Twelve Hours of Temptation

by Shoma Narayanan

  The doubts crept back that night as she watched Samir sleep, his head pillowed on one arm, while the other was casually flung across her. She’d let him talk her into staying, but she wasn’t at all sure that their relationship would last. Great sex was all very well, but they couldn’t spend all their waking hours in bed. Other problems were waiting to happen.

  She hadn’t brought up their different religions because that was something that would matter only if they planned to get married. It bothered her, though. Samir was borderline atheist, and though she wasn’t exceptionally devout herself, she was a believer. Also, he’d been raised Hindu, which meant his family mightn’t take kindly to his marrying a Christian.

  Samir stirred slightly in his sleep, his arm tightening possessively around her, and Melissa bent down and pressed a kiss onto his perfectly sculpted lips. Some things about him were perfect, even apart from his startling good looks and prowess in bed, and that was what made the decision so difficult.

  In spite of her carefully guarded independence she’d come to depend on his quiet strength—she knew he’d never let her down if she needed him. And he had an irreverent streak in him that perfectly matched her own rather wacky sense of humour, and he always managed to tease her out of a bad mood. He was honest and straightforward, and a genuinely good person, and at the same time he was sizzling hot and pretty near irresistible to women. She would have had to have superwoman powers to stop herself from falling in love with him.

  * * *

  The breaking point came a few days later, when she figured out that Samir expected her to accompany him to a party that the Maximus top brass were holding on Friday.

  ‘But I’m working,’ she said. ‘You said it yourself—it’s a new job, and I can’t take things easy.’

  ‘Mel, the party starts at eight,’ Samir said. ‘Surely you’ll be done by then?’

  ‘I’ll be done with my office work,’ she said. ‘But there’s that short story Maya asked me to do for a magazine—that’s due by Saturday morning.’

  ‘Finish it today, then,’ Samir said impatiently. ‘How long is it supposed to be? One thousand words?’

  ‘A little more than that,’ Melissa said, and hesitated. ‘I’ve actually finished it already. I just need a quiet evening to polish it up a little.’

  Maya had lined up a book contract for her that would go through if the publisher liked the story, and she was on tenterhooks. She hadn’t told Samir, though, instinctively feeling that he wouldn’t understand. Or, worse, wouldn’t think it important enough.

  ‘Can’t you do that between today and tomorrow?’

  ‘It’s...um...difficult to work when you’re around,’ she said.

  The first two times she’d tried to sit down to write he’d cajoled her into bed. After that she’d scheduled her writing for when he wasn’t at home.

  ‘I won’t disturb you,’ Samir said tightly. ‘Get the work done and keep Friday free.’

  Melissa stared at him, feeling very torn. The party evidently mattered to Samir, and though she didn’t want to attend it in the least she’d have gone if not for the short story. The solution he was suggesting didn’t work for her. She wanted to let the story be for two days and then come back to it on Friday. Right now she was finding it difficult to be objective—she might ruin it completely by over-editing it.

  Samir picked up on her hesitation and said quietly, ‘Right, I guess that means it’s a no, then. All the best with your story.’

  ‘You haven’t even asked to read it,’ she blurted out.

  ‘This is the first time you’ve mentioned it since you told me that you’d been asked to write it,’ Samir said. ‘If you want me to read it I’m more than happy to.’

  Melissa didn’t say anything, and Samir went out of the room before he could say anything he’d later regret. He’d come to respect Melissa’s individuality, but today’s behaviour seemed plain selfish by any standards.

  His lips curved up in a mirthless grin. Most of his earlier girlfriends would have jumped at the opportunity to be seen with him in public. Melissa, however, seemed to see it as an imposition.

  It was on impulse that he picked up his phone and dialled a number that he hadn’t accessed for a while now.

  * * *

  After a largely silent dinner, Melissa said quietly, ‘I’ll come with you.’ She’d thought the whole thing over, and decided that she was being rather immature. Unless she explained to Samir why her writing was so important to her she couldn’t expect him to understand—he wasn’t clairvoyant. And if the party was important, she owed it to him to go. Whether she enjoyed it or not, he was providing her with a lifestyle that was light-years beyond her means, and so far she’d done very little to show her appreciation.

  Samir looked up. He was already regretting the hasty phone call he’d made, but what was done couldn’t be undone. And maybe it would help bring Melissa to her senses.

  The brusqueness of his tone as he replied was a measure of how uncomfortable he was with the situation, but Melissa didn’t know him well enough to realise it. ‘It’s all right. I don’t need you to come,’ was what he said.

  ‘But I want to,’ Melissa said, hoping her nose wouldn’t grow longer. As whoppers went, that was the biggest one to come out of her mouth in a while. ‘I’ve figured out how to manage the work thing.’

  ‘I wish you’d told me earlier,’ Samir said. ‘The thing is, it’s kind of mandatory to bring a partner along, and once you said no I had to invite someone else. My secretary’s already put her name down on the invitee list.’

  He knew Melissa would assume it was an ex-girlfriend he’d invited, and in a sense it was true. Rita and he had dated for a while, but then she’d met Vikas Kulkarni and fallen head over heels for him. Their marriage had broken up recently, and as in most divorces friends had been forced to take sides. He’d been slotted into the Vikas camp. Privately, he thought that Rita and Vikas would get back together, and part of the reason he’d asked her to the party was so he’d get an opportunity to talk some sense into her.

  Melissa’s eyes were wide with disbelief, but her voice was as light as any practised socialite’s when she said, ‘Oh, OK. I assume you didn’t find it too difficult to find a replacement, then?’ Only a slight quiver in her lips betrayed how upset she was.

  For a few seconds Samir was tempted to call Rita and tell her the party was off. She’d understand, and it would get rid of the betrayed look in Melissa’s big brown eyes. Then suddenly anger kicked in. She had no business looking at him like a wounded deer, given that it was her unreasonableness that had landed them in this situation in the first place.

  ‘No, it wasn’t difficult at all,’ he said, and his voice was as cold as ice. ‘Replacements are always available.’ It was probably his evil genius that prompted him to add, ‘Maybe that’s something you should keep in mind.’

  There was a long pause, and then Melissa said quietly, ‘I’ve been thinking about it for a while, actually.’

  For a few moments she thought Samir would melt and take her into his arms, and she could go back to pretending that everything was great. But he didn’t say anything and he didn’t move towards her.

  Quite suddenly she couldn’t take it any more. Getting to her feet, she said, ‘I’d better go and get writing. See you around.’

  TEN

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ The matron didn’t look sorry in the least. ‘You told us you were moving out for good. Your room was allotted to someone else the very next day. And the waiting list has some twenty names in it—it’ll be at least a year before you can get a room again.’

  Melissa put her name down anyway, but her shoulders slumped as she walked out. The working women’s hostel wasn’t ideal, but it was cheap, clean and safe, and it had been her home for two years. The other options were significantly less appealing�
�either she could find someone who took in paying guests, or she could move to the suburbs, where rents were lower. Leaving Samir’s flat had been an impulse decision—she hadn’t really thought out where she would go. Right now she was occupying the spare room in Liz and Brian’s flat, but she couldn’t stay there indefinitely.

  As she was leaving the hostel one of the girls she knew slightly caught up with her. ‘No luck with Matron?’ she asked sympathetically.

  Melissa shook her head. ‘She’s got a waiting list as long as her arm.’

  ‘One of my friends has found a place, and she’s looking for someone to share it with her,’ the girl said. ‘Do you want to check it out? You’d get along well, I think.’

  It was one of those things that clicked immediately. The studio flat was tiny, but new and clean, and there was a direct bus from right in front of the building to Melissa’s office. And Rohini, the girl she would be sharing the flat with, was plump and cheerful, with a wacky sense of humour.

  ‘I was supposed to be sharing this place with my boyfriend,’ Rohini confided as she locked the flat door behind her. ‘Then he decided to go back to his wife—which was a bit of a surprise, seeing as I didn’t know he was married in the first place. And there I was, stuck with a lease that had only my name on it and a rent I couldn’t afford. How about you? Any ex-boyfriends or stalkers I should know about?’

  Melissa shook her head, smiling slightly. ‘Couple of ex-boyfriends, but they’re not likely to bother you. One of them isn’t even in the country.’

  Rohini put her head to one side, looking a lot like an inquisitive bird. ‘And the other one?’

  The other one. For a second, the memory of Samir’s tense, angry face swam in front of her eyes and she felt a physical pain in the region of her heart.

  ‘The other one wasn’t important,’ she said, smiling slightly at Rohini. ‘So, when can I move in?’

  ‘Today, if you like,’ Rohini said. ‘Or tomorrow. You decide. The quicker you start paying your share of the rent the better, as far as I’m concerned.’

  And the quicker Melissa moved out of Liz and Brian’s flat the better. They’d been wonderful, but she couldn’t impose on them any longer.

  Liz was a little tearful when she moved out, but Brian looked relieved—he’d missed his peaceful routine and having Liz’s full attention.

  Between her job and her writing, Melissa managed to stay so busy that she hardly had time to think. The nights were toughest, and she lay awake for hours while Rohini slept like a baby. In the mornings she pretended that she’d had a proper night’s sleep, but she had a feeling she wasn’t fooling Rohini one bit. The thought that she’d made a colossal mistake was eating away at her, and it took all her will-power not to answer Samir’s calls or try to contact him herself.

  It still hurt when she thought back to the morning she’d left Samir. She’d waited in the bathroom the morning after their row until she’d heard the front door shut behind him. Then she’d scrubbed her face, come out of the bathroom, and made several valiant attempts to write him a note.

  An hour later she’d been out of tissues, and had had nothing to show for it other than a few torn up sheets of paper. So much for her skills as a copywriter, she’d thought wryly. Perhaps she should tell Maya Kumar that she’d been hired on false pretences. Giving up on the note, she’d put all her things into the two suitcases she’d brought with her and, carefully pulling the door shut behind her, she’d taken a cab to Liz and Brian’s apartment.

  On the surface, there had been no real reason to leave—when Liz had asked her what had happened, she’d just told her that things weren’t working out rather than explain that she’d refused to go to a party with him, and he’d taken someone else. End of story. And, of course, he’d told her that replacements were easy to find—probably true, given that it had hardly taken him ten minutes to find another companion. But that had been all. Any other woman would have laughed it off and done her best to charm him back into a good mood.

  It was the depth of hurt she’d felt that had surprised her. If she’d felt that bad about him going to a simple party without her, she’d have been devastated if he’d actually left her for someone else. And the way things had been going it had become very likely he’d leave her—sooner if not later. Leaving of her own accord had seemed to be the only option.

  It was only after she’d moved out that doubt began to gnaw at her. Pride had kept her from answering his calls or calling him herself, but she couldn’t help wondering if she’d completely misjudged the situation. Maybe he’d been upset with her because he cared? But if he cared he wouldn’t have given up so easily—he’d have come after her, not just dialled her number a few times.

  ‘You OK?’

  Rohini was standing just behind her and looking so ludicrously concerned that Melissa had to laugh.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she said, though it was an effort plastering a cheerful smile on her face. ‘Let’s go—we’ll miss the movie otherwise.’

  It was a mercy Rohini was such good company without being inquisitive, Melissa thought later, as she struggled to follow the plot of the movie. It would have been torture getting through the past couple of weeks without her.

  For an instant she thought she saw a glimpse of Samir in the audience, and her heart-rate tripled. Then the man turned, and she realised she’d been tricked by a chance resemblance.

  * * *

  ‘Brian, I just need to know where she lives now.’

  ‘Maybe if you ask her...?’ Brian said, peering up at Samir hopefully.

  Samir shook his head in exasperation. ‘She refuses to answer my calls,’ he said. ‘It’s been three weeks.’

  Brian shook his head. ‘If she’s not taking your calls, I can’t tell you, can I? And when I was your age, if my girlfriend had walked out on me I wouldn’t have waited three weeks before trying to figure out where she was.’

  Samir passed a hand over his face. ‘I had to go to Delhi,’ he said briefly. ‘My father wasn’t well.’

  His father had suffered a mild heart attack the day after Melissa left, and Samir had had to leave for Delhi at about an hour’s notice. Even now his mother had agreed to his returning to Mumbai only because his younger brother had come over from the US to be with his parents.

  The past few weeks had been tough—while the heart attack itself hadn’t been serious, the doctors had discovered a lot of other health issues, and his father had been hospitalised for over a week. Keeping his distraught mother calm had been an uphill task, and all the while he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Melissa.

  For the first few days he’d tried calling her almost every day, and messaging her when she didn’t take his calls. He hadn’t mentioned his dad’s illness because that would have been playing a sympathy card. She’d replied to his texts, saying briefly that she was sorry she’d walked out without telling him but she’d made up her mind—she wasn’t coming back.

  ‘I can pass on a message or a letter if you’d like,’ Brian offered.

  Samir shook his head. ‘No, I’ll figure it out. Thanks anyway, Brian.’

  ‘Did you read the story Melissa wrote for that magazine?’

  Samir nodded. He’d picked up a copy of the magazine when his father had been in the hospital. It was very simply written and incredibly moving without being in the least soppy—about a young girl who’d lost her mother when she was ten, and then spent the next seven years of her life searching for her in other people. Her laugh, the curve of her neck, the fall of her hair... Then finally, when she was seventeen, she’d looked into the mirror and found her mother staring back at her. Not normally a very sensitive person, Samir had found his eyes had been damp by the time he’d finished reading it.

  ‘It was brilliant,’ he said. ‘She’s got real talent.’

  He sat with the older man for a
while, talking about advertising and the recent changes at Mendonca’s.

  It was when he was getting up to leave that Brian cleared his throat and said, ‘She thinks you don’t care about her.’

  Samir stared down at him in surprise, and Brian continued hurriedly.

  ‘She didn’t say anything to me—I couldn’t help overhearing when she was speaking to Liz. She said that it made more sense to leave of her own accord before you threw her out.’ At Samir’s thunderous expression, Brian said, ‘Well, that’s what she said. I was pretty sure she was barking up the wrong tree, but I don’t like interfering in these things.’

  * * *

  Before he threw her out. Why would she think he’d do anything of the sort?

  Samir’s hands clenched into fists as he left Brian’s flat. Clearly he’d made an even bigger hash of things than he’d thought he had. He thought back to what he’d said the night before Melissa left. He’d made that ill-advised crack about replacements, but he didn’t think just that would have made her think she needed to leave. And he’d fully intended to apologise, but when he’d got back home from work the next day she was gone.

  He’d had to leave for Delhi almost immediately afterwards, and it had only been after several attempts to contact Melissa that he’d admitted to himself how much he cared about her. It had taken another week for him to realise that she’d carved her way into his heart—if this wasn’t love, he didn’t know what was. He thought about her practically every minute of the day, and her absence was like a physical ache.

  And when he’d come home the house had seemed so empty without her that he’d had a second’s mad impulse to go and find her and not come back until she agreed to come home with him.

  It had been stupid, not telling Melissa that he loved her and wanted to marry her, but he hadn’t known it himself. Thinking back, the only conclusion he could come to was that he’d been appallingly selfish. He’d known from the day he’d met Melissa that she was special, but he hadn’t ever let her know. Instead, he’d bided his time, trying to figure out if their relationship would work, throwing her into one situation after another to see if she’d fit into his social circle.