'So have I,' she explained quietly.
Their glances locked for tense, angry seconds, then his rugged features relaxed visibly. 'Okay, I accept that.'
Sarika sighed inwardly with relief and sagged back into her chair as if the strain had been too much for her body. There was still a mouthful of sherry left in her glass, and she swallowed it down in the hope that it would steady the tremors which had erupted inside her.
'How long do you expect to be away?' she broached the subject which had been troubling her since his surprise statement at the reception.
'I don't know,' he shrugged, raising his glass to his lips and draining it. 'A week, maybe more.'
'And what happens to Apex while you're away?'
'You'll have to take over.'
A mixture of incredulity and anger exploded inside her. 'You really meant it when you said that after two weeks you'd throw me in at the deep end!'
'I didn't know then that I wouldn't be here, but I'm convinced you'll manage.'
'Is that a compliment?' she queried cautiously.
'No, honey, it's a fact,' he smiled briefly. 'Miranda will give you all the assistance you need, and I've left a telephone number on the desk in the study in case an emergency crops up which neither of you can handle.'
A wave of anxiety swept through Sarika, and she held out her glass to him. 'I think I'll have another sherry.'
There was a hint of mockery in his eyes when he got up to refill their glasses, and it was with his back turned to her that he asked: 'Does the prospect of taking charge of the company scare you?'
'It terrifies me!' she confessed as he turned and walked back to his chair with a glass in each hand, and the smile in his eyes deepened as he handed her her sherry.
'I give you ten out of ten for honesty,' he told her, 'and that, honey, is a compliment.'
Sarika stared at him thoughtfully when he slumped back into his chair and lit a cheroot. 'I don't suppose you've ever been scared of attempting what appears to be the impossible.'
'I've been scared many times,' he surprised her with his confession, 'but it gets the adrenalin pumping, and that sharpens the brain.'
'I imagine it's the challenge you find so irresistible.'
'And the triumph when I succeed.'
'I can understand that,' she nodded, recalling her own triumph when she had succeeded in convincing Mr Ramdhuni that her ideas for the housing scheme were more practical.
They sat without talking for some time, and it was not until they had emptied their glasses and Sean had put out his cheroot in the ashtray that Sarika broke the silence between them.
'How long have you been here in Bombay?' she questioned him conversationally, and his eyebrows met in a frown of concentration.
'Seven months, not counting the times I had to go elsewhere.'
'Don't you miss your home?' she asked, thinking about her own unhappiness when she had been away from home for a lengthy period.
'Home is an apartment in Manhattan,' Sean laughed shortly, 'and there's nothing and no one to miss.'
Against her will, Sarika recalled his remark to Claudia. 'In my kind of job a wife would be nothing but a nuisance,' he had said, and she felt again that sickening jolt beneath her rib cage.
'Do you honestly intend to spend your life wandering around the world without someone to share it with you, or, someone to go home to?' she heard herself asking, and she could have bitten off her tongue the next instant when his mouth curved in a derisive smile.
'If you've caught the wedding fever, then I suggest you spread your tentacles in Michael's direction, not mine.'
'Dammit, you know I didn't mean—' She broke off abruptly, realising there was some truth in what he had said, and her cheeks became suffused with colour and she got angrily to her feet. 'Forget it!'
'Just a moment!' He had moved with an incredible speed to halt her flight from the room and, standing in front of her, he raised a hand to her hair and withdrew it a second later with a pink rose petal between his fingers. 'Put this under your pillow, honey, and you might dream of the man you'll marry some day, who knows.'
His mockery was more than she could cope with at that moment. It sliced deep and painfully, and she glared up at him with the fury of a wounded animal. 'Go to the devil, Sean O'Connor!'
She pushed past him and stormed up to her room, but his mocking laughter echoed in her mind long after she had gone to bed and put out the light. Fool, she cursed herself. Idiot! But nothing could alleviate that feeling of utter despair.
Sarika leaned back in her chair and sighed. Her desk was cluttered with plans, files, and correspondence which she still had to read through and answer. The head of the drawing department had spent more than an hour with her that morning because they were having problems with the plans being drawn up for an extension to a factory, the chief accountant was in a rage because one of his staff had made an incorrect entry in one of the books, the chief of personnel refused to fire the man for what he considered a justifiable error, and three surveyors trooped into her office with the complaint that they were encountering difficulties in their survey of a piece of land. Added to this the telephone never seemed to stop ringing all day, and Sarika was not always sure what to deal with first.
'Is it always this busy, or am I simply finding it difficult coping with my own work as well as Sean's?' she asked Miranda when she came in with a batch of letters that needed Sarika's signature.
'This is one of the worst days I've known in years,' Miranda enlightened her with a sympathetic smile.
'Thank God for that!' sighed Sarika, drawing the letters towards her and attaching her signature at the bottom of each.
'It's time to go home,' Miranda announced when Sarika had signed the last letter.
'Is it that late?' Sarika glanced at her watch and discovered to her dismay that it was long after five. 'I'm sorry, Miranda, I didn't mean to keep you.'
'It's not your fault,' the older woman assured her. 'I was rather bogged down with work myself today, and I'm looking forward to a quiet evening at home to help me unwind.'
'I echo that,' laughed Sarika, clearing her desk hastily before she left the office.
Her quiet evening at home was not quite as she had hoped it would be. She had imagined that, without Sean's disturbing presence, she would recapture some of the good times she had had alone with Ayah when her parents had been away, but instead a feeling of desolation gripped her, and she could not shake it off.
'You are missing Sean, are you not, pyaari?' Ayah put Sarika's feelings into words when they were midway through the evening meal, and for a startled second Sarika almost agreed with Ayah.
'I don't miss him at all,' she denied her own feelings with a wariness she had applied since childhood.
'I have cared for you since the day you were born. Do you think I am unaware of the feelings you take such care to hide?' Velvet brown eyes smiled at Sarika with a tender warmth. 'I know you too well, beti.'
Sarika sat there tense and nervous, as if the walls had ears to hear and lips to reveal what was being said. 'If you mention anything to Sean about—'
'It is not for me to say anything,' Ayah interrupted calmly. 'It is for you to open the doors of your heart and to let the truth spill from your lips, but I am afraid you have thrown away the key.'
'Are you lecturing me?' Sarika tried to make light of what Ayah had said.
'I am not lecturing you,' Ayah shook her head, 'but I pray that I shall live to see the day that key is found. You are living behind the closed doors of your heart, Sarika, because you are afraid, but it is a lonely life, and I would not want you to end your days in self-imposed exile.'
Self-imposed exile! The words hammered against her brain until every other thought was driven away. Was that what she was doing to herself?
Sarika did not have much time to ponder the thought. Michael arrived some minutes later, and Ayah's remark was almost totally forgotten for the rest of that evening.
'Are
you annoyed with me?' Michael asked when the hands of the grandfather clock were reaching towards eleven, and Sarika glanced at him in surprise.
'Why on earth should I be annoyed with you?'
'I've just realised that you've been very quiet, and I'm the one who's been doing all the talking this evening.'
A faintly mocking smile curved her wide, sensitive mouth. 'That proves I'm a good listener.'
'Or that you've been thinking about something else… or someone.'
Sarika's insides lurched uncomfortably. Was he perhaps referring to Sean? She dismissed the thought at once. 'I've had rather a hectic day, and I'm tired, but I've enjoyed listening to you.'
'If you had told me you were tired I would have left long ago,' Michael frowned, and he would have got up to leave if she had not placed a detaining hand on his arm.
'Now you're offended, and I didn't mean it that way,' she explained. 'I'm glad you came because I know I couldn't have tolerated being alone this evening.'
'Do you miss him that much?'
Sarika's body stiffened. This time she could not dismiss Michael's remark and pretend that she did not know what he was referring to.
'If you mean Sean O'Connor, then you're mistaken.' After the lecture Ayah had given her she found herself denying her feelings with a twinge of discomfort, but she continued to do so nevertheless. 'I don't miss him at all, and it's heaven, in fact, to have the house to myself for a change.'
Michael's grey eyes had studied her intently while she spoke, then he looked away. 'If he travels about as much as he implied the other night, then I imagine you'll have the house to yourself more often in the future.'
'Yes, I suppose I shall.'
She should have felt elated, but instead the thought depressed her. Without Sean's dynamic and vital presence in the house she might just as well be living in a morgue, and a little shiver raced up her spine to leave her feeling cold.
Michael kissed her lightly on the cheek a few minutes later, and left. He had filled the empty hours for her, but he was not Sean, she realised when she went up to bed. Sean somehow made his presence felt in the house, and Sarika always knew he was there even though they did not often spend time together. When they were together, however, they nearly always argued, and she wished it did not have to be so.
She put out the light and tried to think of Michael rather than Sean, but Michael's handsome, youthful features repeatedly made way for Sean's rugged male looks. Her thoughts wandered to that afternoon at the Taj Mahal. She felt again his lips against hers and the touch of his hands, but Sean had remained cool and unaffected while the longing had burned deep inside her. For him it was no more than a game, but for her it had become the very essence of her existence.
'Hell!' she muttered fiercely, pounding her pillow with her fist and wishing it could have been Sean's mocking features at the receiving end. Her anger died swiftly, however, and she turned her face into the pillow. 'Sean… oh, Sean!' she whispered his name in despair.
Sarika was determined not to give herself time to think about Sean. During the rest of that week she was kept busy at the office, but never quite as busy as she had been on the Monday, and most of her evenings were spent with Michael. He came to dinner once, but they dined out during the remainder of that week, and Sarika could not help but be aware of Ayah's displeasure.
'Come through to Poona with me tomorrow morning,' Michael suggested the Friday afternoon when he telephoned her at the office, but Sarika was hesitant to agree.
'I'll think about it and let you know this evening,' she promised.
She had almost made up her mind not to go when she arrived home late that afternoon to find a letter addressed to Sean lying on the table in the hall. The letter had been sent from New York, and the handwriting was definitely feminine. Could it be from one of those many women in his past? she wondered cynically, but the thought sent a stab of jealousy through her. It was this that made her decide to go to Poona with Michael for the weekend. She desperately needed to get her life back into perspective, but most of all she needed something to make her forget these futile longings churning through her.
The weekend at Poona with the Nicholsons was peaceful and relaxing after the hectic week at the office without Sean. Michael was attentive and charming, but at the oddest times Sarika found herself thinking about Sean and wondering what he was doing. She would banish him at once from her mind, but she never quite succeeded in banishing him entirely. She had hoped the weekend away from home would help her come to terms with herself and her bleak-looking future, but she had failed in her attempts to shake off that black cloud of despair under which she was labouring.
Michael drove her home the Sunday evening, and he was strangely quiet behind the wheel of his Porsche, but on the outskirts of Bombay he pulled off the road and switched on the roof light before he turned to face her.
'There's something I must tell you.' He took her hands in his and she knew somehow what he was going to say, but when she tried to stop him he said quickly, 'No, don't interrupt me, Sarika. This is something I have to get off my chest.' He stared for some time at her hands resting in his, then he raised his glance, and the graveness of his expression almost frightened her. 'I know I'm falling in love with you, but I also know I don't stand a chance.'
'Oh, Michael!' she whispered, guilt and remorse blending as his words fell like painful darts on her conscience.
'You're in love with Sean O'Connor.'
Sarika felt as if she had been struck by a bolt of lightning, and her face paled. 'You don't know what you're saying!'
'I suspected it the night of Jaishree's wedding, but I'm sure of it now.'
'No!' she protested, trying to wrench her hands from his as a wave of panic washed over her, but Michael's fingers tightened their grip on hers.
'I've seen the way you look at him, Sarika, and you may not be aware of it, but you brought his name into nearly every conversation you had with me and my parents this weekend.'
She shook her head in bewilderment and disbelief. 'I couldn't have!'
'Sarika, look at me!' He released her hands to tilt up her chin, and she was forced to meet his eyes. 'You love him, don't you.'
It was a statement, not a query, and for the second time she felt the shock of it rippling through her. She had been aware of her feelings for Sean, but when Michael put it into words he made it a stark reality, and the pain it inflicted was almost unbearable. He was waiting for her to say something, but she stared at him mutely and momentarily incapable of speech.
He released her abruptly and turned from her to grip the steering wheel with his hands. 'Never mind, you don't have to say anything. It's there in your eyes, and if Sean O'Connor has any sense—'
He broke off abruptly, and he was clenching the wheel so tightly that she was afraid it might snap in his hands. Remorse and guilt surged through her again, and she touched his sleeve tentatively. 'I'm sorry, Michael.'
'Don't apologise, Sarika.' His smile was a little twisted when he reached for her hand unexpectedly and raised it to his lips. 'You aren't to blame for the way I feel.'
They travelled the rest of the way in silence, and it was ten o'clock when Michael followed her into the living-room and placed her overnight bag on the floor beside a chair. Sarika felt awkward. Michael might not consider her to blame for the way he felt, but she blamed herself entirely for encouraging a relationship which she had known from the start would not mean as much to her as it would to him. She wanted to say something to relieve the tension between them, but she was too unhappy at that moment to think of anything.
'We can still be friends, can't we?' Michael broke the silence between them and, taking her by the shoulders, he turned her to face him.
'Do you think that would be wise?' she asked cautiously, not wanting to hurt him more than she had hurt him already.
'I'd like to be there if you should need me.'
'Oh, Michael!' she smiled shakily at his quietly spoken statement. 'Thank y
ou.'
He drew her towards him gently, and she did not protest when he pressed his lips to hers in an almost brotherly salute.
'Am I interrupting something?' A deep, mocking voice made them draw apart as if they had been indulging in something which was forbidden, and Sarika spun round to face the man who stood leaning against the door jamb with the thumb of one hand hooked into his belt and a cheroot smouldering between the fingers of the other.
'Sean!' His name spilled from her lips in a mixture of delight and fear. 'I never expected you back so soon.'
His derisive gaze flicked over her briefly before it settled on Michael. 'I presume Sarika spent the weekend at your home in Poona?'
'That's correct, Mr O'Connor,' Michael answered politely, his grey glance darting curiously at Sarika.
'Thank you for bringing her home safely, and pass on my regards to your parents,' Sean was saying, and Sarika felt embarrassingly that he was making it clear he had no wish to extend his hospitality towards Michael.
'I'll do that,' said Michael, shifting his weight on his feet in obvious discomfort as he glanced briefly at Sarika. 'I'll call you some time.'
The silence in the room was incredibly tense after Michael had left, and Sarika steeled herself automatically when Sean sauntered towards her. In black slacks and sweat-shirt he looked dark and dangerous, and the glittering harshness in his eyes did not promise a pleasant confrontation.
'It appears you've succeeded in leading Michael up the garden path,' he smiled contemptuously. 'May I know how soon you intend to lead him up the aisle?'
Sarika felt that storm of anger rise within her which only Sean could arouse, but she forced herself to remain outwardly calm. 'That's none of your business, surely?'
'I'm making it my damn business!' he said through his teeth as he crushed his cheroot into an ashtray and lessened the distance between them to tower over her. 'I'm a lot older than he is, I've seen the way women like you operate, and I'm not going to sit back and watch you lead that young man on, only to drop him later when it suits you.'
She drew a sharp breath as if he had struck her, and her face went white. Dear God, did he always have to hurt her this way? Did he honestly have such a low opinion of her?
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