Falling For A Bollywood Legend

‘I would love to work with Mr Varma, but I doubt I could fit another client into my current roster. I am totally swamped at the moment.’

Her boss stared at her in surprise. He had never in all the years she’d been working there heard her turn down a client, and a high-profile one at that. He looked at her speculatively and conceded, ‘Of course, I don’t expect you to juggle in your new client along with all your old ones too. Someone else can take over your less important ones so that you can devote all your attention to the new account. At least initially,’ he added.

Nina caught onto it like a lifeline ‘I’m positive my other clients would feel miffed if I abandoned them suddenly, so maybe I could work on this new account during the drafting stage and leave the execution to Dev?’ she enquired on a hopeful note.

Mr Samuel’s face hardened with irritation. ‘In case I haven’t made myself clear, let me. Aadith Varma wants only you to work on his PR campaign, so there’s no question of you working on it until only halfway through,’ he said in a tone that brooked no further argument.

Nina noted the unspoken reprimand in her boss’s eyes and the warning it carried, but chose to continue unheedingly. ‘Wouldn’t it be better if—?’

Her boss broke in before she could even finish the sentence. ‘With your promotion up for approval I’m sure you will put in your very best work on this. That will be all,’ he added dismissively.

Nina had worked her butt off for years to get where she was. To make VP had been her goal for so long and now, when it seemed to be within reaching distance, this new hurdle had sprung up. She acknowledged that there wasn’t really a choice any more. Nothing and no one was going to take it away from her. All her years of hard work were not going to be wasted over an egotistical jerk like Aadith, she vowed.

Mr Samuel was still watching her keenly, but Nina could not even bring herself to voice her consent. She just nodded her head and rose from the chair. Just as she reached the door her boss promised, ‘Nina, turn this around successfully and you will be made VP effective from the next quarter.’

Nina was furious with her boss, with Aadith and mostly with herself for letting them push her into a corner. She dared not open her mouth in case she said something she would regret later. She grunted her agreement and strode out of the room in a red haze of temper. Point Aadith, she thought sourly. But the game was not over yet; it was just beginning.

As Nina was about to enter her cabin Mrs Dutta waylaid her with a huge bouquet of sunshine-yellow roses. She had an adoring look on her face as she handed Nina the accompanying card. Nina waited until the door had closed behind her to look at the card. It simply said,

Welcome to the team-A

It carried only a mobile number on the other side.

Nina was only slightly mollified that he had remembered her favourite flowers. Back in Pune when they had been neighbours, there had been a beautiful yellow rose bush in his garden. Nina had often admired the flowers and occasionally borrowed them too from his grandmother. No, she wasn’t surprised that he had sent her the flowers, for she knew he would employ every trick in the book to get his own way. She was only astonished that he remembered which ones she liked.

The cad probably never let himself forget a thing about a woman. But then he’d need to, going by the rate he went through them, she thought bitterly.

Even with the gift of flowers, she couldn’t forgive that he had gone to her boss!

How dared he? That conniving lowlife.

She snatched the phone off the table and quickly dialled the number off the back of the card. When a deep sexy voice answered it after the first ring, Nina raged, ‘You’re a lying cheat! How could you pull such a cheap trick on me?’

Aadith chuckled and shot back, ‘I’ve been waiting for your call. Now my day can end on a happy note.’

‘How dare you use my boss to get to me?’ she said with unabated anger.

‘I did warn you I’d use any means to get you to work with me, didn’t I?’ he asked, unruffled. His voice didn’t show a trace of emotion other than amusement.

‘Why me?’ she asked starkly.

‘I doubt you need me to tell you that—you’re the best in the industry, and I want only the best.’

Nina flinched at his statement. Professional pride warred with deep-seated anger at his statement. While her parents had always found her work frivolous and trifling, to have Aadith acknowledge her brilliance and success gave her a long-needed boost of accomplishment and happiness. But she didn’t want it to mean anything to her. He had a way with words and could charm the very devil, if he wanted to, she acknowledged grudgingly.

But his arrogance made her hackles rise. ‘You always get what you want and it doesn’t matter who you ride roughshod over, does it?’

Aadith felt his temper rise. It was not as if he were ruining her career. In fact it would gain her a lot of mileage in the industry and give a wonderful boost to her career. But he didn’t feel like belabouring the obvious. He chose to ignore her ranting completely.

‘Nina, I’m not going to dignify that remark with an answer.’ He swiftly decided to move towards less touchy subjects. ‘So, was this actually a call to thank me for the flowers?’ taunted Aadith in a more intimate tone of voice.

Nina felt bewildered for a second. More than the change of topic, what threw her was her body’s instinctive response to the sexual challenge in his voice. It seemed to caress her. She felt even more appalled when a tremor ran through her body.

Nina strove to rein in her wayward thoughts. ‘Oh, the flowers,’ she said in as offhand a manner as she could manage. ‘Mrs Dutta was very happy with them. Looks like you’ve added yet another fan to your club!

‘By the way, Mr Varma—’ began Nina, but he interrupted her.

‘I thought I asked you to cut the Mister.’

‘All right. Aadith it is. I understand I have no choice left but to work with you but I am not a pushover. Not everything is going to be an easy victory for you. I can play as dirty as you, so consider yourself warned,’ stated Nina clearly.

‘Well, Nina, you’ve thrown the gauntlet down and I’m so ready for it. Bring it on,’ said Aadith boldly.

And she hung up to the sound of his mocking laughter.

CHAPTER TWO

NINA LAY AWAKE fretfully going over the day’s events. She knew she should handle this turn of events in a mature fashion but a part of her was worried if she would come out of it unscathed. The first time she’d been close to Aadith had been bad enough. The whole incident had made her feel gauche and stupid. She definitely didn’t want an encore. It had only served to make her very wary about men. For a long time she had not been able to get her nerve up to actually have a relationship. It had taken a lot of prodding from her friends to get her back into the dating scene. She couldn’t say she had been a roaring success even then. Having been determined to get to the top of her career, she had let work take precedence. Her only previous relationship had been half hearted and blessedly short, she thought ruefully.

Nina was determined to keep things strictly professional with Aadith, not that he would be interested in anything else, she mused wryly as she drifted off into a fitful sleep.

As soon as Nina got to work the next day, she took stock of all the work she would have to delegate to others if she had to make time for Aadith. She did some serious juggling around to free herself enough to take on the new workload. She retained Gaurav Tiwary’s account since it was a relatively new one and needed her expert attention.

Since that day so long ago she’d developed a defense mechanism to ignore everything but the barest minimum news about Aadith, so she knew she had to get herself up to date about his entire media history. She set to work on it briskly. It had been a long time since she had let herself take in news of him and as she did so she found herself perplexed by the sheer number of women he seemed to run through. The Aadith she’d known had had a lot of girlfriends but nothing like this. Now the women never seemed to last more than a month. She wondered if the industry he worked in had changed him so.

Nina gathered from Aadith’s personal assistant that he was reshooting a couple of scenes to finish his current movie. She arranged with him to pencil her in for lunch with Aadith at the studio. Having visited various studios occasionally, to meet with clients or to be with them during interviews, she was familiar with the frantic chaos that was the norm on movie sets.

As she gracefully walked across the set later on that day, she garnered more than her fair share of attention. Her shiny coal-black hair was pulled back into an austere ponytail. On another woman it might have made her look severe, but on Nina it only served to draw attention to her big brown eyes. A pert nose and luscious lips completed a startlingly pretty face. In a white button-down shirt and slim-fitting grey trousers she stood out from everyone on the sets, who were all dressed rather casually.

Merely watching Nina walk towards him dressed primly with just her lips painted a sultry shade of red sent a sizzle of awareness coursing through Aadith. He’d never thought formal clothes could look so sexy on anyone but the way those pants hugged her derriere made his mouth run dry.

‘I’m running late. Can you hang around until I finish this?’ he asked, striving for a steady tone.

The movie was an elaborate period drama and Aadith was in his costume. An Indian prince … Clad in rich, bejewelled robes that faithfully outlined his wide shoulders, powerful chest and long legs, he simply looked magnificent.

Nina felt breathless just looking at him. ‘If it won’t take too long I can,’ she muttered and discreetly parked herself out of his line of vision and watched him.

It seemed to be a scene where Aadith came to know that someone had betrayed him and he had a war of words with them. He was utterly ruthless and emanated an aura of power that surrounded him like an invisible cloak. He looked dangerous and predatory, she thought warily with a slight shiver.

Nina had never watched any of his movies so watching him perform was spellbinding. He totally captured her attention, leaving the others in the scene fading into the background. Her eyes didn’t leave him the whole time.

It was another half-hour before the director called it a day. By then adrenaline pumped through him. He’d been constantly aware of Nina and to have her watch him with such rapt attention had given him a serious high. He hadn’t been able to stop himself from showing off for her. He excused himself and headed to his vanity van to change into his street clothes. He was in a hurry to join her.

‘I bet even his dentist is a pretty young thing,’ drawled an indolent voice behind her. Nina turned around to see the director, Vinay Parek, grinning at her.

‘Trust Aadith to end up with the most beautiful woman in the business to work with!’ he exclaimed enviously. Nina smiled slightly at his compliment and extended her hand to introduce herself.

He shook her hand and said, ‘I know who you are. As you know news travels fast in the industry and there is no such thing as a secret.’