No Strings Attached

by Sheila Kumar

  But that was before Karishma had come by; now he was back in control and that was the way he wanted it. This woman with the loveliest blue eyes he’d ever seen was gorgeous, but he had known many beautiful women. Not one of them had made him lose control and no way was he going allow Nina Sabharwal to do that. She looked incredibly innocent, that was obviously her modus operandi. But he was onto her and she needed to know that he knew.

  So Samar wined and dined, charming his companion effortlessly with an easy flow of conversation, solicitude and interest. Nina flowered under his attention. It were as if a spark had been lit inside her. The man seated opposite felt his blood sing just watching her. If she had been free and unattached…, thought Samar grimly to himself, not letting himself complete that thought.

  Will he kiss me goodnight, Nina asked herself, suddenly feeling breathless, as he took her back to her place much later. But Samar just smiled down at her as he got out of the car and walked her to her door. Nina turned the key in the door, then paused, took a deep breath and turned, ‘What did you have to say to me, Samar?’ she asked, her voice husking slightly.

  Ah, she finally took the bait. Samar leaned against his sleek silver Mercedes, draining his face carefully of all expression. Then he said, gently but clearly, ‘I want you to leave Alan Pereira alone, Nina. If it’s not already too late. I am very fond of Sita and won’t stand by and watch her get hurt.’

  Whatever Nina had expected, it had not been this. Or maybe it had, maybe she had known the whole time that Samar Pratap Singh had not invited her out just for the pleasure of her company. Fighting for a calm she did not feel, she looked him in the eye and asked, ‘And what makes you think Alan and I…?’

  Samar laughed, and it wasn’t a pleasant sound. ‘Oh, anyone with eyes can see just how it is between the two of you, Nina,’ he said, not quite disguising the sneer that threaded his words.

  ‘And how is it between Alan and me, Samar?’ Nina asked evenly. Boy, she was one cool customer, he thought grimly; she wasn’t going to dissolve into a flood of tears but neither was she going to back off from the affair, that much was clear.

  Well, she had asked for it. ‘The air is thick with sexual tension when the two of you are together,’ he said. ‘Alan is like a man possessed, he can’t take his eyes off you when you are in the room. And when he looks at you, it’s as if he is undressing you, his eyes run over you like his fingers probably do when the two of you are alone…’

  She spoke then, inwardly filled with a cold fury but her oval face calm as the Madonna’s. ‘Are you talking about Alan or yourself, Samar?’ she asked and Samar gave a sharp intake of breath, almost like she had slid a knife into his guts. Stifling an oath, he dragged Nina up against him. And then he did what he had been aching to do all evening – he kissed her.

  He kissed her like a famished man and in his kiss was a pent-up, searing hunger. He coaxed her lips apart, his tongue doing a supplication on its own, begging for entry. A furious Nina bit his lower lip and he lifted his head with a sharp exclamation. She then made the mistake of opening her mouth to speak, and Samar brought his mouth on hers again, gently but firmly this time.

  The kiss caught fire, growing more urgent, more intimate, its tenor changing rapidly as their mouths fused and clung. Even as one sinewy arm held her locked to him, he moved a hand down her back, to cup and then caress her firmly rounded bottom. Nina could feel the ridge of his arousal hard against her as he pulled her between his legs. She felt like she was melting in a puddle of molten lava. ‘Samar,’ she moaned low in her throat.

  When Samar abruptly let go of her, she almost fell against the car. He ran his fingers through his hair, and asked in a low tone made rough with need, ‘Yes?’

  ‘What is between Alan Pereira and me is none of your business,’ Nina managed to say. Then before he could react, she turned the key in the lock and was inside her apartment. Her heart thundering like she’d run a marathon, she leaned against the front door and after a few moments, heard the car outside purr to life.

  And that was that, Nina told herself later, as she sat by her bedroom window watching the moonlight play hide and seek with the fronds of the tree that grew outside her balcony. The one man who turned her on like no one had in all these years, and she had blown it. However, when she finally went to bed, it was with the comforting thought that she had acquitted herself with dignity.

  It was not a reflection shared by the man who was staring into the amber liquid in his glass, on the other side of town and wondering how on earth he had let himself behave like a prize-ass. Before this evening, before what happened had happened, if someone had suggested that Samar Singh could have been so ham-handed, he would have laughed that suggestion to hell. But ham-handed was exactly how he had played it with Nina Sabharwal, damn it.

  FIVE

  BANGALORE HAD RECEIVED A pre-dawn shower of rain and when Nina drove to the office, the leaves on the trees had a freshly minted look about them. Some roads were thickly carpeted with sunshine-yellow laburnum petals from the trees overhead and there was a slight breeze blowing in the air. The locals tended to moan that their Garden City, which just a couple of decades ago had had a climate salubrious enough to rival that of a hill station, was now slowly and inexorably becoming a concrete jungle. Nina, though, had travelled to enough hot and dusty cities in India to value the unique charms of this southern one. She had also realized, however, that the Bangalorean thoroughly enjoyed dissing his city and did a thorough job of it too but closed ranks the moment an outsider offered an unbiased opinion.

  She found Rohan in a grumpy mood and reticence not being one of Rohan Varma’s qualities, was quickly let in on the reason. ‘The ed and Samar Singh have, between them, thought up this series on the woes of girls in the officially declared Year of the Girl Child,’ he told Nina disgustedly. ‘They’ve gone up to Delhi to run the idea by the big boss.’

  ‘Well, it does sound pertinent,’ began Nina, only to have Rohan cut in. ‘Wake up, Nina,’ he ordered. ‘What do we have to do with pertinent or obsolete ideas? It’s the potential for controversy that affects us. Remember how some of our biggest advertisers complained when the paper ran that series on the neglect of heritage buildings? We had our hands full trying to soothe a thousand ruffled feathers, right? We turned into PR people overnight and that’s something I don’t want to do again.’

  ‘That’s right,’ conceded Nina. ‘But since when does editorial have to take us into confidence about the stories they intend to run?’

  The statement didn’t go down well with Rohan of course, and he immediately launched into a diatribe on how editorial did any dratted thing they wished to do and left marketing to face irate advertisers. Didn’t the foolish journalists realize it was the ads that paid for their salaries, had they forgotten the adage about today’s scoop becoming the morrow’s wrapping for fish and chips…

  ‘That’s in London, here it becomes wrapping for roasted chickpeas,’ put in Nina and then seeing Rohan’s face turn red, hastened to calm him down. ‘Look, maybe we’re getting all steamed up needlessly. Maybe IT will shoot it down.’ IT stood for both Ivory Tower as well as the big white chief who occupied that sanctum sanctorum.

  Rohan shot her another one of his looks, which Nina privately thought made him look exactly like a disgruntled seal. ‘Those in the Ivory Tower will buy anything Samar Pratap Singh sells,’ he told her. ‘They know Singh is doing them a favour by working for the paper.’

  ‘He is?’ asked Nina, all her intentions not to show overt interest in the man flying out of the window.

  ‘Hey, you don’t think Samar Singh works for the money India! pays him? You don’t think he runs his Merc or rents his penthouse apartment on his monthly salary now, do you?’ Rohan asked with a crack of laughter. ‘The man’s rolling in the stuff, his family owns property virtually all over north India and he’s an Only Son, you know what that means in this country. India! is Singh’s creative outlet for the moment, before he packs up his ma
ny Hasselblads and goes home to run the family business.’

  ‘Which is?’ asked Nina and realized she had come to the end of that particular road when Rohan grinned. ‘You mean you didn’t ask him when the two of you went out last night?’

  ‘How did you…’ she began to ask but stopped, giving an unladylike snort when Rohan said smugly, ‘Oh, I have my sources. But tell me Nina, doesn’t Alan mind? Or was it a one-off, last night’s date?’

  He’d been baiting Nina about Alan for virtually all of the last year and she didn’t react to it now except to smile sweetly and say, ‘That really is none of your business now, is it, Rohan?’

  Sure enough, at lunch with Leena in the office cafe, Nina discovered that she was back in the speculative limelight, the current flavour of the voracious grapevine.

  ‘I hear you’ve been dating Samar P. Singh,’ said Leena with a teasing smile coupled with a speculative look, as they settled at a corner table with their food. Today Nina had opted for a full thali meal. She had become hopelessly addicted to just about any and every kind of cuisine that this country had to offer; and fully subscribed to the theory that India had colonized the West with its food. She also realized just how much of a convert she had become only when she caught herself liberally spicing up the shepherd’s pies or soufflés she would bake once in a while at her apartment. Again, this was pure irony considering that she had happily eaten bland English fare while growing up, even as every street in London was sprouting a curry house.

  Now she turned her attention to an amused Leena. ‘Leena,’ Nina told her patiently, ‘one evening out does not mean we are dating.’

  ‘Well, that’s not what Mr Patel thinks. He lives in that area and saw Samar and you at a table near the window in Biscotti. He said the two of you looked … what was the word he used, it cracked me up, real cosy! Except he said ‘‘cojy’’!’

  Mr Patel was HRD manager for the paper, dry as dust and as old as the hills, and Alan Pereira’s good friend. ‘And of course, he said this to you, to Rohan and to all the office of India!, I expect,’ said Nina in a resigned fashion. She had realized that the only way to douse all rumours was to adopt a laconic air. The moment the office discovered they couldn’t get a rise out of whoever the current victim was, they lost interest and dropped the issue. Pretty much like an impatient terrier with a large intractable bone, Nina thought. She had learned to play as it went.

  Nothing excited the people at India! more than a political scam or an office romance. And if there were quite a few of the former, there were quite a few of the latter, too. While arranged marriage still ruled, increasingly more and more people – mostly those who lived in the bustling cities – dated and entered into relationships that entailed moving in together; however, Nina had noticed that most of these relationships still ended up in marriage.

  In any case, arranged marriage had been converted into what was more snappily known as the suggested marriage. The parents of the couple suggested the youngsters meet and get to know each other and marry if they felt they could forge a life together.

  Leena Nair and Rohan Varma were part of the suggested marriage system, and happily part of it, too. Leena’s father and Rohan’s uncle were golfing buddies. Rohan’s uncle had been singing the praises of his nephew long and loud before Leena’s father took the bait and invited them over for tea.

  Rohan had then taken up the cue and invited Leena out for a movie. They had clicked big-time, and a year of dating had resulted in the couple celebrating their formal engagement. If anyone tried telling them their relationship had had its beginnings on the arranged platform, they would have got their heads bitten off; Leena and Rohan knew that they were irrevocably, deeply in love. Quite a win-win situation all around, Nina reflected with amusement.

  Now Leena was saying in a concerned tone, ‘You know what you are doing of course, Nina, but Heartbreaker Singh? He didn’t come by that name just sitting at home watching cricket re-runs on TV.’

  Happenstance or not, the sentiment was echoed by Jenny Hamilton later that evening. On an impulse, Nina had driven to the leafy borough where her old school friend lived, in a lovely one-storeyed house with red oxide floors, gleaming teak furniture and a lush green garden. Jenny had been Nina’s senior in school back in England, and they had recognized each other immediately when they met at a party many months ago and had, in the intervening period, become close friends. Jenny’s American husband, Hugh, headed the Indian branch of a multinational corporation and the couple had two sons, both of whom were studying at a residential school in the hills to the south of Bangalore.

  After she had settled Nina down with a cup of tea spiked with cardamom and brewed to perfection by her maid, Mary, Jenny asked with all her customary forthrightness, ‘Something troubling you, Nina?’

  Nina looked up and grinned. ‘Well, yes. Every time I look at you, Jenny, I keep wanting to ask how you manage to stay so slender. Aren’t you affected by the TT bogey?’

  ‘The TT bogey?’

  ‘The Tandoori Tikka bogey,’ Nina informed her in all seriousness.

  Jenny gave her a look that said she wasn’t fooled by such lame red herrings. ‘That’s an easy one. I eat what I want to eat, then head to the gym for a three-hour workout.’ It was Nina’s turn to throw Jenny an old-fashioned look and the older woman grinned. ‘Actually, it’s just my constitution, I guess. Hugh says I burn up more calories than I consume, with all the running around and the hyperventilating I do.’

  Jenny was an active member, as were most of the expatriate wives, of half-a-dozen charities which kept her, she said, from missing her boys too much. In contrast to his live wire wife, Hugh Hamilton was a large grizzled man with an unflappable air and a booming laugh. The workers at his office had inevitably changed the Hugh to Huge; Mr Huge they called him, a moniker he happily answered to. ‘Well, as long as they don’t call me Mr Small,’ he would say with one of his rumbling laughs.

  ‘Okay, now that we have the vital question of my weight control out of the way, tell me, is all okay with you?’ Jenny asked.

  Nina sighed. ‘Oh, I don’t know, Jenny. Fact is, I’m getting rather tired of the continuous speculations about Alan and me.’

  Jenny shot her a searching look. ‘That’s old news, Nina. And you haven’t been too bothered by such talk all this while. Is there someone specific you want to put straight regarding Alan and you?’

  Trust Jenny to get to the point, thought Nina ruefully. ‘Samar Pratap Singh,’ she told Jenny, simply, succinctly then on an afterthought asked, ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘Very well; he rides occasionally with Hugh,’ Jenny told the younger girl. ‘Man plays a mean game of polo. Rajput prince and all that, I believe. Samar P. Singh … hmm. You do know they call him HB Singh hereabouts, don’t you? HB for Heartbreaker, would you believe the asinine label? Not just hereabouts, actually, I have heard him called that even in Delhi,’ she added artlessly.

  ‘He took me out to dinner last night,’ Nina told her. ‘To warn me off Alan,’ she added, cutting in on Jenny’s satisfied, ‘Well then.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Jenny, her voice carrying a wealth of meaning. ‘Either the man wants you for himself or he’s looking out for Sita,’ she finished with all the air of one making an inescapable point.

  Nina laughed. ‘Well, I want him and I want him bad,’ she confessed, pink running under her cheeks. This is the Indian part of me talking, Nina thought, the hot-blooded desi girl. Then again, Nina had always been able to say just about anything to Jenny Hamilton.

  ‘I don’t blame you, girl,’ Jenny said chuckling. ‘Most women take one look at him and want him bad. He’s got a trademark on sex appeal, our Samar Pratap Singh. But Nins, he also has a reputation with a capital R, and I happen to know it’s not all gossip.’

  At Nina’s enquiring look, Jenny continued, ‘There is this Karishma woman now but a while ago, I think he was dating a friend of a friend, Meera. Event manager with hair to die for and a Jessica Rabbit figure.
When the break-up happened, she took it bad. Asked for a transfer out of Bangalore rather than face him at all the parties and shows.’

  Nina felt her heart plummet. Was she crazy to think she could have some kind of a relationship with Samar Singh? She was relatively inexperienced and definitely so when it came to playing the sort of games that Samar was used to. Nina played it straight; with her what you saw was what you got. The locals had a term for short-term activities, ‘time-pass’ they called it. Well, even if Nina and Samar indulged in some time-pass, she was going to get hurt. Picking up the pieces and moving on was not something Nina visualized doing with much sanguinity.

  ‘Samar is a great chap,’ Jenny was now saying. ‘The problem is, he’s had it too easy for words. Most women fall like ninepins for him. And you aren’t the type to play pretend games, Nina. If you’re looking for something quick but intense, then go for it. Because my reading of the situation is, Singh will play the field and then marry just where his mother wants him.’

  ‘What his mother wants, or so the buzz goes, is Karishma Jhala,’ Nina said, trying to keep her voice level.

  ‘Well, Karishma or whoever else, Mrs Singh will do the choosing, that’s for sure. I’ve met her – crusty woman, very conscious of her background. Her snobbery is so concealed you won’t realize you’ve been patronized till she finishes with you and moves away! But that’s the way it is with most of these aristos. You know the scenario, Nina; men like Singh have pressure on them to return to their roots in more ways than one, and that includes the choice of wife: beautiful, tamed now if wild before, girls who know the score and are fully capable of running a handful of large manor houses with an army of servants, heading a dozen charities, inaugurating a host of functions, presiding over innumerable banquets … and of course, producing one son and heir and a few spares, too, all male preferably. The format never varies.’