The Object of Your Affections

by Falguni Kothari

  They hadn’t even called me. No one had called me to wish me a Happy New Year. Stop thinking about them!

  Come midnight, the Frasers had joined in another amazing tradition of first footing, in which a tall dark-haired man was selected to enter the house for the first time in the new year. He had to enter the hoose bearing gifts of food, drink and silver thereby ensuring good luck and prosperity to the home-dwellers. As most of the Fraser men were tall and dark-haired, they usually chose the man standing closest to the main doors as that year’s first foot.

  It had been Deven this year who—No! I didn’t want to think about him, either. Not in that way. Not in any way. Five days with him had turned my mind and moralities into Jell-O.

  “Everything is splendid here. The people. The culture. The Frasers,” I reiterated, huddling into Paris to block the cold.

  We’d already been first footing for hours and it seemed it was going to go on for a while. There were lots of hooses in this part of the village and only four first footers in our group—Neal, Deven and two other lads. It seemed first footers were sort of a precious commodity on Hogmanay as their services were required all over the highlands.

  “Try marrying into the clan, then tell me how splendid they are.”

  I looked at Paris sideways. I hadn’t imagined it. She was upset. She hadn’t been speaking to Neal properly. They’d only pecked each other on the lips to wish each other a Happy New Year and not smooched or cuddled or anything—not at all since I got here.

  “They didn’t take it well?” It had to be the surrogacy.

  Paris harrumphed. “I don’t care what they think. It’s my life. My choice.”

  “What does Neal think?”

  “He can go jump off a cliff and into the frigid firth.”

  Oh-kay. “Give them time, girlfriend. It’s not a conventional path. You have to allow them room to digest it.”

  “I’m not pissed at Minnie... Okay, I am a little pissed. But I’m more pissed at Neal. He won’t do this unless they agree now.”

  I took in a deep, deep breath. The air was rich with the scent of the earth and water, of cinnamon and cloves, and sweet vanilla. I put my nose against the woolly lapel of my coat, then did the same to Paris’s. It wasn’t the air. Our coats were soaked in the scents of the manor house.

  “It wouldn’t hurt to think this through. Properly,” I said, licking my lips.

  Her head whipped toward me. “Are you having second thoughts too?”

  I shook my head. Then nodded. Then I told her about London.

  “It’s my father-in-law. His health—mental health—is deteriorating rapidly. My mother-in-law can’t handle him alone anymore and Sonam—you remember Kaivan’s sister? She’s helping all she can, but between her own family...she has a preschooler...and her work, it’s just not enough. I’ve hired a round-the-clock companion for them, but they want...expect me to move to London. Soon.” Bitterness welled up in my throat. When had my life become a runaway train?

  “How soon? Are you going to?”

  “I don’t know.” I didn’t want to, but how could I not? I’d feel terrible if I dumped them on Sonam. I’d feel so guilty. “I may not have a choice,” I admitted softly.

  “What about Fraser Bespoke?”

  “That won’t change. Deven sees no issues about where I work from. I’ll just be traveling a hell of a lot more.”

  Paris went rigid. At first I thought it was because of what I’d said, what it might mean for our plans, but I soon realized it wasn’t me. Neal had come out of a house at the bottom of the lane. He’d whistled at us, a summons.

  “And the surrogacy?” Paris turned her head to frown at me.

  “I don’t need to move immediately. We have a year or so.” But I couldn’t give her more. I couldn’t give her what she wanted after. She’d be on her own once the bairn was born—if a bairn was born.

  “Oh.”

  I could feel her processing what I hadn’t said as we walked, arm in arm, toward Neal.

  The lane ended in a roundabout leading to three other streets lined with houses. My life had become a roundabout. And even though I’d chosen the lane I wished to walk on, I kept getting sucked into spinning around in circles.

  After much debate, it was decided that the first footers would split up and tackle one street each. Our group had to split up too, as first footers never arrived at doorsteps alone. They needed help carrying the gifts and bottles from house to house.

  “I’ll take care of the hooses on Dumfries Street, but then I’m done, lads. I’ve reserved the rest of the night for my wife,” Neal declared to a cacophony of bawdy jokes. He yanked Paris to him—I got inadvertently yanked too, until Paris and I untangled our arms—and before she could react or retreat, he dipped her back and kissed her noisily on the lips, and kept on kissing her until she stopped pushing him away, and twined her arms about him and kissed him back.

  The jokes got cruder. The worst of them were from Deven, who was more than a wee bit sozzled from all the Hogmanay toasts.

  I seemed incapable of looking at him without blushing. I couldn’t believe he’d seen me practically naked, or that he’d kissed me on the mouth at midnight. Only a quick peck. And he’d pecked everyone like that—man, woman and child—so I shouldn’t read anything special into it. But I couldn’t help myself. He’d been flirting with me, nonaggressively, since the towel episode. Or was it just the way he was with everyone?

  Clearly, I’d lost my mind. We were going to be working together. We couldn’t—shouldn’t complicate or jeopardize our business relationship.

  But the crazy thing was that I wanted to.

  Deven’s first footing went on until six in the morning, and I stayed with him until the end, tempting fate. Paris had been with Neal and everyone else was probably asleep at the house. I hadn’t wanted to be alone. Didn’t want to feel alone and pathetic even now.

  Ever the gentleman, he came to drop me to my door. I’d been put up in the Blue Room on the second floor of the annex behind the main house. It was a lovely room, blue in color—obviously—with views of the well-maintained estate with its manicured gardens, thick wild woods and fields that promised to erupt into flowers when winter ended.

  I switched on the lights and the first thing I saw as I entered the room was the olive green Briggs & Riley suitcase on the ottoman at the foot of the bed. Kaivan and I had purchased that luggage set together on our last holiday. The longing and yearning that I’d been trying to suppress, to harness, exploded inside me like firecrackers. It wasn’t that I didn’t think of Kaivan daily or miss him with every breath, but since London it had become unbearable, uncontainable. His parents had talked about him day and night, filling my ears with his stories and their grief. I couldn’t—hadn’t had the heart to tell them to stop. To just stop. I wanted everything to stop. I wanted time to move backward.

  “Naira, let me say good-night.”

  His voice was scotch-soaked and so deliciously rough. It walked up my spine like the slow-moving fingers of a skilled masseuse.

  I turned to face him. His right hand was gripping the doorjamb as if he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stand on his own. Or, as if he was stopping himself from entering the room. He was beautiful, like his brother. But not as fair and certainly not as sweet. I felt far safer with Neal than I did with Deven. God. I had to stop comparing them. It wasn’t right. And comparing him to Kaivan was a whole other level of insanity.

  “Would you like to come in?” My blood raced beneath multiple layers of clothes and skin, heating everything up. I was still ridiculously bundled up and it was hot. So freaking hot.

  Still, he hesitated, his black-as-night eyes never leaving mine, never wavering, searching for something on my face. He only let go of the jamb and stepped inside my room when I said, “I want you to come in.”

  Holy God! What was I doing? But I n
eeded this release. I needed someone to get Kaivan out of my mind. I needed someone to show me that all was not lost, and there was light at the end of the tunnel. But only if one had the guts to walk into the darkness first.

  But what about the surrogacy? I couldn’t start something with him and then get pregnant with his brother’s child. That was just too weird. But I didn’t want a relationship. I couldn’t have one. I had a million problems that wouldn’t let me have a normal life.

  He was still lounging by the door, his eyes soaking me in as I walked to him. I was crossing that tunnel. Maybe it was all just pent-up nothing between us. Maybe he’d turn into a frog when I kissed him.

  And so I did, startling us both. And...oh, God, he was so not a frog at all.

  I stopped to take a breath but I’d forgotten how to breathe. I panted while he stared at my lips, now wet because of him. I took a deep, stuttering breath and opened my mouth beneath his as his head bent to mine this time.

  We kissed for a long time, tasting the whisky on our tongues, trying not to make any sudden moves and break the spell. He had me propped against the doorjamb when I pushed him off me, just a wee bit. I had to breathe. Somehow. I was sweating. His fingers traced my face. I pulled my hat and gloves off, stuffed them in my jacket pocket.

  “I’d like for us to do this—” I pointed at the bed “—one time. But it can only be one time.” I tried to sound worldly, like some hard-core connoisseur ticking off the terms of a clandestine affair.

  His fingers stopped on my brow. He blinked a few times until the whisky haze on his face cleared a bit. His hand floated to his side, and he opened his mouth to say something.

  I didn’t want him to see sense or refuse, so I said in a rush, “It can’t be more than that because of Fraser Bespoke, and many other things that I...don’t want to think about right now.” I bit my lower lip. I should just shut up. But my conscience, like my fate, wasn’t on my side. “I’m still in love with my husband,” I told him honestly. Oh, but I didn’t want to be. What I wouldn’t give for someone to cut out my heart and set it on fire.

  Deven gave me a thorough appraisal, like he’d given one of the sheep at his farm. He stepped back, half pivoting toward the door, and my heart cried out. I clenched my fists so I wouldn’t reach out and grab him. Why couldn’t I have lied? I’d become so good at it, after all.

  Then my stomach dropped because he didn’t leave. Instead, he closed the door, locked it and turned to face me again.

  “My heart belongs to someone else too. She’s...unavailable.” He offered me his own confession, his own albatross, and soothed my soul. “One time is fine with me, lass.”

  * * *

  It wasn’t one time though. By the time the sun rose—not that we could tell it had risen since it was predictably gloomy outside—we’d made lo—had sex multiple times.

  “That was amazing. Thank you!” I exclaimed, flipping onto my back, all loose-limbed and vibrating with gratitude and aftershocks. It was exactly what I’d needed. He’d blasted my pathos right out of me. Several times. I felt wonderfully de-stressed. And desired. God, when had I last felt desire myself?

  “Entirely my pleasure, doll.” Deven chuckled, and unbelievably, his nose and ears glowed pinker, like some blushing bride.

  I laughed too. I wanted to keep laughing. Delirious with pleasure, I watched Deven get up and make his way to the bathroom to dispose of the condom, which he’d had to run down and get from his bedroom in the main house after we’d used up the one he carried in his wallet. He’d brought back two foils—the entirety of his stock—and we’d used every single one.

  He looked good naked. Taller, buffer than—do not think about Kaivan, I told myself sternly. I sat up, pulling the blanket up to my chin. I looked for my phone out of habit. I should call my in-laws and wish them a Happy New Year. My parents too, no matter if my father wanted to or not. Maybe even Sarika—no, not until she acknowledged that her husband was a villain.

  My phone was programmed for a Do Not Disturb from midnight to 7:00 a.m. Since the screen was lit up by new notifications, I guessed it was after seven. There were dozens of messages from Vinay, I noted with a grimace. I deleted those without reading even one.

  Nothing ever changed, no matter what I did, or what magic moments I snatched out of thin air. Every morning, the same screen greeted me, flashing dozens of messages and calls. I couldn’t ignore the one from my in-laws. They’d left four voice messages and several texts. I closed my eyes and wished for it to be midnight again.

  “Problem?” Deven walked back to the bed, his hips wrapped in a kilt made of festive red-and-green tartan. He frowned at the phone I was trying to squeeze to death.

  Deliberately, I placed the phone back on the nightstand.

  I couldn’t move to London. I wouldn’t survive it.

  Deven sat down on the bed. “Tell me,” he said—commanded—taking my hand.

  I shook my head. I was not his problem.

  “I know most of it anyway,” he said more gently.

  “What do you know?” I was surprised by how unruffled I felt. No, not unruffled. I felt nothing. No fear, no embarrassment, not even the usual powerlessness. Maybe I should keep having one-night stands if this was the result. I didn’t feel the urge to laugh, either.

  Of course, Deven had run a background check on me before signing me up to represent Fraser Bespoke. But how deeply? And would any deep probe reveal the whole truth? Kaivan had been positive it wouldn’t.

  Deven knew about the financial problems, the creditors that kept crawling out of the woodwork to threaten and sue me. He knew about the lawsuits—that was public knowledge. He knew about the issues I was having with my family, why I’d run away from Mumbai.

  I’ll take everything from you, even the clothes off your back. Only then will I consider our account settled, Vinay had said when I’d refused to hand over the trust money and my body to him. Sarika hadn’t believed me when I’d told her that her husband had implied I become his mistress in lieu of my bad debts. Or had she believed it and had still found a way to blame me for her husband’s assholery? Was that what her rant about my fit figure against her symbol of motherhood had been all about? The whole incident had become a he-said-she-said battle that he’d clearly won.

  “Do ye want me to take care of it? Make it go away—the lawsuits, the thugs, the debt?”

  “Steep price for three fucks, don’t you think?” Even as I said it, I flinched. Then tears began to spill down my cheeks. I wasn’t a poor thing. I wasn’t! And how bloody dare that bastard Vinay Singhal proposition me and get away with it? I wanted him dead.

  “Lass...” Deven began, but broke off on a sigh. He hugged me to him, forcing me to rest my head on his big, warm shoulder, and I was tempted, so tempted to let him rescue me.

  But I didn’t deserve to be rescued. I didn’t deserve to be cheapened, either. I couldn’t let him rescue me because we’d slept together.

  “No. Thank you, but no. Please don’t do anything like that. And it’s not... That’s not it.” I raised my head, determined to face him. He was strong and scary as hell when he was angry. But also gallant...like his brother. They both deserved to know what kind of a person they’d brought into the Fraser clan–force. I had to tell Deven what I could never tell Paris.

  “Kaivan struggled to sort it out but too many things went wrong for him that year. It broke him, the arrest, being treated like a common criminal. I think... I’m pretty sure my brother-in-law, Vinay Singhal, arranged it so Kaivan didn’t receive anticipatory bail or any bail and stayed in jail for months. My... I had a miscarriage while he was in jail, and it...broke him. By the time he was released on bail, he was half his size, and he’d been lanky to begin with. He was depressed. I told him it would pass, that it was part of life, the ups and downs. I told him he could build it all up again like he’d done before. And we’d make lots of babies and we
’d get our respect back. The rumors, the gossip would die. But nothing helped. He got it in his head that if he was dead...”

  I shuddered then, as fire ants crawled all over my calm. “He thought death was his only way out. And mine. That I’d be able to salvage my life with his life insurance money. I didn’t know he was thinking this. I swear. He never told me!” I gripped Deven’s hand hard.

  “I believe ye. Take a slow breath, lass. Good. Now another one. Good. Now, tell me the rest.” His words were calm, not shocked. Not threaded with revulsion. His touch was hypnotizing. He began to pet me, long steady strokes down my back.

  Frankly, even if he’d been repulsed, I’d have spilled my guts. I’d kept this secret for two years and it was eroding my insides. I’d needed to confess to someone. Someone like him. Someone with the same code of ethics as Kaivan. Someone who’d understand.

  “He added policies to his life insurance portfolio, increased the benefits, and put everything in a trust overnight. And through it all, he was poisoning himself while I believed he was trying to get us out of the mess.” I’d been so stupid, so blind. I should’ve realized his weight loss wasn’t about depression. He’d lost so much hair in the last month that I should have known. “He told me of his plan just days before, but I didn’t stop it. I...let it happen.”

  “How would ye have stopped him?” Deven scrubbed a hand over his face as if to wake himself up. He wasn’t hugging me anymore or petting me or touching me. But he hadn’t moved away. Yet.

  “I could have taken him to the hospital.” I wanted to crawl out of my skin and die.

  “So why didn’t ye?”

  “He said that the poison had spread to his organs and even if I took him to the hospital, I’d just delay the inevitable by a few weeks. And the tests would show the poison, and there would be a case filed against both of us. And our problems would worsen. So, I let him go.”

  Could I have saved him? I didn’t know. I just didn’t know.

  If I were examining my motives, Kaivan’s death was the main reason I wanted to be Paris’s surrogate. I owed this world a life. I owed my soul a good deed.