Spice and Secrets (5 page)

“You’re Rahul’s school friend,
na
? David Shaw?” she trilled, giving him quite the once-over.

He didn’t know how long she’d been standing there—lurking, really, since the decorative potted tree was more hiding place than public thoroughfare—but he quickly said his goodbyes, switched off his mobile and returned it to his pocket.

He didn’t move to correct her on his name. He didn’t move, period. It was like being caught in the thrall of some sort of snake, or maybe the charmer…swaying helplessly in front of the wooden flute. Rahul had sincerely
not
been exaggerating about his stepmother’s wiles.
Ex
-stepmother, he could nearly hear him saying.

“
Gunga ho, kya?
Can’t you speak, handsome?” It was flirtation wrapped in scorn, or perhaps the other way around. Davey was just revolted enough by her tone to rise to the challenge.

“I’ve nothing to say to you, Ms. Manjrekar,” he said, stiffly. “Your reputation precedes you.”

“You mean Rahul’s badmouthing precedes me.” Nina didn’t blink. Blinking would require human response. “My reputation is spotless…
aur meri
power, boundless. You don’t want to make an enemy of me, Mr. Shaw,” she warned him.

“I don’t want to make
anything
of you, Ms. Manjrekar,” he said through his teeth in that pompous way he knew Sunny hated. “If you have something specific you’d like to discuss, please get to it. Otherwise, kindly get out of my way.”

She stood before him for what felt like an ungodly eternity before she removed herself from his path, and Davey could fairly swear that she managed to leave some fundamental part of herself behind to keep tabs on him. It was an essence. A cloying scent of suspicion and deceit. A harbinger of certain doom.

I want you gone.
She’d said it plainly, and yet here he still was…sitting before her at the café where they’d first met as though she’d never said a word. As though nothing had changed. Stupid
angrezi ulloo
.

“Sunita…?” Davey’s laugh was a low, husky noise that danced across the surface of her skin. “You’re calling me various animal names in your head, aren’t you?”

“Not ‘names’, plural.
Sirf ek hi.
Just the one.”

Sunny could not admit she was pleased…but she felt an odd sense of
contentment
at Davey’s insufferable presence these past few weeks. The show had never run more smoothly, and her pulse had never been more upbeat. She was being
challenged
. God, it was beautiful,
na
? Something about this maddening man Davey Shaw
worked
. Even when they were not precisely working together. She would not allow him near her heart, but her mind…oh, her mind found him bloody impossible to resist.

Davey’s mobile vibrated, dancing off the table like it was on fire. His brows winged together as he checked the screen, but that was that. He tucked the phone away into a pocket without keying out a reply.

Sunita’s natural—frequently overactive—curiosity couldn’t help but kick up. “What is it?” The question came out edged with glass, though she’d been trying, in the days since her outburst in his office, to keep her emotions under tighter wraps. “Is it something important? Something about the show?”

“No, it’s nothing,
Rani Sahiba
.” He pushed aside his dour expression, replacing it with the tease of that god-awful nickname. But the hair on Sunny’s arms stood at attention, and a prickly feeling crawled up her spine. She’d co-parented with an addict who couldn’t keep his pants on for nearly fifteen years. SMS messages were never “nothing”. They were a meeting with a dealer or a seedy hookup in a club. They were excuses to miss Jaidev’s Sports Day, his violin performance and his Diwali group dance. Texts meant a thousand different things to her…none of them good.

She sat up straighter, folding her hands tightly. Davey, who usually caught her slightest change in demeanor from the booth and instantly barked criticism into her mic equipment, didn’t even notice. He simply reached for his drink, his flinty eyes thoughtful and distant. “So, where are we on Priya appearing on the show with Rahul? Him signing on to her picture has everyone buzzing, and they haven’t even put the first shot on tape yet. We need to make this happen.”

She replied with the self-possession of someone who had been on the spot for years. “I believe her exact words were, ‘When hell freezes over’. At least, that’s what her assistant told my assistant.”

“Then we’d best order an ice truck.” His hungry, wolfish smile lit up his entire face. He looked too goddamn handsome for his own good, wearing ambition like some men wore a sharp suit and tie. “We need the exclusive first look at
Khoon
. Us. Not Karan, not Simi. Not any of those bloody American Bollywood programs. This is our get, Sunita. I know you can do this. Don’t you dare let this get away from us.”

Us
was such a deceptive word…so full of promise,
na
? A lump suddenly lodged in Sunny’s throat, and she tried to wash it away with her whiskey. She had not been part of an
us
in a very long time. A
we
?
Nahin.
And nothing was
ours
except the life she shared with her son. Now here was Davey Shaw, making them out to be partners in this grand scheme.

“
Itne asaan nahin hain.
It’s not that easy,” she murmured, before realizing she was responding to her own thoughts and not his.
Damn it.
He was challenging her in a whole different way, without even trying.

“Yes, it is, Sunita.” Davey just stared at her with those disturbingly canny blue eyes…like he was seeing straight into her. Perhaps he was. Because his next words, too, seemed to echo her private ones: “You just have to trust me. And trust yourself.”

Trust? What was
that
? She could only shake her head. And the rest of herself as well…for caring about his ideas, and for growing suspicious of his mobile phone, and for being charmed by his posh good looks. “
Gadhey
,” she hissed, smacking her palm down flat upon the tabletop.

“I beg your pardon. I am
not
an ass,” he gasped, faking insult.

No,
she
was. It was stupid, completely
stupid
, to let this man get to her. To let him crawl under her skin with his smart smile and his network domination dreams.

And, yet, there he still was. Treading entirely too close to her soul.

Rahul liked to mentally plan his dinners. It wasn’t so different from directing, from producing—a matter of plotting, of gathering all the necessary ingredients, and framing them in just the perfect way. It was calming, especially when Nina was causing her standard dramas. He thought of the repetitive motion of his knife slicing through tart onions. He imagined the sizzle of five spice,
paanch-phoron
, in oil. He thought of Bengali fish curries, Goan ones, too, and imagined what might work as a dessert.
Kheer
was simple, basic. Every nation had a recipe for rice pudding,
na
? Sweets like
gulab jamun
and
rosgolla
were time-consuming, involving the boiling of syrups and the shaping of balls.

“You keep your hands off my balls!” he could imagine Shaw quipping, which was, in and of itself, another welcome distraction from the theatrics of his life. From waiting. From wondering. But it was never a distraction from Priya,
na
?

Where are you?
She’d sent him the brief message some hours ago. No “hello”, no “how are you?” Nothing but three tight words. He’d actually pictured her expression when he wrote her and told her that his plans for the evening involved bar hopping in Santacruz—really just one jump, to the lounge at the Grand Hyatt. Anticipating her arrival at China House was excruciating. Then,
finally
, he had the pleasure of seeing her expression in person. The private I-deck area was supposed to be tranquil, relaxing, a nice getaway, but she blew into China House like a storm, all rage and rain and cloud-colored silk. And it seemed she was well prepared to dampen his parade.

“What in the hell is wrong with you, Rahul?” Priya was incensed. Infuriated. Positively livid. And completely beautiful.

“Could you be more specific? There’s just so much, I don’t know where to begin.” He made himself at home watching her pace back and forth, seething so palpably that it nearly rolled off her in waves.

“
Yeh kya bakwas hain?
What is this bullshit?” she demanded of him in a startlingly good imitation of Trish Chaudhury at her diva peak. “How could you get Ashraf fired? Get him back this instant.”

“Sorry.” He shrugged, sipping calmly at his gin and tonic. “It’s in the trades already, and KK can’t wait to relaunch our
jodi
. He is very excited.”

“We don’t have a
jodi
! One film does not a pairing make.” She stopped in place, her eyes spitting barbs like a spear gun. “Wasn’t Bihar enough
baadla
? Haven’t you had your revenge?”

“I’m not interested in revenge. I just want to act again, and who is a better costar than Madame One-Two Punch?”

“Trishna,” she answered automatically. “Sonia, Ash, Kareena, Katrina, Priyanka. Angelina Jolie.
Hazaron
heroine
hain is duniya main
. There are countless heroines at your disposal,
na
?”

“But there’s only one you,” he pointed out.

That shook her. He could tell. But she refused to acknowledge it, to allow him a point at all. “I am the negative role. You will end up with the sweet girl. Probably Ananya. She is very close to signing.”

“Scripts can be rewritten. I have Ravi and Rajat working with KK on some revisions. I will take a look at it also. Perhaps our hero will end up with his ‘
khalnaika
’, after all.”

The news did nothing to mollify her. “You’re crazy. All this just to…to what? Recapture our childhood? Stroll down memory lane?
Kya chathe ho
, Rahul? What do you want from me?”

“I’m a filmmaker, Pree. And the picture of our lives together barely began before it was shelved. I just want a proper ending to the story.”

She went as pale as milk. “I can drop out,” she said haltingly. “The deal is not final yet.”

“No, you can’t.” Rahul gave her a grim look. “Heroes can swap out, no problem. We lose nothing. But you know just as I do that there are a dozen girls lining up to take your place in the spotlight. Tomorrow, you will be
hawa
, your name will be nothing. This is your shot. They won’t give you another chance.”

Twin spots of color bloomed on her cheeks. Cold fire. “
I
won’t give
you
another chance.
Samjhe?
It will not happen. Our story is over.”

“
Jhoot maat bolo.
Don’t lie, Priya,” he chided her. “Of all your changes, that one suits you the least.”

Anything she might have said in response was lost as Sam came stomping into the lounge. Every word out of his mouth that wasn’t somehow related to his ex-wife was a “fuck” or a “shit”. Vikram was close behind him, murmuring things that were less profane and more soothing. By the time Rahul had sussed out that Sunny didn’t want Jaidev spending Diwali with his two daddies, Priya had slipped out.

But she
wouldn’t
slip away. That was a promise.

Chapter Seven

“Please don’t be a bitch about this, Sunny.” Sam’s voice burst forth from the mobile speaker, his message calmer, more reasonable, than he had been the night before. Probably Viki had written him a script. “We still have months to think about it. Just be cool. Let us spend the holiday with Jai. You don’t want to make this ugly.
Samjhe?
”

Wasn’t it already ugly? Had it not been a train crash since before Jai was born? It was a little bit mad to curse at a telephone, but Sunny did exactly that as she deleted the voicemail and walked into the front room of her flat. A grand, sprawling affair that took up an entire floor of one of the fancy new Versova hi-rises, she’d paid for it herself. Not one note of Sam’s money had contributed. She’d worked for this,
na
? She’d earned it. Hadn’t she also earned a little peace? But
nahin
, Sam had to toss a bomb into the center of her life, insisting that because his vicious cycle of rehab and relapse was over—for now—he deserved more time with Jai. Maybe Viki believed the leaf had turned over. She couldn’t. The cost was too high.

Jai was curled up on the sofa, studying, a plate of
pakoras
that Usha had left for him sitting untouched on the glass-topped coffee table. Her
nokrani
was a godsend—part housekeeper, part cook, all lifesaver. Sunny didn’t like keeping a full staff, relying only on Usha and her driver, Hari. Sam would say she didn’t like relying on
anyone
, and perhaps that was also true. But he’d taught her that lesson,
na
?

They’d run around partying gloriously for six hot months when she was nineteen. She’d thought he hung the stars even though all her girlfriends told her that he was cheating on her—with boys, no less—but she hadn’t cared, craving only the next rush, the next drink, stumbling around with him at two a.m. only to wake up alone. Sam Khanna was the kind of guy you happily wanted to be almost arrested with. And, God knows, she narrowly escaped that fate three or four times. Until she fell pregnant, and everything changed. She’d grown up almost overnight, knowing she wanted her child more than anything in the world. Sam had married her out of duty, to give Jaidev a last name and his own budding career as a hero some sort of validation. A hero didn’t knock a girl up and leave her,
na
? Those few months of marriage had been even more disastrous than their running around…and Sam had, eventually, turned screen villain.