The One She Was Warned About

It sounded as if she approved.

‘You don’t hover over your people telling them what to do and how to do it, when they should have it done...?’

Nikhil laughed. ‘It’s a little difficult to be like that in my business,’ he said. ‘There’s a lot of planning involved, but people need the freedom to take spot decisions.’

Siddhant cleared his throat and Shweta realised guiltily that she’d completely forgotten he was standing next to her. Nikhil noticed him as well, giving him a friendly smile as he held out his hand.

‘Nikhil Nair,’ he said.

Siddhant took his hand, sounding almost effusive. ‘Yes, of course. Manish mentioned you’d be here. I’m Siddhant.’

Priya had been right, then—Nikhil had to be loaded. Siddhant was this friendly only with the very successful or the very rich.

‘You’re one of the partners in the firm, aren’t you?’ Nikhil asked with a quick smile. ‘I understand you guys are putting on a performance for the team?’

Oh, God. The firm’s senior partner, Manish, had come up with the brilliant idea of all the partners dancing to a Bollywood number. On stage. Manish himself could dance well, though he was grossly overweight, most of the rest were terrible—and that was putting it mildly. Siddhant wasn’t as bad as some, only he was very stiff and self-conscious. Shweta cringed at the thought of watching him make a fool of himself in public.

‘It’s just something Manish thought would make us seem a little more approachable to the team,’ Siddhant was saying. ‘That becomes a problem sometimes in an industry like ours. By the way—marvellous arrangements this morning. Your team did a fabulous job. The elephants and the Kathakali dancers welcoming everyone...and that flash mob thing at lunchtime was also a fantastic idea.’

The flash mob had been brilliant. Shweta conceded that much. But Siddhant was sounding a little sycophantic. Maybe Manish had asked him to make a pitch to Nikhil. She had only a vague idea of how event management companies operated, and it was unlikely Manish knew more than her—he usually operated on the principle that any company that made money needed accountants.

‘Thank you,’ Nikhil said, clearly amused. ‘Can I borrow Shweta for a minute?’

Siddhant looked a bit taken aback, and Shweta hastened to explain. ‘We were together in school—met again after years today.’ Borrow her, indeed. He made her sound like a library book—and a not very interesting one at that.

‘Oh, that’s good,’ Siddhant said. His eyes darted between the two of them as if he was registering for the first time that Nikhil could pose some kind of threat to his slow-paced courtship. ‘But aren’t you staying for the performances? I thought there were some Bollywood stars coming down...’

‘Seen them many times before,’ Nikhil said, a quick smile flashing across his face. ‘I’ll try and be back before you guys go on stage. Wouldn’t want to miss that.’

He slung a casual arm around Shweta’s shoulders as he drew her away and she felt her senses instantly go on high alert. He must have touched her in school, she thought, confused, but she didn’t remember feeling anything like this—what was wrong with her? He’d changed, of course, but how had he turned from the wild tearaway schoolboy she remembered to someone who drove her crazy with longing without even trying—it was totally unfair.

‘Is Siddhant your boss?’ Nikhil asked once they were some distance away. When Shweta shook her head he said, ‘Hmm...something going on between you guys, then? He looked quite possessive for a bit back there.’

‘He’s just a friend,’ Shweta said, but the colour flaring up to her cheeks betrayed her yet again.

Nikhil grinned wickedly. ‘Just a friend, eh? He’s still looking at us. OK if I do this?’ He bent his head and brushed his lips against her cheek. It was a fleeting caress, but Shweta felt her heart-rate triple.

Nikhil stepped back a little and gave her a considering look. ‘Will he come charging up and challenge me to a duel?’ he asked.

She shook her head mutely.

‘OK—what if I do this?’

Shweta swatted his hands away as he brought them up to cup her face. Feeling all hot and bothered, she said, ‘Stop playing the fool, Nikhil!’

He stepped back, raising his hands in laughing surrender. ‘I’ve stopped...I’ve stopped. You’re dangerous when you lose your temper—I don’t want you giving me another scar.’

‘Rubbish!’ she said.

‘Not at all.’ Nikhil pushed his shaggy hair off his forehead with one hand and she saw it—a thin white scar across one temple that stood out against his tanned skin. ‘The last time I annoyed you I ended up with this.’

Shweta remembered it quite vividly. She’d grabbed a wooden blackboard duster off the teacher’s table and thrown it at him. But it still hadn’t wiped the mocking grin off his face. A thin ribbon of blood had trickled down one side of his face and he’d mopped it off with a grimy handkerchief. He’d been laughing all the while. Right, so that was one time she remembered touching him—evidently he hadn’t had the same effect on her then as he did now.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said awkwardly. In retrospect she was—a few centimetres the other way and she could have blinded him.

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ he said. ‘From what I remember I was quite an obnoxious little beast—you helped knock some sense into me. And every time I look in the mirror now I think of you....’

He lowered his voice to a sexy rasp for the last part of the sentence, and Shweta felt a visceral reaction kick in. It wasn’t fair—he was just playing around without realising what he was doing to her. And with Siddhant watching...

Belatedly, she remembered Siddhant’s existence, and turned around to look for him.

‘Too late,’ Nikhil said. ‘He gave you a minute and then he went in, looking like a thundercloud. You’ll have to grovel to get him to forgive you.’

‘Fat chance,’ Shweta said shortly.

Nikhil’s accurate reading of Siddhant was unnerving, though. Right from when they’d first started dating Siddhant had given the impression that he was assessing her against a set of strict criteria. Rather like the way he screened job applicants, actually. At all times she was conscious of his approval or disapproval. He rarely lost his temper, retiring instead into a stately silence that she had to coax him out of. Completely out of the blue she wondered what a relationship with Nikhil would be like. Unpredictable, definitely, but lively—she could imagine impassioned arguments followed by equally passionate reconciliations.

‘Dreaming of something?’ Nikhil asked teasingly.

Her eyes whipped back to him. She shook her head, trying to stop thinking of what a passionate reconciliation with him would be like.

‘Look, are you really keen on watching the show? It’d be nice to catch up, but I’m leaving tomorrow morning. Want to sneak off with me somewhere?’

Oh, yes, she did want to sneak off with him. Put like that, it sounded deliciously wanton—also, no one had ever suggested sneaking off with her before.

Shweta tried not to look over-eager. ‘I can slip away. I’m not terribly keen on the Bollywood dancers anyway.’

‘Maybe you should tell Siddhant you’re leaving,’ Nikhil suggested.

But Shweta had decided to spend at least one evening free of his petty tyranny. ‘He’s not even my boss,’ she said. ‘I’ll message Priya so that she doesn’t get worried.’

It was only once they were in the black SUV that Nikhil had hired for the day that it occurred to Shweta to ask where they were going.

‘It’s a place where the locals hang out,’ he said. ‘Good music, and the food’s to die for. Not too swanky. But we can go to one of the five-star hotels around here if you’d prefer that?’

‘Yes—like I’d choose the five-star hotel after that introduction,’ Shweta said. ‘And you should know I’m not the swanky restaurant type.’

‘You might have changed,’ Nikhil said. ‘You don’t look the same—for all I know you might have turned into a wine-sipping socialite, scorning us lesser mortals...’

Shweta punched him in the arm and he laughed. ‘Still violent, I see,’ he said, but his tone was more tender than mocking. She felt her heart do an obedient little flip-flop in response. At least now her reactions to him weren’t coming as a surprise. All she had to do was work harder at concealing them.

They were on the outskirts of the city now, and driving down a narrow lane flanked by fields and coconut trees.

‘OK if I roll down the window?’ Nikhil asked.

When she nodded, he switched off the air-conditioning and got the windows down.

‘We’re lucky it’s not raining,’ he said. ‘Kerala gets most of its rains in winter...’