Читать книгу Twelve Hours of Temptation - Шома Нараянан - Страница 10

TWO

‘Where is everyone?’

Melissa looked up. ‘Devdeep and Shivani are in Goa for the ad awards,’ she said. ‘The rest of us are all here. As in they’re around,’ she added as Samir surveyed the empty cubicles and raised an eyebrow. ‘They’ve gone for breakfast, I think.’

Samir had been travelling, and it was a week since she’d last seen him. He looked tanned and fit and almost good enough to eat.

His brow creased in a frown. ‘If you wrote the ad why aren’t you on your way to Goa? Didn’t Devdeep think of taking you along?’

‘He did.’ Melissa bit her lip. She didn’t like Devdeep much, but the poor man wasn’t to blame for this particular situation.

‘And you decided not to go?’ Samir sounded positively incredulous now.

There was no way out of this other than admitting the embarrassing truth. ‘I...um...I have a slight phobia about flying,’ Melissa said in a rush. ‘The trains were booked solid because it’s a long weekend, and Devdeep said that going alone on a bus might not be safe.’

‘And a bullock cart would take too much time, I assume?’ Samir said, his lips twitching. ‘How about cycling to Goa? Did you consider that?’

‘Very funny,’ Melissa said crossly. ‘I did want to go. I’m just trying to tell you that it didn’t work out.’

Too late, she realised that snapping at the new agency head was probably not very bright of her. Luckily, he looked more amused than offended.

‘You could come with me,’ Samir said, taking even himself by surprise. ‘I’m driving down—I’m leaving early tomorrow morning and I can pick you up. Where d’you live?’

‘Colaba,’ Melissa said, trying not to gape at him. ‘But are you sure?’

‘Yes, I am,’ Samir said, though he was wondering whether he’d suddenly gone quite mad.

There was no way Melissa could know it, but he never volunteered to spend time with a woman—let alone thirteen hours closeted with one in a car. For a second he wondered whether he should retract the offer, but there was no way he could back out of it without coming across as being incredibly rude.

Oh, really, Razdan? he said wryly to himself as he took down her address and mobile number. As if the fear of being thought rude had ever stopped him in the past.

* * *

Melissa was ready on the dot of six, perched on her bed. It had taken some time to decide what to wear—too dressed up and he might think she was making a play for him—too casual and he mightn’t want to be seen with her. She’d finally settled for denim cut-offs with a long-sleeved white cotton shirt and sat down to wait.

Her phone rang at a quarter past six, and she picked it up, her heart suddenly beating a lot faster.

‘Hi,’ she said tentatively.

‘Ready to leave?’ he asked, not bothering to return her greeting. ‘I’m in a black car, right outside your hostel gate.’

And what a car it was. Melissa found it difficult to take her eyes off the sleek, powerfully built machine. Then she saw Samir, and her mouth went dry with longing. So far she’d only seen him in office clothes—in an open-necked T-shirt and cargo shorts he looked even hotter than he did in formals.

She took a deep breath before she crossed the road to join him. Letting him know how much he affected her was a bad, bad idea.

‘Thanks for doing this,’ she said politely as she got into the car. ‘I’m really looking forward to the awards festival, even if we don’t win anything.’

‘You’re welcome,’ Samir said.

She looked very young and appealing, with a little rucksack slung over one shoulder, and her hair held back with an Alice band, but there was something innocently sensual in the way she twisted her slim body around to toss the rucksack into the backseat. Her hair fell over her shoulder, and he caught a whiff of a fresh floral scent that made him want to reach out and touch—it took a strong effort of will to remain unaffected by her nearness.

‘Car rules,’ he said, passing her a bottle of water and hoping she hadn’t noticed him looking at her. ‘Seat belt on at all times. No eating in the car. And absolutely no attempts to change the music.’

Melissa peeked at his face to see if he was joking. Apparently not. With uncharacteristic meekness she tugged at the seat belt—the seat belt, however, seemed to have firm ideas of its own, and refused to budge.

‘I can’t—’ she started to say, and with an impatient shrug he leaned across to help her.

Melissa immediately froze. Her first thought was that he was much...much larger than she’d thought he was—the second was that if she moved just an inch she’d be touching him, and there was something terribly tempting about the thought. Then there was the smell of his aftershave... Woody, with a slight hint of citrus, it teased at her nostrils as he released the seat belt from where it was snagged behind her seat.

‘Here—it’s free now,’ he said.

He moved away from her, apparently completely unaffected by her proximity. Oh, well, maybe her three-hundred-rupee perfume and demure clothes just didn’t do it for him. Despite herself, she felt a little miffed. Sure, he was a hotshot executive and all that, but she would have liked him to take just a little interest in her as a woman. And her own reaction to him was annoying—she wasn’t usually the swooning-over-a-hot-man type. Then common sense reasserted itself. Samir was undeniably gorgeous, and there was absolutely nothing to be ashamed of in finding him lust-worthy. As long as she restricted herself to a purely aesthetic appreciation of his hotness she’d be fine.

Samir put the car into gear, his lips thinning. The tiny gasp that Melissa had let out when he’d leaned over her hadn’t escaped him, and he was regretting his offer of a lift more than ever.

Melissa was wrong about his reactions—one look at her long, tanned brown legs and her slim but curvy figure and everything male in him had responded enthusiastically. Being older and more experienced, he was just a great deal better at concealing his reactions.

They were both silent as the car sped through nearly empty streets all the way past Dadar and Chembur, and over the creek at Vashi. The sky was beginning to lighten, and the city looked as if it had just been through an extensive makeover. It was a wonder the amount of difference the lack of traffic and pollutants made.

They were nearly at the Pune expressway when Melissa finally spoke.

‘Can we stop for a bit?’ she asked.

Samir gave her an impatient look. ‘I’d like to get on the expressway before traffic builds up,’ he said. ‘Can you hold on till we get to the first toll? There’s a food plaza there, and it’s only around an hour off.’

‘I’m hungry,’ she said in a small voice.

She’d missed dinner the night before, and the hostel breakfast service only started at seven in the morning. It was all very well for Samir, she thought resentfully. He probably had a retinue of cooks who would have a piping hot breakfast on the table even if he decided to leave home at four a.m.

Unwilling to explain that she was actually feeling light-headed with hunger, she said, ‘And I need to use the loo. Right now.’ Ha—that wasn’t something he could argue with.

It didn’t look as if he was fooled, but he pulled into a burger joint.

‘D’you want anything?’ she asked, and he shook his head.

‘I’ll wait outside,’ he said.

‘I’ll be quick,’ she promised, and darted into the restaurant.

The queues were long, and after almost an hour in the car Melissa found that she was feeling distinctly dizzy—her ears were buzzing, and by the time she got to the head of the queue she knew she was in no state to order.

‘You can go ahead,’ she muttered to the woman behind her.

‘Oh, thanks,’ the woman said gratefully—she had several kids in tow, and they had been bouncing with eagerness to order their second round of burgers. Then she looked a little more closely at Melissa. ‘Are you feeling all right?’ she asked.

Melissa had just enough time to shake her head before black spots started dancing in front of her eyes.

Samir finished sending out a couple of urgent e-mails on his smart phone and looked up, thinking that as they’d stopped anyway a coffee might be a good idea.

The restaurant had plate-glass windows on three sides, and just as he was about to start towards it he saw Melissa sink gracefully into the arms of the middle-aged woman standing next to her. He took the next few steps at a run, bursting into the restaurant just as the woman helped Melissa to a sofa.

‘What’s happened to her?’ he asked, his voice harsh, and the woman looked up in undisguised relief.

‘Oh, are you with her? Thank heavens. I didn’t know what to do! I think she’s just feeling a little faint. Rishu, give me that soda! And the rest of you kids, go and sit with Vishal Uncle. I’ll be with you in a minute.’

The kid she’d addressed gave up the drink without a peep, though he looked rather upset. Melissa was trying to sit up now, and the woman held the paper cup to her lips.

‘Thanks,’ Melissa said after a few sips. ‘Sorry about this.’

‘No worries,’ the woman said comfortably, straightening up. ‘I’ll be right over there in case you need help,’ she told Samir. ‘I think she’s OK now, but a check-up might be in order once you guys get home.’

Melissa thanked her again, and gave Samir an awkward look once the woman went away.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘This hasn’t ever happened before.’

He was frowning. ‘Do you feel OK otherwise? Should I take you back to Mumbai? That woman was right—you need to see a doctor.’

But Melissa was already shaking her head. ‘There’s no need,’ she said. ‘I think I’ll be fine once I eat something.’

His frown deepened. ‘Did you have breakfast?’ he asked abruptly, and she shook her head. ‘Dinner last night?’

Feeling hideously embarrassed, she shook her head again.

‘Why not? What time did you leave work?’

‘Nine-forty,’ she muttered. ‘The hostel curfew is at ten on week-nights, so I had to rush back. And I forgot that I was out of instant noodles.’

‘We’ll talk after I get some food into you,’ Samir said grimly. The interested onlookers in the restaurant waved him to the head of the queue and he came back with a chicken burger and a milkshake.

Melissa took the burger, but shook her head at the milkshake. ‘Lactose intolerant,’ she explained before biting into the juicy bun. The rush of flavours had her feeling a little sick for a few seconds, but the nausea soon receded and she tore enthusiastically into the burger.

‘I’ll get you another one,’ Samir muttered, rejoining the queue. It took him a little longer this time, but he came back with another burger, a soft drink and a coffee for himself.

‘So did you have lunch yesterday?’ he asked conversationally.

Melissa paused mid-bite. ‘I did,’ she said cautiously. ‘At least I think I did. Yes, of course! I remember. Dubeyji ordered a plate of pav-bhaji, and I shared it with him.’

‘You do know that you’re allowed time off for meals, don’t you?’ he asked. ‘And that the agency won’t shut down if you leave early enough to have dinner?’

She laughed. ‘Yes, of course,’ she said. ‘This must be the first time I’ve missed dinner because of work. It’s just that I hadn’t originally planned on going to Goa, and I had a bunch of stuff to finish before I could go.’

‘So essentially it’s my fault?’ Samir said.

Melissa said, ‘Oh, no!’ before she realised he was teasing her. Blushing hotly, she buried her face in her paper cup of soda.

‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘Finally, you have some colour in your cheeks.’

‘I can’t have colour in my cheeks. I’m too brown,’ she retorted.

‘Rubbish,’ he said, and lightly patted her arm, sending a little tingle through her, all the way down to her toes. ‘Tell me when you’re feeling better and we’ll leave. No hurry.’

‘I’m good to go,’ she announced, bouncing to her feet.

Samir put a steadying arm around her. ‘Careful, don’t jump around,’ he said. ‘We can’t have you collapsing again.’

‘I won’t,’ she protested, intensely conscious of the strong arm around her waist.

He didn’t let her go till he’d handed her into the passenger seat of the car. Even then he waited till she was properly belted in before he went around to the driver’s seat and got in.

‘I need you to let me know if you’re feeling the slightest bit unwell,’ he said. ‘And I’m relaxing the no food in the car rule—you can have what you want as long as you don’t collapse again.’

In spite of her cynicism about rich playboys Melissa felt rather touched by Samir’s awkwardly expressed concern. It had been a while since someone had cared enough about her to fuss. Even if the fussing was being done in an off-hand, ultra-macho kind of way.

Samir connected his MP3 player to the car’s music system before they drove off. Melissa had assumed he’d be into rock or heavy metal, but surprisingly most of the tracks were ghazals or Bollywood oldies.

She hummed along to some of her favourite songs—she had a sweet and unexpectedly strong voice, and Samir found himself listening more to her than to the original song playing through the car speakers. She seemed so completely unselfconscious that he felt himself relaxing a little. It was a surprisingly liberating change, being with someone who didn’t have an agenda either to impress him or to get information out of him.

‘Who do you keep texting?’ he asked as he watched her type out her third or fourth message since she’d stepped into the car. ‘You’re like a stenographer on steroids, the way you keep hammering into that phone.’

The second the words were out of his mouth he realised that he’d let himself relax a bit too much. Making personal remarks to someone he hardly knew was completely uncharacteristic of him—no wonder she was staring at him as if he’d grown a third eye in the middle of his forehead like Lord Shiva.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said immediately. ‘None of my business—forget I asked.’

Melissa laughed, showing a perfect set of teeth, small, white and very even.

‘I’m texting a friend back at the hostel,’ she said. ‘We just passed the turn-off for that new amusement park that’s been built here. One of the girls is coming next weekend with her latest boyfriend—she wanted to know how long it would take to get here.’

‘Won’t it be more suitable for kids?’

‘No, there are rides for adults as well. And the tickets are quite expensive—it’s a rather cool place for a first date. For regular people, I mean.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘As opposed to irregular people like me?’

Refusing to be embarrassed, Melissa said, ‘You know what I mean. If you took a girl out for a date you’d probably go to the theatre, or to a restaurant in a five-star hotel. The guys my friends date don’t even own cars—they don’t have many places to take a girl to.’

‘Where does your boyfriend take you?’ Samir asked, half jokingly and half because he wanted to know for sure that she was unattached. This asking questions thing was pretty addictive—especially when the other person was as cool about it as Melissa.

‘I don’t have a boyfriend,’ she said, but there was something rather weird in the way she said it, as if she was mocking herself.

Samir wouldn’t normally have given himself credit for being perceptive, but instinctively he knew he needed to change the topic.

‘Do you like your job?’ he asked, and she gave him a startled look.

‘Yes,’ she said cautiously, and then, ‘Why? Is there any chance I mightn’t have it any longer?’

This time Samir looked startled. ‘Not that I know of. I’m not making any changes in the agency structure—not for now at least. And when I do it definitely won’t be at your level.’

‘Too junior?’ she asked, giving him a cheeky wink. ‘Or is my salary not big enough to dent the profit figures?’

It probably wasn’t, but Samir could hardly say so without sounding impossibly condescending. He hesitated for a second, and she let him off the hook by jumping to another subject.

‘I just found a pack of candy in my purse,’ she announced. ‘I’d forgotten I had them. You want one?’

Samir shook his head.

‘They’re nice,’ she persisted. ‘Tamarind and sugar.’

He took his eyes off the road for a second and glanced at the small packet in her hand. ‘I haven’t seen that stuff in years,’ he said. ‘They used to hand them out on flights when I was in college—I used to stuff my pockets full of them.’

‘Does that mean you want one, then?’

‘Yes, please. But you’ll have to unwrap it first. I can’t take my hands off the wheel.’

She took a sweet out of its wrapper and waited for him to take it from her. They were near Lonavla now, and at a rather tricky section of the road. There was no way Samir could let go of the wheel, and the candy had begun to melt in Melissa’s palm.

‘This is going all sticky,’ she warned, and then, feeling very daring, ‘Should I pop it in your mouth?’

He nodded, and she immediately wished she hadn’t been quite so forward. He parted his perfectly sculpted lips a little and she leaned across to pop the sweet into his mouth. The candy stuck to her fingers for a few seconds and finally he sucked it off, the feel of his lips and tongue incredibly erotic against her skin.

Pulse racing, Melissa sat back and shot him a covert look. He was as unruffled as ever, but there was a slight smile playing about his lips. Until that instant she hadn’t thought of him as someone she could actually get involved with. There were so many reasons, but right now she couldn’t think clearly about them. All she could think about was how easy it would be to lean a little closer to him, breathe in the heady scent of his cologne, drop a kiss on his lips when he next turned to speak to her...

And probably make him drive the car into a road divider and kill them both. She sighed. Having a pragmatic side was all very well, but it did have a bad habit of popping up and ruining her best fantasies. So, all right, perhaps trying to seduce him while he was driving wasn’t a good plan.

She stole another look at Samir. He had the kind of good looks that grew on you. The first time she’d seen him she’d thought he looked gorgeous, but rather cold—not her type at all. But the more time she spent with him, the more she noticed things—like the way his smile reached all the way up to his eyes when he was amused, and how he pushed his unruly hair off his forehead in an unconsciously sexy gesture every few minutes.

* * *

At around the end of the expressway Samir pulled out an electronic tablet and handed it to Melissa. ‘I’ve plotted the route on this—the car’s GPS isn’t terribly reliable in this part of the world. Will you keep an eye on it to make sure we’re on track?’

Melissa looked at him in horror. ‘Don’t you know where you’re going?’ she asked.

He laughed. ‘Goa,’ he said. ‘We’ll get there eventually. Sooner rather than later if you’re a good navigator.’

She proved to be an excellent navigator—though more than once Samir found himself getting distracted by the way her hair fell across her face as she pored over the map, and the way her brow wrinkled up with concentration.

Even the first time he’d met her he’d thought that she had lovely eyes, but it was only now that he noticed the flawlessness of her dusky complexion and the near perfect shape of her lips. Her slim figure curved enticingly at all the right places, and in the few seconds he’d held her after she fainted he hadn’t been able to help thinking how soft her skin was, and how right she felt in his arms.

* * *

‘We’ll be in Kolhapur in another hour or so,’ Melissa said, effectively breaking into his thoughts. ‘Are we stopping there or going straight on?’

‘We could stop for lunch,’ Samir said. ‘There’s another burger place on the highway, and a couple of coffee shops as well.’

Melissa wrinkled up her nose. ‘I had two burgers for breakfast,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I can look one in the face for a while. Can we go somewhere else? I’ve often seen Vegetable Kolhapur on restaurant menus—would it be a kind of speciality here?’

‘Along with Kolhapuri chappals,’ Samir agreed solemnly.

Melissa made a face at him. ‘I wasn’t planning to buy footwear. But do let’s stop somewhere in the city.’

It would add another hour to the drive at least, but Samir complied. After Melissa’s fainting fit his attitude towards her had changed. Not normally indulgent towards other people’s whims, he found himself unaccountably wanting to fall in with whatever she wanted.

They chose a small restaurant in the centre of the city—the food was spicy, and not really to his taste, but it was worth the delay just to see Melissa savour the meal. Unlike the perpetually dieting women Samir normally dated, she genuinely enjoyed her food, just about stopping short of licking her fingers after polishing off everything on her plate.

‘Dessert?’ he asked after she was done. ‘There’s ice creams and gulab jamun. Or, no, you can’t have the ice cream if you’re lactose-intolerant. Gulab jamun?’

It was the first time anyone had actually remembered she was lactose intolerant—people who’d known her for years, including her own sister-in-law, continued to ply her with milkshakes and ice cream every time they met. Maybe he just had a good memory, but she couldn’t help feeling a little flattered.

‘Gulab jamun,’ she said.

Samir watched her as she dug a spoon into a gulab jamun, golden syrup gushing out of the round sweet. It was a messy dish to eat, and she paused a couple of times to lick the syrup off her lips. His eyes were automatically drawn to her lush mouth and the way her little pink tongue ran over its contours. She was the first woman he’d met whose simplest gesture ended up being unconsciously sexy. Or, then again, maybe he was just turning into a horny old man.

‘How old are you?’ he asked abruptly.

‘Twenty-four,’ Melissa said, and her brow furrowed up as she polished off the last bit of gulab jamun. ‘Why?’

Why, indeed? She looked so young that for a second he’d wondered if she was underage.

‘I was thinking about the ad you wrote,’ he said. ‘I’d assumed it was written by an older woman—someone with kids.’

‘Oh, that,’ she said, looking embarrassed. ‘I spent a lot of time with my sister-in-law after my nephew was born. She didn’t have anyone else to help her with the baby.’

‘Still, it was a very insightful piece of work. I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t win something.’

Feeling more and more embarrassed, Melissa said, ‘Has Brian been brainwashing you?’

Samir laughed, his eyes crinkling up at the corners in a particularly attractive way. ‘He happened to mention it a few times. But I don’t get easily influenced by other people’s opinions. Are you done? We should leave if we want to get to Goa before it’s dark.’

He put a hand under her elbow to guide her out of the restaurant and Melissa felt all her fantasies come rushing back in full force. Of course he was probably just being polite. Or he was worried she’d keel over and faint once again, and he’d have to carry her out on his shoulder. Either way, her insides were doing weird things at his touch, and the temptation to touch him in return was immense.

She tried to kill the fantasy by imagining his reaction. Shock? Embarrassment? Then she remembered the feel of his lips on her fingers as he’d taken the sticky candy from them, and she couldn’t help thinking that maybe, just maybe, he’d reciprocate. Bend down and kiss her. Tangle his big strong hands in her hair and tip her head back to get better access to her lips...

‘Melissa?’

Brought back to earth with a thump, she realised he was holding the car door open for her.

‘Sorry,’ she said, sliding into her seat quickly.

‘You’re a complete daydreamer, aren’t you?’ he asked, looking rather amused as he got into the driver’s seat. ‘What were you thinking about?’

Ha—wouldn’t you like to know? Melissa felt like saying. Maybe some day she’d actually be confident enough to come back with the truth when a man like Samir asked her a question like that. Unfortunately, as of now, she was less than halfway there.

‘Just stuff,’ she said after a pause.

‘Random stuff?’

‘Oh, very random.’ He’d sounded a bit sceptical, and she felt she needed to justify herself. ‘As random as Brownian motion—you know, that thing they show you in school...dust motes being tossed around by invisible molecules...my mind’s a bit like that.’

He gave her a long look, and she shook her head, laughing.

‘Sorry, sorry. Rambling a bit there.’

‘Just a bit,’ he said, but his lips quirked up at the corners as if he was trying hard not to smile.

Melissa had a nasty feeling that he knew exactly what she’d been thinking about. She concentrated on her phone for a bit, replying to the various texts that had come in while they were at lunch. When she looked up they were on the highway again, going down a rather lovely stretch of road with sugarcane fields on both sides and rolling green hills on the horizon.

‘Look at the bougainvillaea down the centre of the road—aren’t they beautiful?’

Samir hadn’t noticed the bougainvillaea other than as an unnecessary distraction—at her words, though, he gave them a quick glance.

‘They’re OK, I guess,’ he said. ‘Though they seem to be planted in any old order. White for a few hundred metres and then miles of pink, with a couple of yellows thrown in.’

‘I thought that was the nicest thing about them,’ she returned. ‘They look as if they’ve just sprung up, not as if someone planned—’ She stopped short as she took in Samir’s less than interested expression. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘The driving must be stressful, and here I am babbling about bougainvillaea.’

‘And now you’re making me feel guilty about being a grumpy old git,’ Samir said wryly. ‘I’m sorry—I’m not very good at noticing things.’

‘I’m the opposite,’ Melissa said, mock-mournfully. ‘I notice everything. My head’s chock-full of all kinds of unnecessary junk.’

‘It’ll all come in handy some day,’ Samir said. ‘You’ll be brilliant if you’re on a quiz show, one day, and they show you a picture of a road and ask you to identify it.’

The good stretch seemed to be over now, because the next turnoff they took was onto a road that barely deserved the name. It was pretty much a long stretch of potholes connected by little strips of tar, and Melissa winced as the car bounced up and down.

‘Sorry,’ Samir said, putting a brief steadying hand on her knee as they went over a particularly bad crater.

Even through the frayed denim of her cut-offs Melissa could feel the warm strength of his hand, and she began to feel a lot more positive about the state of the road. Every cloud...et cetera, et cetera, she thought, an involuntary grin coming to her lips.

Beginning to enjoy herself thoroughly now, she let the next crater bounce her sideways so that she landed on his shoulder. ‘Oops,’ she said. ‘You need to drive more carefully, Samir.’

Samir gave her a sideways look but didn’t say anything. That last bounce had been deliberate, he was sure of it, but she seemed to be doing it for fun. He was used to women saying and doing things to win his approval—Melissa was something else altogether. She was definitely as attracted to him as he was to her, but she was treating the whole situation as a bit of a joke.

‘I’m rolling the windows down,’ she announced when they came to a stretch where, wonder of wonders, there was an actual repair crew busily laying a new layer of tar on top of the existing apology for a road. ‘I love the smell of fresh tar.’

She didn’t wait for his permission, and Samir wondered what she’d have said if he told her he was allergic to dust and tarry smells. He wasn’t, but if he had been she’d probably have found that funny as well, he thought resignedly.

‘Did you notice how the colour of the soil changes between states?’ she was asking. ‘It was brown while we were in Maharashtra, then it turned black near the Karnataka border—and in Goa it’s brick-red.’

Samir shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t notice something like that even if there were mile-high signs telling me about it.’

Melissa didn’t say anything, but it was clear she thought that not noticing anything sounded incredibly boring.

He gave her a quick smile. ‘Though I do notice that you have a dirt smear on your cheek,’ he said, stroking the offending item lightly with the back of his hand. ‘That comes from having your nose stuck out of the window.’

‘Touché,’ Melissa said and grinned as she rubbed the smudge off. ‘I’ve always wanted to say that to someone, only I’ve never met anyone swanky enough to speak French to.’

‘I might be swanky, but I can at least speak Hindi,’ Samir remarked. ‘You’re jabbering away in English all the time.’

‘In the agency? That’s because poor old Dubeyji almost had a heart attack when I tried speaking to him in Hindi. Apparently my grammar’s all wrong, and I sound terribly rude.’

‘You sound terribly rude even when you’re speaking English,’ Samir murmured.

She punched him lightly in the arm. ‘Ouch, way too musclebound,’ she said, pretending to nurse the knuckles on her right hand. ‘You should go easy on the gym—live life a little. You’d make a much nicer punching bag if you were flabby.’

‘What a nice thought,’ he said, laughing. ‘But I think I’ll stick to my gym routine. And you might want to concentrate on that map—there’s a town coming up and I’ve no idea whether to go through it or around it.’

* * *

‘You have reached your destination,’ the smug voice-over on the map informed them a few hours later.

‘Except that we’re in the middle of freaking nowhere,’ Samir muttered.

After telling them to take a right turn towards the Uttorda beach the map had carefully led them to a cul-de-sac, with the beach on one side and a grove of coconut trees on the other.

A man passed by them, whistling cheerfully, and Melissa rolled down the window. ‘Is there a hotel nearby?’ she asked him in Konkani.

‘Lots,’ the man said. ‘This is Goa—not the Thar desert. Any particular one that you might be looking for?’

Melissa consulted the name on the map and told him.

‘You’ll need to go back the way you came for a kilometre or so,’ he said. ‘Turn right at the big purple house and you’ll see the signs for the hotel.’

‘Well, at least it got us this far,’ Samir said in resigned tones as he switched off the tablet a few minutes later. ‘Though I wish our friend back there had given clearer directions—every third house here is purple. It didn’t occur to me earlier—you’re Goan, aren’t you? Don’t you have family here?’

‘They all live very far away,’ Melissa said. ‘Um, should I call Devdeep or someone who’s already arrived and get proper directions?’

‘You’d need to explain where we are first,’ Samir said. ‘Let’s do the old-fashioned thing and ask a real live human being.’

The next ‘real live human being’ they met fortunately knew the area well, and within ten minutes they were pulling into the hotel grounds.

‘Thanks once again,’ Melissa said once they’d arrived. She was feeling unaccountably shy, and automatically reverted to formality. ‘You didn’t have to give me a lift, but you did, and I had a great time.’

For a few seconds Samir looked down at her, his dark eyes mesmerising in their intensity. Then a hostess bustled up to them with a tray of welcome drinks and the moment passed.

‘I’ll see you around, then,’ Samir said, taking his room keys from the bellboy and slinging his bag over his shoulder. ‘Some of the other guys are already here—you could call them and catch up maybe.’

Was that a subtle way of telling her not to expect to hang around with him? Melissa felt absurdly upset at the thought as she watched him stride away.

Just as he was about to step out of the lobby, he turned around. ‘Melissa?’

‘Yes?’ she said.

‘Make sure you eat your meals on time, OK?’ he said, smiling a crooked little smile. ‘No fainting when you’re called up to receive the award.’

‘OK,’ she said.

It was only when she reached her room and looked into the mirror that she realised that she was still smiling goofily.

‘Idiot woman,’ she told her reflection crossly. ‘It was fun, but the trip’s over now. You’ll be lucky if he pays any attention to you at all after this.’

Her reflection looked back at her just as crossly, and she gave it a wry grin.

‘I know. I liked him too. But he’s my boss—I can’t chase after him. Time for a cold shower now, OK?’

She moved away from the mirror, her good humour at least partly restored. She’d decided a couple of years back not to take men too seriously, and so far she’d managed to stick by it.

Wandering into the bathroom, she hummed softly under her breath as she turned on the taps. Eek, the cold water was really, really cold. Maybe a lukewarm shower would do just as well without giving her pneumonia.

By the time she was done with ironing an impossibly crushed pair of shorts, tucking her hair under a shower cap and actually going ahead and taking a shower, it was past six. It took her a few seconds to give her hair a brushing and pull on a yellow spaghetti strap top over the neatly ironed shorts. Once she was done, she gave herself a quick look in the mirror and headed off to the beach.

There was an enthusiastic game of cricket in progress between Devdeep and a couple of other guys from Mendonca’s and a bunch of youngsters from another agency. Pretty much the entire Mumbai advertising fraternity seemed to be in Goa, either infesting the beach or helping the state economy along by drinking larger quantities of beer and feni.

‘Join us!’ one of the younger cricket players in the group yelled out to Melissa.

‘You’re supposed to play volleyball on the beach, not cricket,’ she yelled back. ‘Losers!’

‘Leave her alone—girls can’t play cricket,’ one of the surlier members of the team grunted.

‘Oh, can’t they?’ Melissa said, promptly kicking off her sandals and joining them.

The sand felt good under her feet—it had been a long while since she’d gone barefoot. Mumbai had its fair share of beaches, but they were crowded and often dirty.

‘You can field,’ the surly man said. ‘Just don’t get in the way of the other fielders.’

Melissa didn’t say anything—just waited till the luckless batsman hit a ball in her direction. She moved across the sand like a guided missile, leaving Mr Surly and the others gaping as she caught the ball in mid-air and whirled around to knock down a wicket. Clearly unused to running in the sand, the batsmen were only halfway down the crease—they didn’t stand a chance.

‘Out,’ she said with satisfaction. ‘I think I’ll bowl next, thank you.’

There was a second of stunned silence, and then ‘her’ team started cheering madly. The bowler was the man who’d first called out to her, and he relinquished his place to her gladly. He was a nice-looking chap, with curly hair and an impish grin, and Melissa liked him immediately.

‘Down here for the ad fest?’ he asked as he handed over the ball.

Melissa nodded.

‘I’m Akash,’ he said. ‘Would you like to catch up later? Figure out which of our entries is likely to get a gold in the festival?’

‘Akash, stop hitting on the bowler,’ one of the other players said.

‘Yeah, Akash, there’s no way she’d want to be seen with a loser like you,’ another chimed in.

Melissa gave the guy a saucy grin. ‘I’ll tell you once the game is over,’ she said.

She wasn’t in the least attracted to him, but it made sense hanging out with a bunch of people her own age rather than hanging around and hoping Samir would come and find her.