surprised by Mili again.
What kind of woman jerked you around like that? What kind of married woman kissed you like that? What kind of woman—He ran his fingers through his hair. God, he was losing his mind. There were so many lies flying around he was actually starting to buy all the crap they were handing out.
First, she was not married. Rima was married to Virat. Second, both of them would be widowed, not married, if Virat had died in that accident.
God, Bhai. I am so sorry.
How would Virat have handled this? He certainly would not have messed everything up by getting involved with the woman who was trying to illegitimatize his child and steal his family fortune.
Something stuck out from under the couch. Samir leaned over and picked it up. It was the
Filmfare
magazine. The one Mili had used to almost dismember someone three times her size. Why was irony such a bitch?
He tucked the magazine under his arm and found Ranvir at the dining table with a man tying a turban around his head. Samir told Ranvir he was leaving. It was getting close to the wedding hour. Everyone else, including Mili, seemed to be upstairs changing. The wedding was going to take place in the backyard in a few hours.
“You’re coming back for the wedding, right?” Ranvir peered at Samir through the turban that had slipped over his eyes.
“We’ll see,” Samir said and headed for his car.
It was a nice enough hotel, and it felt really good to be alone. Samir pulled off his shirt, and threw himself on the carpet. A hundred pushups later, he felt much better. He got up, stretched, and saw the magazine lying on the bed.
He opened to the article that had turned his tiny little adversary into an avenging angel.
Neha looked really bad, that much he would admit. It was time to put a railing on that staircase. He skimmed through the article.
String of innumerable girlfriends . . . Casanova image keeps him in the media . . . Neha was the brightest star on the Mumbai horizon . . . blah blah blah.
Finally his eyes stopped on something.
She had filed charges . . . He’d fled the country . . . The police were on a hunt.
What the fuck?
He pulled the cell phone out of his pocket and dialed.
“God, Sam, it’s the middle of the fucking night.” As usual DJ was a font of information.
“I’m sorry, I should let your lazy ass go back to sleep then.”
“What’s wrong?” Samir heard some rustling, then a few feminine mumbles as DJ got out of bed.
Great, now he was ruining everyone’s sex life. “When were you going to tell me Neha filed charges?”
“Where did you find a
Filmfare
magazine?”
“I pulled it out of my fucking ass. How’s she doing?”
“She’s fine. She’s been trying to reach you. I didn’t think you’d want me to tell her where you were. She was just being a woman scorned. And she’s withdrawn the charges. I’ve spoken to the cops. I would have called if there was anything for you to worry about. When are you coming back anyway? It’s been close to four weeks.”
“I don’t know. And stop fucking babysitting me. If someone wants to talk to me, let them.”
“Yes, sir. Anything else?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Are you going to tell me what the real problem is?”
“No.” Because a real fucking problem would by definition need a real fucking solution. “Women are insane, that’s all.”
“We aren’t talking about Neha anymore, I’m guessing.” His agent was a veritable Dr. Watson.
“Well, she’s insane too.”
“So the bitch won’t sign? Why don’t you just come back and let the lawyers take care of it.”
She’s not a bitch, you fucker.
“No. She’ll sign.”
Fuck, he couldn’t talk anymore. He mumbled a goodbye and jumped in the shower.
It didn’t help.
He picked up his laptop. All this wedding drama meant he had not finished the script. Chances were he wouldn’t be able to write, for obvious reasons that he needed to get the fuck over. If it hadn’t been for Mili’s little critique, which he hated to admit had been bloody brilliant, he would have been done by now. But she had hit the nail squarely on the head and everything made perfect sense. He knew exactly how it was going to end. He just had to put the ending down on paper. Story of his fucking life.
There was a knock on the door. “Who is it?”
“Room Service.” Mili’s husky voice punched him square in the gut. His heartbeat sped up. The blood rushing through his veins sped up. Even his breathing sped up like some teenybopper coming face-to-face with her crush. All those damned pushups down the toilet.
He pulled the door open a crack. Whatever droll line he was going to throw at her died on his tongue. She was wearing a turquoise sari. Her hair cascaded around her shoulders, spiral ribbons falling all the way to her exposed waist. Someone had outlined her eyes in smoky kohl. Her irises glittered like gemstones. So what? They always glittered.
She pushed the door and squeezed past him into the room.
“Come on in,” he growled, much like the wild beast raging in his chest.
“You’re in a dressing gown.” She was standing too close to him. The passage leading into the room was narrow. Too narrow.
He could smell her once he got past the blast of perfume. “What did Ridhi spray you with, a hose?” Without meaning to, he leaned in to smell her. Great, she’d turned him into a lecher, that’s what she’d done.
She stepped away. “Oh, good, you remember Ridhi. My best friend. The one whose wedding you drove four hours for.”
“I didn’t drive four hours for Ridhi.” He tried to hold her gaze, but she looked away, that damned flush swept up her cheeks, maroon and pink tinting the deepest caramel, like a rose that needed its own name.
She took a breath, raised those glittering onyxes, and met his gaze. A head-on collision. “I’m sorry, Samir. Can’t we put that behind us and go back to being friends?”
“No.”
“Okay, so don’t be friends. But get dressed. The wedding ceremony is less than an hour away. We have to get back to Ridhi’s house.”
“I’m not going to the wedding.”
“Okay. But I have to be at the wedding. And you have to take me.” Now her eyes went all pleading. If she joined her palms he was throwing her out.
“How did you get here?”
“I made Ranvir drop me off.”
“Then make him pick you up.” It’s the least Pillsbury Doughboy could do for her.
“Samir, can you get dressed, please?” She pressed her hands together and he cursed.
“I already answered that.”
“Listen, you owe me. Come on.”
“I owe you? For what, for lying to me?”
“I did not lie to you.” She looked around the room and found the magazine lying on the bed. “I protected you. From that witch. It wasn’t easy. She’s scary.”
“Right.” But he was stupid enough to smile. She took full advantage and blasted him with all one-twenty watts of her smile. And he wanted to kiss her sneaky lips so bad, he had to step away and push into the mirrored closet behind him. “You should not have come here, Mili. You don’t just walk into some man’s hotel room like this.”
“You’re not just some man. You’re Samir.” She pushed the cascading mass of curls off her face with both hands and he knew it was going to bounce right back.
“Okay, somewhere in there is a compliment.”
“Of course it’s a compliment. I feel safe with you. You’re my friend. I know you will never hurt me. The list is endless.”
Yeah, an endless pile of crap. He didn’t feel safe with her. He didn’t want to be just her friend. And he knew he was going to hurt her shitless. “So this is my married friend come to get me. Nothing more.”
She nodded and her hair slid back around her face. “Nothing more.”
He dropped his robe.
At least five shades of red rushed up her cheeks. “What are you doing?” It was no more than a squeak, but he was impressed she got the words out.
“I’m changing like you asked me to, why?” He had pulled on boxers earlier, but the rest of him was as bare as the day he was born. He turned away and threw open the closet with both arms, no point having those back muscles if he couldn’t put them to good use when he needed to. He took his time pulling pants out of the closet. Then an even longer time bending over and pulling them on. He’d been a model for almost a decade. She had no idea whom she was messing with.
She made an incoherent sound behind him, something between a choke and a groan. He straightened up and caught her reflection in the mirror. She was straining to breathe. “Did you say something?”
She shook her head. “No. I—” She gulped air.
He reached into the closet and pulled a shirt off a hanger. What a stroke of luck to have just finished his pushups and a hot shower. His abs, his arms, all of him was pumped and photo-shoot ready.
“You have a tattoo,” she whispered. Lust glazed her eyes as they locked on his back.
Little Sam raged to life in all his glory. It was a good thing Samir had pulled his pants on. Not that they did much. He moved the shirt in front of him and drew a steadying breath as she disappeared behind him in the mirror.
Cool fingers hovered over his skin, cutting through the heat radiating from her body. “They’re wings.” Her breath kissed his skin. Her finger landed on his back and traced the spine inked onto his spine, traced the wings that fanned out across his shoulder blades. “Like an angel.”
He turned around to face her. “Not an angel. A coward—they mean I can fly away at will.”
The lust fogging her eyes cleared. “Craving freedom doesn’t make you a coward, Samir.”
And he knew then that she knew what it meant to crave freedom. He knew how much she craved it in this moment. What it cost her. How much it hurt her to not have it.
He pulled on his shirt and stepped back.
For a moment she didn’t move. Then she shook her head as if to clear it, as if shaking off everything between them were that simple. She reached for his shirt and started fastening the buttons, her brows knitted together in concentration, her shoulders slumped, her fingers feathers on his chest. She slipped one button in place, then the next.
He just stood there, his fists hanging like dead weights from his arms. The mirror before him reflected the mirror behind him, multiplying their tethered forms a million times over. Yearning coiled like springs in their bodies spun out in infinite succession, image after image for as far as he could see.
“Damn but these guys know how to throw a wedding,” Samir said, leaning into Mili’s ear. Gooseflesh danced up and down her neck. She closed her eyes. No. She had to stop reacting to him like this. This was just who Samir was. He did these things. They meant nothing to him. He kissed women, countless women. He touched them as if he owned them. It was his world. She had let herself get dragged into it. And now she didn’t know what any of it meant. She was what her
naani
called the halfway dog, who belonged neither in the house nor in the yard.
She stepped away from him. He followed her, close, as though some invisible rope connected them. The backyard was lit up like the parliament buildings in Delhi on Republic Day. There must’ve been at least a million lights. Red and gold today, not the blue and white from yesterday. Also, unlike yesterday, they weren’t sprinkled like stars across the backyard, instead they outlined everything. The perimeter of the yard, the patio, every edge of the house, every tiered flower bed, it was all outlined in light.
A liveried band played at one end of the wooden dance floor and a Hawaiian bar had been constructed at the other end where almost the entire guest population was currently gathered. At the far end of the lawn stood the most beautiful four-post altar Mili had ever seen. Roses and ivy vines cascaded from wooden trellises held up by columns draped in cream and gold silk.
“Drama Queen Alert,” Samir whispered into her already tingling ear as Ridhi’s mom rose out of the crowd like a golden phoenix and rushed toward them.
So much gold threadwork was crammed into her sari Mili couldn’t tell the original color of the fabric. “Where on earth have you two been?” she hissed, even as she pulled Mili into a hug.
“Sorry, Auntie, Samir takes longer to get dressed than a woman. This is beautiful.”
“Isn’t it? The things these wedding planners can do these days. One week! Can you believe? I told them, here, take this money, make it happen. Boom. Done!” She surveyed the yard much like Naani surveyed her courtyard when Mili decorated it with a hundred lamps at Diwali time. “No less than one of your Bollywood affairs, no?” she asked Samir expectantly, and he nodded. Then suddenly her brows knitted together. “You don’t think we need more lights, do you?”
Samir choked on his drink.
Ridhi’s mom joined Mili in thumping his back. “
Hai hai, beta.
Drink slow. There’s lots, no hurry. The night is young, no?” Then to Mili, “
Arrey,
but why are you still standing here? Your friend has been shrieking for you. She’s taken the entire household on her head and she’s dancing around screaming, ‘Where is Mili? Where is Mili?’ That girl! Go, go. Go upstairs.” And with that she swept off and swooped down on a waiter. “Look at your tray, it’s empty. Go, go, we want trays full when you serve. People should not think, ‘oh, no food.’ ”
The terrified waiter nodded furiously and ran toward the tandoor-style oven where whole spiced chickens and colorful skewers of kebabs spun over the raging flame.
Mili turned away from the sight and elbowed Samir, who was taking a long sip of his drink. “
Hai hai,
drink slow. There’s lots,” she said, imitating Ridhi’s mother’s Punjabi accent.