With a grin of her own, Jasmine released Asmita’s face and sat back. “I was, wasn’t I? But that’s quite enough fluffy shit for one day. For one decade, even.”
“You’re right, I’m sure.” Everything about Asmita was slightly brighter now, in a hopeful sort of way—like a sun-starved flower turning to the light. She dabbed strategically at her eyes with the napkins, raising her phone to use as a mirror. “Christ, I’ve fucked my makeup right up.”
“That’s what you get for wearing a bloody smoky eye to work, you drama queen. Who do you think you are?”
Asmita snorted and elbowed Jasmine in the ribs. Jasmine kicked her gently beneath the table. A minor fight broke out, and then the man sweeping the floor returned, and somehow they ended up buying a strawberry milkshake to share.
Teenaged McDonald’s trauma aside, the milkshake was pretty good.
“Oooooh my God! Jasmine! You won’t believe what’s happened!”
Knowing Tilly Potter-Baird, Jasmine probably wouldn’t.
What with Asmita’s minor breakdown at lunch, and general office fuckery—working for a housing charity was no joke—it had been a long day. Still, Jasmine kept her expression pleasant as she stepped into the flat and shut the front door. “What, poppet? Did you blow something up in the microwave again?”
Jasmine’s roommate, landlady, and old school… acquaintance, stood in the hallway, wringing her filthy hands. They weren’t filthy for any reason other than aesthetic. Tilly was living in the city, in this crappy flat that her father owned, for the experience. The experience of slumming it.
And she left no sartorial stone unturned when it came to authenticity. The artful dirt beneath her fingernails was accessorised by lank, matted hair that she referred to as ‘dreads’, and a stained old denim jacket that, aside from anything else, was highly inappropriate for the sweltering weather.
But it was not Jasmine’s place to judge. At least, not if her broke self wanted to keep this God-send of a flat-share.
“There’s been a flood!” Tilly wailed.
Jasmine raised her brows. “Did you leave the bath running again, Matilda?”
“Don’t call me that,” Tilly snapped. “It’s Mattie!”
Oh, yes. After all their years as classmates at Evelyn Jameson’s School For Girls, Jasmine did struggle to adjust to Tilly’s new ‘street’ name.
“Mattie, then,” she acquiesced. “Have you put some towels down?”
“Umm…” Mattie/Tilly/Who-Gave-A-Fuck? continued to wring her hands, face twisting into a hesitant sort of grimace. “I mean, no, but—”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Jasmine hung up her bag and kicked off her heels, striding into the flat. “You have to soak up the water or the floors will lift, you widgeon. We’ve talked about this. Do you want your father to fork out for new laminate unnecessarily?”
A silly question, really. Tilly didn’t think about trivialities like money; she hadn’t been raised that way. But Jasmine had. No matter how wealthy they became, Dad would never let her forget where they’d come from. And now, looking at Tilly, she was quietly grateful for that.
“I think Daddy will be paying for more than laminate,” Tilly said, tone hesitant.
Jasmine opened the bathroom door and stopped short. She stared down at the bone-dry floor. “Darling,” she said, very slowly and with admirable calm. “Where is the flood?”
“The spare room,” Tilly said promptly.
Jasmine gritted her teeth. “Do you mean my room?”
“Ah, yes.” Tilly nodded like a bobblehead. Perhaps she was nervous. At school, Jasmine had developed a reputation for being awfully terrifying and possibly violent, because her father was from Bulwell and he had a gold tooth, and all he did was sell paper!
It was a generally underserved reputation, and yet Jasmine felt herself suddenly ready to live up to it.
“Why would there possibly be a flood in my bedroom?” She asked, with a patience that she personally thought was rather impressive.
“Well, it’s something to do with the flat upstairs,” Tilly said. “And the pipes.”
Ah, yes. The building’s faulty pipes. But… “Upstairs?” Jasmine asked faintly.
“Rather funny, really.” Tilly gave a nervous laugh. “A sound like a waterfall woke me up, a little past lunchtime. So I got up and I ran into your bedroom, and Lord, you should’ve seen it! Water was absolutely pissing from the light fitting!”
“The… the light fitting?” Jasmine echoed.
So this was how it felt to be utterly without one’s wits. Fascinating.
“Yes! Rather exciting, actually. I think I swooned. I—”
Jasmine’s brain chose that moment to reboot. Her body, which had felt as though it were floating through a haze of worst nightmares, became hers to command once more. She pushed past Tilly, ignored the woman’s outraged, “Oh!” and ran to her bedroom.
It was a fucking disaster.
Jasmine stared, mouth shamelessly agape, at the sodden mess that was—well, everything she bloody owned.
The light fitting had been removed and now sat on the floor, a twist of chrome and frosted glass, in the vast puddle of water that gleamed on top of the carpet.
Water.
On top of the fucking carpet.
She turned to Tilly, who was hovering nervously a good metre away. Smart girl. “How long was this water… running?”
“Oh, hours,” Tilly said. “It took me a while to figure out that it was coming from the flat upstairs, you know. Who’d have thought? And then I had to decide what to do. Actually, I didn’t really figure that out; I called Daddy, got his secretary of course, she passed on the message, he called me back about an hour later—”
Jasmine held up a silencing hand. Tilly’s mouth snapped shut with an audible click.
“Why,” Jasmine said, “didn’t you move any of my things?”
Tilly blinked. “Pardon?”
“My things,” Jasmine roared. Then she cleared her throat, pressed her lips together, and clawed back her placid facade. Tilly looked terrified. And Jasmine did not need Tilly to feel ‘intimidated’, or she’d lose out on the cheapest and safest flat in the city. So she stretched her mouth into a smile and tried to remember how to charm someone who didn’t want to sleep with her.
After a few seconds, Jasmine’s mind remained blank. Bloody impossible.
She abandoned the charm idea and focused on trying to stay calm. “My things,” she said, at a normal volume this time, “are still in my room. The clothes on my bed. The pictures. My ornaments and my fairy lights and my—” She took a deep, soothing breath. “My Vivienne Westwood Pimlico. It’s calfskin, Tilly. Why didn’t you save the Westwood?”
She could see it on her dresser, taupe and sad and sodden. The first designer item she’d ever bought with her own fucking money—and she might be a lawyer, but since she worked in the charitable sector, money wasn’t something she had much of.
She’d have to hold a funeral.
Jesus Christ, everything in the room was soaked through. Jasmine thanked God that all her skin and hair products were in the bathroom, and that she’d shut her underwear drawer that morning. At least her knickers would be dry.
She hoped.
“Oh, sorry,” Tilly said. “I was petrified where I stood. Like Mrs. Haversham! I thought I might be electrocuted!”
Jasmine had to admit—Haversham reference aside—that Tilly made a fair point with regard to electrocution. “Right,” she said. “And what is the verdict, so far as that… issue goes? What did your father do in terms of safety? I assume he sent someone?”
“Oh, yes.” Tilly nodded. “He’s ever so sorry. He’s going to sue the building!”
Jasmine squeezed her eyes shut and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Matilda. Listen to me very carefully.” She paused. “Are you listening?”
“Yes?” Tilly squeaked.
“Tell your father that he absolutely must not sue the building. Tell him to empl
oy a secretary in resolving the matter of the pipes, and of the wiring. Tell him to have this room restored and to compensate me for my damaged items.”
“Um… Can I write this down?” Tilly asked.
“If you must.”
Jasmine heard the pat-pat of Tilly searching through her myriad pockets, and then the tap of nails against glass. “Go on,” Tilly said brightly.
“Tell him I need my room back within a reasonable time period, to be decided upon by an impartial third party, and that I want that time period established within seven days.”
“Right…” Tilly said slowly as she typed. “Gosh, you are clever, Jasmine.”
“Send it to him via email. CC both secretaries. Alright?”
Tilly nodded dutifully. “I’ll do it now!”
“Thank you, poppet. Oh, and I’m in dire need of alcohol, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“What a good idea!” Tilly skipped off to the kitchen.
Jasmine waited until she heard the bang of a cupboard door opening. Then she slapped herself.
It was one of her many bad habits, but it worked.
Her sluggish mind zinged to full productivity, and she felt the last of her childish desire to scream fade away. Gasping at the sharp pain in her cheek, she blinked rapidly. Then she pulled out her phone.
She couldn’t stay here. God only knew how long Tilly’s darling dad would take to fix this problem. He was notoriously disinterested in anything related to his daughter, and usually coked up. It would be fucking ages, regardless of the email she’d just dictated.
Of course, she could take the easy way out. Could call Dad, tell him what had happened, and he’d send her all the money she needed to fix the room herself as soon as possible.
But she couldn’t do that. For one thing, Dad was on a Caribbean cruise with Marianne, and she didn’t want to worry him during their… ‘romantic getaway’.
Blech.
And for another, she was twenty-eight years old. A grown woman. She had her own horribly-paying job, her own pitiful amount of money, and… well, her pride. She wouldn’t rely on the Bank of Daddy.
But looking at this ruined room—all the little decorations, the careful touches, destroyed—was making Jasmine feel slightly violent. She couldn’t stay here and sleep on the fucking sofa while her bedding rotted away down the hall.
She could call Asmita—except the idea of reaching out for something so awkward and painful and embarrassing as help made her feel… edgy. Anxious. Skin-crawlingly disgusted.
Jasmine didn’t pretend it was a reasonable reaction. But it was real, and it was one she didn’t enjoy.
If she was honest with herself, there was only one person—aside from her father—that she’d ever trust enough to ask for help. There was only one person she could call without that vile, creeping discomfort.
Although it still wouldn’t be easy.
“Here you are!” Tilly said brightly. “It’s new. And it’s Parma Violet flavoured, can you believe?”
Jasmine turned to find her flatmate holding out a shot glass of lavender liquid. Pushing away her knotty thoughts, she took it and swallowed gratefully.
The sweet flavour did little to hide the raw bite of alcohol, which was good. She resisted the urge to smash the glass against the wall and settled for a fortifying gasp. “Wonderful, Tilly. You’re a darling.”
Tilly winked, downed her own shot, and took both glasses. As she toddled off, Jasmine found the right contact in her phone and hit Call.
He answered almost immediately, his voice clipped and smoky. “Jas.”
“Rahul. I need you to pick me up.”
There was a slight pause. It was barely six o’clock, so he might be at work. He was always at work. Still, after a moment, he said, “Where are you?”
“Tilly’s. Home, I mean.”
He didn’t ask anymore questions. Maybe he could hear the fact that she was, despite her best efforts, on the edge of panic. Maybe he knew that something must be wrong for her to ring him like this, to ask for him like this, with something other than a smile in her voice. Maybe it was blatantly obvious, even through the phone, that calling had made her feel like she was going to vomit.
Whatever the reason, all he said was, “Be there in ten.”
2
Seven Years Ago
He saw her on a Monday.
He’d gone home for the weekend, to reassure Mum that he was still alive and hadn’t lost any weight, or contracted any life-threatening illnesses, since last month.
But on Monday he returned to university, and went to his usual spot in the library—second floor for accounts and finance, at the back, by the windows that wouldn’t open, just to feel like he was getting fresh air.
And there she was. In his seat, actually.
But of course, no-one owned library seats. Rahul just liked to stick to his routine.
He sat a few rows away and wasted an hour staring at her. At first, he told himself he was actually staring in longing at his seat, which she’d stolen, but that was a terrible lie. He knew from the start that he was staring at her.
And she was staring out of the window, her hair a dark cloud around her face. It was a pretty face. That wasn’t why he stared, though.
He stared because she was sexy. Sexy like Marilyn Monroe or Sridevi. When she raised her arms in a languid, lazy stretch, it was sexy. When she wrapped a springy curl around her finger, it was sexy. Fuck, when she stared blankly out of the damn window, it was sexy. He’d never seen raw sex appeal in person. He told himself that studying it closely was academic.
The rest of the accounting floor seemed to agree. They were staring, too. But she didn’t notice, or if she did, she must not care. Because she kept staring, kept shamelessly not studying, and kept being sexy. He suspected she couldn’t help the last part.
“Jasmine Allen.”
Rahul turned at the whisper, delivered with the kind of smug bite that suggested bad news was forthcoming. Luke Schnaigl, from his Financial Management seminar, had come to sit beside Rahul at some point in the last hour. He hadn’t even bloody noticed.
Rahul raised his brows, leaned in close and whispered, “What?”
Whispering in a library was an Olympic sport. Trying to out-silence silence while not being silent took practice and dedication. Rahul was shit at it.
But Luke was okay. “The girl,” he murmured. “That’s Jasmine Allen.”
Rahul’s gaze slid back, inevitably, to her. Jasmine. Yes, he decided. It suited her. But Allen? He wasn’t sure. Jasmine Khan would sound much better.
Not because Khan was his last name. He was just spitballing.
Since Luke seemed to expect a response, Rahul whispered, “She’s pretty.”
Jasmine Allen looked away from the window. She looked right at him. She smirked.
Rahul felt his cheeks heat. He raised a hand self-consciously to his hair, stopped himself, and pulled off his glasses instead. Now she was just a blur, and he couldn’t see the sharp amusement in those dark, dancing eyes. But he could still feel her gaze. Fuck.
Beside him, Luke released a little huff of laughter. “Careful, mate. If you give her a reason, she’ll eat you alive.”
Rahul snorted, cleaning his glasses needlessly on the hem of his T-shirt. “What are you, the student body’s fucking tour guide?”
“Just looking out for you. Everyone knows Jasmine Allen. But I know you don’t get out much. Thought I should warn you.”
Rahul’s lips compressed. “Warn me about what?”
“She’s a look-but-don’t-touch kind of girl. For guys like us, anyway.”
“And what does that mean?” Rahul put his glasses on again and was relieved to find that Jasmine had returned to the window. Relieved, and yet a little deflated. In the instant he’d had her gaze, he’d been as alive as he was embarrassed.
There was something powerful in her attention. He supposed that was part of the sex appeal.
“It means she’s out of our leagu
e,” Luke said dryly. “She’s a genius. Her family’s loaded. You know she’s secretary of the law committee? You know she’s a cheerleader? And,” he added darkly, “she looks like that. I don’t know what she’s doing here. I bet it’s part of an elaborate plot to get one of us to make a fool of ourselves.”
Rahul raised his brows. “Why would she do that?”
“It’s what they do,” Luke said. “Those kinda girls.”
Rahul stared at his friend—well, acquaintance—for a moment as he turned that logic over in his head. He made sure he was quite positive of his conclusion before he spoke. “You’re a fucking twat.”
Luke scowled, holding up his hands. “Piss off.”
“Alright.” Luke hadn’t meant it literally, but Rahul gathered up his things. It wasn’t hard; he’d barely unpacked anyway. Certainly hadn’t got a head start on the term’s assignments, as he’d intended. He shoved his stuff into his rucksack with no concern for order—for once—and made his way towards Jasmine Allen.
He had no idea what he was doing.
But she was looking at him again. Watching him. In fact, everyone in the vicinity was watching him, most with looks of dawning horror. He didn’t care. He came to the table where she sat and took the end seat, leaving space between them. She studied him with a little smile.
“Hi,” he said awkwardly.
She nodded. “Hello.” She sounded like Joanna fucking Lumley. Posh, but like she’d just finished screaming someone’s name.
What the fuck is wrong with you right now?
“I usually sit here,” he said, words tripping over themselves. “And I... didn’t like that table.”
The tables were all identical.
But she murmured some sound of vague understanding and turned back to the window.
Rahul pulled out his work and tried to focus on his research assignment. For almost another hour, he failed. Then she left. It should’ve been a blessed occurrence, should’ve improved his concentration at least—but of course, it didn’t.
He was surrounded by the ghost of some tropical scent that might belong to her. Why had she been on this floor, if she was a law student? And why had she stayed so long and only looked out of the window? And why the hell had he come to sit next to her?
Wanna Bet?: An Interracial Romance Page 2
