Temptation in Paradise

by Jyoti Singh

  A Night to Risk it All…

  Venture capitalist Sid Shetty has always been a man who gets what he wants—in business and in the bedroom. But he finds his legendary self-control tested on every level after an unexpected encounter with the vivacious and mysterious Niki Vora.

  Niki is determined to keep her cool around her new boss, but long days working in close quarters with the sinfully sexy Sid makes it increasingly difficult to ignore their chemistry. And when Sid invites Niki on a trek to Kasol, secluded nights give way to a passion that can’t be denied any longer.

  But these two will soon find that there are consequences to their desire…

  The night was warm and fragrant with blossoms. It was quiet in the gated community. Niki turned to look up at Sid. There was no question about what came next. No words were exchanged as he pulled her into his arms and lowered his head to kiss her. There was no resistance from Niki. She melted into him with a sigh. Their hands were chaste but their thoughts and bodies were not.

  Sid ended the kiss with a deep moan. He delicately pushed a stray strand of hair from Niki’s upturned, flushed face. Her eyes were languorous pools of desire and betrayed a glimpse of vulnerability he had not seen before.

  “Niki, Niki,” he breathed her name then released her gently. “I should go,” the statement almost sounded like a question. “Have dinner with me tomorrow?” Sid asked.

  “Ok,” Niki replied.

  He slid into his car and drove away.

  Niki changed and got into bed. The text came as she slid under the covers. “Until tomorrow, Niki” She did not reply. Tomorrow would come soon enough and she would have to face Sid with the confusion that reigned supreme in her mind. Sid had obviously already got under her skin and maybe she had got under his but that did not have to mean anything. They were both single and adults, after all. Determined not to let Sid invade her dreams, Niki shut her eyes and tried to think of the Wave project.

  It didn’t work.

  About the Author

  Jyoti Singh is a die-hard romantic. As a writer, she wears many hats but none that make her feel as fulfilled as writing about love and romance. She lost her husband, the love of her life, five years ago and documents the road to recovery in her blog http://vishyouwerehere.blogspot.in/

  She lives in Delhi with her two sons, strapping young men who pull on her heartstrings and are a testament to their father’s compassionate, loving and generous spirit.

  She loves to hear from her readers. You can follow and like her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/jyotisinghauthor

  Temptation in Paradise

  Jyoti Singh

  For Shekhar, I hope I make you proud

  Letter to the Reader

  Dear Reader,

  ‘Love Technology’ is a tribute to all those times I have spent romancing the night with a Mills & Boon. It was a long held aspiration to write one someday and my debut is the universe’s way of fulfilling my cherished dream. It has been an experience of a lifetime to write this book. Being full of firsts, it is really close to my heart.

  Sid and Niki have resided in my head for a while and it is hard to let them go. They now live on the page for you to welcome into your hearts and minds.

  I hope you enjoy reading Sid and Niki’s journey of love as much as I enjoyed writing it.

  With best wishes,

  Jyoti Singh

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Back Cover Text

  Excerpt

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Letter to the Reader

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  ‘I hate techies—they are all logic, no heart,’ Niki whispered into her mobile. An open-plan office was not intended for privacy and she didn’t want Purvi behind the paper-thin partition to hear what she said.

  It was a non-starter. Purvi stood up and leaned over. ‘Not true—most techies are no heart, no logic,’ she said loudly. She looked around for nods of agreement, with a smug air that said, See, I said something funny. Niki let it pass and continued her conversation with her sister.

  Tanya had made it her mission in life to set Niki up, especially after she had married her high school sweetheart. Niki was the only family she had after their parents had been killed in a tragic car crash when Niki had been only nineteen. Tanya felt responsible for her younger sister, but there was an emotional distance to Niki that bothered Tanya, as if she carried a weight she did not want to share. Not even with her own sister. Tanya did not want her to end up alone and bitter. Niki understood that Tanya came from a good place but this barrage of would-be suitors was beginning to get to her. There was always something not quite right.

  ‘Okay, this is the last time, I swear. I really don’t know where you find these people… Fine, seven-thirty at The Karma Lounge. Yes, I will dress appropriately… Bye!’ Niki quickly disconnected.

  The death of her parents had scarred Niki in more ways than one and, although Tanya and she shared the loss, it was Niki who had and continued to bear the trauma. They had been driving back home after completing the formalities of her admission at Engineering College. She had been arguing with her parents about her first time away from home and all the responsibility that came with the freedom. ‘I am not a child,’ Niki had said in a fit of pique. ‘I can look after myself.’ It had taken just three seconds of inattention from her father and they had missed seeing the truck coming at them from the wrong side of the road.

  It happened so quickly that Niki had no real recollection of what happened. She only remembered waking up in hospital and asking for her parents. It took Tanya two weeks to tell her that Niki was the only survivor. Her last words to her parents continued to haunt her: ‘I can look after myself.’ If she hadn’t been throwing a hissy fit her father would not have been distracted. If she could only take back that moment…

  Niki ran her hand across the long thin line that marked her left forearm, one of many that criss-crossed her body, constant reminders of how she was responsible for the death of her parents. The scars from the accident had faded into deep gashes on her soul. Over the years, counselling had blunted some of the pain but Niki always carried the guilt. It was a huge burden and one that made it difficult to really engage emotionally with anyone.

  She was startled out of her reverie by Purvi, who plopped into the chair across Niki’s desk and asked, ‘So, Karma Lounge, eh?’

  ‘Yes.’ Niki neatly collected the papers she was referring to and put them in a pile on the left of her desk. She continued to straighten other bric-a-brac, averting her gaze from Purvi’s questioning stare.

  ‘You aren’t going to fill me in, are you?’ Purvi persisted.

  ‘Not right now. Tomorrow? I really have to leave if I want to be there on time.’ Niki stood up and gathered her handbag and laptop. She could not get out unless Purvi moved. She looked impatiently at her watch and waited for Purvi to get the message.

  ‘Okay… but don’t think I’ll let you get away tomorrow. You will have to tell all to Purvi,’ she said and stood up. Niki hated it when Purvi referred to herself in the third person but smiled as she slid past her to weave through the labyrinth of the office to reach the elevators.

  She pressed the down button impatiently. If she were to go home to change and still make it on time, she needed to be on her way in fifteen minutes. She called the c
ab service and booked a taxi for a pick up at seven from her flat. The traffic at that time could be awful.

  Gurgaon, a satellite town of the capital Delhi, had grown from a hamlet to a megalopolis of glass and chrome buildings. Each oasis of concrete held hundreds of multinational businesses and within each were housed thousands of workers, like herself. Gurgaon’s charm lay in its teeming professionals who descended like bats at sunset after a full day’s work. The truth was the city’s growth had been organic, which really meant that modernity existed cheek by jowl with organised chaos. Luxurious residential complexes and malls filled the gaps that remained. Niki loved it. Using her favoured Royal Enfield 350cc motorcycle instead of a car meant she could weave through and beat the traffic on the worst days. However, on days like today, where it mattered how she looked when she arrived, she preferred to take a cab.

  The elevator doors opened just as she disconnected from the cab service. She saw her reflection in the mirror inside the elevator. She looked frazzled. It had been a long day at work and the heat of May did not help. The dry, hot weather meant that even the air conditioning was not as effective as it could be. Her blue linen shirt and the loose matching palazzos were equally rumpled. Niki adjusted her scarf to bring some semblance of order to her appearance. Her large brown eyes were shadowed by sleepless nights spent on her most recent project and her bow-shaped mouth was missing her usual coral lipstick. Ugh! She might even have to wash her thick shoulder-length hair… She needed more time.

  In the time spent inspecting herself, she had missed the man standing at the back of the elevator. She smiled politely and turned to face the door, adjusting the strap of her over-sized handbag on her shoulder. She noticed she was leaning a little to the left to balance the weight of her handbag with the laptop. The elevator started to move – up! She let out a sigh and pressed the button for the lobby. She looked at the man from the corner of her eye. He didn’t seem to care, as he peered into his smartphone.

  The elevator stopped; the doors opened to an empty foyer. Niki quickly pushed the lobby button again, followed by the close doors and crossed her fingers. The doors slid shut and she sighed again in relief. The elevator jerked slowly downward. Something wasn’t quite right when they reached the lobby. The doors stayed stubbornly shut. Niki pushed the button to open the doors but nothing happened. She turned to look at the man, a slow sense of panic rising within her.

  She gauged the man. He was well dressed, formal shirt with matching silk tie, expensive trousers and polished shoes. He was tall, definitely above six feet. Lean, with intense eyes behind light carbon frames. He had a five o’clock stubble but his hair was neat, a little long, curling slightly over his collar. Okay, so maybe he was a professional and not a pervert.

  Niki muttered under her breath, ‘Come on,’ as she toggled between the lobby and open door buttons.

  Sid was bemused by the woman burdened by two bags, sighing, pressing and talking to buttons in the lift. Maybe the heat could be blamed for people’s irritability and impatience but it seemed more like she had someplace to be. He had noticed how she had assessed herself in the mirror. That was not an end of day once-over; it was more a Gosh! How am I going to fix myself in the time I have? It was just the kind of thing that he would notice. She did not need much work, though. Sid liked what he saw. The tall, albeit tilted lithe body. Visibly stacked too, with discernible curves in all the right places, despite the loose linen clothes. Her unblemished face had a summer glow but it was her eyes that caught his attention. Large and warm with just a hint of underlying emotion. As he watched her continue to sigh and toggle the buttons, he shook his head and said, ‘Pressing the buttons again and again is not going to help.’

  Niki was startled as the deep timbre of the man’s voice resonated in the chamber of the elevator. He spoke as though to a recalcitrant child, with a calm, even yet authoritative tone.

  ‘You have a better idea?’ she replied snarkily.

  ‘Try this.’ He straightened and reached over her shoulder for the alarm button. Suddenly, the elevator chamber shrank. The faint smell of aftershave wafted up her nostrils as he moved into her proximity. She knew that fragrance… Bulgari. Niki stepped back to give him space but instead stepped on his toe with her heel and stumbled. He yelped in pain but put out his arms to steady her. Niki felt a frisson up her spine and made an ungainly attempt to move out of the stranger’s embrace. The heavy bags did not help and soon there was a tumble of bodies, bags, glasses and smartphones flying around the elevator floor. Niki was mortified when the dust settled and she found herself sitting on the man’s lap, her scarf on his face, holding his tie for support. He seemed unfazed but she could not see his expression because of her scarf. His body started shaking before the slow rumble of laughter filled the enclosed space. Niki moved the scarf from his face and saw two twinkling eyes and a beautiful set of teeth as he laughed harder. His laughter was infectious and Niki could not stop herself from joining in. She had no idea how long they sat there laughing together, until better sense prevailed.

  ‘I am so, so sorry,’ Niki said as she regained her composure. It took them several clumsy attempts to untangle themselves. The man stood up first and held out his hand for Niki to raise herself. The laughter had not quite ebbed and they smiled warmly at each other.

  ‘It’s no problem,’ the man said. ‘After all, it’s not every day a beautiful woman falls into your lap.’

  Niki blushed furiously as the man loosened, then removed his tie and put it in his trouser pocket. She had crushed it completely with her stranglehold. Niki was mesmerised by the grace of his deft movements and cleared her throat to say, ‘You must allow me to replace that.’

  ‘It has been said that man is the only animal who willingly wears a noose every morning. There’s no need. I have many more where this came from,’ the man replied.

  Their eyes met and Niki found herself reliving the unintentional full body contact. She felt compelled to fill the void of conversation. ‘Again, I apologise.’ Her voice sounded breathless. She was aware of the man in a way that made her uncomfortable.

  ‘Again, it’s no problem.’ The man’s eyes glinted with mischief, his half smile drawing Niki’s gaze to his mouth. What had come over her? She was ogling a stranger in an elevator! She quickly averted her eyes.

  The intercom crackled, ‘Yes, sir, how can I help you?’

  Even though she had been saved by the disembodied voice, Niki felt a surge of feminist rage and muttered, ‘Finally! And it has to be “sir”… like it can never be a madam stuck in the elevator.’

  ‘He’s only saying what he’s been trained to say,’ the man said to Niki, his authoritative tone returning. He then responded to the voice with, ‘The lift is at the lobby but the doors are not opening. Please send an engineer immediately.’

  The atmosphere in the elevator became thick and awkward. Niki did not quite know how to follow up the familiarity of just a few moments ago. She need not have worried.

  ‘So, you work here?’ the man asked, as they stood side by side facing the door. Niki’s bags were still on the floor. There did not seem to be much point in carrying them while they waited.

  ‘Yes, at Knowledge Networks on the sixth floor,’ she replied.

  ‘So what do you do?’ he continued.

  ‘I head a team of analysts providing knowledge management solutions to different organisations,’ she replied. ‘What about you?’

  ‘Oh, a little bit of this and little bit of that,’ he dismissed her query summarily.

  ‘I meant do you work in this building too?’ Niki asked, thinking about how weird it would be to run into him again, especially after what had just happened.

  ‘In a way,’ he replied mysteriously.

  ‘What is that supposed to mean?’ Niki couldn’t help asking. It meant that a chance encounter was on the table.

  ‘It is need based.’ The man’s reply was cryptic.

  Okay, so he was not very forthcoming and she had volunt
eered information readily. Men were such complicated creatures, she thought. Niki fidgeted with her scarf in an effort to distract herself. She caught a glimpse of her watch and squealed, ‘Oh, my God! Is that really the time?’ Her fifteen minutes head start was gone. She would have to race. Niki’s mind was clicking away—it would take at least twenty minutes after they escaped from the elevator, which did not leave enough time for grooming. She went through her wardrobe in her mind, mentally picking options. Tanya was a stickler for punctuality. Boy! Would she be mad if Niki was not there on time! She tapped her feet in frustration.

  ‘Relax, it is only six-fifteen and we should be out of here soon,’ the man said, peeking at his watch, an old but well maintained early edition model of a leading brand that looked like a hand-me-down. This man is strange, Niki thought to herself. All spit and polish and then the watch…

  Sid was wondering what was making the woman so antsy. Did she have to meet her boyfriend or could it be a husband? Hmm, he hadn’t thought of that. Something in her manner told him she was not married, especially the way in which she had looked at him after falling into his lap. So, a boyfriend. ‘You could call and let whoever is waiting know that you are running late,’ he said with a strange curiosity to know who she would call.

  ‘Not until I am out of here,’ Niki replied. She could imagine Tanya panicking and bringing in the cavalry. All hell would break loose. Better to wait and see if this really was a problem in which she needed to involve Tanya.

  The elevator gods must have quailed at the thought of Tanya because there was some noise and tugging and the doors slid open seamlessly, as if there never had been a problem. An inquisitive crowd had gathered in the lobby to see how the engineers would rescue the poor stranded souls in the elevator, even as others waited impatiently to go up to some floor or other in the building.

  The man got to Niki’s bags before her, saying, ‘Let me…’ He then waited for her to disembark before stepping from the elevator himself. They thanked the engineer in unison and both looked at their watches. Six-thirty p.m. They walked out of the building together.