The One She Was Warned About (4 page)

‘Go on to the village,’ she muttered.

The last thing she wanted was a bunch of her colleagues gawking at her—Priya at least would be sure to smell a rat. And Siddhant... She needed to make it clear to him that it was off between them. Only it would be a slightly difficult thing to put across, given that he hadn’t formally proposed in the first place.

Nikhil came to stand next to her, his sleeve brushing her bare arm as he leaned against the handrail. ‘The boatman says we’ll reach it in fifteen minutes,’ he said. ‘We’ll get some time to look around the village then.’

Except that they didn’t, because his new team head who was supposed to be managing the project had a sudden attack of nerves and Nikhil had to step in to avoid a crisis.

Left to her own devices, Shweta wandered around the little resort village, admiring the local handicrafts and watching a troupe of dancers rehearse their steps.

‘Nikhil Sir is calling you,’ one of the trainees said behind her, and Shweta turned to see Nikhil beckoning to her from the pier.

‘The boats are about to come in,’ he said as she joined him. ‘We have a little surprise planned.’

He slung an arm casually around her shoulders and she had to fight the impulse to lean closer into his embrace. ‘What kind of surprise?’

‘Look,’ he said.

The four large boats carrying the office gang were now lined up on either side of the narrow stretch of water.

‘Aren’t they docking?’ she asked, puzzled. The boats seemed to be waiting for something. Before Nikhil could answer her, she realised what they were waiting for. ‘The snake boats!’ she said. ‘But how’s that possible...? This isn’t the time of year for the races, is it?’

But the snake boats were there—immensely long canoes, with almost a hundred rowers per boat wearing T-shirts in their team colours over
veshtis
.

Shweta clutched at Nikhil’s arm in excitement. ‘I’ve always wanted to see the races!’ she said. ‘I used to watch them on TV when I was a kid, but this is the first time I’ve been to Kerala... Ooh, they’re off!’

Nikhil smiled down at her, amused by her evident excitement. The snake boats
were
a pretty amazing sight. The teams of rowers, working in perfect synchronization, propelled them down the channel faster than the average motorboat. He was about to point out the finer points of the race when something caught his eye.

‘Damn,’ he muttered. Releasing Shweta’s arm, he sprinted to the makeshift dais at the end of the pier which his team was using to make announcements from. The girl he’d put in charge was holding the microphone idly, her entire attention focussed on the snake boats.

Nikhil grabbed the mike from her. ‘Viewing boat Number Two—yes, you guys on my left—please don’t crowd near the guardrail. Your boat is tilting. We don’t want you to land up in the water. Especially since I see that many of you have taken off your life jackets.’

There were some squeals of alarm from the occupants of the boat and they stepped back from the rail. The boat was still tilting a little, though not at quite such an alarming angle. Nikhil cast a quick eye around the other boats.

‘Keep an eye on them,’ he instructed, handing the mike back to his hugely embarrassed event manager. ‘Don’t panic them, but make sure the boat doesn’t go over. And once everyone’s on land call for a quick team meeting—this shouldn’t have happened.’

‘It wasn’t her fault,’ Shweta protested as Nikhil rejoined her. ‘How was she to know that everyone would go thronging to one side?’

‘It’s her job to know,’ he said, frowning. He’d been so distracted by Shweta that he’d lost sight of why he was really here. He should be with his team, making sure that nothing went wrong, but he hadn’t been able to tear himself away from her side.

She was leaning forward a little now, her lips slightly parted as she watched the rowers put in a last furious effort to get the snake boats across the finish line.

‘I knew the purple team would win,’ she said, her eyes glowing with satisfaction.

Nikhil wished he could pull her into his arms and kiss her. Instead, he put a casual arm around her shoulders, pretending not to notice the slight quiver that ran through her. ‘There’s still one more race to go,’ he said. ‘I bet the yellow T-shirts win this time.’

‘Purple,’ she said, aware that she sounded a little breathless. Nikhil’s proximity was doing strange things to her pulse-rate.

‘Dinner with me in Mumbai if yellow wins?’ he said.

Shweta looked up at him. ‘And if they lose?’

‘If they lose I’ll take you out for dinner before we leave Kerala.’

‘A little illogical, that.’

‘Not really,’ he said, and his voice was like a caress.

Shweta acted as if she hadn’t heard him. Flirting was not something she was good at, and she suspected that Nikhil was only flirting with her out of habit. She knew she hadn’t changed all that much from her schooldays—her glasses were gone, and she had a better hairstyle, but inside she was still the studious, slightly tomboyish and totally uncool girl she’d been fourteen years ago. The kiss she couldn’t explain away. It had felt as if the attraction was as red-hot on his side as hers, but he’d pulled away and hadn’t tried to get her alone afterwards. Of course they’d been under the gaze of his entire events crew—not to mention four boatloads of her colleagues.

‘Watch,’ he said as the snake boats lined up for the race.

Shweta dutifully turned her eyes in the direction he was pointing. His arm was still around her, and she found it difficult to concentrate on the race. Except for the frazzled girl with the mike no one else seemed to share her problem—even the waiters and performers were crowding onto the landing stage to watch the race. As for her colleagues on the boats—they were going crazy, whooping and blowing paper trumpets, though this time they were careful to stay away from the guardrail.

The yellow team won by a few metres and Shweta exhaled noisily.

‘Dinner in Mumbai,’ Nikhil said, looking down at her. ‘I’ll let you go back to your colleagues for today, then.’

Was that a dismissal? It didn’t feel like one, and the thought that he’d be in touch when they returned to Mumbai made her pulse race a little faster.

‘Pretty impressive, Mr Nair,’ a voice said near them.

Anjalika Arora was one of the Bollywood entertainers who’d performed for the team the day before. In her late thirties, she was still strikingly beautiful. She’d never really made it to the top in films—the few in which she’d played the female lead had flopped dismally at the box office, and over the last few years she’d appeared in glitzy productions with all-star casts where she’d been only one of four or five glamorous leading ladies with very little to do. The gossip magazines said that she made a fortune in stage shows, dancing to the songs from those movies.

Shweta looked at her curiously. This was the first time she’d met even a minor celebrity face-to-face. Anjalika looked like anyone else, only a lot prettier—dressed as she was today, in denim cut-offs and a T-shirt, and with her hair tied up, she could have been a soccer mom, dropping her kid off for a game. Shweta tried to remember if she had children or not. Unfortunately the financial newspapers she took didn’t say much about the private lives of movie stars. She did remember picking up a magazine at the beauty parlour which had covered a high-profile reconciliation between Anjalika and her movie producer husband.

‘How was your morning?’ Nikhil asked, releasing Shweta as Anjalika gave him a socialite-type kiss on the cheek.

‘Oh, brilliant—I spent most of it in the spa,’ Anjalika said, giving Shweta a girl-to-girl smile. ‘It’s pretty good—have you been there?’ Before Shweta could respond she’d turned back to Nikhil. ‘Nikhil, I hate to bother you while you’re working, but I’m sure your amazing team can handle things. I have this teeny query which I need your help on...’

‘Yes, of course.’ Nikhil smiled at Shweta. ‘I’ll be back in half an hour, OK?’

Shweta nodded, and Anjalika gave her another brilliant smile before hooking an arm through Nikhil’s and drawing him away.

‘Wants a pay-hike, does she?’ one of Nikhil’s crew members muttered to another.

The man he was speaking to shrugged. ‘It’s standard practice for her. She waits till the event’s underway and then starts haggling for more money. I don’t think Nikhil will buckle, though—he’ll sympathise, and say he’ll do what he can, but she’ll be lucky if he gives her even a rupee more than was actually agreed.’

‘Or maybe he’ll pay her in kind,’ the first man said in an undertone. ‘Take her back to the hotel and sweeten her up a bit. She must be gasping for it—her husband’s got a floozy on the side, and she isn’t as young as she used to be.’

‘Yeah, and
he’s
hot stuff with the women. That’s how he gets some of these star types to come in for the smaller events—gives them a good time in bed and they’re ready to do anything for him. Then, once the event’s done with, he’s off.’

‘OK—minds out of the gutter, please, and back to work.’

Nikhil’s second-in-command, a hearty-looking lady called Payal, strode up to them—much to Shweta’s relief.

‘Let’s see if we can get this bunch off the boats and into the village without anyone falling into the water.’ She gave Shweta a friendly nod. ‘Where’s that idiot Mona? I believe she was busy gawking at the race while one of the guest boats was about to tip over.’

‘It wasn’t so bad,’ a scarlet-face Mona muttered. ‘I did let my attention wander a bit, but Nikhil stepped in.’

‘Well, you’re lucky he was in a good mood or you’d be hunting for a job right now,’ Payal said. ‘Come on—start announcing the docking order and get those snake boats out of the way now. I’ve had enough of them.’

Wishing she hadn’t overheard the conversation, Shweta headed into the resort village. People always gossiped, and event management was on the fringes of show business, where stories were that much more outrageous—probably nothing of what the two men had said was true.

* * *

She’d just ordered a carved name-plate from one of the handicraft stores and the man had promised to have it ready in fifteen minutes. She was paying for it when Siddhant came up to her.

‘That’s beautiful,’ he said, smiling as he saw the hand-carved letters that the man had mounted onto a wooden base. ‘For your flat?’

Shweta nodded. ‘My old one fell off and broke.’ She watched Siddhant as he picked up the name-plate and ran his fingers over the letters. Try as she might, she couldn’t summon up a smidgen of feeling for Siddhant. He was intelligent, and successful, and he’d probably make someone an excellent husband some day, but meeting Nikhil had driven the last doubts out of her head. Not that she was in any way serious about Nikhil, she hastened to tell herself. The conversation she’d overheard his team having had only underlined that she didn’t stand a chance with him.

‘I’ve hardly seen you since we got to Kerala,’ Siddhant was saying. ‘Let’s walk around the village a bit, shall we? Unless you’ve seen it already? You must have reached it some time before we did.’

‘Not seen much of it yet,’ Shweta said.

She’d have to let him know somehow that it wasn’t going to work out between them—the distinctly proprietorial air he adopted when she was around him was beginning to bother her.

THREE

They were sitting
down to lunch when Nikhil reappeared. Anjalika was nowhere to be seen—either she’d left, or was having lunch separately. Payal had mentioned to Shweta that her contract only included a stage performance, not mingling with the guests. Nikhil didn’t come across to her, however. He spent a few minutes talking to the resort manager, and then the firm’s HR head nabbed him.

Shweta found herself gazing at him hungrily. His clothes were simple—an olive-green T-shirt over faded jeans—but they fitted perfectly, emphasising the breadth of his shoulders and the lean, muscled strength of his body. At that point he turned and caught her eye—for a few seconds he held her gaze, then Shweta looked away, embarrassed to have been caught staring.

‘This traditional meal business is all very well, but I wish they’d served the food on plates rather than on banana leaves,’ Siddhant was saying as he tried to prevent the runny lentils from spilling over on to his lap.

‘It wouldn’t be very traditional then, would it?’ one of the senior partners said dryly.

Remembering that the man was South Indian, Siddhant rushed into damage-control mode. ‘Yes, of course. It’s just that I’m not used to it. The food’s delicious—we should seriously evaluate the option of getting South Indian food made in the office cafeteria at least once a week.’

One of the other partners said something in response and the conversation became general. Shweta felt pretty firmly excluded from it, however. She was sitting between Siddhant and another colleague who was all too busy trying to impress his boss. Priya and the rest of her friends were sitting across the room, and they appeared to be having a whale of a time. Siddhant himself was making absolutely no effort to bring her into the conversation with the rest of the partners—evidently he felt he had done enough by inviting her to sit with them at the hallowed top table.

Her phone pinged, and Shweta dug it out of her bag to see a message from Priya.
You look bored out of your wits
, it
said, and Shweta looked across to see Priya miming falling asleep and keeling over into her banana leaf.

Shweta took a rapid decision. She wasn’t very hungry, she’d finished all the food on her leaf—and the server was still two tables away. ‘Siddhant, I need to go and check on something,’ she said in an undertone during the next break in conversation.

Siddhant looked a little surprised. ‘Right now?’ he asked, and his tone implied that she was passing up on a golden chance to hang out with the who’s who of the firm.

‘Right now,’ Shweta said firmly, and escaped to the corner where Priya was busy demolishing a heap of sweetmeats.

‘What happened to your diet?’ Shweta asked in mock-horror. Only the week before, Priya had embarked on an oil-free, sugar-free, practically food-free diet.

Priya shrugged happily. ‘The diet’s on vacation,’ she said. ‘This stuff is way too good to resist. Where’s that hunk of a childhood friend of yours? I thought you’d finally seen the light when I saw you go off with him, but here you are back with Siddy-boy.’

‘Don’t call him Siddy-boy,’ Shweta said, feeling annoyed with Priya. ‘And I just spent the morning with Nikhil—we had a lot of stuff to catch up on. I didn’t “go off” with him.’

‘“Catching up”? How boring,’ Priya said, making a face. ‘If you aren’t interested the least you could do is introduce me to him properly—he’s
sooooo
hot...’

‘And you’re
so
not available,’ Shweta said, getting even more annoyed. ‘You have a steady boyfriend, remember?’

‘Someone’s getting jea-lous,’ Priya carolled, and Shweta longed to hit her.

‘Lunch over?’ a familiarly sexy voice asked.

She turned to almost cannon into Nikhil. ‘Yes,’ she said ungraciously, wondering how much he had heard. Priya had a rather strident voice, and she hadn’t bothered to keep it low.

‘Sorry I had to rush off like that,’ he said. ‘Anjalika has this habit of creating problems halfway through an event.’

‘No worries,’ she said, sounding fake even to her own ears. It was a phrase she’d picked up from Siddhant, and she found herself using it whenever she didn’t know how to react to something. Then natural curiosity got the better of her and she asked, ‘Did she want more money?’

Nikhil looked nonplussed for a few seconds, and then he started laughing. ‘I can see the team’s been talking. Yes, she did. But she isn’t going to get it.’

The team had been saying a lot, she thought. But, looking at Nikhil, she couldn’t believe that he’d trade sexual favours for a reduction in Anjalika’s fee. That was as bad as being a gigolo—worse, probably, because he didn’t
need
to seduce older women for money.

‘Don’t look so horrified,’ Nikhil said, tweaking a stray strand of hair that had escaped from the barrette she’d used to tie it back. ‘This business is like that. There’s a lot of last-minute haggling, and you can lose all your profits if you’re not careful to tie people down with water-tight contracts before you begin.’

Forgetting the fact that pulling her hair was anything but a lover-like gesture, Shweta’s relief at the businesslike way he spoke was overwhelming. She’d been right all along then—his team had just been gossiping.

‘Nikhil, the resort manager would like to speak to you,’ Payal called out.

Nikhil made an exasperated gesture. ‘I’ll see you in the evening, then,’ he said to Shweta.

Priya made a disappointed face once he’d left. ‘Very brisk and practical, that was,’ she said. ‘D’you think there’s something wrong with you? I was hoping you were on the verge of a mad fling with him, but you talk to him like he’s your cousin or something. No chemistry at all.’

‘Perhaps I’m more of a physics and geography kind of girl,’ Shweta retorted. ‘Grow up, Priya. Not every woman goes on heat when she sees a good-looking man.’

Siddhant had come up in time to hear the latter part of her sentence and he looked completely scandalised. Good job, too, Shweta thought spitefully as she refused his offer of a lift back to the hotel.

‘I’ll go in the bus with Priya,’ she said. ‘I’m sick of sitting around while you talk shop with the other partners.’

No chemistry. Perhaps Priya was right and she was imagining things, Shweta thought as she leaned her forehead against the cool glass of the bus window. There was that kiss, though, and the way he’d looked at her when they were watching the boat race...

‘Siddy-boy didn’t know what had hit him,’ Priya said gleefully as she took the seat next to her. Evidently she’d forgiven Shweta for the bitchy comment about not all women being like her. ‘He was so sure you’d be thrilled at being offered a seat in that stuffy old van with him and the other partners. There’s hope for you yet.’

Shweta shrugged. ‘I was irritated, and I said it without thinking. I’ll end up apologising when I see him again.’

Priya looked disappointed. ‘Don’t—that’ll spoil everything,’ she said. ‘Stay away from him a bit so that he gets the message. You’re definitely off him, aren’t you?’

Shweta nodded. Priya was as sharp as a needle, and there was no point trying to hide it from her. Far better that she used her rusty dissembling skills to conceal the fact that she was helplessly attracted to Nikhil.

‘I don’t know what you saw in him in the first place,’ Priya said. ‘You’re smart and you’re good-looking—you can do a lot better for yourself.’

‘Like who?’ Shweta asked dryly. ‘Men aren’t exactly queuing up asking for my hand in marriage. If I decided to hold a
swayamvara
, I’d probably have to pay people to come.’

Priya shrugged. In her view marriage was vastly overrated—but then, she’d spent the last six years fending off offers of marriage from several men, including her long-term boyfriend. She gave Shweta a considering look. ‘You know what your problem is?’ she asked.

‘I don’t, but I’m sure you’re about to tell me,’ Shweta replied.

‘You treat all men like they’re your buddies. So then they treat you like “one of the boys” and everything goes downhill from there. You need to build an aura—some mystique.’ Priya gesticulated madly. ‘Or, if all else fails, some good old-fashioned sex appeal would do the trick.’

Shweta shrugged. She’d long ago come to terms with the fact that, unlike Helen of Troy, whose beauty had launched a thousand ships, hers would only be able to float a paper boat or two. She was good-looking enough—lots of people had told her that—but men regularly bypassed her to fall for less good-looking but sexier girls. Not that it had ever bothered her much. Until meeting Nikhil again she hadn’t felt the pull of strong sexual attraction. She’d just assumed it was something that people had made up to sell romantic novels and movies.

‘I’ve booked us into the spa for a massage and a steam bath,’ Priya said after a while. ‘I forgot to tell you.’

Shweta shook her head. ‘Take one of the other girls instead,’ she said. ‘I’m going for a swim.’

* * *

It was almost six when they got back to the hotel, and the pool was thankfully deserted. Everyone who’d managed to get a spa booking was headed there, and the rest were in the bar at the other end of the property. Shweta ran up to her room to change into her swimsuit, and was back at the pool in a few minutes.

The water was perfect, warm and welcoming, and she automatically felt herself relax as she got in. She did the first few laps at a brisk pace, working off the day’s confusion and angst as she cleaved through the water. After a while, however, she flipped over, floating aimlessly on her back as she looked up at the sky. The sun was about to set, and the sky was a mass of lovely red-gold and purple clouds. Looking at it, she felt her troubles seep away.

A muted splash told her that someone else had joined her in the water, but she didn’t turn to see who it was. Only when the sun set fully and the sky faded to a dull steel-grey did she swim to the side of the pool.

‘You’ll shrivel up like a prune if you stay in the water any longer,’ Nikhil remarked.

A sixth sense had already told her who her silent companion was, and she didn’t turn her head to look at him. ‘Stalker,’ she said in amiable tones. She felt in her element while she was in the pool, and more than equal to dealing with her old classmate.

He was by her side in a few swift strokes. ‘What did you say?’ he asked, playfully threatening her with a ducking.

‘You don’t even like swimming,’ she said. ‘You told me yesterday.’

‘Depends who I’m swimming with.’ The lights around the pool had come on, and his eyes skimmed over her appreciatively. ‘Looking pretty good, Ms Mathur.’

She was wearing a much-used one-piece black swimsuit—but in spite of its age it clung faithfully to her slim curves. He could hardly take his eyes off her. Her wet hair hung down her back, and little drops of water were rolling down her neck and into her cleavage as she leaned against the side of the pool. Involuntarily, he raised a hand and trailed it down the side of the arm nearest him.

Shweta shivered in response, slipping back into the water before he could do more. She’d got a good look at him, and he looked pretty irresistible himself. His body lived up to if not exceeded the expectations it had aroused when he was fully clothed—all washboard abs, lean muscle and sinewy arms. He looked more like a professional athlete than a businessman. His damp hair flopped just so over his forehead, dripping into his deep-set eyes and he had just the right hint of devilry in his expression—all in all, Shweta thought, she could be forgiven for thinking him pretty irresistible.

‘Well?’ he asked, treading water next to her. ‘Are you done practising for the Olympics? Can we get out before I catch my death of cold?’

‘It’s not cold at all,’ Shweta said, but she swam to the side of the pool. It was difficult to hold a conversation with her ears full of water, and she didn’t mean to try.

Outside the pool, Nikhil looked even more impressive, towering over her as she got out of the water. He took her hand to help her out and a jolt of electricity seemed to pass from his body to hers. Realising that she was staring up at him dumbly, Shweta made as if to step away—Nikhil, however, took her by the shoulders and pulled her against his body. Slowly, he lowered his head to hers, but just when she thought he was about to kiss her he pulled away.

‘Someone’s coming,’ he said. ‘You’d better go and change. I’ll see you back here in fifteen minutes, OK?’

It took her ten minutes to shower, change into shorts and a sleeveless tee and get back to the poolside. He was waiting there for her, standing with his back to the pool. He’d changed as well, into khaki shorts and a white T-shirt. His hair was still damp, and as she came up he tossed the towel he’d been holding on to a deckchair.

‘I’m leaving tonight,’ he said abruptly. ‘I’ll see you in Mumbai soon—we have that dinner date, remember?’

Shweta felt quite absurdly disappointed. ‘Are you leaving right away?’

He nodded. ‘Almost. It’s a long way to the airport. I wanted to say goodbye, and I realised we haven’t exchanged numbers.’

‘I don’t have a piece of paper,’ she said. ‘And my mobile’s back in my room.’

‘Tell me your number. I’ll memorise it, and I’ll call you when I’m on my way to the airport,’ he said. ‘I’m not carrying my mobile either.’

Shweta told him her number and he listened carefully, repeating it back to her to make sure he’d got it right.

‘So...I’ll call you, then,’ he said, turning to climb the stairs that led to the hotel.

Shweta gazed after him in disbelief, and then ran up the stairs to overtake him. ‘Just a minute,’ she said. ‘When you say you’ll call me and we’ll go out for dinner, is that like a date, or something? Because I’m a little confused—you kissed me on the boat, and you were about to kiss me just now, if someone hadn’t come along. But the rest of the time you act like I’m your old buddy from school—not that I was your buddy. We used to fight all the time, except in kindergarten. Actually, that’s the last time I was able to figure out what you’re up to—when we were in kindergarten. You’ve grown more and more complicated...’

Nikhil’s brow creased with concentration as he tried to keep up and failed. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said finally.