by Sheila Kumar
Samar chuckled and as he did so, some of the constraint she had sensed emanating from him seemed to fall away. ‘Hemant’s a tough one. Just about all of Jaisalmer, as also most of New Delhi’s denizens, live in terror of her. But she’s had to be tough. She was widowed in her thirties and ever since had to take over the reins of her husband’s factory. No kids to help out, either.’
Nina let him talk about his aunt. Was that why he’d called?
Eventually, though, he came to the point. ‘What time shall I come pick you up?’
She kept quiet. Samar said, ‘You haven’t tied up to go with someone else, have you?’ and Nina thought she could detect a faint wire of tension in his voice.
Suddenly tiring of the game, she said, ‘Come by 7.30 p.m.?’ Then, impelled by a spurt of mischief, she added, ‘And bring me a corsage.’
She had underestimated Samar Pratap Singh. He was at her doorstep at 7.30 p.m. looking impossibly gorgeous in black tie, and he held a small package in his hand.
‘Your corsage, ma’am,’ he said with one of his slow sexy smiles.
‘No!’ said Nina, dumbfounded. ‘I don’t believe it. You can actually get a corsage in Bangalore? I doubt you can get one even in London today.’
She looked down at the package in her hand. It was a corsage all right but the flower glittered. It was an orchid set in gold with enamel leaves. He’d hoisted her with her own petard.
‘This is gold, Samar. I can’t possibly accept it,’ she told him hesitantly.
‘Of course you can. And I’m still waiting to be thanked for the corsage.’
She looked up into his dark eyes and was immediately lost. Her heart raced as he slowly drew her to him and lowered his head.
‘It’s been so bloody long,’ she heard Samar say before he started to kiss her like a man starved of sustenance. Dropping her corsage carefully onto the sofa, she put both her arms around him, holding him tight. He smelled so good.
Eventually, they had to come up for air. ‘You smell so delicious,’ Samar told her, nuzzling the hollow at her throat. And then he put her a little distance away from him and looked at her. Nina’s breath caught as his golden gaze roved all over her intimately, possessively.
‘You are a gorgeous woman, Nina Sabharwal,’ he informed her solemnly.
In a bid to lighten the suddenly charged atmosphere, Nina made a mock curtsey and said, ‘Why, thankee, sir.’
His voice growing deeper, Samar said, ‘I am so looking forward to getting this do over with. And coming home. With you.’
Nina’s heart started up its old lilting tune again. He’d called her apartment home.
By the time Samar’s car drew up at the wide sweep of the hotel’s overly ornate patio, Nina’s heartbeat had steadied. She was looking forward to the evening. Most of the time, the India! offices functioned like a boys’ club, it would be good to meet some of her women colleagues too.
The hotel was way over the top in décor and ornamentation. Gold cornices, statuary in alcoves, yardage of silk swags on pelmets; it was as if the place couldn’t decide whether it was emulating the Bath Assembly Rooms or an art deco palace. Or a maharaja’s mahal.
The ballroom, straight out of a Disney set in a blaze of cream, scarlet and beige, was packed with people, editorial rubbing shoulders quite happily with sales and marketing as well as advertising. Even the legal cell had broken out in thin, wary smiles. Clearly, everybody was having a good time. There was a live band playing some lively tunes, but the buzz of conversation was giving the music a run for its money.
In the usual run of things, sales and marketing moved in a different world from editorial. Their offices were on different floors, their meetings rarely if ever intersected and as for parties together, that was rarer still. Nina had been to a party where someone from sales and marketing was introduced to a journalist. ‘And where do you work?’ the former, a dapper gent, had asked the journalist who was a lovely lass he was clearly hoping to impress. ‘At India!’ she had answered, and he had look puzzled. ‘Really? Have you just joined?’
‘No,’ the girl told him. ‘I’ve been with them for almost three years now.’
The S & M man had smiled a superior smile. ‘No way,’ he told the bemused girl. Right then, Mr Murthy had come along and whisked the girl away, to meet a columnist from their Mumbai office. Nina, feeling sorry for the man from her department, had told him that the girl was from editorial. ‘That explains it!’ he had exclaimed. ‘Who knows people from editorial?’
Alan Pereira now bore down upon them. Not quite cutting Samar Singh dead, he spoke to Nina. ‘Come, the chief wants to meet the brain behind the Pothole Project.’
Nina hid her dismay and looked up at Samar. He smiled at her, and was about to turn away when Alan Pereira said, in a somewhat grudging tone, ‘You too, Samar. He says he hasn’t seen you in a long time.’
‘If you call a couple of months a long time,’ murmured Samar peaceably and putting an arm along Nina’s waist, he led her across to the newspaper owner. The arm lay lightly on her body yet just about everyone in the room looked at it in a transfixed manner. Samar Pratap Singh was making a statement.
Mr Vinod Mittal was an unassuming man, small in stature, with a head full of grey hair, sharp grey eyes hidden by horn-rimmed glasses and a smile that lit up his face. He spoke in staccato sentences. He looked inordinately delighted to meet Nina. ‘Ah, Miss Sabharwal. Heard a lot about you. So glad to finally meet you. That idea of yours is a wonderful one. We are going to carry it across all editions. Campaign for filling up potholes in every city.’
Clearly, Nina wasn’t expected to do anything but smile and nod. Which she did. Then Samar said in an easy tone from beside her, ‘Mr Mittal, the campaign has taken off but I have to tell you, not many of the potholes have been filled by the municipal corporation. Just a few arterial roads have been attended to. They will hold up … till the next rains.’
Mr Mittal looked even more delighted to see Samar. Looking up at the younger man, he exclaimed, ‘Samar Singh. Good, good. Not coming too often to Delhi these days, are you? Your mother and I are co-chairing the Heritage Foundation’s new venture.’
‘Yes, she told me about it.’
‘Has she gone back to Rajasthan?’ asked Mr Mittal, and Nina waited with bated breath to hear the answer.
‘Yes, both Hemant and Ma went back this morning,’ Samar told him, mentioning his aunt with the ease of old familiarity. ‘Ma to Jaisalmer, Hemant to Delhi.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Mr Mittal, still talking as if in Morse code. ‘Hemant is to come to lunch at our place on Wednesday.’
It looked as if he wasn’t going to say anything in response to Samar’s statement about the roadwork not being done. He fired some sentences at Nina, talking to her, but never asking her anything and she didn’t know whether to be irked or amused. Then when her smile had started to hurt, Mr Mittal moved away. The audience was clearly over.
As Samar and Nina turned away, Vinod Mittal said, ‘Samar, citizen awareness doesn’t necessarily translate into work done.’
Samar turned around and threw a grin at the slight man in a suit that hung loose on him, a man who was worth many millions, one of the most powerful men in the country.
Seeming to materialize from the polished woodwork, Alan Pereira joined them. Samar looked at him and raised one eyebrow. ‘I heard,’ Alan said shortly. ‘The deal is, we have to drum up maximum citizen awareness before we move to the action plank.’
Even as Samar snorted in derision, Nina said, ‘Which means an action plan is on the table? That’s good, isn’t it?’
The resident editor grinned. ‘Oh, I don’t know about an action plan. I said plank. India! isn’t going to go out on a limb and get on the wrong side of the politicians. If it can set the stage for a massive people’s protest, then it can sit back, watch things move on its own momentum—’
‘And take the credit,’ Samar Singh said laconically. He turned to Nina, who was starting to say so
mething, put a long finger on her lips and smiled into her eyes. ‘Dance with me?’
They danced like they had been dancing with each other for years, their bodies perfectly in sync. The music was retro but soft retro tunes, nothing too modern; when the Big White Chief was around, no one was taking any chances. Samar held Nina closer than was necessary, and his touch was distinctly possessive. She was aware of the many eyes on them. Impelled again by the sense of mischief she was discovering in herself, she raised a hand and ran it slowly, caressingly, down the side of his jaw. The jaw immediately clenched.
‘Really, darling?’ Samar drawled. Nina smiled up into those caramel-gold eyes, read the message in them and blushed a fiery red.
Recovering her poise, she said, ‘Well, I was just checking to see if you’d had a good shave.’
He smiled, genuinely amused. ‘You can bet I did. More to the point, you can verify for yourself that I did. Later…’
Nina’s heartbeat set up a loud insistent rhythm, rivalling that of the song being sung. And then, a colleague from sales cut in on their dance and it was some time before she could be with Samar again.
She was somewhat bemused, and a bit gratified too, to discover that the buzz at this party was all about the Pothole Project; what was more, she’d been identified as the ideator. The advertising and marketing honchos were patently thrilled at the potential the campaign held for boosting circulation. Rather to her surprise, Nina found the journalists too were uncharacteristically enthusiastic. ‘It is working well,’ Mr Murthy, the news editor, told her in his earnest manner. ‘Letters are pouring in, most of them with photos attached. Everyone is so angry,’ he concluded on a note of inordinate glee.
The copy chief told her, ‘This one’s a blockbuster, Nina! The corporators are already on the run, putting out defensive statements which the public is just not buying. Some patchwork repairs have already started. The public is not going to settle for that either. We just need to keep this on the boil.’
Nina walked over to Samar and found he was chatting with Jenny and Hugh Hamilton. Jenny was in a sari and looked very graceful in it; she chuckled at Nina’s surprised expression.
‘Darling, don’t look so gobsmacked, I do wear a sari once in a while.’
‘This one’s for Mr Mittal,’ Hugh told Nina solemnly.
‘And was he impressed?’ Nina asked Jenny equally solemnly.
A new voice replied, ‘Oh yes, he was. I heard him tell our Jenny that blue was quite her colour.’ They turned to find Sita amongst them, looking striking in a handloom sari in the colours of a spectacular sunset. One thick silky plait lay on her shoulder. Diamonds glittered in her ears.
‘Not to take away from Jenny’s glory but you look gorgeous, Sita,’ said Hugh in his most gallant fashion. Sita flashed him a serene smile. ‘He’s acquiring charm late in life, I see,’ she observed tranquilly to Jenny, who burst out laughing. The two women were good friends and ran a dog shelter together.
‘He’s learning from our resident charmer here,’ Jenny said, indicating Samar Pratap Singh.
‘Oh, our resident charmer has narrowed down his focus,’ Sita said in dulcet tones. ‘It’s all about Nina now.’
Nina could feel a blush coming on. Samar grinned lazily, then turned to her. ‘I think we’re being roasted,’ he informed her. ‘Time to break free of this crowd.’
They walked away from the ribald comments that followed them, back onto the dance floor. The band was playing a series of Fleetwood Mac songs, and Nina sighed happily. Life was good.
It was too good to last, of course. ‘Can I cut in?’ a voice asked silkily, and they turned to face Karishma Jhala. The woman looked absolutely spectacular in a sea-green chiffon gown with a neckline cut to daring depths. Green was really her colour. Nina had to wonder at her effrontery, though. This woman really was like the Canadian Mounted Police … didn’t rest till she got her man.
Samar stopped for an instant and Nina felt so good about that hesitation. ‘Of course,’ she told Karishma calmly and left the dance floor. Alan beckoned her over and she was soon in a discussion about Bangalore’s eateries being given an extension on their closing time. The young techie crowd was happy, the cops were distinctly unhappy and the politicians were sitting on the fence as usual.
But Nina’s equanimity soon dissolved as Samar and Karishma continued to dance. The woman was pressed up close to Samar, both her arms around his neck. She was talking earnestly to him, his head bent to hear her but his inscrutable face giving away nothing. Suddenly, Karishma reached up and kissed Samar on the cheek. All Nina could do was not to flinch.
‘Not to worry,’ murmured Sita beside her. ‘It’s endgame in action.’
Nina’s British genes kicked in. She was most embarrassed at being the recipient of words of consolation. She was even more embarrassed by the way the couple were comporting themselves on the dance floor.
Alan Pereira took one look at her face and said, ‘You are leaving. You don’t want dinner.’
‘Right on both counts,’ Nina informed him tersely as she turned to go.
She had made it to the massive doors of the ballroom when Samar Singh caught up with her.
‘Where are you going, Nina?’ he asked.
‘Home,’ she told him coldly.
‘I brought you here, I will take you home,’ he informed her imperturbably, taking her hand. ‘Let’s go have dinner.’
‘I don’t want dinner, and please let go of my hand,’ Nina told him, her tone positively glacial now.
Samar looked at her for one long minute, then deftly swung her through the open doors and out onto the softly lit patio, into a dark corner. Nina gasped as he brought his mouth down on hers. It was a short but intense kiss, and the few people out on the patio clapped politely and amusedly when they broke apart.
Red-faced, Nina looked around and registered Mr Mittal’s mildly intrigued expression and Karishma Jhala’s furious expression. She looked up at Samar, who was back to being his unflappable self.
‘I…’ she began and Samar cut in peaceably, ‘Okay, no dinner for us. Let’s go.’ And he swept her before him, through the doors and out to the hotel patio.
ELEVEN
THE TENSION INSIDE THE car on the way back to Nina’s place was so thick you could have cut it with the proverbial knife. Samar threw her a look once or twice and attempted to break the loud silence, but Nina wasn’t having any of it.
In actual fact, she was more than a bit flabbergasted at her loss of control. She was so furious that she knew she had better opt for silence; heaven knows what would come out of her mouth if she spoke. Inside her a small voice asked: but why are you so angry, Nina? And she quickly stifled that voice.
She was out of the sleek vehicle in a flash and at her ground floor door, inserting the key into the lock, stumbling and fumbling in her haste. But Samar was quicker; in one fluid movement, he was beside her, murmuring, ‘Shall I open it for you?’
Ignoring him, Nina walked into her apartment and turned to close to the door, only to find him very much inside.
‘I’d like you to leave, Samar,’ she managed in an icy tone, her accent suddenly going all posh.
One mobile eyebrow went up. ‘I don’t think I’m going to leave, Nina,’ he replied calmly, then walked up to her and took her gently by the shoulders.
‘And just why are you so angry, Nina?’ he asked quietly.
Stormy blue eyes clashed with caramel-coloured ones. Her characteristic restraint clashed with her sudden desire to throw caution to the winds and start one big row. One long moment later, the former had won.
Taking a deep breath, Nina said, ‘I don’t wish to talk about it.’
‘But I do. Because for the life of me, I can’t fathom what suddenly got you so mad.’
‘Let go of me, Samar,’ Nina said through gritted teeth and he immediately stepped back, raising his hands in apology.
‘Was it because I danced with Karishma?’
And like quicks
ilver, Nina Sabharwal’s hard-won composure evaporated.
‘You were not dancing with that woman, Samar. You were kissing her.’
‘I was not kissing her. She was kissing me. There is a subtle difference if you can appreciate it, Nina.’
‘Don’t give me that crap,’ she said. ‘Everyone was watching the two of you on the floor … you were entwined like snakes.’
This time, both of Samar’s eyebrows rose high and it was obvious he was trying not to laugh. There was no stopping Nina now, though.
‘I felt so damned humiliated. If Karishma Jhala is your girlfriend, Samar, you had no business taking me to the dinner. I didn’t ask you to, you called me, right?’
‘Right,’ he murmured but Nina was now in full flow.
‘I have never been so humiliated. In fact, I’ve had enough, Samar. I’m out of my depth here, and I don’t like the feeling. So…’
Before she could conclude the sentence, Samar Pratap Singh cut in, ‘Back up a mo, won’t you, Nina? Are you saying that what we have between us is serious?’
At a total loss for words, Nina stared at him. He continued in a silky tone, ‘Because that’s not how I heard it.’
‘Heard it?’ she spluttered.
‘Yes, heard it. I heard you telling the RE that you were just having a good time with me. And now you are saying something else, something quite different.’
Nina opened her mouth to reply but Samar acted before she could say a word. Moving close, he backed her up against the wall, casually stretching one arm alongside, palm on the wall. This close, she could smell that signature scent of his, she could see the pulse beat in his throat.
Samar bent closer still, his mouth mere inches from her own.
‘Nina Sabharwal, are you playing with me?’
Stiff with indignation, she continued to splutter. ‘Playing? What do you—’
The words were taken from her mouth by Samar’s lips as he kissed her, hard. Nina kept her lips tightly closed but Samar seemed prepared for that. His tongue lightly flicked at the corners of her mouth as he bestowed a series of small scorching kisses. One hand was still on the wall but the other was at her breast, gently cupping it, one thumb gently rubbing her silk-clad nipple.
