A secret that could cause scandal!

Jilted at the altar, Shefali Khanna should be humiliated. Instead she takes the opportunity to start again. Top of the priority list: do not tumble headfirst into another relationship!

But even moving from the city to the country can’t keep Shefali out of trouble—especially when she catches the eye of local celeb Neil Mitra! There is no way she can risk a scandal already! He might be gorgeous, but he’s totally off-limits…right?

And as an extra bonus, included is The Wedding Dress Diaries by Aimee Carson, the prequel to our fabulous new Modern Tempted quartet, The Wedding Season, starting next month!

Secrets & Saris

“I just told you—a serious relationship’s not something I can deal with right now,” Shefali said.

“But I do want to live life a little,” she continued. “I’ve never dated, never had a boyfriend, never stayed up the whole night dancing, never really had much fun. That’s all I want out of this. And if you don’t mind my saying, I think it’d do you some good, as well.”

Neil scanned her face, searching for a clue to how she really felt. Something about what she was saying didn’t ring true. He was incredibly tempted, though—the years since his daughter was born and his marriage ended had been completely devoid of anything remotely resembling fun with the opposite sex. Nothing that made him feel young and alive the way Shefali did.

“I’m not typical boyfriend material,” he warned finally. “And I don’t think this is the kind of place you can stay up the whole night dancing.”

“I’m sure we can think of something else to do all night long,” she said huskily, and Neil’s senses immediately sprang to high alert.

Secrets & Saris

Shoma Narayanan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

About Shoma Narayanan

Shoma started reading Harlequin romances at the age of eleven, borrowing them from neighbors and hiding them inside textbooks so that her parents didn’t find out. At that time the thought of writing one herself never entered her head—she was convinced she wanted to be a teacher when she grew up. When she was a little older she decided to become an engineer instead, and took a degree in electronics and telecommunications. Then she thought a career in management was probably a better bet, and went off to do an MBA. That was a decision she never regretted, because she met the man of her dreams in the first year of business school—fifteen years later they’re married with two adorable kids, whom they’re raising with the same careful attention to detail that they gave their second-year project on organizational behavior.

A couple of years ago Shoma took up writing as a hobby—after successively trying her hand at baking, sewing, knitting, crochet and patchwork—and was amazed at how much she enjoyed it. Now she works grimly at her banking job through the week, and tries to balance writing with household chores during weekends. Her family has been unfailingly supportive of her latest hobby, and are also secretly very, very relieved that they don’t have to eat, wear or display the results!

This and other titles by Shoma Narayanan are available in ebook format—check out www.millsandboon.co.uk.

To Vishpala and Paramita for being my sounding boards

for every book I write, and to Malini for

being my sounding board for pretty much everything else!

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

ONE

‘In the event of a water evacuation...’

The stewardess’s voice droned on and Shefali leaned back in her seat and shut her eyes. Water evacuation, indeed! Unless they crash-landed in a river it was very unlikely they would need life jackets during this flight between one completely land-locked city and another. She winced. If there was only some way to block out all sound. Her head was pounding like crazy, and she had to stop herself from opening her bag and digging out yet another painkiller.

‘Cabin crew to stations for take-off,’ the Captain’s voice said over the plane’s PA system, and Shefali’s eyes flew open.

She looked out of the window involuntarily. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen Delhi from a plane window—there had been trips to Mumbai, to Thailand, even to Paris—but this time she was leaving for good, and she couldn’t help but feel a lump in her throat.

The comfortable-looking matronly woman in the seat next to Shefali gave her a reassuring smile. ‘Flying for the first time?’ she asked.

Shefali shook her head. She didn’t want to spend the two-hour flight making polite conversation, and this lady looked the chatty kind. Before Shefali could shut her eyes again, she had started.

‘Are you from Delhi or Jabalpur?’

‘Neither,’ Shefali replied.

But the lady wasn’t about to give up. ‘Going for a wedding?’ she asked, pointing at the henna tattoos that covered Shefali’s hands.

Shefali pulled the long sleeves of her shirt down a little further to hide the elaborate designs that extended all the way up her forearms. The traditional mehandi ceremony had been held three days before her wedding-that-never-happened, and she’d had to wait for hours afterwards for the henna paste to dry. The rich black had now faded to orange, but to Shefali’s paranoid eyes her hands and arms still screamed out jilted bride.

‘Excuse me a second,’ she muttered, and pressed the button to call the flight attendant. ‘Can I shift to a seat in the emergency exit row?’ she asked when the attendant came up to her. ‘I have a...a knee problem. I need more leg-room.’

She picked up her handbag and moved gratefully to the seat pointed out to her. It was an aisle seat two rows ahead, and the window seat next to it was occupied by a man around her age who was peering intently into his laptop screen.

Shefali was fastening her seatbelt when the man spoke without looking up from the screen.

‘So where are you from, then? If you’re not from Delhi or from Jabalpur.’

She gave him a startled look. ‘I’m sorry?’

The man turned, and Shefali saw his face for the first time. He was quite strikingly good-looking, with blue-grey eyes and perfectly chiselled features. For a few moments Shefali found herself staring stupidly without a word to say. Fortunately he gave her a quick smile and turned back to his computer.

‘I couldn’t help overhearing,’ he said, and lowering his voice. ‘Good thinking with the knee problem.’

‘Thanks,’ Shefali said. ‘I think.’

The man nodded and started typing something into the computer. He didn’t seem disposed to talk any more, and Shefali felt a pang of something approaching disappointment. A random conversation with an attractive stranger might have helped take her mind off things. But who was she kidding? Nothing could take her mind off the single, mind-numbingly humiliating fact that her fiancé hadn’t bothered to turn up for their wedding. The wedding that she had spent the last year planning and preparing for.

Sometimes it felt as if her whole life had been geared towards that one day when she’d marry the perfect man and settle down into happy domesticity. And Pranav had seemed perfect when her parents had introduced him to her. He was rich, successful, and very attractive—and though it was to have been an arranged marriage she’d very quickly started weaving him into her daydreams. Finding out on their wedding day that he’d decided to go back to his ex-girlfriend had been the biggest shock she’d ever had in her sheltered and slightly pampered life.

The attendant brought across their pre-ordered lunch trays. Her neighbour closed his laptop and took his. Shefali shook her head abruptly.

‘No, thanks,’ she said. Her head was still aching, and even the sight of food was off-putting.

‘Can I have it?’ the man next to her asked. He gave her a quick grin. ‘I missed breakfast—and, well...’ He gestured towards his tray. ‘This doesn’t look like enough to keep a mouse alive.’

‘OK,’ Shefali said, taking her tray from the attendant and passing it on. His hands were good, she noticed. Strong, with square-tipped fingers, sinewy wrists and no rings. She’d never liked Pranav’s hands—thin and hairy: an awful combination. Pity they hadn’t been grounds enough for her to decide against marrying him.

‘You’re sure you don’t want any of this?’ the man was asking, gesturing towards the two trays.

Shefali barely repressed a shudder. ‘I’m sure, thanks. Just the bottle of water, please.’

He handed it to her, and she took it, carefully avoiding touching his hand. His proximity was affecting her weirdly, and she didn’t want him to notice. Her head still ached, and she picked up her bag, rummaging around in it for the package of painkillers. They seemed to have vanished, so she pulled out her table and starting putting the contents of her designer bag on it one by one. The painkillers finally turned up, wedged between the pages of the novel she’d been too stressed to take out and read. Heaving a sigh of relief, she popped open the blister pack and put one into her mouth.

She hadn’t opened the bottle of water yet. She tried to twist it open, but the seal stubbornly refused to break. And the pill she’d put in the centre of her tongue—because, according to her primary school science teacher, there were no tastebuds there—was slowly dissolving in her saliva and spreading to parts of her mouth where there were tastebuds. It tasted vile.

‘Ugh,’ she said, as politely as she could to the man next to her.

He had stopped eating and was staring with horrified fascination at the heap of things that had emerged from her bag.

‘Ugh,’ she said again, and finally nudged him with her elbow and pointed at the bottle.

‘Oh—sorry,’ he said, taking the bottle from her and opening it with an effortless twist of his wrist. ‘Here you go.’

She grabbed it from him with more haste than grace and took a few rapid gulps. The pill finally went down, though it cleaved lovingly to the roof her mouth for as long as it could. She made a face—the bitter taste in her mouth was refusing to go away.

‘Have some sugar,’ the man suggested, giving her a little sachet from one of his two lunch trays.

His voice was perfectly grave, but he was laughing, his eyes crinkling up at the corners in the most attractive way possible. His teeth were perfect, Shefali noticed. Having gone through years of painful and extremely expensive orthodontic treatment to achieve her own current flawless smile, she resented people who’d been born to have perfectly aligned teeth. He looked as if he’d never had to go to a dentist in his life.

Her neighbour polished off his second dessert and handed the empty trays to one of the stewards. ‘We’ve almost arrived,’ he remarked, looking at his watch, and the seatbelt sign came on as if on cue.

Shefali didn’t answer, but clenched her hands unconsciously. This was it, then. The start of her brand-new life. In a few minutes they’d be landing in a city where no one knew about her engagement and the disastrous end to it, and she could make a completely new start. She’d never taken her job very seriously—teaching at a playschool had been just something she did to fill the time between graduation and marriage—but when she’d wanted to get out of Delhi it had been her boss who’d come to her rescue, offering her the job of centre manager at their Jabalpur branch, and she was determined not to let him down.

* * *

Neil Mitra was looking at his neighbour curiously. There was something odd about her—some kind of pent-up anxiety that came through in her strained expression and rather jerky movements. Also, from what he’d been able to see of the packaging, the pills she’d been popping were either anti-depressants or pretty strong painkillers. If not for the haunted look in her eyes she’d be an attractive girl—she had neat, very regular features, a flawless complexion, and rather nice eyes with lovely long eyelashes.

‘Everything OK?’ he asked quietly as the plane came to a halt and girl tried to jerk to her feet without undoing her seatbelt.

‘Yes, of course,’ she said, but her voice sounded artificially cheerful.

Her glossy, perfectly styled hair fell across her face and hid her expression as she bent to open the recalcitrant catch of her seatbelt. Finally getting it undone, she stood up and opened one of the overhead lockers, tugging valiantly at her bag. After watching her struggle for a few seconds, Neil got up to free it for her. She was taller than he’d thought, just half a head below his own imposing six-foot two inches. The flowery scent from her hair teased at his nostrils, and for a second their eyes met and held as he took the case out and handed it to her.

Shefali looked away first, flustered by her reaction to him. Perhaps she was going crazy, she thought, suddenly furious with herself. Pranav’s betrayal was making her overly susceptible to the slightest bit of attention from any good-looking man. She tried to take a step away from him, but there was nowhere either of them could move—everyone in the plane was standing in the aisle, trying to get at their luggage, and the doors hadn’t opened yet.

‘Relax, I don’t bite,’ he said, sounding amused as he noticed her trying to move away.

Shefali flushed angrily. It was bad enough realising how pathetic she was without him noticing too. Luckily the doors opened just then, and she was able turn towards the exit.

‘Here—let me take that,’ he said, leaning down to take the handle of her case from her.

Relinquishing it, she followed him into the airport, her nose wrinkling just a little as she noticed how tiny it was.

Neil grinned at her reaction, Neil grinned. ‘Doesn’t match up to Delhi T3, does it?’ he asked.

Refusing to be embarrassed any further, Shefali shrugged. ‘It’s quaint,’ she said. ‘Oh, look—my cases are here.’

Neil helped her get the bags off the carousel, his smoky blue eyes widening as he realised how many there were. ‘Arctic expedition?’ he asked, his brows quirking up.

‘I’m moving here for work,’ Shefali said stiffly. ‘Two of the cartons are full of educational aids I’ll need for my job.’

It had taken her days to pack, choosing between sentimental reminders of her growing-up years in Delhi and more practical things like dishes and clothes. And then her boss had landed her with the two cartons to carry, airily offering to pay for the extra baggage. The last thing she needed now was to be given grief for the amount of luggage she had. She eyed his mid-sized rucksack contemptuously—he was probably carrying clothes for a two-day trip, and she had her entire life in her bags.

Suddenly overcome by the enormity of what she was doing, she shoved her remaining bags onto the trolley and said gruffly, ‘Well, thanks for everything. I guess you need to head off now...’

Looking slightly taken aback, Neil gestured towards the trolley groaning under the weight of three cases, two large cartons and a carryall. ‘Are you sure you’ll be able to manage that?’

‘Perfectly sure,’ Shefali said, dredging up a polite little smile, though her heart sank into her shoes at the thought of having to wrestle with all that stuff on her own. Then her sense of pride reasserted itself. She wasn’t helpless. She’d be fine. She didn’t need help from random strangers, however good-looking they were. ‘Thanks again for your help,’ she said, trying to sound as gracious as possible. ‘I’m sure we’ll see each other around, this is such a small place.’

‘It has a population of over a million,’ he said drily. ‘But if we do run into each other I’ll come across and say hello.’

Someone from the throng of people outside the airport yelled, ‘Neil—over here!’, and the man gave Shefali a brief nod before turning away.

Flushing, Shefali watched him stride off, his broad, athletic frame a stark contrast to the frankly pudgy man with a ponytail who’d greeted him exuberantly as soon as he’d stepped out.

He was nowhere in sight when Shefali finally managed to get her trolley out, but by then she had other things to worry about. The airport seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. Apart from a small car park there was nothing—trees and more trees surrounded the area, and there was not a cab in sight. Everyone else who’d got off the flight was being met by someone, and the couple of auto-rickshaw drivers who were hanging around looked as if they spent their spare time mugging little old ladies and stealing candy from kids.

She looked around a little helplessly—the man Neil was driving out of the airport in a black SUV, and she wished she’d asked him for a lift.

‘Need a lift somewhere?’

Shefali turned to look into the concerned eyes of the motherly woman she’d been sitting next to at first. Shefali shook her head. The woman seemed nice enough, but she reminded her way too strongly of all the curious aunties back in Delhi, who’d been simultaneously horrified, pitying and excited at her wedding being called off.

In her hurry to get away Shefali beckoned to the least ruffianly-looking of the auto-rickshaw drivers and gave him the address of her hotel. The auto was cramped—her bags took up most of the back seat of the three-wheeler—and she had to sit to one side, almost falling out of the open vehicle as it zipped through almost deserted roads. For a while she tried to look out and interest herself in her surroundings, but then her shoulders slumped and she leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes. The first day of her new and independent life had been exhausting, to say the least.

TWO

‘This is...really impressive,’ Shefali said, barely able to conceal the surprise in her voice.

Mrs Dubey, the outgoing centre manager of the playschool, smiled. ‘Not as villagey as you expected, then,’ she said, her voice dry.

Shefali turned around quickly. ‘Oh, no—I didn’t mean that!’ she exclaimed, though it was exactly what she’d meant and they both knew it. ‘It’s just that the centre looks so much like the one I worked in when I was in Delhi—at least from inside. And there’s so much space outside. You actually have a full-sized playground for the children. It’s lovely!’

There was enough genuine enthusiasm in her voice to win Mrs Dubey over, and her smile became a lot warmer. ‘I’m glad you like it,’ she said. ‘On Monday I’ll introduce you to the staff and take you through the paperwork, then you’ll be all set. I don’t think there’s anything else we need to cover now. What are your plans for the rest of the day?’

Shefali looked a little lost. It was a Saturday, and Mrs Dubey was right—without either the teachers or the children around, there wasn’t much for her to do here. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘I’d assumed this would take a lot longer. Can I start moving my things into the flat today?’

The playschool was a two-storey building, and the upper storey had a decent-sized flat that came with the job. It had looked rather nice when Mrs Dubey had shown her around earlier, and Shefali was looking forward to moving in.

Mrs Dubey was shaking her head, though. ‘I still need to move some of my boxes out,’ she said. ‘I’m staying with friends for the next few days, before I head out to Pune to join my son, so I’m getting the bigger things packed today and sent on directly. And we did say that you’d move in tomorrow.’ Her face brightened up. ‘I’ll tell you what you can do,’ she said. ‘My car’s free—the driver can take you for a drive up to the river. The Marble Rocks and the waterfall are lovely, and you won’t get a chance to do any sightseeing once you get caught up with schoolwork.’

It sounded as good a plan as any—and it would definitely beat spending the rest of the day in her hotel room brooding. The couple of quick internet searches that she’d done before she’d left Delhi had touted the stretch of the River Narmada running past the city as one of the most beautiful and unspoilt river views in the country.

An hour later, however, she was frowning as she stood at the riverbank. What she could see of the river as it meandered between tall cliffs of white marble was stunning. But the point of coming all this way had been to take a boat ride through the cliffs, and that was one thing she was apparently not going to be able to do. Every single boat seemed to have been commandeered by a TV crew that had set up operations on the riverbank.

‘But why can’t you rent me your boat?’ she asked one of the boatmen.

He shook his head firmly. ‘They’ve paid all of us to keep off the river while shooting is going on,’ he said self-importantly.

‘I need to speak to someone in charge,’ Shefali said, and before the man could stop her she had pushed through the crowd gawking at the cameras.

No one objected—probably with her ‘big city’ looks they thought she was part of the crew. At any rate, she managed to grab the sleeve of a harried-looking girl who was standing by the side of one of the cameras holding a large sheaf of papers.

‘Are you part of the crew?’ she asked, and the girl nodded. ‘I understand that you’ve paid the boatmen so that they won’t take any boats out. Is that correct?’

‘That’s right,’ the girl said, sounding wary now.

‘Look, I’m here on a very short trip, and I was really keen on a boat ride,’ Shefali said rapidly. ‘Is there any way I could take one of the boats out for a short while? Maybe when you’re taking a break or something?’

‘I’ll have to ask Neil,’ she replied. ‘He told us not to let any of the boats go out.’

At the name Shefali automatically looked at the crew, scanning through the faces. There he was, just a few feet away, she realised. Her tummy did an involuntary flip-flop of excitement. The man from the flight, looking even better now, his hair ruffled by the breeze and his tanned biceps exposed in a short-sleeved white T-shirt.

‘Who’s he?’ she asked the girl in an undertone.

The girl looked surprised. ‘Neil Mitra,’ she said. ‘He’s the anchor for our show.’

What show? Shefali felt like asking. They were from a TV channel, that was obvious—there was enough branding around to convert the entire city to single channel viewership—but... ‘I don’t remember seeing him in anything,’ she said instead. ‘Is he well-known?’ Neil’s looks were too unconventional to fit in the filmstar category, but she could imagine him being a hit on TV, with his direct eyes and quirky smile.

‘No,’ said a voice near her ear. ‘Not at all. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we really need to begin shooting. We lost two days while I was in Delhi.’ He nodded at the girl, who backed away, looking flustered.

‘I’ll get the guys together, then,’ she said, and made a rapid exit.

Neil turned to Shefali. Wild horses couldn’t have dragged it from him, but he’d thought about her quite a bit since he’d last seen her.

‘A very short trip?’ he asked, his voice sardonic. ‘I thought you’d moved here? Something to do with education if I’m not wrong?’

Damn—he’d overheard her earlier. Determined to brazen it out, Shefali lifted her chin. ‘I meant it’s a short trip to this place. It’s miles out of the city, and I’m not planning to come here again in a hurry.’

Neil shrugged. ‘Well, tough luck. I guess you’ll have to get here some other day if you’re really set on boating.’

‘Or you could let one of the boatmen take me across when you’re on a teabreak,’ she suggested, keeping her voice even. He seemed to be being difficult for no reason at all.

‘Or you could watch a film of the cliffs,’ he said.

Shefali glared at him, and Neil gave her an unapologetic grin. ‘It’s not about when you leave,’ he said. ‘It’s about when you come back. You could land up bang in the middle of a take and ruin it for us.’ He thought for a bit. ‘Look, the waterfall is on a different section of the river—maybe if you go there and come back in a few hours we’ll be done.’

‘All right,’ Shefali said, and turned to go. She had no intention of coming back—not while Neil was around at any rate.

Neil watched her leave with mixed feelings. There was something about the girl that got to him. Probably the air of privilege that surrounded her—she assumed that people around her would do what she wanted. And she’d been pretty dismissive at the airport when he’d only been trying to help her. In stark contrast to the way she behaved, though, was the look in her eyes, which was guarded and vulnerable at the same time.

‘You can take a boat out if you want,’ he said finally, just before she went out of earshot. ‘Only don’t wave wildly at the cameras or anything.’

Strongly tempted to tell him that she had no intention of looking at his precious cameras, Shefali nodded politely and waited while he beckoned one of the boatmen over and gave him a few quick instructions in Hindi. If he was expecting her to fall at his feet in gratitude, he had a long wait coming.

Once they were a few hundred metres from the bank, she turned to look at Neil. He was with the TV crew, busily arranging the next shot, and he seemed to have forgotten all about her. Frowning, Shefali turned back and tried to concentrate on the boatman who was giving her a long and, she suspected, almost completely fictional history of the region. The cliffs were impressive, though—not the pure white she’d expected, but pale grey and massive, looming over both sides of the river.

The boatman was still talking half an hour later, when the boat came back to the small wooden jetty they’d started from. Shefali stood up gingerly, almost losing her balance as the boat rocked under her.

‘Need a hand?’ an amused voice said, and she looked up to see Neil standing by the riverside.

They seemed to be done with the shoot—the camera had been packed up, and Neil looked far more relaxed than he had earlier.

Not wanting to fall over on her backside and make a fool of herself, she took Neil’s outstretched hand and allowed him to pull her out. Electricity zinged between them and Shefali felt her skin heat up. He seemed quite unaware of the effect he had on her, releasing her hand as soon as she was on dry ground.

‘Come on, I’ll introduce you to the crew,’ he said, and then smiled slightly. ‘It’d help if I knew your name first, though.’

‘Shefali,’ she said. ‘Shefali Khanna.’

‘Well, hello, Shefali Khanna,’ he said gravely. ‘Meet Rafiq, our director.’ He waved at the pudgy ponytailed man who had come to pick him up at the airport. ‘And this is Priti...’ The girl she’d spoken to earlier bobbed her head at Shefali with a quick smile. ‘And those scruffy guys over there are Animesh and Sohail.’ The cameraman and his assistant, who were both almost as well turned out as Neil, gave him indignant looks.

‘We’re the actual stars of the show,’ Animesh said. ‘This guy just hangs around and shoots his mouth off in front of the camera.’

Neil laughed. ‘Back in a minute,’ he said. ‘I need to pay the boatmen and figure out tomorrow’s schedule.’

Sohail followed him, and Shefali was left with Rafiq and Priti. ‘What’s the show about?’ she asked.

‘It’s called Soul of the City,’ Rafiq said. ‘We’re doing twelve episodes in twelve different cities. Here—take a look at some of the stuff we’ve done for one of the earlier episodes,’ he said, holding out an iPad to her. ‘This was in Vizag.’

‘It’s very rough,’ said Priti, the girl she’d spoken to earlier. ‘The final edit still needs to be done. But it gives you the feel of the thing.’

It certainly did. It cut between interviews with college students, politicians and housewives, with bits of local music interspersed with breathtaking footage of beaches and hills. And Neil was amazing—he looked even better on camera than he did in real life, and he managed to connect with each and every person he interviewed.

‘This is great stuff,’ Shefali said once the clip was over. ‘You guys are incredibly talented.’

Rafiq gave her a smug look. ‘Of course we are,’ he said. ‘And having Neil striding around and looking like God’s gift to womankind doesn’t harm our ratings either.’

‘Is this his first show?’ Shefali asked curiously.

Priti looked surprised. ‘You really don’t know who he is, do you?’ she said.

Shefali shook her head.

‘He’s pretty well known,’ Priti said. ‘Been with the channel for almost three years, and he’s had two very successful shows recently. Of course they’re on fairly serious themes, but he handled them brilliantly.’

She named the shows, but clearly she didn’t expect to Shefali to recognise them. Shefali wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed or amused by Priti’s slightly patronising tone. She didn’t watch TV at all, except for the movie channels, and she had no idea if the shows Priti was talking about were big league or not. For all she knew they aired at ungodly hours, and only housewives who were very, very bored or very, very frustrated watched them.

Neil was standing next to her again. ‘Coffee, anyone?’ he asked.

Priti shook her head vigorously. ‘We need to wrap up some still shots of the river before the light goes. But we don’t need you for that—you and Shefali go ahead.’

‘Come on, then,’ Neil said. ‘Unless you’re in a hurry to get back?’

Shefali shook her head again. She hadn’t seen the waterfall yet, nor the temple with the sixty-four statues of dancing girls that Mrs Dubey had been raving about, but she’d have to come back some other day.

Probably it was the effect of the sun, but she was terribly conscious of the man next to her as she climbed the stairs leading to the main road. She surveyed him from under her lashes. He was quite amazingly good-looking, she decided, though his looks were unconventional. His hair was a rich brown, with a couple of gold streaks in it. It was an unusual colour—most Indian men had jet-black hair or, more rarely, sandy-brown. His skin was tanned a perfect golden brown, and he had a square jaw with a cleft chin, and uncompromising, steady blue-grey eyes.

Trying to distract herself, Shefali stopped a couple of times to look at the carved stone figurines being sold at the stalls lining the stairs. There was a little marble one of Ganesha, the elephant-headed god, which she picked up and looked at for a while before putting it back.

‘Don’t you want it?’ Neil asked.

‘My mum collects them,’ Shefali said. ‘But it’s going to be a while before I see her again, so there’s no point buying it now.’

‘Won’t she come and visit? Check on how you’re settling in and stuff like that?’

‘According to her, moving here is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done in my life,’ Shefali said drily. ‘She’s planning to stay put in Delhi and wait for me to come to my senses.’

‘Ahh—like that, is it? Do you miss her?’

Shefali shook her head. ‘Not really. Oh, look at that!’ ‘That’ was an intricate carving of an elephant, displayed in the window of the next stall. It was pretty enough, but really she’d pointed to it only to distract Neil from the conversation.

He gave it a considering look. ‘Bit lopsided, if you ask me,’ he said. ‘And I’ve never seen an elephant with quite such beady eyes.’

Shefali laughed, and they climbed the last few steps to the road.

Neil looked around. ‘You know what, I don’t think there’s a single decent café around here,’ he said.

‘I’m OK with tea at one of those tapri stalls around the corner,’ Shefali said, but Neil shook his head. ‘Now who’s being a snob?’ Shefali asked teasingly.

‘That would be me,’ Neil said. ‘I’m a little fussy about the kind of tea I drink. Cold drink instead? Or, if you’re done here, we can head back to the city and grab a coffee there?’

‘Heading back to the city sounds like an idea,’ she replied. ‘Should I meet you there? I borrowed a friend’s car, so I’ll have to go back in that.’

Only the driver was nowhere to be found, though the car was still parked in the spot where Shefali had got out. After several attempts to locate the driver had proved fruitless Shefali left a note on the windscreen and gratefully accepted Neil’s offer of a lift.

‘I wonder where he could have got to?’ she fretted as she got into his dangerous-looking SUV. ‘He doesn’t have a mobile, and he told me he’d stay in the car.’

Neil shrugged. ‘Must have wandered off for a smoke. Message your friend and tell her you’re OK—I assume he’ll contact her when he does go back eventually.’

Shefali dutifully shot off a message to Mrs Dubey, and then leaned back in the passenger seat, yawning hugely. It had been a long day, and she was tired. The emotional strain of the last few weeks in Delhi was catching up with her, and she felt exhausted all the time.

‘Close your eyes and take a nap,’ Neil suggested, sounding amused. ‘It’s a long drive.’

It was dusk by the time they finally pulled up in the city centre, and Shefali’s eyes blinked open as the car came to a stop. Realising that she’d taken Neil at his word and slept blissfully all the way back, she jerked upright, feeling embarrassed and hoping she hadn’t snored or drooled all over the seats.

‘It’s past seven—coffee or an early dinner?’

‘Both,’ Shefali said. ‘I need to wake up.’

Looking back, she knew that was the moment she should have said she was tired and wanted to go to her hotel. But the thought didn’t cross her mind. The attentions of a man as attractive as Neil were flattering after what she’d been through, and besides, she couldn’t bear the thought of having to go back to her dreary hotel room.

The little café they went to was full of young couples—most of them looked like college students who’d sneaked off for a date without their parents knowing. Neil got them a table near a window and then went to fetch their coffees.

Shefali watched him as he stood at the counter. He was far and away the best-looking man in the place, and something like pride stirred in her chest as she watched several women give him the once-over and then glance across at her to see who he was with.

‘Here you go,’ Neil said, reaching across the table to set her cappuccino in front of her.

He settled into the sofa opposite her and Shefali couldn’t help but notice the breadth of his shoulders and the way his T-shirt strained across his muscles as he leaned back. She looked quickly at his hands. No rings. She definitely wasn’t in the market for anything serious—not for a long, long while—but some harmless flirting wouldn’t do her or her self-esteem any harm.

‘So, tell me more about what you do,’ Neil said. ‘College professor? Coaching sweatshop?’

Shefali shook her head, laughing.

‘All through college I wanted a teacher who looked like you—I never was lucky enough,’ he said.

‘I work with kids,’ Shefali said. ‘Who don’t care how I look. But I’m not really a teacher any more—it’s more administrative work.’

‘Do you like kids?’ Neil asked.

Shefali hesitated. All her life she’d made a point of saying the correct thing. It had been drilled into her so thoroughly that it had become a part of who she was. Maybe it was time to start saying what she actually thought for a change.

‘I hate that question,’ she said. ‘No one asks Do you like adults? do they? I love working with children, and I like most kids just the way I like most adults. But kids are human beings too, and there are some who’re perfectly obnoxious.’

Neil laughed. ‘Well, that’s honest, at any rate,’ he said. ‘And where are you working now?’

Shefali leaned forward. ‘Let’s not talk about work,’ she said. ‘It’s unlikely we’ll meet again—you’ll be out of here when your shoot is done, and I’m going to live here for a while—let’s talk about stuff we wouldn’t discuss with anyone otherwise.’

Neil raised his eyebrows. ‘Like...?’ he asked. He was always wary of women who tried to get too close too quickly. So far one of the main attractions Shefali had for him was that she wasn’t throwing herself at his head the way most women did.

Shefali picked up on his hesitation and said, ‘Don’t worry—I’m not talking about a Freudian psychoanalysis session. Just general stuff. Nothing personal. Like what I told you about not always liking kids.’

Neil relaxed a little. OK, not so dicey, then. She was just amusing herself. Just as well—he was beginning to find her quite disturbingly attractive, and the lighter they kept things the better.

‘You first or me?’ he asked.

‘You first,’ Shefali said. ‘One deep dark secret that you’ve never told anyone else.’

‘I’m petrified of dogs.’

Shefali laughed. ‘Come on—you made that up! You’re the outdoorsy kind. There’s no way you’d be scared of a dog.’

Neil shook his head solemnly. ‘When I was about two years old I was playing in a sandpit and this massive Alsatian came along and knocked me over and put its paws on my chest. I was lying there for some five minutes before someone noticed me and called the dog off.’

Shefali’s eyes softened. ‘That must have been awful!’ she exclaimed. ‘Poor you! No wonder you don’t like dogs—that experience must have traumatised you for life.’

‘Actually, it didn’t,’ he said, his grey eyes dancing with amusement. ‘My mum was the one who was traumatised—I dusted myself off and went away to play on the slides.’

Shefali gave him a playful punch in the arm—involuntarily she noticed the strength of the muscles under the warm velvety skin. ‘You wretch!’ she scolded. ‘For a minute there I actually felt sorry for you.’

Neil raised his hands. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘It was too good to resist.’

‘OK, a real one now.’

He leaned back, his long strong body stretched out against the sofa. ‘Let me think. I like pink.’

‘Very poetic,’ she scoffed. ‘Come on, Neil, be serious here!’

He grinned. ‘I’m not good with parlour games.’

Bedroom games were probably more his thing. The thought popped into Shefali’s mind out of nowhere and she gave herself a quick mental shake. That line of thinking wasn’t going to get her far. Perhaps spending time with Neil wasn’t such a good idea after all—he was a little too good-looking to be a soothing companion.

‘OK, here’s one thing,’ he was saying.

Shefali stopped thinking to listen.

‘And it’s really something I’ve never told anyone before.’

She raised an eyebrow enquiringly.

‘When I was fifteen I watched this movie about a diamond heist and it was pretty inspiring, I guess you’d say. So I thought I’d stage a mini-heist of my own. I crept out in the middle of the night and broke into a neighbour’s house. Only I didn’t have the guts to steal anything valuable so I raided their refrigerator instead.’

‘I hope you had a good meal,’ Shefali said gravely.

‘I fed the food to the cat,’ Neil admitted. ‘That’s one more thing—I grew up in Bengal but I hate fish. And that’s all they had in their fridge.’

‘Aren’t you Bengali?’ Shefali asked, surprised. ‘Your surname sounds pretty typically Bengali.’

‘Dad is,’ Neil said. ‘Mum’s British.’

That explained the light eyes and chestnut hair, though his skin was as tanned as any Indian’s.

‘Did they meet in Kolkata?’

Neil shook his head. They’d met in Oxford, apparently, where Neil’s father had been studying, and they’d had an extremely tumultuous courtship. When they’d finally got around to getting married they’d returned to India to look after the tea estates that belonged to Neil’s father’s family.

Neil told the story well—not surprisingly, given that he made his living talking into a camera. She hardly noticed the time go by, and it was dark when they finally stepped out of the coffee shop.

‘The restaurant I know is not too far,’ Neil said. ‘Are you OK with walking, or do you want to take the car?’

‘Walking’s fine,’ Shefali said. ‘I’m a bit tired of sitting around anyway.’

She was acutely conscious of his nearness, of his arm brushing lightly against the sleeve of her kurta, and the smell of his woody cologne. The pavement wasn’t too well-lit, and Shefali stumbled slightly at one point. Neil put a hand under her elbow to steady her and she shivered at the unexpected contact.

‘You OK?’ Neil asked.

She nodded, hoping he didn’t realise how close she’d come to flinging herself into his arms.

‘Just a little tired, I think,’ she said.

‘I guess you’re not used to spending so much time in the sun?’

‘I’m not,’ she said ruefully. ‘That’s why I fell asleep in the car—I must look a real mess.’

‘You look beautiful,’ Neil said abruptly.

Shefali looked up in surprise at the unexpected compliment.

They were in a rather deserted lane, between two rows of closed shops, and in the orange glare of the streetlights her upturned face was pale and so breathtakingly lovely that Neil lost his head. He put a hand under her chin and turned her face up. Unhesitatingly, he bent down to press his lips to hers.

The kiss came as such a shock that Shefali stood absolutely still for a few seconds. The sensation was indescribable. She’d been kissed before, but the feel of Neil’s warm, demanding lips on hers was something else altogether. Involuntarily she clutched at his arms, trying to pull him closer. His hands were cupping her face now, and with a little inarticulate cry Shefali arched her body to lean in closer to the kiss. She was conscious of nothing other than the feel of Neil’s lips on her mouth and throat.

A lot of time seemed to have gone by when Neil let her go finally, and she stared at him, her eyes still a little hazy from the effect of his kisses. One of his hands came to rest lightly on her shoulder and the other caressed her cheek. He ran a thumb gently over her lower lip.

‘I should apologise,’ he said softly, and his voice was not quite steady. ‘I shouldn’t have done that. But I’m not sorry I did.’

She wasn’t sorry either, she realised. The kiss had healed something in her—helped her to start thinking of herself as an attractive, desirable woman once again. Pranav’s desertion had shaken her self-confidence badly, and she could only feel grateful to Neil for having given some of it back. But she’d only just met him, and the sudden attraction between them was something she was completely unprepared for. She needed to think.

‘I have to go,’ she said quietly.

Neil reached out quickly to take her hand, making her quiver with longing all over again.

‘Are you upset about this?’ he asked. ‘We both got a little carried away, but it’s not the end of the world.’

In spite of what he’d said, he was beginning to regret kissing her. He’d been very careful over the last four years not to get involved with anyone, and the momentary madness that had overtaken him was completely uncharacteristic.

‘I’m not upset,’ Shefali said, but her eyes were troubled. Three weeks ago she’d been ready to marry Pranav and spend the rest of her life with him. Now she was perfectly happy standing in a lane in a strange city kissing a man she’d just met—what did that make her?

‘Come on—let’s have dinner and I’ll drop you back to your hotel afterwards,’ Neil said.

Shefali followed him into the restaurant. It was a rather silent meal. Neil seemed to have withdrawn into himself, and Shefali began to wonder if he was, after all, having second thoughts. Maybe her reaction had been a little too abrupt. She would have explained if she could, but the whole thing with Pranav was still too recent to discuss over dinner with someone who—kiss or no kiss—was virtually a stranger. Especially when the well-fed family at the next table was doing its best to listen in to every word they said.

‘Shall we?’ Neil said smoothly, once he’d paid the bill, and Shefali trailed behind him to the car park rather like Mary’s little lamb.

He didn’t ask for her number when he dropped her off, and she didn’t volunteer it or ask for his. Presumably if he wanted to speak to her he would call the hotel. She was moving the next day, but she’d leave a forwarding address.

* * *

The sun pouring through cheap lace curtains woke Shefali on Monday, and she sat up with a muffled groan. She’d had a bad night, disturbed by dreams in which Pranav and Neil had alternately abandoned her at the altar. The last dream had ended with Pranav being eaten by a crocodile, which was distinctly weird—her subconscious was obviously taking the whole thing very seriously.

Shefali rubbed her eyes. The lace curtains would need to go—it was only six-thirty, but the room was flooded with light. Thick khadi was what was needed—or maybe blackout blinds if homespun cotton wasn’t available. And the walls were an awful colour—something between pistachio-green and olive. Mrs Dubey, though a wonderful person, had rather peculiar tastes in home décor.

Sighing, she got out of bed. It was the first day of actual school, and she needed to be on time. She’d spent Sunday moving her things from the hotel to the flat, and buying essentials like groceries and buckets and mops. In spite of the amount of work she’d done she’d kept thinking of Neil. That kiss had been pretty amazing. In retrospect it was probably the best kiss of her life, and she couldn’t help fantasising a little.

The rest of the morning was so busy she didn’t have time to think of anything other than learning the ropes at the school. Mrs Dubey was obviously a competent administrator, but her management style resembled that of an Army drill sergeant—most of the younger teachers looked relieved at the thought that she’d be leaving soon.

‘I think you’ll be settled by the end of the week,’ Mrs Dubey said as she stood next to Shefali, watching the children filing out. Each child had been given a note to carry home that explained that Mrs Dubey was leaving and introduced Shefali as the new centre manager. ‘I’m around for the next couple of days in any case, if you need anything.’

Shefali gave her a smile that she hoped looked grateful enough. She was exhausted and, truth be told, beginning to wonder if moving here had been such a good idea after all. Unlike the Delhi playschool she’d worked at, this one was fully self-contained—she’d have to manage the billing and all the financials in addition to supervising the teaching, and it looked like a lot of work. The kids were rather sweet, though, and a lot less smart-alecky than the Delhi brats she was used to.

‘Nina, stop—you need to take this letter and give it to your mum,’ Mrs Dubey said, holding back a bright-eyed little moppet who was rushing past.

‘Can I give the letter to my dad instead?’ Nina piped up. ‘My mum isn’t here, and he’s always around.’

Mrs Dubey looked mildly scandalised, but Shefali smiled at the child. ‘Why not?’ she said. ‘Does he come to pick you up?’

‘Yes,’ she said and pointed towards the school gate. ‘Look—there he is!’

Shefali turned. There was only one man in the crowd of parents thronging near the gate—tall, with rumpled chestnut hair and familiar mocking eyes. Maybe Nina’s father was standing further back—but what was Neil doing here? She’d not told him where she worked, though he could have probably found out from the hotel.

She gave him a wary look as he walked up to them, but his attention wasn’t on her.

‘Hi, pumpkin,’ he said, ruffling Nina’s hair and inclining his head ironically at Shefali.

‘Daddy!’ Nina squealed happily, and clung on to his hand.

Neil Mitra—married with a kid. Something he’d neglected to mention even after he’d kissed her. No wonder he’d been in such a hurry to get away. It still seemed incomprehensible, though. For one thing he looked so young—she’d assumed that he was around the same age as she was. But he couldn’t be. Nina was one of the bigger kids at the playschool, and had to be at least four years old.

‘You’re her father?’ Shefali asked finally, looking him up and down.

‘So I’ve been told,’ Neil drawled. ‘I’ve been thinking of getting a DNA test done, but you know how things keep getting put off.’

Shefali was about to snap at him when she realised that Nina was right next to them, listening intently.

‘He is my dad,’ Nina said, her voice firm, but Shefali saw her chin wobble slightly. ‘What’s a DNA test, Daddy?’

‘A piece of paper that says you’re all mine,’ Neil replied, his voice rough as he swung Nina up into his arms. For a few seconds he’d been so intent on getting under Shefali’s skin that he’d forgotten his daughter was within earshot. ‘But we already know that, so we don’t need one. Bad joke. Sorry.’

‘Well, now that I see you together I can tell you’re father and daughter,’ Shefali said, trying to lighten things up a little. She’d have a lot to say to him if she saw him alone, but now was most definitely not the time. ‘Your ears are identical.’

Nina chuckled happily. ‘Everybody says my eyes are like Papa’s,’ she said.

‘Don’t believe, them. Yours are much prettier. Your ears, on the other hand...’

‘I can’t believe it—a schoolmarm with an ear fetish,’ Neil murmured as Nina slipped down from his arms.

‘I read it in a Sherlock Holmes story,’ Shefali said, blushing hotly. ‘Ears are supposed to show a family resemblance the most.’

‘The Adventure of the Cardboard Box,’ he said, and he smiled suddenly, his eyes lighting up in the way that made Shefali’s heartbeat quicken. ‘It’s years since I read Conan Doyle.’

‘Same here,’ Shefali, said, and there was a little pause broken by Nina’s cheerful little voice.

‘Teacher, I love the patterns on your hands,’ she said. ‘They’re like a dulhan’s hands. Did you just get married?’

The henna again. Shefali wished there was a way of getting it off—nail polish remover? Acid, maybe? Anything to get rid of the orange designs snaking over her hands, a constant reminder of her stupidity.

For the moment, though, she was done with lies and evasions. Neil could think what he liked.

‘I almost did,’ she said. ‘But it didn’t work out.’

Neil’s brow furrowed. ‘Get into the car, sweetheart,’ he said to Nina. ‘Look—Bela Mashi’s waiting for you by the gate.’

Nina gave Shefali a cheery wave and ran off. Neil’s amazing eyes were troubled as he turned back to Shefali.

‘Look, I’m sorry,’ he said awkwardly. ‘I didn’t realise...’

Shefali cut him off. ‘It’s OK,’ she said quickly. ‘I didn’t realise you were married for that matter. Maybe you’d forgotten it for a while as well? Look, I need to go—I’ve got some people to meet.’

She turned and almost ran up the steps. It was perfectly true—she did have a meeting with the man who did the accounts for the school. Only she didn’t go straight to the office. Instead she headed quickly for the back stairs and went up to her flat. Once inside, she held her hands up to her flaming cheeks. God, how stupid she was. It hadn’t even occurred to her that Neil could be married. He definitely hadn’t acted married. But then Pranav hadn’t acted madly-in-love-with-another-woman either. Maybe it was something wrong with her that made her the automatic choice for every man with a secret? And she’d spent the entire weekend thinking about Neil—she’d even daydreamed about him in class today, for heaven’s sake. It all went to show that she didn’t have the first clue about men, and the less she tangled with them the better.

Downstairs, Neil stood in the playground for a bit, hoping Shefali would reappear so that he could explain himself. When it became apparent that she wouldn’t, he turned and walked back to his car. Inside, Nina was bouncing up and down excitedly, telling her nanny about her day. Neil’s grim expression softened as he looked at the two of them. Bela Mashi had been his nanny when he was young, and she’d come out of retirement when Nina was born. He didn’t know what he’d have done without her—especially after Reema had left.

‘Daddy, isn’t the new teacher pretty?’ Nina asked.

Neil smiled at her reflection in the rearview mirror. ‘Very,’ he agreed. ‘Is she teaching your class?’

Bela Mashi shook her head before Nina could say anything. ‘Centre manager is what she is. Going to run the school after that Dubey lady retires. Young girl like that—what does she know about running a school? Anyway, we’re leaving in a couple of months. Doesn’t matter to us. It’s the others who’ll be stuck with her. And she’s from Delhi too. God knows why she’s come to work in this little village.’

‘Little village’ was how Bela Mashi described all the cities Neil had chosen for his latest show, but she followed him loyally wherever he went. Starting the car, Neil wondered what he’d have done without her. Probably buckled under family pressure and let his sister bring up Nina. Not that he hadn’t been tempted by the offer—bringing up a baby alone wasn’t the way he’d imagined spending the best years of his life. But that was the point, he mused, glancing at Nina as she tugged open her bag to show Bela Mashi something she’d made in class. The last four years with Nina had turned out to be best years of his life, though not quite in the way he’d dreamed of in his teens.

THREE

It was all the fault of the stepladder she’d found tucked away in the storeroom, Shefali decided. The second she’d seen it she’d been reminded of all those paint ads in which glamorous models and actors transformed a room with a few strokes of a brush. Reality wasn’t quite so much fun. For one, the ads never showed the hours you needed to put in, first scraping the old paint off and then smoothing the walls with messy Plaster of Paris. Or that ceilings were unreachable even after she’d tied the brush onto the end of a broomstick.

She’d been at it for almost the entire day now, trying to transform her pistachio-green walls to a more cheerful pale yellow. So far she’d done exactly one third of one wall of the living room, having given up on the ceiling. In any case the ceiling was white—it didn’t matter if it looked slightly dingy. The colour on the walls would brighten everything up.

She was just dipping the brush into the paint when the door bell rang. Who could it be? She put the brush on its side and covered the paint tin exactly as they’d shown in the video on house painting she was using as her reference material. Then she pulled off the old dupatta she’d tied around her head and went to open the door.

Neil Mitra.

She felt the breath catch in her throat at the sight of him leaning against the door. The sun was setting somewhere in the distance and his brown hair glittered golden. While his face was in shadow, his eyes sparkled as he broke into a disarming smile.

Realising that she was still staring at him like a dork, Shefali cleared her throat. ‘Yes?’ she said, putting on her best dealing-with-irritating-parents expression—neutral, but completely in charge of the situation. It probably didn’t go very well with her paint-splattered T-shirt and jeans, but she could hardly run in to change.

‘Is this a bad time?’ Neil asked, his grin broadening as he peeked around her into the living room.

The furniture was swathed in the lace curtains that she was planning to get rid of anyway, and the stepladder stood perfectly aligned with the wall. OK, the room wasn’t exactly ready to be featured in a home décor magazine, but she couldn’t see what there was to grin about either.

‘It’s fine,’ Shefali said, not budging from the doorway. ‘If you’re not going to take too long?’

‘I won’t,’ Neil promised. He’d thought about this for a whole week before he’d decided to come and speak to her. ‘I just wanted to let you know—I’m not married.’

Right. Thrown off-balance more than a little, Shefali stared at him uncertainly. ‘You mean...Nina isn’t your daughter?’

‘She is.’ Neil gestured behind her. ‘Do you think I could come in? It’s a little weird, having to blurt out the story of my life on your doorstep. I’m a very shy guy, really.’

‘Really?’ Shefali said, but she stood aside to let him in. Her head in a bit of a whirl, she gestured towards the dining room. ‘We can sit here.’

Neil strode across the room, and Shefali took a minute to admire his athletic body from the rear.

‘I’m divorced,’ Neil said, as soon as he sat down, his blue-grey eyes looking up into hers.

Oh. For some reason that hadn’t occurred to her. She sat down opposite him, unconsciously smoothing her long T-shirt over her knees. ‘How long ago?’

‘Very soon after Nina was born.’

‘And Nina’s been with you ever since?’ Fathers very rarely got custody of the kids in a divorce battle, Shefali knew, and getting custody of a baby girl only a few months old had to be even more uncommon.

Neil shrugged. ‘Reema didn’t want her. We got married young, had a child early. She wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment.’

Shefali stayed silent, not sure how to react. She was hugely relieved, of course, to learn that she hadn’t kissed a married man. For the entire week she’d been seeing herself as a home-wrecker who encouraged philandering husbands. But the fact that he wasn’t married also meant that he was available, and she didn’t want to think of him that way. This part of her plan to get over Pranav didn’t involve men. And especially not madly attractive men like Neil.

The madly attractive man in her dining room was now surveying his surroundings. ‘A bit grim, isn’t it?’ he asked, gesturing around at the bilious walls and the mildewed framed posters of kittens in baskets.

‘That’s why I’m repainting it,’ Shefali said drily. ‘To make it a little less grim.’

‘Have you ever done anything like this before?’

She shook her head. ‘I’ve lived in my parents’ house till now. They’re not really the do-it-yourself type.’

‘I wouldn’t have put you down as the do-it-yourself type either,’ Neil remarked.

Shefali bristled immediately. ‘I’m not incapable!’ she said.

‘Not at all,’ he said smoothly, but Shefali got the impression that he was still laughing at her. ‘It’s just that every time I’ve seen you so far you’ve struck me as someone who doesn’t push her boundaries too much.’

Kissing a man she barely knew had definitely pushed her boundaries, and Shefali found herself resenting his remark.

‘Was that all, then?’ she asked. ‘You came to tell me you’re not married? I don’t mean to be rude, but I really do need to get on with my painting.’

‘I’ll help you,’ he said easily. ‘You’ve done most of the hard work anyway—it won’t take long to get the room done. And there are a couple of other things I want to talk to you about.’

Shefali gave him a cold nod.

‘Well, the first thing is that Nina’s taken quite a fancy to you.’ Neil said. ‘And she’s a little upset because she says you’ve been ignoring her. Apparently on the first day you spent quite a bit of time talking to her, but since then you’ve not spoken to her at all.’

Shefali felt her face heat up. She’d deliberately avoided Nina, feeling awkward about the whole thing with Neil. It had been unfair of her, but she hadn’t realised that Nina had noticed.

‘Look, I can understand why,’ Neil said. ‘The whole episode that night—I lost my head a little, and I’m sorry. Really, really sorry. I can now understand why you probably don’t want to see me again, with your wedding having just been called off... But I don’t want Nina to be affected by something that’s totally my fault.’

He was making her sound like a neurotic on the rebound. Plastering an over-bright smile on her face, she said, ‘Of course not. Nina’s a lovely kid. I’m sorry if she thought I was ignoring her—it’s been a crazy week. I’m still settling in, and of course I was feeling a little awkward about...you know...’

Her voice trailed off, and he nodded understandingly. ‘I had no idea you were going to be working in the school, otherwise...’

This time, it was his turn to leave a sentence hanging, but Shefali knew what he meant. If he’d known she was going to turn up in his daughter’s school he wouldn’t have come within a mile of her.

‘So that’s settled, then,’ he was saying. ‘I promise to behave myself from now on, and you’ll treat Nina like any other student. I’m not asking for special attention—she can be a real brat sometimes.’

Remembering how she’d told him that she disliked some children, Shefali said quickly, ‘Oh, she’s a wonderful kid—very bright and enthusiastic, no trouble at all.’

‘Not obnoxious?’ he asked, his eyes laughing at her. ‘Like some adults?’

‘Not at all like some adults,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘Listen, if you’re really planning to help with my room we need to get going.’ She wasn’t sure if she wanted him around, given the effect he had on her hormones, but help with her painting was help with her painting. Difficult to get and impossible to refuse.

‘I’ll help,’ he said. ‘But one last thing—will you be OK with doing a small appearance on my show?’

Whatever she’d expected him to ask, it wasn’t that.

‘Appear on your show doing what?’ she asked.

‘Well, you’re a bit of an oddity, you know,’ he said, walking into the living room and picking up the can of paint and a brush. ‘A girl from Delhi, coming to live in a small town—you could say what you think of the place, tell people what made you decide to come here and so on.’

‘I chose this town because nobody knows me here,’ Shefali said abruptly. ‘And because I wanted to get away from everyone I know in Delhi. That’s not going to sound good on national television, is it?’

‘Hmm,’ Neil said as he got on the stepladder and started to paint the top part of the wall with wide brushstrokes.

He was good, Shefali thought, admiring the way the muscles in his back rippled as he moved the brush back and forth.

‘What about a short piece on you doing a make-over on your flat? We can get some of the crew to help you, and it’d look good.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Shefali said. ‘I really don’t want people back home to know what’s happening in my life.’

‘Right,’ Neil said. ‘I guess that’s understandable. Can you pass me the roller, please?’

Shefali handed it to him, and then asked, ‘How come you’ve put Nina in school here if you’re only going to be around for a couple of months?’

‘That’s the good thing about your playschool—you have branches everywhere,’ he returned. ‘I’ve been transferring her from one branch to another for the last year. But I’m done with this kind of life now. In two months we’ll be back in Mumbai, and she’ll join regular school. I’ll shift to an assignment that doesn’t need me to travel.’

That made sense, Shefali thought as she picked up a brush and started work on the lower part of the wall. It was just that the responsible dad side of him was so incongruous with his rather Bohemian appearance.

‘How old are you, Neil?’ she asked, and he stopped painting to look down at her.

‘Twenty-eight,’ he said. ‘Why?’

‘It’s just that you seem too young to be the father of a four-year-old,’ she said. ‘I thought maybe you were older than you looked. But you’re not—you’re just a year older than I am. Most men your age are still out having fun, and you’re looking after a child...’

Neil shrugged. ‘Life doesn’t turn out according to one’s plans, does it?’ he said.

Unsure whether he might be making a dig at her own circumstances, Shefali continued painting in silence.

After a bit, he asked, ‘Tell me again—why aren’t you getting the painting done by someone else?’

‘Too expensive,’ Shefali retorted. At the disbelieving look he gave her, she said, ‘The school doesn’t pay me a fortune, you know.’

Neil frowned. ‘I would have sworn you were pretty well-off.’

‘My parents are. But I’m not really on talking terms with them any more. They weren’t OK with the idea of my leaving Delhi to come and live here. So I need to live within my means.’

He was still frowning. ‘Are you seriously saying you’re planning to spend the rest of your life here, managing the school?’

‘I haven’t started thinking about the rest of my life yet,’ Shefali said. ‘I’m still trying to come to terms with the fact that I’m not going to be Mrs Shefali Mehrotra. I was brought up to be a pampered trophy wife, and I don’t really know what I’m going to be now that Pranav Mehrotra’s out of the picture.’

‘Pranav is the guy you were going to marry?’ Neil asked, and then, almost in the same breath, ‘Pass me the smaller brush for the corners, please.’

Shefali nodded and passed him the brush. Clearly the story of her life wasn’t engrossing enough to capture Neil’s full attention.

He carefully finished doing the corner between the ceiling and the wall he’d just finished painting, and then got down from the stepladder.

‘Arranged marriage?’ he asked, picking up the ladder to move it in front of the next wall.

‘Yes,’ Shefali said. ‘Only in the end Pranav figured he’d rather be cut off from his parents and marry his ex-girlfriend than marry me and be heir to his family’s millions.’

‘Pretty courageous decision to take,’ Neil said thoughtfully.

Shefali looked at him, so indignant that she was at a complete loss for words. Whose side was he on?

Neil went on, ‘Why did that make you leave home, though? The break-up wasn’t your fault, and you couldn’t have been in love with the guy.’

Put like that, her decision to move did seem rather drastic. ‘He chose the day of the wedding to let me know,’ Shefali said tightly. ‘Everything was ready—I’d even changed into my wedding lehnga when his father called mine to say that Pranav had left Delhi with his ex. It was...’ She took a deep breath. ‘It was the most humiliating experience of my entire life. Most of the guests had arrived already, and we had to tell them all the wedding was off. My parents had spent a fortune on the arrangements, and that went to waste as well. It was worse afterwards—there were people sniggering and pointing fingers wherever I went. I couldn’t take it any more.’

‘What about your parents?’ Neil asked. ‘Weren’t they supportive?’

‘My parents were soon pushing me to marry another guy,’ she said. ‘One of Pranav’s friends—he proposed pretty soon after Pranav didn’t turn up for the wedding. It was ridiculous. One of my aunts actually suggested that we go ahead with the wedding, only with this other man as the groom.’

Neil winced. He could see now why she’d left, and while she might not appreciate being told so right now he thought she’d had a lucky escape.

‘So you wanted to get away from it all?’ he asked.

‘Sort of,’ Shefali muttered. ‘I was already working for the playschool in Delhi—the owner of the chain is a friend—and my Dad thought it a “suitable” job till I got married. So I asked my boss if I could have my old job back, and then it occurred to me that it might make more sense to move out of Delhi for a while. My parents went mental when they heard. They said it was like an admission of defeat, that I should get married as soon as I could and there were already people spreading rumours that the break-up was my fault. So I told them to stuff it and left.’

Neil smiled briefly. ‘Good decision.’ He hesitated a little. ‘Listen, if you need help on anything at all, don’t hesitate to ask me. I’m sorry I made fun of you about doing the painting yourself—I didn’t realise you were short of cash.’

Not wanting him to labour under a false impression, Shefali shook her head. ‘I’m not poor or anything—my grandma left me a heap of money when she died, and I’ve got that tucked away safely. It’s just that when all this happened I realised that I had to prove to myself at least that I could manage on my own. Even without my grandmother’s money. And, let’s face it, she would have left that to my brother rather than to me if she hadn’t had a massive quarrel with him.’

Embarrassed at having said so much, Shefali picked up her paintbrush and started slathering paint on the wall.

Neil went back up the stepladder, but after while he said softly, ‘You’re pretty amazing—you know that?’

Startled, Shefali almost dropped her brush as she turned to look at him.

He gave her a quick smile. ‘I mean it. I’m not the kind of person who hands out empty compliments.’

That she could believe—if anything, he erred on the side of brutal frankness.

‘Thanks,’ she said, and Neil grinned at her.

‘Let’s get the last wall done with and then I’m off,’ he said. ‘I need to pick Nina up from a friend’s house.’

FOUR

‘So he said that when my hair grew out I should tie the front part of it back and the layers would become more defined,’ Shefali said, peering into the mirror worriedly. ‘That doesn’t seem to be happening.’

Neil tried valiantly to control his expression, failed, and burst out into laughter.

‘Get it cut,’ he said. ‘I’m sure the city has at least one decent hairdresser.’

‘But I always...’ Shefali said, and then, seeing the ridiculous side of what she’d been about to say, started laughing. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘It’s just hair—if they mess it up it’ll grow back again.’

‘Right,’ Neil said. He reached out a hand and solemnly prodded her cheek.

‘What are you doing?’ Shefali asked, jerking back and swatting his hand away.

‘Checking if you’re real,’ he said, his eyes glittering. ‘You’re so perfect I was expecting plastic.’

She glared at him. It was a week since he’d helped her out with painting her living room, and he’d come over twice after that, with Priti and a couple of other guys from his TV crew who’d drunk large quantities of nimbu paani and helped her get the rest of the flat painted. Today she was going with him to attend a class reunion at a nearby school—one of the ex-students in town for the reunion was a Bollywood actor who had made quite a name for himself playing character parts, and Neil was interviewing him for his show.

‘You’re the one who told me to dress up a little,’ she said indignantly.

‘But you’re perfect all the time,’ Neil protested. ‘Perfect swingy hair, perfect make-up, perfectly ironed, perfectly fashionable clothes, perfect shoes— Ow, perfect aim with a hairbrush...’

‘You deserved that,’ Shefali told him sternly as she took her hairbrush back, but she was smiling.

The more she got to know Neil, the more she liked him. He continued to be brutally frank about everything, but he was helpful, funny and incredibly loyal to his friends. He also seemed to be incredibly unaffected by Shefali—it was as though that first kiss had never happened. The trouble was Shefali continued to find him as attractive as she had when they’d first met, and it was a little annoying and more than a little frustrating that he treated her like one of the guys. She still didn’t think that she was ready for a relationship, but it would have felt good to think that he was holding himself back too, battling his feelings because the time wasn’t right for either of them...

She bit the thought back with a sigh as Neil got off the sofa and said briskly, ‘Come on—hurry up or we’ll be late.’

The party was more fun than she’d expected. Most of the guests were in their early thirties, and they were a happy mix of people. And of course there was the actor—a dark-skinned man with an intelligent mobile face. He specialised in honest uneducated villager roles, and it came as a bit of shock to hear him speak perfect English. Neil and his crew were circulating among the guests, with Neil doing short interviews with each of them. Later he would cut and edit the segment to around three minutes, but he’d shot for well over an hour before he wrapped up and came to sit next to Shefali.

‘Very bored?’ he asked, sotto voce.

Shefali shook her head. ‘Not at all. I spent a lot of time talking to a woman who’s a major in the Army—very interesting the stuff she had to say. Her husband’s in the Army too. And I met a chap who runs a consumer durables dealership. He said he’d give me a good bargain on a washing machine.’

Neil raised his eyebrows. ‘You’re buying a washing machine now? What happened to the austerity drive?’

‘The washerwoman’s ruining my clothes,’ she said. ‘Last week she put a red kitchen towel into the wash with my under-things, and I now have seven pink bras.’

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