Bourbon & Chai: A Slow Burn Forbidden Romance Novel, Set in Philadelphia.

by Leah Kay

  “Looney Tunes?”

  He smiles at her reaction. “Yup. And all thanks to you.”

  Putting her pizza down, she asks, “So you ignored her?”

  “I did, and she started talking to me after that.”

  Feeling smug that she helped her dad, she says, “You are welcome!”

  A few moments later, he adds, “She is traveling with me for work this week.”

  “She is here?” she asks, interested in knowing more.

  “Yes, along with a few others on my team.”

  “Let me know if she gives you any more trouble, I can help you,” she adds, feeling quite self-assured.

  “She isn’t that bad actually,” he adds casually.

  Lily notices a subtle hint of defensiveness towards Isha from her dad and immediately curbs her curiosity. Nathan drives her back to school in time for the announcement of the results. The debate coordinator takes the stage to congratulate all the finalists for their tremendous performances today. She announces the 3rd place winner - Emily Carlson; the 2nd place winner - Ashley Weiler, and after what seems like an eternity, she finally announces the 1st place winner - Lilian Walker. Lily hurries towards the stage to pick up her award. She congratulates the other winners, and they pose for school debate team pictures. Nathan experiences sheer pride and joy, watching Lily grin ear to ear on the stage along with the other contestants. A part of him wishes Isha was here to see it but he quickly pushes away his delusional thoughts. He stays until the end of the ceremony, promises Lily a celebration later and drives back to the site.

  Isha is knee-deep in discussions with the team determining critical parameters to monitor and helping them understand the methodology used for this determination when Nathan rejoins the team. He walks into the room and sees his team hard at work, teaching them the new process and at the same time extracting critical information from them to help develop an ideal process-monitoring plan.

  Seeing Nathan walk in, Isha gestures to him that they are scheduled to take a break in ten minutes. Nodding at her, he sits across from them and catches up on his email.

  During the break, she takes a seat next to Nathan to fill him in on the progress.

  “How was Lily’s debate?” she asks eagerly.

  He likes that she asked about Lily first. “She won,” he says proudly.

  “That’s fantastic! You must be proud.”

  “I am, she worked hard and she did an excellent job today.” He is practically beaming talking about her. She likes getting to know him more each day.

  She fills him in on the progress they have made and the team dynamic and mentions that they haven’t received any pushback yet. He warns her to be prepared for it as this project will drive additional work and that is bound to trigger some pushback. They successfully finish the workshop for the day, and Isha feels content with the progress they have made in one day. She never expected to be a part of the implementation team let alone be an implementation lead. It is a proud moment for her, a moment she intends to celebrate later.

  While the team wraps up to head out for dinner with the site folks, Isha messages Nathan who is busy chatting with the plant manager. “Joining us for dinner?”

  Noticing his phone beep, he wraps up his conversation and walks up to her. “Nice work today.”

  “Thank you, I feel good about it. So, are you joining us?”

  “I can’t. I promised Lily a celebration. I will see you tomorrow?” he replies apologetically.

  Disappointed, she nods okay. Picking up her stuff, she joins the rest of the team. Watching her walk away Nathan aches just a little.

  Waiting for Lily to get ready for dinner, Nathan messages Sarah. With the event going on, Sarah needed to be at the gallery late hours throughout the week.

  “Taking Lily out for a mini celebration, want me to pick up some dinner for you?”

  “Gallery is catering for the event, I am good. Thanks.”

  “Good luck with the event.”

  “Thanks.”

  He worries about Sarah getting used to working again. She hasn’t worked in over 16 years, at least not for more than two months at a time. In the beginning, she wanted to focus on taking care of Lily, but as Lily got older Sarah got accustomed to being a homebody. Nathan remembers trying to get her out of her shell and helping her with the job search. All of his attempts were perceived as a sign of his disappointment in her. And each time she was rejected after an interview, he became an easy target to blame for her failures. This became a vicious cycle until she ultimately gave up trying, breeding a decade of resentment.

  His thoughts get a break watching Lily come down, texting on her phone.

  “Ready to go?” he asks, rising from the chair.

  “Dad, any chance we can do a quick meal together? I still need to work on my bio assignment.”

  “Would you rather we order takeout?”

  “Are you okay with that?” She is worried about hurting his feelings.

  “Completely, Lil bear, what are you feeling?” He grabs the takeout menus in the kitchen drawer.

  Deciding on Thai, he places the order and watches TV while she works on her assignment.

  They enjoy a lovely dinner together on the patio, catching up with each other. After Lily retires to her room, Nathan clears the dishes and cleans up the patio. He takes two bowls of ice cream to her room and keeps her company catching up with his email. His mind wanders to Looney Tunes. Taking his phone, he texts Mark to inquire where they are having dinner.

  After an exquisite dinner on the patio at The Land and Water Co. with the site folks, the trio of implementation team members sans their leader is ready to call it a night.

  Having slept quite poorly last night, Isha feels tired after a glass of wine. Asking the waiter for the check, she excuses herself to use the restroom. While freshening up, she stares at her reflection and notices a fatigued Isha staring back at her. Ordering herself to get a good shuteye tonight, she joins the rest and grabs her wallet to pay for her meal. Placing her credit card down, she notices one of the inside zippers is open. She rarely opens that compartment of her wallet since that’s where she keeps her granddad’s ring. With her heart racing, she quickly checks to make sure it is still there, but, to her horror, the ring is missing. Panicking, she checks her handbag to see if it slipped through the wallet and fell into the bag somewhere. Sitting next to Isha, Claire notices her panic-driven search and checks in on her quietly without attracting too much attention to them. She whispers to her that her granddad’s ring is missing. Remembering the significance of it, Claire matches Isha’s panic. They both excuse themselves from the table and head over to the bar to speak freely.

  “When did you notice it was missing?” Claire asks, going through Isha’s bag.

  “Just now, I opened my wallet to grab the credit card and noticed this compartment was open. When I checked inside, the ring was gone.”

  Noticing that the rest of the team is heading out, Claire suggests they stay back and look under their table.

  They search different areas within the restaurant to see if it slipped and fell during the course of the night. After a while, Isha gives up and takes a seat at one of the empty tables while Claire describes the ring to the hostess and requests her to call them if they find it later.

  Claire watches Isha sitting with her shoulders hunched over and looking down hopelessly. She feels sad watching her this way and desperately wants to find the ring. She grabs a glass of water from the bar and takes a seat across from her. “I have had it with me for twelve years, Claire, and I cannot believe I lost it.” Her voice is filled with regret.

  “Don’t give up yet. When was the last time you used your wallet today?”

  Isha mentally goes through her activities in the last few days and believes the last time she used it was at the Philadelphia airport. Since then, Na
than has been using his corporate card to pay for meals.

  With tears rolling down her cheek, she says, “It’s okay, Claire. I was careless.” Claire feels helpless watching her like this.

  Wiping her tears away, she says, “It’s just that I don’t remember leaving this compartment open. I never do that.” She’s torturing herself for making a mistake.

  All of a sudden Claire remembers Nathan fussing with Isha’s wallet during the flight yesterday.

  Choosing her words carefully, she shares this insight with her.

  Chapter 9

  Forgive me

  Isha’s sadness turns to rage learning this news. She is livid with Nathan’s lack of character and his nerve to go through her personal belongings without her permission. She takes out her phone and sends him a message. A few minutes later, she looks up and notices him walking towards her with a big smile on his face. He couldn’t stop thinking about her and wanted to catch her before they left the restaurant. Learning where they were from Mark, he has driven over to surprise her.

  Watching him come in, Claire excuses herself to give them privacy.

  He sits across from her. “Yes, I have a minute,” he says, feeling pleased that he made it in time to see her. His happiness quickly fades away taking in her swollen eyes and serious demeanor.

  “Are you alright?” he asks, concerned about her.

  “Did you go through my wallet on the flight?” She stares him down.

  Not expecting her to react so harshly to his invasion of her privacy he quickly apologizes for his momentary lapse in judgment. “I did. I am sorry.”

  Watching him cave in so quickly only enrages her more. “Who gave you the fucking right to go through my stuff?” He is utterly shocked by her reaction. He understands he crossed the line, but to him it was done in good humor. Unsure of how to go about answering her question, he remains silent.

  Seeing that he has nothing to say, Isha picks up her bag. “You stay away from me, do you understand?’ She storms out.

  Nathan sees the pain hidden beneath her anger and looks over to Claire for help. “Mind filling me in?” He feels absolutely deplorable after learning the truth from her. Sitting in the parking lot, he calls a few places to check on the ring. Later in the night, he tries calling Isha a few times to apologize for what he has done, only to receive her voicemail each time. Back at the hotel, Isha hits the bed and bawls like a baby. Losing the ring is painful but knowing that Nathan could have been responsible for it makes her feel worse. She hastily decides to end all interactions with him. She rationalizes with herself that had she maintained her distance with him as planned, he wouldn’t have had the liberty to go through her stuff. Considering their chemistry, she finds it all the more compelling to put a stop to all of this madness. With heavy eyelids she calls Liam to share her heartache while leaving Nathan’s interference out of it.

  The next day, Isha keeps herself occupied with the workshop, managing to ignore Nathan completely. Seeing that she is no mood to talk to him, he checks in with Claire and Mark, giving Isha some space. Towards the end of the day, one of the site managers joins the workshop to get an overview of the work completed. Isha, as the implementation lead, presents the progress to date and other project details.

  Paul Johnson, an old-timer at the site, notorious for pushing back on new initiatives that impact his site, cuts her off mid-presentation. “And why do you think I need to do this work at all?”

  Hiding her reaction to his brusque personality, she says, “Paul, perhaps you missed the introduction material we covered yesterday. Allow me to give you an overview of the strategy behind this project,” and she goes through her laptop to pull up some of the introductory slides from yesterday.

  “Unlike you and your team, we are busy making products here. So I apologize for making that a priority over listening to your strategy on how I should be doing my job,” he snickers.

  Trying to maintain her composure, she walks him through the strategy behind the project. This time he waits for her to finish before he strikes back.

  “So, if I get this right, you want my people to put more work into collecting data, monitoring it for trends that we are not sure yet if we even see.” He looks at her as if she has lost her mind.

  Sticking to her guns, she replies, “Paul, overall process robustness factor for this site is not as high as we hoped it would be. In order to identify the areas we need to focus on, the best path forward would be to start with a subset of parameters throughout the process and allow them to indicate critical areas for improvement.”

  Nathan watches her handle this scumbag with her charm and intelligence. However, every cell in his body wants to step in and help her.

  “How old are you, dear?” Paul asks, cutting her off yet again.

  Puzzled by his question, she stares at him without taking the bait. “I have been at this site since before you were born and I think I very well know how to manage it and improve its performance. You may want to take your fancy degree and improve some other site.” He begins to rise from his chair.

  “Paul, our preliminary data clearly indicates that without this initiative your site’s performance will decline tremendously over the next few years,” Nathan interjects. “Moreover, the interesting fact about our data is that it is agnostic to fancy school degrees and petty seniority claims.”

  And that shuts him up.

  Nathan has had enough of his obnoxious behavior towards Isha and he wants to put him in place. Paul is fully aware of Nathan’s golden reputation at the site and backs off when he steps in. “Now that we’ve had our fun, let the teams get back to their work,” he says as he gestures for Paul to step outside with him. Watching Nathan step in and come to her defense makes her feel vulnerable to him. She feels protected in his presence. However, she still cannot get over what he did, and in spite of his generosity at the moment he is still responsible for causing her an inordinate amount of pain last night. Settling things with Paul outside the conference room, Nathan joins his team and is met with pleased stares from everyone on his team except Isha, who remains distant.

  Taking a seat at the restaurant later in the evening, Nathan asks Isha to step out with him. “May I please have two minutes to explain myself?” Isha has struggled all day to ignore him when he has been nothing but remorseful and protective towards her. Disturbed with it all, she follows him out of the restaurant.

  Standing on the sidewalk, he lets her in on the truth. “I was trying to find out your age.”

  She looks at him confused. “I am sorry?”

  “You were calling me an old man and I just needed to know how old you were.” He looks down regretting his actions.

  “Still doesn’t make it alright,” she retorts.

  “I am not saying I am right; I need you to know why I did it. I never meant for any of this to happen. I am sorry.” Nathan tries to reason with her.

  “Thank you for sharing, but I just need some space.”

  He gives her an apologetic nod before she walks away. Her sensible side is advising her to call it a truce with Nathan, but losing something incredibly personal is throwing her sensibilities out the window. She recognizes this is hard for him as well, but she opts for some space between them. Despite the events of the week, Isha finds comfort in knowing that the workshop was executed successfully with pushback from only one person with limited vision for the site. For over a year, this project has been her world at work. And today, she successfully completed implementation of their work at one of the major sites of the company. She feels proud of the work the entire team has done to make this happen.

  Watching TV later in the night, Nathan worries if he will ever have a normal working relationship with Isha. His phone rings with a call from an unknown number and he answers hesitantly.

  “Mr. Walker, this is Alisha from the Hilton Hotel. Sorry to have disturbed you late in th
e night. Do you have a minute to speak, sir?”

  “Sure, go ahead,” he replies skeptically, hoping this isn’t a sales pitch.

  “I was asked to call you immediately if we found a ring belonging to your friend.”

  Those words alert him instantly. “You found it?” he asks hurriedly.

  “Yes sir, my maintenance staff found it in the lobby.”

  Feeling like he just won a million bucks, he says, “Thank you! Thank you so much for calling me. I will be there in a bit to pick it up.” Hopping in his car, he drives over to the hotel.

  On his drive in, he contemplates his next course of action. On the one hand, he believes he should have the hotel give the ring back to Isha; on the other hand, he desperately wants a chance to undo the hurt he has caused her. He settles with picking up the ring and giving it to her at the airport the next morning. With a firm plan in his mind, he parks his car across the entrance and hurries over to the lobby.

  Alisha greets him when he steps up to the front desk. “Hello, you must be Mr. Walker?” she welcomes him with a bright smile.

  He shakes her hand. “I am Nathan Walker and thank you for calling me.”

  “Of course, sir. I was told it was a family heirloom and I can only imagine how worried you must have been.” She hands over an antique ring in a small napkin.

  Carefully taking it from her, he inspects the ring to make sure it matches Claire’s description and feels relieved that it fits her description to a T.

  Feeling like a huge weight has been lifted off his shoulders he thanks her profusely and walks back to his car with the ring in his pocket. Sitting in the driver seat, a bold thought crosses his mind. Pulling out his phone from his pocket, he dials Isha’s number.

  With room service and a few hours of HGTV later, Isha feels ready to put this mentally exhausting week behind her and go home to Liam. By the time she calls it a night, her anger melts away slowly and she reaches a place of pure indifference. As she drifts into deep slumber her ringtone jolts her awake; rubbing her eyes to improve her visibility, she squints to see who is calling her this late. Her eyes open wide seeing that it is Nathan.