His Monsoon Bride

His Monsoon Bride
Aastha Atray

Amrita took a deep breath and re-entered the lion’s den. Before her nerve failed her she announced, ‘Mehtab, I accept your proposal.’ And then she added, ‘But I have one condition.’

‘Anything you want,’ she heard Mehtab say.

She put on a defiant but calm expression. ‘I will continue to work after I get married, and the less you interfere in my work, the better.’

She worked? Mehtab thought, surprised. He had taken her to be a spoilt brat, living off daddy’s money. What was this work? But he knew better than to ask that question now. Instead he said, ‘Of course. You are free to live life as you want.’

‘Well, then, I agree.’

Mehtab saw her bottom lip quivering. He knew this was not what she wanted, and it was far from an ideal situation, but it had to be done. Amrita would understand in time. He might not be the Romeo to her Juliet, but he would give her all that she wanted. She didn’t realise how much this marriage would enhance his image and his career—the family man who had a perfect wife and a perfect business. He wanted to be admired and looked up to in all areas of his life—and Amrita was going to make that happen.

Dear Reader

When I found out that Harlequin Mills & Boon was looking for their second writer from India, a switch went off in my head. Why am I not taking part in the contest? I asked myself. It was five hours to deadline and I told myself that sometimes, to make dreams come true, you need to take a risk. And so I sat down and started writing as if my life depended on it. My original story, about the slightly voluptuous, shy but smart daughter of a millionaire, Amrita, who finds love with the roguish and rude but utterly handsome businessman Mehtab was just a figment of my imagination that even caught me by surprise. Who knew I was capable of such romance? Even though my romance with my husband, Kishore, has remained fresh for five and a half years now. And so I wrote a story about people who fall in love not because they are attracted to each other’s exteriors, but because eventually it’s a heart of gold that matters. I think it was because my own marriage has made me believe in such a love.

But I never expected to win! And so when I first got the call saying my story had been selected in the top three I was stunned. In fact, I was grateful for even that achievement. Then, as they called out my name as the winner at the party thrown for the entrants, I knew that taking that risk and giving it my all had paid off. And what an experience it has been!

Writing a love story for Mills and Boon has been the most creative and fulfilling task I have ever undertaken. It has taught me how to flesh out my characters, how to know that their actions are a result of their past life, and how to see that a person’s past and present shapes their future. From the moment I started writing about Amrita and Mehtab I knew I had to really make them come to life. In fact I had to make the reader feel as if she knew them intimately, and also make her understand why they do what they do.

Amrita, who on the surface seems to have everything, is actually a slightly confused young woman who wants to be independent and free from the shackles of the elite society she belongs to. She is also very headstrong and intelligent, and is a journalist (I guess I had to put a little bit of me in her!). She also faces a problem that many of us in this day and age do. She thinks she is fat just because she isn’t exactly like the models she sees on the pages of a magazine. But we Indian women are uniquely beautiful because of our curves, and eventually Amrita embraces that, as it’s Mehtab who makes her realise how beautiful she really is. She is also pretty fashionable, and opts for clothes that flatter her figure rather than just going along with a trend, and that underlines an aspect of her personality that’s just so spunky.

Mehtab was so named because that name just conjures up the image of a tall, big-shouldered, handsome man, whose grin can turn a woman to mush. He is witty and charming, and can say all the right things so that a girl just doesn’t stand a chance. Mehtab is misunderstood, because his steely, rough exterior hides a man who is fighting the demons of his past. But if you manage to go beyond all that, as Amrita finally does, you will find he is a kind, compassionate man. And he falls in love with Amrita for the real her. That’s because he knows that she has also accepted him, with all his baggage, and that is a sure sign of real love.

Their love story is a good example of how love can be found even when the circumstances are unfavourable. Sometimes life throws curveballs at us, but love really can conquer all. And I hope it makes everyone believe in the fact that true love does exist, and to give up on it would be a shame.

I am so glad I got to write this Mills and Boon story as it has made me a writer I never imagined I could be. And to be able to show the world what a love story set in contemporary India—my city Mumbai—is really like is also another big plus.

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. It’s been a ride!

Take care!

Love

Aastha

About the Author

AUTHOR NOTE

AASTHA ATRAY was the winner of the Passions of India competition 2011. Her exciting story and lively characters immediately stood out from the crowd and caught the judges’ eyes. Here is her inspiring story—from entering the competition to becoming a Mills & Boon® author!

His Monsoon Bride

Aastha Atray

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

To Mom and Dad,

who are the wind beneath my wings.

CHAPTER ONE

AMRITA PIRAMAL could feel the sticky, stern Mumbai sun staring down at her as if he had a personal grudge against her. She put on her sunglasses and rolled down the windows of the cab that was going barely twenty kilometres an hour. She contemplated telling the driver to speed up, but then, she thought, did she really want to reach home so soon? No, she wanted to delay this as long as she could. Her phone had been ringing off the hook. It was Meera, her nanny, who had looked after her since her mother died when Amrita was ten. She knew that Meera was calling to remind her that she needed to be home on time today—it was the day of the party that would decide her father’s fate.

Yes, her father, Manoj Piramal, once the richest man in India and in many ways the pioneer of the telecom boom, had been reduced to his last lakh. His habit of blindly trusting people had finally backfired. A former partner had been sucking the company dry and when he was finally found out, the business was on its last legs. The partner was behind bars now, but that didn’t change anything for her father. If he couldn’t manage to get a few investors on board soon, he would have to declare bankruptcy. That was why today’s party was so important. Her father was trying to win over Mumbai’s elite and charm his way back into the society that spurned him. But Amrita knew it wasn’t going to be so easy.

That was because she knew a thing or two about Mumbai’s elite. She had been one of them all her life. Her father was rich and her mother had been Bollywood’s most glamorous and scandalous leading lady until she died in a horrific road accident. Her mind drifted back to the newspaper headlines the day her mother died—’Scandalous Bollywood Starlet Killed’ and ‘She Loved Many, But Who Loved Her?’

Amrita knew how fickle this society was. How they just changed tack once they knew you didn’t matter. They loved you when you had it all, and if you didn’t, they loved watching you crash and burn. She knew many of the top businessmen, their bitchy wives and their size-zero daughters and womanising sons would be trotting in tonight just to see how bad things had actually got. They wanted to see Manoj Piramal beg. They wanted to see the daughter of Reshma Singh, the notorious adulteress, being reduced to nothing.

It was strange. She was raised in this society and yet somehow she managed to see it so objectively. It could have been because, despite her lineage, she had never really felt a part of it. She never fitted in because she was nerdy and liked to read and eat ice cream on the public beach. It was because she took the local train instead of the chauffeur-driven car. It was also maybe because she didn’t fit the mould of what an heiress should look like. She glanced down at her curvy body and sighed. She was fat—that was what they would all say. She knew obsessing about her weight was silly; she was built just like an Indian woman should be—curvy in the right places. But this society had forgotten what real women looked like, and she hated that she was thinking of herself this way. She knew she was pretty—her dazzling smile and her hazel eyes could mesmerise any man, not that she was interested in any.

There had been her ex-boyfriend, Akshaye, but after he left she didn’t want to even think of a man ever again, at least for a while. A few days ago her father had hinted that maybe it was time for her to get married and she had told him, in no uncertain terms, ‘No way!’ She needed to concentrate on herself and her career. She smiled then, for she loved her job, even though not many people knew what she did. She had refused a post at the city’s leading fashion magazine, Purple, to work at an independent news magazine where she wrote human interest stories that gave her the opportunity to profile ordinary people doing extraordinary things, like the group of girls she had just met.

They lived in slums, in houses no bigger than Amrita’s bathroom. Playing basketball was their only escape. The girls said when they were on the court it was as if nothing else in the world mattered. They smiled in the face of trouble and Amrita wished she could be one of them. But that was not to be. She knew she had to suck it up now and go to that dreaded party, because she had promised herself when her mother died that she would look after her father. She would never let him down, and so she would be the perfect hostess tonight. But she wasn’t going to let those size-zero south Mumbai bimbettes with their couture dresses and labelled handbags win the day. She thought of the new designer dress hanging in her wardrobe and decided she wouldn’t wear that. Instead she would shock them and wear the salwar kameez she bought last week from a small boutique. The yellow colour set off her tanned skin and the purple dupatta was a beautiful lace delight. Let them snicker—she was going to wear what she loved.

The imposing iron gates of her house opened and she could see Meera standing in the doorway. As the car pulled up Meera rushed out to hustle her inside.

‘Amrita, where have you been? I have been calling you. The party is supposed to start in twenty minutes and you aren’t even ready!’ Meera was a small lady with a pleasant face that always seemed to be smiling, even when she was angry.

‘Relax, Meera,’ Amrita soothed, ‘I am here now and I am all yours.’

‘You make me crazy. Chalo chalo, have a bath and wear that new dress.’

‘No. I have a better outfit in mind.’ Amrita smiled because she knew Meera would have a fit when she saw what she was planning to wear. She entered her home, Shanti—it meant peace and it was, for Amrita, the most peaceful place in the world—and headed straight for her bedroom. She loved this house and the thought that she might have to vacate it soon was killing her inside. But she had to be strong. As she slipped on her yellow kurta, purple churidar and purple lace dupatta, she felt beautiful. She finished the look with a bindi and kundan earrings, which were a birthday gift from her father. The emerald and diamonds sparkled and added a glow to her face. She wore gold ballet pumps on her feet and was twirling in front of the mirror when Meera entered.

‘What are you wearing? What happened to the designer dress?’

‘It’s so last season, Meera darling,’ Amrita joked.

‘You will be the death of me, child,’ Meera said exasperatedly, but she nodded in approval. ‘You look beautiful. Those girls won’t know what hit them. A princess who has a heart of gold—you are the best.’

Amrita hugged Meera and took the elevator down. She had to help her father make this party a success. This company was his biggest passion and she vowed to do whatever it took. It had to work.

Mehtab Rathod stood in the middle of the opulent ballroom and smiled. Even after ten years of being at the top of his game, he still felt strangely uncomfortable at these lavish Mumbai dos. He knew this party was probably milking his host dry. He winced at the fact that he was thinking about the cost of this party, when he should be enjoying it. But his upbringing made it hard to ignore such extravagance.

Growing up, he had never even dreamed of seeing a one-hundred-rupee note, and today he was a billionaire. The son of a chawl dweller who worked in Mumbai’s mills in the 1970s, Mehtab had spent his childhood roaming the dirty lanes of Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum, singing cheesy Bollywood songs in the city’s famous monsoon rain. He slept in a room with five siblings and his parents and often dreamt about pots of gold, literally. His father had always pushed Mehtab to make it big. But Mehtab knew he had erred in many ways. There were some incidents in his life he would rather forget, but they haunted him every night in his dreams. His greatest regret in life was that his father never saw him become who he was today, a leader in the real-estate business, whose last property had been sold in a record-breaking deal.

He had to stop thinking about all that. He was rich and he was living the good life. He was alone, though—his parents had passed away and his siblings were married and living their own lives. There was no dearth of women, but he knew that most of them were only interested in his money or his looks. Maybe, one day, he would be out of both, so he preferred to keep a distance. He never trusted anyone. He had too many secrets, and he was never sure who would accept him with all his baggage.

Lately, however, he had been thinking about the possibility of getting married. Not for love, obviously, but to maintain his social standing. Being a rich Casanova was not a title he relished. He wanted to be known as the complete man—and a man was only complete when he had a family. He needed a woman who was classy and sophisticated, who would be an asset to him and his empire, and wouldn’t expect too much from him emotionally. He needed the perfect little trophy wife and a marriage that would elevate his position among Mumbai’s elite, and obviously it wouldn’t be bad to see somebody when he returned from work every day. But it had to be on his terms.

When he had heard of Manoj Piramal and his daughter Amrita, it had instantly made perfect business sense to him. A marriage to Amrita meant gaining a company and an ideal wife—a wife who knew this society better than he ever could. After all, she was born into it. Yes, this was a perfect plan, and he would execute it with finesse.

The fact that Piramal Industries was in deep trouble had provided Mehtab with the ideal bargaining chip to get Piramal to approve of the marriage. Mehtab only had to tell him that he would turn his flailing company around and he knew Piramal would agree. Men did many things for fame and wealth, and he was sure Piramal was no different.