by P. G. Van
“While we are confessing, I have something I want to confess.”
She looked at him unsure where the conversation was headed.
“While you were busy running trials on my customers, I have been running my own experiments… on you.”
“What?” Her head exploded, and the headache was no longer a concern.
“Some research for my next book.”
“I don’t understand.” Her blood was rushing through her ears deafening her.
“Wonder why you couldn’t help but kiss me yesterday morning?”
“I knew it, did you drug me? How? Oh my God, it was the coffee,” she snapped.
“Easy, no drugs, and you won’t kiss any random person, only the ones you are attracted to.”
“What’s your point?” She had a tough time keeping a straight face.
“We are both attracted to each other, and you know it and yet want to fight it.”
“No… I find you interesting but not attracted to you for the obvious reasons.” She maintained a steady tone even though she knew he was right. She found him simply irresistible.
“Really? I will have no trouble proving you wrong.”
She looked at him for a long moment, and before she could respond, she heard a knock on the door and let out a sigh of relief when he went to answer it.
Chapter 13
One of the hotel staff was at the door. She sat frozen on the bed as Yash interacted with the person. A minute later, he rolled a table into the bedroom.
“Yash, what was in the drink yesterday?”
“I didn’t drug you if that’s what you want to know.”
“Why did I kiss you?” she blurted out.
“Because you wanted to.”
“Yash.”
“I suggest we eat breakfast and head back. I have an early morning flight out of San Francisco tomorrow. We can talk on our drive back.”
“I want to end this now and clear the air. I do want to continue working at the restaurant until I finish my thesis.”
“Are you saying there’s nothing going on between us?” He started to walk to where she sat in a daze.
“Yes.”
“Kiss me.”
“What?”
“If there is nothing between us, kiss me and show me you are unaffected by it.”
“I’m not going to kiss you. I don’t need to prove anything.” She got off the bed and attempted to go around him. She barely took a step before he pulled her to him. Her back crashed into his chest, and she felt the burn from his stubble on the bare skin of her neck.
“Do you have any idea how hard it was not to touch you when you were begging me to take you last night?” His voice sent shivers.
The previous night was a complete blank, and she wondered if he was joking about what she asked him.
“Yash,” she rasped as he ran his lips along the side of her neck. His arms wrapped around her waist.
“Why are you fighting this?”
“What are you talking about?” Her hand involuntarily went up to run her fingers through his thick, dark hair.
“Turn around, and I’ll show you.” He nipped her delicate skin and as if under a spell, she slowly turned around to look into his eyes.
He gently brushed his lips against hers. “I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to, but if you want something, don’t lie to yourself.”
Yash stepped away from her and smiled at her shell-shocked expression.
“You can get dressed in this room. We need to leave in an hour.” He picked up his bag and left the room without another word.
Mantra’s nerves were raw even after she showered, and her state of mind was not something she wanted to address at that moment. She knew Yash was accustomed to being with women—multiple women—and she was not interested in a fling and had no time for it.
She put away her personal items and zipped her bag closed. The six-hour car ride ahead was going to be interesting and challenging.
She placed her bag in the living area and waited for him to come out. She felt much better after eating breakfast and showering. Her hangover was no match for her thoughts around what Yash said about lying to herself.
There was no denying she was attracted to him, but she knew it was a bad idea.
She stared out of the window lost in thought and didn’t notice Yash standing behind her.
“Mantra, the door is this way.” He chuckled making her jump.
“Oh… I was waiting for you.”
“Let’s go.” He picked up her bag before she could pick it up and walked ahead of her.
“Yash, you don’t need to carry my bag.”
“I’ll manage. I carried you here last night,” he crooned making her wonder what he was trying to prove.
“Yash, that’s enough.” She was beyond annoyed.
He turned to look at her, a mischievous smile playing on his face. “Fine.”
Mantra was not thrilled with the way Yash was rubbing in her feelings for him. She felt something for him, but she knew it wasn’t real, it wouldn’t last, and he would end up hurting her just like he had unintentionally managed to hurt her client.
She sat quietly and looked out of the window as they pulled out of the hotel parking lot. Ten minutes into the drive and pretending he wasn’t sitting next to her, he broke the silence. “We can get your sister into The Red Room later this week.”
“What?”
“You wanted me to get your sister, Sloka, and her husband a reservation for dinner.”
“No… I did not… how do you know my sister’s name?”
“You told me… last night.”
“What the heck… what else did I tell you last night?” She was starting to regret downing the so-called charity shots.
“Everything.”
She hid her face in her palms. “I don’t believe this… this can’t be happening.”
“I like the drunk Mantra more than the uptight one sitting next to me.”
“Shut up, Yash.” She was furious.
“What are you going to do if I don’t shut up? Kiss me?” he taunted making her want to slap him.
“Yash, pullover.”
He laughed. “I was kidding.”
“Pullover.” It was an order.
He shook his head but complied. She clicked open her seat belt and opened the car door. She wiggled her hand out of his when he tried to hold her hand and stepped onto the gravel on the side of the road. It was mid-morning, and it was cold even though the sun was shining brightly.
They were in the middle of nowhere, and all she saw was endless flatlands. She took a few steps away from the SUV and stood looking into the endless greenery. She took a deep breath to calm herself and realized she was not mad at him but was mad at herself for letting herself out to him.
Her efforts of maintaining a distance were wasted with one wasted night. She had no idea where it would lead them.
She took a deep breath when she felt him behind her. “We don’t need to talk about last night if you don’t want to.”
“I don’t.” She turned around, her eyes glistening with angry tears.
“Okay. Let’s go.”
“Let me make something very clear to you. I’m not going to be one of your conquests…” She stepped closer to him hoping to make a point. On her second step, her foot landed on loose gravel, and before she realized it, she was falling face first.
She shut her eyes and stretched her arms out to protect her face from the fall, but she never landed. He caught her midair and pulled her to him. She gripped onto him, her eyes tightly shut.
His breath was warm on her cheek, and she didn’t dare open her eyes. Her heart was drumming in her ears, and her skin peppered goosebumps to his touch.
“You are no one’s conquest.” His voice was gruff yet soft.
She pulled away from him without looking into his eyes and started walking back to the car.
“You are welcome!” He chuckled making h
er turn and glare at him.
She sat in the passenger seat feeling crappy about the weird silence—a silence filled with the crackling of the sexual tension between them.
Her breath hissed every time she took a deep breath. She couldn’t get herself to look at him. She was angry, embarrassed, and most of all, confused. She never felt so many emotions grip her at the same time.
She was jerked out of her daze when she realized Yash suddenly pulled the SUV off the road.
Before she could ask him why he had stopped, he opened the door and was running to the other side of the road.
“Yash.” She called out looking out to see if there were any other vehicles on the road.
“Call 911, emergency.”
“What?”
“Do it and stay in the car!” he yelled running away.
She had no idea what he was doing and why he was running across the single-lane highway. Her fingers were slippery as she fumbled for her phone.
She sat glued to her seat and talked to the emergency responder. She gave the person the details of their location and was clueless as to what emergency she was reporting.
“Ma’am, you need to tell me what’s happening.” The emergency responder sounded annoyed on the phone.
“I think something is wrong and my friend… hang on, please.” She had enough. She got out of the SUV and looked on both sides of the empty highway before running across to the other side.
She approached the shoulder on the other side of the road and looked down the slope. She gasped when she saw the sight in front of her.
Yash was lying down on his stomach next to an overturned car and was looking at the driver through the compressed window.
“Accident, a car is overturned on the side of the road. We need an ambulance.”
“How many cars?”
“One car… one passenger, and he is stuck in the car… we need help,” she cried into the phone.
“Ma’am, help is on the way.”
“Yash.” She walked down the slope toward him.
“Mantra, you were supposed to stay in the car,” he almost barked.
“I want to help.” She squirmed not sure how to help.
“Stay back,” he called out as he pulled open the crushed door of the car.
“Can you move?”
The man groaned in pain. The seat belt seemed to be locked, and the man could not move.
“Yash, I can unlock the seat belt from the other side,” Mantra called out.
“No… step away from the car, the fuel could be leaking.”
Yash talked to the man and had him reach the belt buckle and click it multiple times until it came undone.
“Yash, don’t pull him out like that, you could hurt him more,” she called out when she saw Yash wiggle the man through the small opening.
The man had cuts from the broken glass, but he seemed to be okay.
“Are you okay?” Yash asked, and the man nodded.
“You have a pretty deep cut on your hand. Can you walk to my car?” Yash placed his palm on the wound and led him up the slope to his SUV.
He opened the trunk and sat the man on the floor of the trunk and wrapped a blanket around him. Mantra watched in shock as he pulled out an emergency case and started taking out a few items and laying them next to where the man was sitting, shivering.
“I need to close the wound. You are losing too much blood.”
“I… I’m on blood thinners…” the man managed to say.
“Mantra, get him water,” Yash ordered as he slipped on gloves.
She grabbed her water bottle from the front seat and handed it to the man. She watched and worried about him as the man gulped down the liquid.
“Mantra, come hold his arm up for me?”
She nodded and went to stand by him. As Yash continued to take care of the injury, she could not take her eyes off of him—how fast he moved and cleaned the injury. She couldn’t help watching him and stared in awe when he started stitching up the wound.
It was at that moment she realized why he was named the best surgeon under twenty-one. He was supposed to have done miracles with the most complex surgeries, but something changed him, something made him throw away everything he had worked for just as she had.
She had her reasons to walk away from her parents’ dream for her, what were his?
Chapter 14
Thirty minutes later, she sat in the car and watched Yash write up his notes on the emergency responder’s notepad. The man he rescued from the car wreck was treated by the time the ambulance arrived.
Yash handed the man his business card and started to walk back toward the SUV. It was like lightning hit her, and she saw him as a different person.
At that moment, she didn’t care what she thought of him, all she could think of was how he saved a life. She couldn’t understand why Yash stepped away from the medical field to owning restaurants and hotels.
Her eyes were riveted on his face as he got into the car. He found her staring at him.
“What?”
She smiled like she had no control over her lips. “You did well.”
The end of his mouth twisted up. “I had to stitch up someone for you not to be mad at me?”
“How did you know the man was down there?”
“I saw his car roll off the highway.” He kept his eyes on the road.
“Oh… it’s a good thing you noticed and were able to treat him.”
Yash didn’t say anything but continued to look at the road ahead.
“Yash… why aren’t you out there saving lives?” It was as if she had no control over her tongue, and she needed to know why he walked away from the fame.
He shrugged. “Couldn’t do it.”
She went silent remembering her saying those same exact words to her friends and parents numerous times when she decided to walk away from medical school.
“You’re not going to ask me why and lecture me about why I should be saving lives?” He chuckled.
“No.” It was a whisper.
“Interesting… what was your reason?”
“What?”
“What was your reason for dropping out of medical school?”
“How do you know that?” She was taken aback and didn’t respond to him.
“You don’t need to tell me if you don’t want to…”
“Yash, how do you know all this about me?”
“Mantra, did anyone tell you that you talk like you just discovered you could talk when you are drunk?”
She had never consumed as much alcohol as she did the previous night. It was starting to sink in what a mistake she made to drink so much.
“Don’t make me regret what I did for the fundraiser.”
“It’s very cool what you did… not a lot of people see it as… very heroic, but I think it was very noble of you to do that.”
The blood rushed to make her heart pound, and she felt the sheer crimson color creep up on her cheeks. She could not understand how he was able to get a reaction out of her with a simple statement.
Would she stand a chance if he seduced her?
“While we are talking about my drunk state, what else did I tell you?”
“As I said, I like the drunk Mantra… the one who talks to me… with no guards or filters.”
She took a deep breath. “What else did I tell you, Yash.”
“You mostly talked about your sister, how she is your parents’ dream child, but she is going through crap with her marriage, and you wanted her to get in The Red Room for dinner.”
“I don’t believe this.” She raked her fingers through her long, dark hair.
“Mantra, I was serious when I told you we could get your sister and her husband on the dinner list.”
“Thank you. I need it.”
“You don’t need to tell me why. You get a free pass to get however many people we can accommodate into The Red Room if it helps with your thesis.”
“My sister is not part of
my thesis… I can’t.”
“I understand.”
“Thank you,” her voice was a whisper as she turned to look at him.
He smiled, his eyes on the road. “You’re welcome.”
“Yash… what was in the coffee?”
“Nothing.”
“Why did I kiss you?”
“You tell me, baby,” he crooned making her pool between her legs.
“Stop flirting with me.”
He laughed without turning to look at her. “I did not put anything in it, but I will tell you my experiment worked.”
“It’s not funny, Yash. I can’t be around you if I have to worry about you drugging me to sleep with you.”
“I’ve slept with you already, and I’m not into drugging women… I don’t need or want to.” His voice was rough as if her words angered him.
“That’s not what I meant… what was your experiment, and why am I the subject?”
“You were my subject because I can’t stop thinking about you… I spent a week trying to forget you before I started stalking you.”
Her heart sank. “Who are you?”
“I’m not crazy… just into you.”
“Yash…what the heck?” Her mouth was saying something, but her body was trembling with the sensations starting deep inside.
“I’m asking you for one last time, what did I drink yesterday morning?”
“It was coffee… just extremely strong. It just sets your senses on fire, and whatever state you are in, it magnifies your reaction or your need. It looks like you… you’ve just been fighting it… fighting it for way too long.”
“I think it’s a bad idea because we want different things in life.” The words left her mouth before she could filter them out.
“Did you conclude that from what you heard from Michele?”
He knew what bothered her, but she didn’t respond.
“You know what happened with Michele. It was six years ago, and I was twenty-one. I had just started living my life, and she wanted more… I was too immature not to see what she wanted. I told her this when I met her for lunch a few days ago.”
“You talked to Michele after that night?”
“Yes. She helped me land the best contract with the publisher. It’s the least I could do. We talked, and she is fine with it. She told me she would tell you everything in her next session.”
