Arranged by the Stars (15 page)

“
You surprise
me.” Ash looked around the comfortable room and the modest
furnishings. She went to the far corner of what served as the
dining area and found the small portrait of her parents.

He expected the tears,
but not the look of sorrow. He’d made a copy of the photograph she
carried with her and had it hung in the building in their honour.
He knew it would mean more than naming the building after her. “You
don’t like it?”

*****

He asked her an
impossible question. In all her years, no one had done anything
just for her. All her life she’d lived a borrowed life, on borrowed
time, knowing that she’d have to give it back. Nothing was ever
hers. Her aunt had made sure she knew that everything she had was
due to her beauty and it would fade if she didn’t secure
it.

She lived her life
knowing that if she didn’t seal her fate by marrying the right kind
of man, she would have no future. She had no education to fall back
on. Her life was spent polishing beauty crowns and walking down
walkways smiling and waving her youth away.

Kieran took his hands out
of his pockets and walked around the dining room. He looked at the
portrait. “If you don’t like it, we can take it down.”

“
It’s
perfect. I didn’t know―” There were no words to tell him how she
felt. “I’m surprised, that’s all.” The place was filled with
laughter and life. She walked through the halls and went into the
back that led into the yard. In the distance she saw Sara and
Shelley.

“
Shelley has
a job at the local supermarket. Sara is taken care of here during
the day while she works.” Kieran stood behind her.

Ash watched the other
mothers and their children play. “There are so many families
here.”

Kieran
nodded. “
The Riya House
has become very popular. I have made plans to buy
the land next door and we will extend.”

Ash folded her arms
across her chest and felt a shiver travel down her spine. “Why
would you spend all this time and effort on this
project?”

She watched him gaze down
at the floor. She followed his gaze wondering what the fascination
was. “It was important for you to help Sara.”

It took a few steps to
reach him and when she was right next to him, he refused to meet
her gaze. “Kieran?”

Her finger tipped his
chin up. His whiskey gaze heated and she felt her bones turn to
mush. There was no way she was equipped to handle a man like
Kieran. He left her spineless with such little effort. Her finger
traced the edge of his lips.

“
This would
be so much easier if I was that waitress and you were my customer.”
Her heart was tapping against her chest like a supercharged
woodpecker.

“
But we’re
not.” He turned. “It’s impossible.”

Ash placed her palm on
his cheek. Absolutely impossible. So complicated.

Kieran lowered his head
until his lips were inches away from hers. “You could always stop
the marriage. Marry me instead.”

He’d finally said the
words she wanted to hear and yet, it didn’t soothe her heart. She
thought it would. Why? When she swallowed, it felt gritty and
sore.

Lifting her gaze to meet
his, she couldn’t ask him if he meant it, because she knew in his
own way he did mean it. But there was something that wasn’t right
in the way he said it.

His hand felt so warm, so
right as he brought her head closer. His lips brushed across hers.
She sighed as he opened his mouth against hers and his tongue
caressed hers. As wrong as it was to let these sinful thoughts take
over her mind, she couldn’t stop the heat or the desire from
flowing through her. She dragged him closer and opened her mouth
wider, knowing this might be the last time she kissed him with such
abandon. Her nails scraped against the skin of his chest and she
heard him gasp.

When she felt him twitch
against her, she knew it was too late to recall the emotions she’d
let out and she ground her hip into his groin, pulling him
closer.

Like before, it was him
who pulled away and only then did she realise that they were in
public and although they weren’t in full view of anyone, Ash knew
the risks of being seen in such a compromising position.

“
I’m sorry,”
he straightened his shirt.

She shook her head. He
had nothing to be sorry for. She pushed the limits. “No, I’m sorry.
I behaved badly.”

He had that look about
him again. That lost schoolboy look, the one he had when she had
him help her tie her sari. “So will you marry me? I can give you
security too. You’d never have to work a day in your life. You can
bring me coffee if you want. Every day.”

Ash stood in front of the
man she was falling in love with, the man who was asking her to
spend a lifetime with him. He offered her security, something she
spent her life thinking she needed, because that was what she was
told. She looked around the development he’d established in her
name. In her parents’ honour.

Everything
should have been perfect. Absolutely perfect. But it wasn’t.
Because not once did Ash ask herself, what did she want. She’d
spent a lifetime of people telling her what she’d needed. What she
believed she’d wanted that not once, did she stop to think, what
she wanted. At the beauty pageants they ask,
what do you want to accomplish if you become
queen
? You learn from a young age the
expected answer is. World peace, or figure out how to reverse the
effects of global warming. Those were things she’d been schooled to
answer. But if someone asked, what do you want to do with your
life? That was not something she could answer easily.

Ash had never played with
dolls or baking ovens. She didn’t have a five-year plan or any
ambitious goals to take over the Country. So Kieran’s offer would
be perfect. Wouldn’t it?

So why was her instinct
to run? Run as fast, and as far away as she could. He screamed her
name, and she didn’t stop.

Instead she
ran.

Six Months
Later.

“
Are you sure
this is the right way to do this?” Ash asked the tutor who
supervised her. The digital thermometer had beeped three times but
the reading didn’t look right. She turned to Mrs Culver and then to
the chart. Her nose twitched. Someone should have warned her
studying was hard. Especially when the students looked like they
should be carrying blankies around.

Ash took the pen out of
her uniform pocket and clicked it three times. She stopped at the
third click, knowing the nervous habit was becoming more pronounced
as time passed. Her tutor stepped forward and read the
chart.

“
Mrs Culver
has a fever this morning. What would you do Ash?” she
asked.

These were the hard
questions that she was meant to know the answers to. Right now
world peace and global warming were the easy questions. Why she
chose to take a career in nursing was beyond her. Why she chose to
come to New Zealand was even more troubling. If it was because Miss
New Zealand made it sound so clean and green, then―

“
Ash?” Her
tutor was giving her that look again. The one that made her wonder
if she had thrown a few stones on a board with options written on
it, and had chosen the first profession the pointy stone landed
on.

“
I’ll check
and see if she’s had any medication to bring the fever down and
then check for signs of infection. Then I would report it to her
surgeon.” The tutor nodded.

There were no stones, or
board. After she’d run like the wind from Kieran, she knew she’d
wanted something more from life. She flipped through Mrs Culver’s
chart and looked at the notes. “She had some paracetamol this
morning. I will tell the nurse to let Dr Kan―”

This had to be a mistake.
She
looked down at the notes and tried to focus on the name. It was
right there in bold black font. K Kanna. Yet surely not.
“
I…
I’ll let the doctor know.”

The tutor
nodded and was ready to go to the next student. Ash looked down at
the notes again.
Dr K Kanna.
She flipped through the pages and started reading
the surgeons notes. It was no mistake. She’d left the country. The
continent. When had he become a surgeon? Nothing made
sense.

She was still standing
there in a state of disbelief when she heard him say her
name.

It took forever to turn
around and face him. Her heart plummeted to the pit of her stomach.
If she expected him to be the same charismatic charming man she
remembered, then she was wrong. He’d changed. His hair was longer,
the long length curved to kiss the nape of his neck. It was still
raven black, he was still the most handsome man she’d ever seen.
But there was an air of danger around him that gave her goose
bumps.

“
I didn’t
expect you here.” She wasn’t sure if the unshaven dangerous look
suited him. He looked darker in his black slacks. The warmth was
missing from his eyes. Was he angry?

He took the chart from
her hand and looked at the notes. “She has a fever. Let the nurses
know. I will prescribe some IV therapy. Think you can handle
that?”

Definitely lingering
anger. She tapped her fingers on the table in front of them. An
apology wouldn’t suffice. It didn’t explain what he was doing here.
Why did he follow her?

“
Yes, boss.”
She knew he watched her walk away.

Later that evening she
made a list of all the reasons she should stay away from Dr Kieran
Kanna. Then with a red permanent marker she made a note of the
consequences if she didn’t keep to her list. Feeling very happy
with herself, she pinned the list above her bed.

The small room she was
renting wasn’t large enough to swing a kiwi, but she knew that for
the next few years, it was home. As she lay back on her pillow and
looked at the list she made she had to smile.

Who needed five-year
goals, when all she needed was to keep to this very important
goal.

Keep away from Kieran
Kanna, at all costs.

*****

“
New
initiative?” Ash felt the hairs at the nape of her neck stand up.
This was so typical of Kieran. He was using his money to get his
way. She placed her hand on her chest, just at the spot where she
felt the heartburn she’d been having since finding out Kieran was
in Auckland, as she focused on Karl, a student from her study
group.

He was excited by the
prospect of tagging along with a doctor. The exposure would give
them the experience of a life. The part of her brain that wasn’t
affected by her response to Kieran knew that. But…

She lifted her hand and
clutched Karl’s shoulder. “At least tell me we can choose which
doctor we get to go with?” she watched him raise his eyebrow and
narrow his gaze.

Karl saw this as an
opportunity of a lifetime. His dream was to use nursing as a
licence to explore the world. “I’m not sure how it works. All we’ve
been told is, someone has given us a grant. If this works out they
will continue to support this programme.”

Ash was lost amidst the
excitement of this new initiative. As much as logic outlined the
benefits of gaining experience working with a doctor, a programme
that could teach them more than any book would, her heart told her
this was a bad idea.

An hour later when she
was getting her tour of the emergency department before her
placement with the doctor on duty there, Ash wondered if she had
been overreacting.

Karl tapped her on the
shoulder and pointed to the resuscitation room. “They have a
zapper.”

Being a mature student in
the group sometimes made her sound like a big sister who had to
make sure everyone else brushed their teeth before they went to bed
each night. It made her feel old. And responsible. “It’s a
defibrillator.”

He shrugged
and gave her that smile that had hearts all over New Zealand
fluttering. She knew exactly why he got away with doing the bare
minimum in school. He was too pretty to do hard work. But he was
also the smartest student in her class, which made studying with
him easy. With those dimples and that I’ll-never-let-you-down
smile, he had woman
and
men eating out of the palm of his hand. “I know.
Zapper is way cooler.” He pulled her further into the
room.

This resuscitation room
was so much bigger than the one back in Goa. She wasn’t sure why
she even thought about the clinic, or that room. That time. She
didn’t want to, because thinking about it meant thinking
about―

It was impossible not to
think about Kieran. After escaping the continent, she had turned
full circle and he was here with her again. Unavoidable. They were
in the same city, in the same hospital. That could be no accident.
With thoughts speeding through her mind, her fists curled into
tighter circles. She couldn’t worry about Kieran. Not now. But as
she decided to forget about the man who was an intrusion to her
every dream, he materialised right before her.