Wild Jasmine

by Yvonne Whittal

  Sarika lay back on the recliner and closed her eyes. It was good to feel the heat of the sun against her skin, and she actually dozed until some hidden alarm warned her that she was no longer alone. Her long, silky lashes lifted to reveal wary tawny eyes, and her heart leapt into her throat at the sight of Sean O'Connor standing beside the recliner. His dark, furious gaze raked her from head to foot as she sat up abruptly, and she had a horrible feeling that her bikini had suddenly shrunk to half its size. What the devil was he doing at home so early in the afternoon?

  'Ayah has enough to do without having to nurse you if you have been foolish enough to roast yourself to a cinder,' his harsh voice lashed her, and her towelling robe was flung at her unceremoniously. 'Put that on, and get out of the sun.'

  He turned on his heel and strode away, leaving Sarika to stare after him in a somewhat stunned silence until he had disappeared into the house. It was only than that her anger erupted. Who did he think he was to speak to her like that? How dared he treat her like an irresponsible child?

  She put on her robe, and as she did so she felt a slight stinging sensation at her bare midriff where the towelling material brushed against her skin. She looked down, and her eyes widened at the pinkness she saw there. Sean was right, damn him! She had almost roasted herself!

  Sarika entered the house with some trepidation, but Sean O'Connor was nowhere in sight as she went upstairs to her room to shower and change into something cool. It was not that Sean had returned home earlier than usual, she realised. It was she who had lingered beside the pool much longer than she had imagined. She had an hour to get herself ready for dinner, but she dreaded the thought of sitting down at the same table with Sean. Perhaps she could plead a headache and have a tray sent up to her room. No! Ayah would worry and think she was ill, and Sean was much too perceptive not to guess that she was trying to avoid him. That would only lead to more embarrassment, and she had been embarrassed sufficiently for the moment.

  She put on a dress with a floral design printed on the pure, fine cotton, and she applied her make-up with care before she brushed her hair until it shone. With a touch of her favourite perfume behind her ears she was ready to go down and face the world. Or was she? Sean O'Connor's mocking features swam before her eyes, and suddenly she had butterflies in her stomach.

  'Dammit, this is my home after all!' she muttered angrily to herself. 'Why should I closet myself in my room because my parents saw fit to take in an insufferable lodger?'

  She wrenched open the door and marched downstairs, to find that she would be dining alone with Ayah. Sean had received an urgent call, and he would not be back until much later that evening. The anti-climax was almost laughable, but Sarika doubted that Ayah would appreciate the joke, so she kept it to herself.

  'I think I'd like to go into the office on Monday to start acquainting myself with the routine,' Sarika mentioned her decision to Ayah when they were lingering over their coffee.

  'I won't allow it,' Ayah objected sternly. 'You have worked hard and you deserve a two-week break before you start working.'

  'But I had a two-week break in Paris.'

  'Maybe,' agreed Ayah, 'but it was not a restful holiday, and you need to rest before you start involving yourself in the business.'

  Ayah was very persuasive, and Sarika eventually relented. Perhaps she did need a holiday, she told herself when tiredness made her go up to bed almost immediately after dinner.

  Sarika awoke the following morning with that same feeling of uneasiness she had experienced the day before. She decided to spend the Saturday morning in town to do a bit of shopping and browsing. It would keep her occupied mentally and physically, and taking the bus instead of her car would be an added adventure.

  She informed Ayah of her intentions and, despite Ayah's protestations that a Saturday was a bad day for shopping, she left the house shortly after breakfast and walked down to the bus stop. Five minutes later Sean O'Connor's Land Rover pulled up at the kerb beside her, and he leaned over to open the door on the passenger side.

  'If you're going into the city, then I suggest you get in,' he said tersely, and Sarika shrank inwardly from the idea of travelling into the city with him.

  'I'd prefer to use the bus,' she said stubbornly.

  'Get in!'

  It was an order and, against her will, Sarika found herself obeying him. She got in beside him, and she had barely closed the door when he pulled away from the kerb and sped down the street.

  Sean did not attempt to make conversation on the drive into town, and that suited Sarika perfectly. She sat staring out of the window at the passing landmarks, and tried to relax, but trying to relax with Sean was like trying to ride a tiger, for both were equally dangerous. The city streets were choked with traffic, and Sarika held her breath at times when she saw the small black and yellow taxis darting in and out among the larger vehicles.

  'Where do you want to be dropped off?' Sean's voice sliced through the silence, and she glanced around a little wildly to see that they were approaching the Crawford Market.

  'On this corner will do nicely, thank you.'

  He pulled over sharply to the right and stopped the Land Rover. 'I'll pick you up here at twelve.'

  'That won't be necessary,' she said abruptly, getting out and slamming the door. 'I'll take a bus.'

  'Sarika!' He leaned across the front seat to speak to her through the open window, and his expression looked ominous. 'You will be here at twelve, and if I'm a bit late getting here through this traffic, you will wait. Is that understood?'

  That note of authority in his voice warned her not to put up an argument, and she nodded mutely before she walked away from him. She cursed him silently for thinking he could order her about, but she soon forgot about Sean O'Connor when she literally had to elbow her way through the hordes of people on the street.

  The market was crowded, and so were the shops. Ayah had been right, it was a bad day for coming in to town, but Sarika did not let that disturb her. She was in no hurry to get anywhere in particular, and she took her time browsing through the shops. The smell of incense was all around her and the babble of voices was almost deafening, but Sarika revelled in the atmosphere of this city she loved so much. Vendors lined the streets with their carts and, to Sarika, there was nothing strange about the vest and dhoti the men wore. Fifty per cent of the male population in India still wore the dhoti, a length of cotton material draped about the waist in a sash-like manner, pulled up between the legs, and then tucked into the waistband at the back. This was an integral part of India, and she hoped it would never change.

  Sarika lingered over buying the few things she required, and she eventually stopped beside a cart in the street to buy a glass of sugar cane juice. She did so partly to quench her thirst, and partly to watch the fascinating procedure of coaxing the juice from the cane. The vendor pushed the stick of sugar cane through the roller part of the apparatus he had on his cart, and the juice dripped down on to a plate sprinkled with tiny pieces of ginger and lime. From there the juice ran down into a container of crushed ice. This procedure was repeated three times at least before all the juice had been squeezed out of the cane, and when Sarika finally sipped at her drink it was absolutely fabulous. With India's humid climate the drink made from sugar cane had been acclaimed as the ideal thirst quencher, and Sarika had found this to be true during her occasional trips into the city during her holidays in the past.

  The hours had flown, and it was almost time to meet Sean. Sarika disposed of her paper cup and, clutching her parcels in her arms, shouldered her way through the milling throng to where Sean had ordered her to wait for him. Flushed and breathless, she arrived at the place where he had dropped her off barely seconds before the Land Rover pulled up next to her, and she was annoyed at being restricted in this way by a man like Sean O'Connor.

  'There was really no need for you to go to all this trouble,' she said stiffly when she got into the Land Rover and slammed the door shut.


  'Shut up!' he barked at her, and her anger rose by several degrees as he took her parcels from her and dumped them on the back seat.

  'How dare you speak to me like that!'

  'It's time someone put you in your place.'

  'And you have decided you're the one to do it?' she demanded, thrust back against her seat with the force of the Land Rover pulling away from the kerb.

  'I'm responsible for you in the absence of your parents.'

  Sarika turned her head to stare incredulously at his dark, stern profile. 'I'm not a child, Mr O'Connor!'

  'Then stop behaving like one!' he ordered sharply above the roar of the Land Rover. 'And you can skip the formal address. After the other night it can't be anything else but Sean, understand?'

  'You don't have to shout, I can hear you perfectly well!' she informed him angrily. 'And I don't wish to be reminded of my first night at home.'

  Sean did not reply to that, and Sarika would have maintained the stony silence between them if she had not seen him miss the turn-off to Malabar Hills.

  'This isn't the way home.'

  'I'm not taking you home,' came the terse reply. 'I'm taking you to lunch at the Taj Mahal Hotel.'

  Sarika felt her chest tighten with something close to fear. 'Ayah is expecting me home for lunch.'

  'No, she isn't,' he contradicted. 'I told her I'd be taking you somewhere to lunch with me.'

  'You arranged this with Ayah without consulting me?' she demanded, her tawny eyes darting flames of incredulous anger at him.

  'Why not?' He cast a brief, mocking glance in her direction. 'Don't you like my company?'

  'No, I do not!' she exclaimed hotly.

  'Well, that's too bad,' Sean shrugged his wide shoulders beneath the grey, lightweight jacket, 'because you're going to have to put up with my company for a while longer.'

  Sarika lapsed into a mutinous silence. How dared he assume that she would want to have lunch with him, and how dared Ayah take it for granted that she would have accepted such an invitation! She was still smarting inwardly after what had happened between them on her first night in Bombay, and she was furious to think that her decision to stay out of his way had been thwarted in this manner.

  The Taj Mahal Hotel's magnificent decor did nothing to soothe her temper, but Sean had at least chosen a table beside a window which gave her an excellent view of the pillared structure depicting the Gateway of India, and through it she had a clear glimpse of the sea which lay shimmering in the midday sun.

  Sarika was too annoyed to be bothered with the menu, and she left it to Sean to order a light lunch for both of them. When the bar steward approached their table Sean turned to her for the first time and asked decisively, 'What would you like to drink?'

  'A cold lemonade,' she said in an equally cold voice.

  'A cold lemonade for the lady, and a whisky for me, please,' Sean ordered, and when the steward walked away he leaned back in his chair and studied her closely. 'Have you been here before?'

  'A few times,' she answered abruptly, avoiding his eyes by staring out of the window.

  'Not alone, I'm sure,' Sean mockingly attempted to induce conversation. 'All right, Sarika, let's have it!' he said at length when she maintained a stoic silence. 'Are you peeved because our little experiment the other night backfired on you?'

  It was as if he had put a callous finger on a tender spot, and it felt as if a thousand volts shot through her. 'I haven't given it a thought.'

  'Like hell you haven't!' he took up on her lie with a harsh laugh that made her steel herself before she allowed herself to look at him. 'You're a bad loser, and you still owe me an apology.'

  'I owe you nothing!' she snapped moments before the steward appeared with their drinks.

  'No girl slaps my face and gets away with it that easy,' murmured Sean threateningly the moment they were alone again, and his hand reached across the table unexpectedly to grip hers tightly. 'Apologise, Sarika, or I might be tempted to repeat the experiment right here.'

  The sensuous curve of his chiselled mouth made her recall vividly the feel of his lips against her own, and his dark eyes issued a challenge she could not ignore.

  'You're a—' The dangerous glitter in his eyes made her swallow her insulting words, and she finally admitted defeat when she murmured lamely, 'I apologise.'

  There was a hateful ring of triumph in his soft, throaty laughter when he released her hand. 'That's a good girl.'

  'Don't speak to me like that!' she snapped furiously.

  'Like what?' he asked, taking a mouthful of whisky and swallowing it down before he raised a questioning eyebrow as he met her furious gaze across the table.

  'As if I'm a child,' she elaborated stiffly.

  'No, you're not a child.' The low pitch of his voice sent tremors racing along her taut nerves, and her insides trembled when his dark gaze took in every facet of her rigid features before trailing down to where her small, firm breasts were clearly defined beneath the close-fitting cotton bodice of her frock. Her body seemed to respond to his lingering gaze as if he had actually reached out across the table to touch her, and she felt a wave of heat surge from her throat into her face. 'You're a very beautiful woman.' The derisive twist to his mouth spoiled the compliment even before he added: 'But you're well aware of that, as I've said before.'

  Those words were meant to sting, and they did. 'You made that sound like an insult.'

  'I'm thirty-five, Sarika,' he inadvertently told her what she had been wondering about since their first meeting. 'I've known scores of very beautiful women, but I've also learnt that beautiful women mostly mean trouble. They're all spoilt and used to having their own way, and no woman is going to dictate to me what I should do with my life.'

  So he was not married! She had wondered about this too, but the knowledge was followed by a disquieting sensation she could not explain to herself. Could it be the discovery that marriage did not feature in his plans for the future, or was it jealousy at the thought of all those unknown women? It was most certainly not the latter, she chastised herself severely, and it was with an anger directed at herself that she said icily, 'It doesn't interest me at all what you may or may not do with your life.'

  'Are you campaigning for my attentions by trying to give the impression that you're different?' drawled Sean with a lazy, insolent smile, and the barometer of her fury rose to its limit.

  'You're the most egotistical man I've ever met, and added to that you're also the most insufferable!' she spat out the words, and he leaned across the table towards her with something close to interest flickering in his dark glance.

  'Did anyone ever tell you that your eyes are extraordinarily beautiful when you're angry?'

  Sarika was momentarily stunned. It felt as if she had been thrown off a horse and had collided heavily with the earth, but she rallied swiftly. 'No,' she retorted sharply, 'and neither do I need you to tell me that!'

  Sean laughed shortly, and the conversation fortunately ended there as their lunch was served.

  She stared at the spiced chicken and salads on her plate. It looked extremely appetising, but she was not very hungry. She tried to relax, but she knew she dared not. To deal with someone like Sean O'Connor she needed all her wits about her, and for this reason she did not dare relax her guard.

  Sarika made a pretence of eating while she studied him unobtrusively. Sean O'Connor was an authoritative and sometimes arrogant man who appeared to be accustomed to giving orders rather than taking them. She tried to imagine Sean in one of the junior posts at the Apex company, but she failed. He was not a junior; not in years and not in experience, and she once again had the strange notion that he was a man who would take command of a situation rather than accept commands from others. She was totally baffled and she longed to question him, but he had made it painfully clear that he disliked being questioned about himself. One thought led to another, and in the end she found herself trying to cope with that growing uneasiness which had plagued her since the
day before.

  'I had hoped I would have heard from my parents by now,' she found herself voicing her thoughts. 'Have they perhaps been in contact with someone at the office?'

  'If we'd heard from them I would have told you.' He pushed his plate aside and gestured to the waiter to bring their tea before he settled back in his chair and glanced at her mockingly. 'Don't tell me you're worried about them?'

  'I… no, not really. It's just that I…' She pulled herself together sharply and put down her knife and fork to gesture helplessly with her slender hands. 'Oh, I can't explain it, but I have this uneasy feeling, and I can't seem to shake it off.'

  She held her breath, expecting him to mock her, but his rugged features remained impassive for once. 'They can take care of themselves.'

  'Yes, I'm sure they can,' she admitted reluctantly, vaguely ashamed of having admitted her fears to someone like Sean O'Connor who seemed to have little or no opinion of her at all.

  She left the rest of her food untouched and settled for her cup of tea. Sean's glance flicked towards the plate which had barely been touched and his mouth tightened, but, surprisingly, he said nothing. He questioned her instead about her studies in England, and she answered him automatically. They discussed certain aspects of architecture, and meeting him on the same level for the first time was an enjoyable and enlightening experience. His ideas were not staid as she had imagined they might be, but modern like her own. She also found that they agreed on several things, and that made a welcome change from the antagonism which had been sparked off between them from the moment they had met.

  The drive back to her home was not as unpleasant as she had thought it might be. They did not talk much, but the silence between them was not uncomfortable and, when they arrived at the house, she did not object to being instructed to take herself and her parcels into the house while Sean garaged the Land Rover.

  Sarika felt strangely calm. It was, she realised afterwards, that same calmness one often encountered directly before a savage storm erupted. She stepped into the cool, quiet entrance hall with its marble floor, and the telephone started ringing almost as if it had waited for that moment when she would arrive.