Bollywood Fiancé for a Day Read online

  She squeezed her eyes shut as they pricked with tears again. How could she not have seen what was coming?

  Had he taken that date as a sign of their coming life together? She blinked away the tears. She wasn’t about to march up and ask him, so there was no way of knowing if that was true.

  Twenty-six and almost a complete novice to the dating scene. Her mouth curled in disgust. That was the price for keeping her nose buried in medical books. As a child she’d seen her mother struggle to bring her up because she had no proper job qualifications. She’d been determined she’d never have to face that kind of grind, determined to get her degree and build her career. Her mother’s remarriage to an affluent and wealthy man hadn’t made any difference to that vow.

  Her stepfather was as loving as she could have wished for, except for being a stickler for tradition. He’d told her in no-nonsense terms while sending her to the hostel in Delhi, ‘No boyfriends, no love affairs.’

  Since she wasn’t the rule-breaker in the family, she’d had no intention of going against him. An intention that had been strengthened by seeing too many failed affairs. So many of her friends exchanged love notes in the library and fixed up dates, only to end up weeks later, shedding tears over broken relationships. So she’d steered clear of deepening the friendships with her male cohorts.

  Now here she was. On the brink of dating a Bollywood star. On the threshold of an evening that didn’t bear any resemblance to her humdrum hospital rounds.

  Maybe she needed this to make her unwind. Free herself from the stresses of work and her personal disappointments. This evening could be her path to fun.

  Could it?

  Couldn’t it?

  She came back to the hall and almost ran into the black-clad muscle machine that was Zaheer Saxena.

  ‘Steady on. Don’t flatten me with your eagerness.’ The laughter lightening his eyes teased her, making her scowl and heat up both at the same time.

  He said in his typical drawl, ‘So when do we start? I’m ready to leave.’

  I’m ready to leave. It sounded so final. So he meant it. Instead of raising her hackles, the low tone served to increase the anticipatory feathery shivers rippling across her skin. Vishakha worried her lower lip, fiddling with the beaded neck accessory the salon stylist had given her. Instead of answering, she slanted him a look.

  An evening with him. Drowning in the sensual magic he projected. Yet that damn you arrogance he possessed. Could she put up with it?

  So what? All she wanted was a good time. Nothing more.

  She took a deep breath and whispered, ‘Now.’

  ‘Want this?’ His voice lowered further, his eyes narrowed, a wicked glint in the amber-green depths. She sucked in her breath. For drool-worthiness, Zaheer Saxena didn’t just take the cake, he took the whole bakery. But then he probably knew to an inch how he appeared and to a Newton the devastating force of that look. She met his gaze and said quite steadily, ‘Yes, I want this.’

  ‘How much?’ he teased.

  ‘Totally,’ she said.

  ‘You’ll kill me, sweetheart.’

  She ignored his overstated way of speaking, trying to absorb her own surprise at her seriousness.

  This mattered to her. She had been disregarded by her fiancé, and ignored by her sister as though she didn’t exist. Saira hadn’t bothered to even ask for her forgiveness or tried to explain. Just a tepid, ‘Sorry Vishakha, we had to do this.’ And that too on the phone. She had asked them to come back, assuring Saira things would be all right for her, she would not stand in her way. Yet there had been no thanks for her generosity. No respect for her feelings.

  This date had become a way to prove she mattered. She existed.

  * * *

  Her intensity surprised him.

  So Little Miss Disapproving wasn’t such an iceberg after all. This evening promised to be fun.

  Her skin felt cool beneath his fingertips as he took her elbow. Zaheer glanced at her as he led her out of the hall through a side exit to avoid the excessive curiosity of the media.

  Why the whole stick-in-the-mud act? He breathed in the mixture of rose and jasmine in the scent she wore, acutely aware of the vibes she gave off in the slight tremor of her body, the pulse beating with betraying quickness at her neck as she looked at him as though he’d stolen something of hers.

  Whatever it is, honey, I’d love to give it back to you.

  A date that had been cancelled…a commitment he had been forced to back out of…and now he felt almost as keyed up as he had been on his first ever date with a girl.

  He hadn’t felt this strong surge of magnetic attraction in a long, long time. The immediate stirring of his libido, fuelled by the antagonism that spiced her reaction. He’d baited her, teased her. But she’d surprised him. All evening she had acted as if she’d rather hug a python than touch him with a ten-foot pole and then she had dropped the bombshell of wanting this date with him.

  Clever. But he knew enough about women by now that the about-turn didn’t totally surprise him. That air of vulnerability he’d glimpsed had thrown him a little off-track back there. But she’d proved she could handle herself. She’d given every bit as good as she got and even better.

  Verbally.

  And now he couldn’t wait for the action.

  If she’d changed her mind and had thrown away the ten-foot pole in order to sidle up to him…well, who was he to complain?

  Outside the towers that formed the hotel complex, they paused as a shiny black limo glided up to the kerb. The damp wind blew against them. Zaheer held her close, shielding her from the stray drops. He opened the car door for her and she slid in.

  * * *

  The interior of the limo was as plush as any she’d seen on the screen. A lime scent assailed her nostrils, the carpeted floor felt soft beneath her heels and the seats were sink-in luxurious. The interior light glinted on the wine glasses. Vishakha mouthed a wow silently. It definitely looked like something right out of the movies.

  Or had she stepped into one? It certainly had all the makings of a film scene. Sombre head-buried-in-books doctor out for an evening in town with a Bollywood star.

  Zaheer took the seat next to her, his tee stretching on his chest as he leaned back.

  She heard him instruct the chauffeur, the partition slid shut and then they were off.

  ‘So which one did you like best?’

  ‘Huh?’ She tore her gaze away from his biceps. Not that they weren’t already imprinted on her memory, they were flashed on so many posters on every roadside. But having them right in front of her, in the flesh, was totally different.

  ‘My movies, of course. As a fan, you can give me some critical input.’ He said, ‘Out of all my movies, which is your favourite?’

  ‘I haven’t seen that many.’ A total lie. She had seen them all because, before her friend Neeta got married, she had dragged her to each one, first day, first show. But she didn’t want to display the adulation Zaheer obviously expected from a so-called competition-winning fan, so it was far better to stay quiet.

  ‘Not seen that many?’ He sounded incredulous. ‘But how can that be?’

  ‘Is it mandatory to watch your films in order to exist on Planet Earth?’ She shook her head. God, he had an ego the size of the Incredible Hulk! His disbelief made her uncharitable and she added, ‘To be honest, I have actually seen them all, but I’m not a big fan. In fact, I think some of them suck. You did ask for critical input,’ she added as an afterthought.

  Maybe she’d said too much. But, damn it, he had hordes of followers. If there was one woman not falling over herself for him, could it be a dampener for him? He’d get over it soon enough. But it might do him a little good before he did.

  ‘Yeah, that’s critical all right,’ he mused. ‘But, just for the record, I don’t expect you to have seen all of my films. Or even any. I was just surprised when you said you hadn’t seen many because the quiz for the contest was a tough one, quite non-Google
-able, and still you answered correctly, so I presumed you were a massive fan of mine…’ He glanced at her. ‘So you didn’t like the action…or what precisely?’

  ‘It’s all so fake and…arranged, isn’t it? Maybe you can enlighten me as to what’s so great about kicking feet from under people and bashing their faces in a repetitive sequence of pretend moves?’ OK, so maybe his ego wasn’t quite Hulk-size after all, but it was still the jumbo pack. She wouldn’t start acting all penitent now.

  ‘Right. But you do know most of my flicks have been blockbusters?’

  ‘That’s the director’s art to make a movie great. All you have to do is dance and lip-sync and run around trees,’ she said bluntly.

  ‘Then why did you enter the contest? For that matter,’ he said slowly, ‘why are you even here? If you aren’t even remotely close to being a fan of mine?’

  Vishakha stopped. Stymied. In her desire to make her point that she wasn’t going to fawn all over him she hadn’t thought where this might go. She wasn’t usually so disparaging of people. Why had she gone after him with sleeves rolled up like she had? Mostly she was placid to the point of being submissive. ‘So amenable,’ her aunties always said. Was it him bringing it out or just the strain of the last few days?

  Well, whatever, this was totally a pit she’d dug herself into. How could she explain why she was here? She could hardly say, To escape the humiliation of facing those chuch-chuch noises my relatives were making. It had got to be so bad. Every time she passed by, her fat aunties would shake their heads. As though a broken engagement meant the end of the world for her.

  No, n-no, nahin. She wasn’t saying it to this supremely confident swan what it meant to be the hobbling injured sparrow.

  ‘Oh well, I did actually quite like your last film,’ she offered contritely. ‘Awesome title. Hum Ko Milna Tha Yesterday. “We should have met yesterday”. Very romantic. And you were rather realistic as Raj,’ she tacked on for good measure.

  ‘Really!’ He raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘Wow. Tell me more.’

  ‘You were very convincing as the redeemed bad boy.’ She laid it on more thickly. Well, he had been good. The pepper in the masala mix film. She knew there couldn’t be a girl in the multiplex hall at the end of the film who hadn’t been left with a pounding heart and starry eyes. Including herself, for a change. Not that she would admit it, given his already over-inflated ego. Not even if the temperature of hell fell to sub-zero. And even then, not to him.

  ‘You think so?’

  How easily he’d fallen for her turnaround. He was probably egoistic enough to swallow any bit of praise for his acting. She wasn’t completely lying. She had liked the movie, though in places you might wish you’d left your brain home. And yes, she might not like the kind of films he usually acted in, but his performance in that one had been good. Everyone said he’d bag a dozen popular best actor awards at least.

  ‘Of course,’ she said with more confidence.

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘And obviously on the gullibility scale of one to ten, I rate a ten?’

  About to agree automatically with his mild tone, she stopped short. ‘I didn’t…I just thought…’

  ‘That maybe muscle has grown into my brain?’ The hazel eyes were keen. OK, his intelligence had somehow escaped being clouded by his conceit. ‘So you think I can’t distinguish between honest and insincere praise.’

  She had found a safe zone to study—her hands—trying to find an appropriate way to mollify him. She risked a look at him. But surprise! He smiled. ‘Don’t worry, janeman, I can take criticism of my films. And don’t look so guilty. A beautiful woman can be forgiven anything.’

  He’d taken that well. She cursed herself for being so transparent. She folded her arms and faced him squarely.

  ‘Well, you aren’t so bad in the lying department yourself. Overrated compliments are lies, after all,’ she added when he looked faintly puzzled. He was certainly prone to flattering her. Maybe his PR training worked that way.

  He chuckled. ‘Is that a not so subtle way of fishing for more?’

  He hadn’t taken her seriously. Maybe that compliment had been a shallow attempt at graciousness. He must think such comments were expected of him. Thank God she wasn’t too full of herself to take him at face value.

  He took out his cell and excused himself to place a call. Relieved to get him off her back, Vishakha slid off her studded heels and wriggled her toes. She had a spine-chilling moment. What was she doing here? She belonged at the side of patients’ examination tables, poking and prodding little tummies, not in this flashy world. Saira would be more suited for these surroundings, with her water-straight hair and always perfect make-up. Zaheer Saxena must certainly not be used to being seen with staid doctors. An image of his latest girlfriend rose in her mind, a reed-thin model clad in gold lamé, who’d been featured hanging on his arm with a pearly-teeth smile on the last page three spread. Enough to give anyone a sizeable inferiority complex. Bulky women might no longer be taboo in Bollywood, but in real life being calorie-laden still stung.

  Not that she was fat. But a top-heavy figure usually hidden in loose clothes gave that impression. In fact she’d been surprised to see how slender she actually looked when she’d slipped on the so-light chiffon gown. Not as slender as that model, but definitely more graceful than in the heavy embroidered clothes she had been expected to wear as a newly engaged woman. They had only made her look even more stocky than she really was.

  ‘Sorry to keep you. I had to cancel a meeting.’ Zaheer clicked his phone shut and put it away. ‘I thought we’d eat first. And then dance, if you’re so inclined?’ The light query came smooth as honey from him.

  ‘Er…I don’t dance much. Actually, I had begun to take lessons but somehow I never kept the appointments.’ She had wanted to dance properly at her sangeet ceremony but juggling her duty roster with the classes along with the shopping trips, not to mention dinner dates with Munish, had become too much effort.

  The hazel eyes gleamed softly. ‘Don’t worry. We could always slow-dance. Not much practice needed. And much more enjoyable.’

  His smile told her he was flirting with her. She froze. Then annoyance rose inside at her own frigid reaction. Even Saira, younger than her by six years, would know how to handle a bit of casual flirtation from a man. She forced herself to relax and smile back. Even bat her lashes a little. ‘I might try that. It could be fun.’

  ‘It will definitely be fun. I see you’re in the mood for it.’

  He shouldn’t smile quite that way. Slow and somehow sensuous. His fuller lower lip curving in an insidious invitation.

  ‘I’m in the mood to break my usual rules.’

  Why had she said that? She froze again, natural caution insisting she was going too far. Relax, it’s only conversation. We have to pass the time.

  He whistled softly. ‘What a great idea! Why don’t we celebrate it?’ He took a champagne bottle from the ice bucket and expertly popped the cork, taking one of the fluted glasses to pour the golden liquid in, condensation immediately clinging to the outside.

  ‘Thanks, but no. I don’t drink.’

  ‘Not drink champagne?’ He raised eyebrows in disbelief. ‘What did you just say about breaking some rules?’

  ‘It’s not as though it’s essential for our metabolism,’ she said a little sharply, needled by his prod.

  ‘Isn’t it?’ He raised the glass to eye level and pretended to consider. ‘Well, then, I don’t need it either.’ To her surprise, he placed it untasted back on the tray. ‘Why don’t we find something else to do?’

  No mistaking his meaning this time as his arm slid along the back of the seat. Tingles shot along her spine as his large warm hand touched the bare nape of her neck, moving to her shoulder and slowly stroking the skin there. Before she could pull away, he turned her, his other hand easily and boldly sliding around her waist to draw her nearer to him.

  ‘Mr S
axena!’ It came out rather strangled as she tried to stave off the shock of his brash move.

  ‘Zaheer,’ he corrected, his breath fanning her temple.

  ‘Zaheer…’ Her pulse pounded at the sudden proximity to him. Warmth enclosed her, the heady scent of his cologne shimmering on her senses. Fighting to find some reason amongst the madness, she leaned away, one hand pressing against the down-soft fabric of his tee. He followed. She knew a brief moment of panic. Her other hand gripped the edge of the shelf, she felt something cool and then, before she could check the impulse, she had the ice bucket upturned, a shower of cubes raining down on him.

  Oh damn, had she hurt him?

  Then she caught a glimpse of the thunderous surprise on his face and felt a fierce surge of satisfaction. Oh, he hadn’t thought she would object to his practised moves, had he? He’d probably thought she’d be flattered to melting point by that caveman-style come-on.

  ‘Oh teri— What in the blazes are you about, woman?’

  It had the desired effect, though. He was back on his side of the seat.

  ‘You’re asking me that? What do you think you were doing?’

  ‘What you’ve been practically inviting me to.’

  She gasped. ‘Me invite you? I have never heard of such…such drivel!’

  ‘Oh, really? Have you got short-term amnesia? Who came on to me, fluttering her lashes like a humming bird in full flight?’

  ‘I…you misunderstood.’

  ‘Me? Which part? The “I’d enjoy a slow dance with you” bit or the “you owe me a date” part?’ He threw up his hands in disgust when she made a sound of protest. ‘Oh come on, you are not still going to hold on to that excuse of me doing the right thing by going on this date, are you?’

  The patent disbelief in his voice made her scowl.

  ‘Why can’t I when it’s the truth?’ she gritted out.

  A pause fell as he obviously sought to rein in his temper, inhaling deeply. When next he spoke his voice sounded a shade more temperate. ‘You are not making any sense. Why did you insist on this date if you didn’t have a thing about me? And you haven’t been exactly averse to flirting with me!’