Sanjay sighed and diligently continued his efforts to break and enter. “A, because it annoys you, and I simply live to annoy you,” he commented, grinning when he heard the first tumbler of the lock click. “And B,” he began, clenching his teeth while he worked his magic, “because it rhymes with dick. Yes!” he crowed when the last tumbler fell into place. “I’ve still got it!”
Victoria had gone deaf after the word “dick.” “Excuse me?” She noticed that he was standing and holding one of the doors open for her, but she didn’t move. Her rigid posture and steely gaze demanded an explanation.
Sanjay only smiled at her. “Do you really think that now is an opportune time to argue the merits of a nickname—”
“Merits? You actually think—”
“As I was going to say,” he interrupted her smoothly, “I, for one, am not willing to risk getting caught and going to jail over something so trivial. Either you walk yourself into this office right now so we can find those computers, or I relock these doors and go home.”
“Now just a mi—”
“I mean it, Victoria,” he said, uncharacteristically impatient. “Get your pretty little ass in the office.”
Lips tight and eyes narrowed in anger, Victoria marched stiffly past him and into the office. “This conversation is far from over,” she warned him as she made her way around the secretary’s desk.
To the left of the desk was the security chief’s office, and to the right was a hall that held several small offices. They headed left, each one opening doors as they went. “Jackpot,” Sanjay called, causing Victoria to rush forward.
The room held several computers and monitors, all running and all showcasing recordings from different parts of the compound. “There,” Victoria said, pointing to their right, “there are the screens with the feed from my lab.” She walked over to see, but as they were gone, there was nothing being shown but an empty room.
“Here,” Sanjay said, taking her shoulders and moving her aside so he could sit down. “Let me get to work.”
Victoria watched as his fingers flew over the keys, not pausing once. And suddenly, there they were on-screen—live and in Technicolor. Mortified to the core, she groaned and covered her eyes.
Not so Sanjay. He eagerly watched the goings-on on the screen. He saw his celluloid self bury his head between Victoria’s silky brown thighs and then watched her wrap her legs around his neck and push into his face. “Yeah! Now that’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout,” he muttered lasciviously.
Victoria only groaned louder and pressed her hands harder over her eyes. “Just get rid of the images, will you? I want to get out of here!”
Sanjay’s focus was entirely elsewhere. “That’s right, baby girl,” he murmured as he watched her squirm and grind against his face. “Give it to me.”
“Sanjay!” Victoria protested.
She got nothing but the sound of heavy panting, and then, “Who’s your daddy, baby girl? Who… Is… Your… Daddy?”
Victoria punched him on the shoulder, making him jump and blink up at her. “Sanjay! Will you please focus on the job we came in here to do?”
He blinked a few more times before his eyes came back into focus. “Yeah, all right, all right. But you have to admit that we’re hot. I shouldn’t brag, but this is on par with something you’d see in a first-rate porn movie. You might even say that it’s better than porn,” he told her.
Was he serious? Victoria looked at him to be sure, saw dazed eyes and a goofy smile. She sighed, silently confirming what she’d always thought: the male mind, no matter what its age, was permanently stuck on juvenile.
Sanjay began opening and closing drawers. “Seriously, babe, we look like real professionals.”
“Yes, well, what can you expect when we so obviously enjoyed the work?” she said with mild sarcasm. “What are you looking for?”
“Blank DVDs, of course. I want copies of this.”
Appalled, she gaped at him. “You’re not serious.”
He looked at her silently for a few seconds, as if he were looking at an alien species that didn’t quite understand his language. Slowly, he said, “I’m a man. Of course I’m serious.”
Victoria reached over and slammed the drawer shut.
“Ow, hey!” Sanjay objected, pulling his hand out just in time to save his fingertips.
“You are not making copies, Sanjay. That’s disgusting.”
“I am making copies, Vick. That’s normal.”
Desperate, because she could see that he really meant what he said, Victoria decided to do something she’d always sworn to herself that she’d never do. Desperate times call for desperate measures, she told her conscience when it objected. “Shut up,” she commanded it in a furious whisper before leaning back against the desk where Sanjay was sitting.
“You know, San,” she began in a low, sultry voice. “You don’t really need a copy of our little escapade, as sexy as it is.”
On alert now, Sanjay turned his head to look at her. “I don’t?”
Victoria chuckled low in her throat and bent to lick his lips. “Why would you,” she whispered in his ear and felt him shiver, “when you can have the real thing?”
“I can, huh? Are you saying that you want a relationship?” he asked as he massaged her hip, his long fingers making slow oscillations.
It was Victoria’s turn to shiver. Her fingers were in his hair, and she bent her head to find his mouth with hers. Seduced by his nearness, she slipped her tongue into his mouth, taking her time getting her fill. She answered his question between softly panting breaths. “I am saying that. Before you came tonight, I’d been thinking about getting in touch with you,” she said and, unable to stop herself, began pressing kisses to his face and neck.
Her last comment seemed enough to make him take hold of her arms, pull her back, and look her in the eyes. Apparently satisfied that she was serious, he released her and turned back to the computers. “All right, then. Let’s finish what we started.”
The commitment she’d just made and lingering lust made Victoria unsteady on her feet, and she turned away from him to find a chair.
“Victoria,” Sanjay said without taking his eyes off what he was doing, “It was okay, because I liked it, but I want you to know I knew exactly what you were doing just now.”
Already unsure if she’d made the right decision, Victoria sat down heavily in a chair. “That makes one of us,” she murmured.
Chapter Seven
Sanjay took his last load of clothes out of the dryer and walking from his service porch into the house, wandered through the kitchen and into the living room, where he dumped the pile on his sofa. The clothes were supposed to be white but instead were a lovely little-girl Easter-dress shade of lilac. “Shit,” he mumbled but then shrugged philosophically and, whistling happily, started folding.
“Well, what do you know?” Bhavani Banerjee drawled. “My big brother’s a metrosexual,” she finished with a smirk as she stared at the clothes.
Sanjay ignored the comment as he looked for socks that matched. “So, to what do I owe this unexpected visit, Vonnie? Is everything all right?”
“Yes, everything’s fine,” Bhavani assured him as she stood and paced, her long legs eating up the circumference of his small living room in no time. She walked over to the mantle above the dormant marble fireplace. She picked up a frame that held a fifteen-year-old photo of him, their parents, and her and smiled. Sanjay and she both took after their dad in height, but she had her mom’s more delicate frame. “Nothing’s wrong,” she said as she replaced the photo, “but I did want to stop by and see the man who stood me up for dinner and a movie last night.” She turned back around to look at him. “What gives, big brother?”
“I didn’t stand you up, Vonnie,” he told her with a sigh as he realized that the mate to an athletic sock had mysteriously disappeared. “I called and told you that I wouldn’t be able to make it.”
Bhavani studied her brother, the family g
enius. Even with mussed hair and dressed in baggy shorts, a ragged T-shirt, and wearing tortoiseshell glasses, he didn’t look like a nerdy intellectual. He was just too good-looking, or as every friend she’d had since the age of twelve described him, a hot babe. Babe or not, he had one of the sharpest brains in the town—and in a town like Bay Side, California, that was saying quite a lot.
The town had more than its share of research and development arms, including those for computer hardware manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, engineering firms… The list went on and on. And a man with Sanjay’s brain could walk into any one of those companies and obtain a job in no time.
“So, what’s up with you, Jay? What was so important that you had to cancel on me last night?”
“I had business to see to.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Bhavani said knowingly. “I take it this business was a woman. Who is she? Do I know her?”
“I don’t want to talk about it; not yet. Let’s talk about you. How are things going? You tell Mom and Dad yet?”
Bhavani fell into a deep chair opposite him. “No, I haven’t yet, and you know it.”
“I know it’s hard, Vonnie, but you need to tell them and tell them soon. You’re twenty-eight, and you know what that means to them.”
Bhavani rolled her eyes. “It’s impossible, Jay! I can just see myself now, ‘Mom, Dad, I, your daughter, the one you raised lovingly and respectably in Bengali and Hindu traditions, am a raging, flaming lesbian. Yes, I know you expected me to marry someone by now and someone of your choosing. And of course I know that he would have been a respectable Hindu boy, preferably with family roots in West Bengal or Bangladesh, but as long as his family is from somewhere in India, you would not have minded. Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you and make you give up all your hopes and dreams for me, but Mommy, Daddy, I like girls—a lot, so much so that I let one move in with me.’”
Despite the serious subject matter, Sanjay grinned. She was right; their parents would see things exactly that way. They’d think she was ruining her life and theirs. “Don’t forget the part about grandchildren.”
“Please! I don’t even want to think about that! Well, at least you can help me there. You’ll continue the line for them.” She moaned and covered her face. “God, Jay, they’re going to totally disown me!”
But Sanjay was no longer listening. He would continue the line, yes, but he wanted to continue the line with Victoria, and he knew that his parents would not like that at all. She wasn’t Indian, and he could be totally wrong, but he highly doubted that she practiced Hinduism.
“What’s the matter, Jay?” Bhavani asked, studying his pensive frown. “Is it what I said about you carrying on the Banerjee line? ’Cause if it is, you gotta know that I was joking. Well…I actually wasn’t, but if it bothers you, I won’t bring it up—”
Sanjay cut her off with a wave of his hand. “Don’t worry about it, Vonnie. It isn’t that, not precisely, anyway.”
“Then what is it? Precisely?”
Sanjay sighed. He and his sister were two years apart and had been close all their lives. He felt that he could tell her just about anything, and he knew she felt the same way about him. “You were right earlier. I did cancel on you last night because of a woman.”
“I knew it,” Bhavani said with an arrogant toss of her long black curly hair. She grinned, and a dimple peeked out from one cheek while her black eyes sparkled mischievously. “I’m never wrong about these things. Again, who is she, and do I know her?”
“Her name is Dr. Victoria Howell, and I don’t know—do you know her?”
“The name’s not familiar, no. And it doesn’t sound Indian either,” she said slowly. “I don’t suppose she’s at least Indian-American or, better yet, Bengali-American?”
Sanjay hid a grin at the faintly hopeful note in her voice and shook his head as he continued to fold his clothes. “Nope, ’fraid not.”
Bhavani flopped back in the chair. “Shit, Jay; not you too! I don’t know how Mom and Dad will ever recover.” She covered her face with her hands and spoke through them. “It took me several years to convince them that I’m not going to be a burden because I became a paralegal instead of going into one of the science fields, but I did it. But this…this is going to kill them. Both of their children involved with people who are neither Indian nor Hindu, and throw in that lovely little curve about mine being a girl, and well, jeez, Jay, we’ve just about got ourselves a perfect storm!”
Sanjay frowned. Unfortunately, his sister was not exaggerating. Despite having lived in America for thirty-five years and having birthed both of their children here, his parents were traditional Bengali in both thought and deed.
“What are we going to do, Jay?” Bhavani wailed.
“Tell them the truth and deal with the fallout,” Sanjay told her. He looked at the last item in his basket. “Ah, so you’re the culprit,” he muttered and picked up a pair of now bleach-streaked purple boxers, which had been a gift from an ex-girlfriend.
“I don’t understand how you can be so calm.”
“I have to be,” he explained. “Mom and Dad will be upset enough for all of us; somebody has to keep a cool head. And besides, I want this relationship, so there’s no point in getting upset when I’m going to do what I want to do anyway.”
“Are you so willing that you’ll introduce your new girlfriend to Mom and Dad when they come in for Maha Shivaratri in a couple of weeks?” she challenged with a lifted brow.
Sanjay winced at the mention of the holiday that was celebrated in honor of Lord Shiva, one of three Hindu gods that form the Trimurti. “No, not this trip,” he said. “Even though there will be time because the holiday falls on Monday, and they’ll be here that Friday. I don’t think I’ll be inviting the doc over. It’s too soon in the relationship, and she’s already gun-shy.”
“Really? What’s her freaking problem? Is she an idiot?”
Sanjay sighed. Vonnie had always been protective of him and became offended at even the thought of someone slighting or insulting him. “She doesn’t have a problem, Vonnie, so don’t go starting anything.”
“I’m just saying—”
“Vonnie.”
“All right, fine. If you say she doesn’t have a problem, then I believe you. Is she the reason you ditched me last night?”
“I didn’t ditch you, but yes, like I already told you, she’s the reason I canceled dinner with you. I needed to talk to her about a few things.”
“How long have you been seeing her?”
“We, uh, went out a few months ago, and she decided that she wasn’t ready for a relationship. I was going through my own thing at the time—you know, with my prototype—so I let things go…sort of. Anyway, I want her to work with me, and I want a relationship with her, so I went to see her.”
“Right,” Bhavani said with a nod. “Plus, Mom called you, didn’t she?”
“Uh, yeah. Guess she told you, huh?”
“Yep. She told me that there’s a potential wife for you in Bengal. She thought it would be nice if the whole family took a trip there for a vacation. After all, ‘it’s the perfect time of year for it.’”
Sanjay chuckled at her perfect imitation of their mother. “I have one thing to say to that: her call got me off my ass and over to see the doc. I wanted to see if I’d imagined how great it was all those months ago. I hadn’t.”
“And her?”
“She hadn’t imagined it either, but she still took a little convincing.”
“I don’t get it,” Bhavani complained. “Why? You’re a great guy, so I ask you again, what’s her problem?”
Sanjay shook his head. “Not everyone thinks I’m as great as you do, Vonnie, and I don’t think that I’m the reason she’s hesitating. I’ll find that out soon, though,” he said and playfully tossed a balled-up pair of socks at her.
Bhavani smiled as she tossed the socks back to him. “So, I assume you have a date with the fair lady.”
“You bet
,” Sanjay said and bounced on his toes to toss the socks in the basket as if he were playing on a basketball court. “I invited her to dinner here tomorrow night.”
“Really, and she deigned to come, huh?”
Sanjay rolled his eyes. “Jesus, Vonnie, will you stop being so stubborn about this? Not everyone is crazy about me. I know you love me, and I appreciate your pride in me, but let’s change the subject, shall we?”
“All right, then. I heard about what was supposed to have been your deposition yesterday. What the hell, Jay? You just walked out?”
Sanjay shrugged. “I was there of my own accord. I didn’t have to be.”
Bhavani shook her head. “You’ve left yourself open to penalties, you know. Why are you drawing this out, dude?”
“Because I can, and they screwed with me, the greedy bastards. They accused me of stealing my own product. They’ve tried to ruin my reputation and the respect I’ve always had from colleagues.”
“So why not just end it, then? Stop jerking around and let it go.”
“Why should I? It’s been four months, and fallout has already been maximized. I don’t think it can get any worse for me, but I can drag this out for them.”
“But why? What good would it accomplish?”
He shrugged again. “Good-schmood; I just want to be a pain in their asses for a little while.”
Bhavani laughed. “Well, Carol—the paralegal who was there—did say that their reactions to your just walking out were hilarious.”
Sanjay frowned as he thought about it. He’d forgotten that he’d walked out. He’d been in a hurry to get to Victoria. He’d been unsuccessful, which was when he’d come up with his plan for seeing her later that night. “Hilarity wasn’t my intent. I had other things on my mind.”
“Well, she also said that they were pissed. One of the lawyers called you ‘a haughty braniac bastard.’”
After the Morning After Page 5
