Bollywood and the Beast (Bollywood Confidential) (19 page)

Hadn’t everything
else
failed him? Hadn’t he failed to keep Beauty in the Beast’s lair? Why should his body betray him, too?

It turned out that
Nani
was not particularly sympathetic to his situation, and when he posed the question to her, she ruffled like an outraged bird. Gone was the woman who had held his hand and comforted him when Archana walked out on him all those years ago, cooing and clucking as he wept into his bandages.

“Does your heart work?” she asked in her soft but imperious Hindi. When he nodded, she asked, “Do your legs work?” At this, too, he nodded. “Then what is keeping you from her?”

She was silent as he searched for the answer—the answer he knew from the very beginning. “Me. Rakhee needs more than me.”

She made a guttural sound of dismissal that belied how delicate and graceful she looked, swathed in a pale green cloud of a sari. “What will she find that is more than
you
, son? There is nothing greater than love but God.”

His grandmother could say that easily, with all of her years of wisdom and living. But that did not mean that Taj had to believe it. He had never been one to put stock in pretty words, in hopes and promises. If Rocky had left him because she could not stay, then so be it. He would not debate if religion was the only thing that could take her place at his side.

“
Bewakoof
,”
Nani
muttered, punctuating the gentle insult by chucking a ball of yarn at his head. “What are you doing here?”

“I
live
here,” he reminded her.

“
Nahin
.” She eyed another ball of yarn like a bowler sizing up a cricket ball. He instinctively hunched over, shielding himself from the potential missile. But she only waved her hand. “You
stay
here. You don’t
live
here. You live with that girl. In her laughter. In her sadness. In her shadow and her light.”

He’d thought Urdu the language of poets, but
Nani
’s Hindi was no less lyrical…and no less astute. Rocky had become all things to him in just a handful of weeks. Light in his shadows. Hope in his perpetual despair. Fresh, clean air when he had taken breath for granted. “She does not need me. Not in the same way.”

Again she made that incongruous sound of dismissal. “Who says? Did you ask her what she needs from you? What you give to her?”
Nani
’s eyes were bright, her lined face set with determination. “Women are strong in different ways, weak in different ways. That does not mean we do not need.”

Rakhee had touched him like she cherished him, made love to him like she craved him. But her mind had remained her own, as he warned her against loving a monster but never asked why she did so anyway.
Stupid
. He was so stupid. And a coward. Pushing his body to its limits but never pushing his heart. And still he grasped at excuses. “I will die before her, you know.”

This time, the second ball of yarn did go sailing toward him, bouncing off his chest and rolling to the floor. “As your
nana-ji
died before me. So? You still have forty beautiful years ahead. Spend them in her arms.”

How could he conceive of forty years in Rocky’s arms when he’d spent ten locked behind the walls of this house? He’d gone out exactly four times: hospital visits early on, for grafts and tests and torments. And the world,
her
world and Archana’s world, had moved on without him.

Bollywood built armored superheroes now, with computer-generated animation. Everyone had a fancy mobile, a tablet, a Twitter. What did he have but a map of scars and a forgotten story?

“You have her,”
Nani
said, as though he’d asked aloud. “You have
her
, dear grandson. Go and get her.”

Taj didn’t know if he could.

But he knew one fundamental thing: if he did not try, it would be the biggest failure of his life.

Chapter Thirty-Three

The barest whisper of a touch woke him. Not quite Sleeping Beauty’s kiss. But then his story was not the fairy tale in this house. And the man who awaited him, no prince. Ashraf stirred atop the sheets, his second night in a row in Kamal’s bed just as oddly restful as the first. But this time…this time Kamal was there when he opened his eyes.

“What are you doing here,
Chote
?”

That voice…that mesmerizing, unearthly voice. He would hear it forever. Even if he went deaf in old age, it would echo in his ears. Only, he’d hear it saying…

“Ashraf,” he corrected, still half in dreams. In glorious, filthy dreams. “My name is Ashraf.” Class barriers, master and servant, childish nicknames…he had no use for these things now. Not with the phantom memory of more than just a tentative hand stroking his hair still clinging to his skin. Not with
here
and
now
so terribly close. “
Intezar
,” he added, rolling to his side, propping his heavy head on his hand. “I am waiting for you.”

It could’ve been dialogue from a movie, were anyone outside the art house making such films. But Kamal did not follow any script. He stood stiffly at the side of the bed, almost at military attention. Was it Ashu’s imagination, or was there more gray in his beard? More age in his eyes? Strange to think that such a timeless man could take on the weight of years so quickly.

“Are you a ghost?” Ashraf asked softly, in Hindi.

He held his breath—as if, this time, Kamal would answer in the affirmative. But he shook his head, a quick, jerky motion. “
Nahin
. I am still only a man.”

“So you still have a heart.” It felt like he stretched his hand across a great chasm just to rest two fingers on Kamal’s chest, over the organ in question.

It might as well have been the blow of a fist, for Kamal stumbled back a step, his breath exploding from him in a whoosh. And then his throat moved, the apple bobbing as he swallowed. “Yes.”

It was cruel to push him again. But Ashu had no choice. He sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. The two fingers he’d placed over Kamal’s heart turned into four and a thumb, curling inward against the soft cloth of his shirt to tug him close. Close enough so that their knees brushed. Electric current seemed to pop to life in that simple contact. “Do I still live there?”

Had he ever noticed Kamal’s mouth before? So stern and yet so soft? Dark and bowed…and never so beautiful as when his lips shaped one simple word: “Always.” Kamal glanced down at Ashu’s hand, at their knees. And then he took in the room. As if it was the entirety of this house. “Do you still live
here
, Ashraf?”

He exhaled as though he had been holding his breath since the first time he left for Mumbai. Perhaps that was true. Perhaps now, all he needed for air was one simple word. “Always,” he assured him, leaning just slightly forward. “This is my home.
You
are my home.”

They would not kiss now. Ashraf knew that. Nor would they embrace. Not yet. Perhaps it would be a year before they ever unbuttoned a shirt or explored beneath a zipper. But their fingers laced together in a delicate design—far stronger than it looked—and, today, it was enough.

Even before the clamor and hubbub of the busy set went unnaturally silent and still, she knew.

She felt it. Sensed it. On every level.

The air changed, as if molding to his uneven gait. The faint scent of roses overlaid the chemical tang of the fog from the smoke machine. And Rocky’s heart stopped beating and abruptly started again.

He’d come for her.

Taj Ali Khan had come back to Mumbai
for her
.

She turned so quickly that her ankle almost twisted, but the misstep was worth it. The catch of her breath was worth it. He stood tall, her Beast, his long hair swept back and his dark eye blazing with “fuck you” defiance as if he was daring the cameramen to record and the PAs to snap pictures and instantly upload them online. But this, too, she knew: what he was really daring was himself. To keep walking. To keep going. And for her to meet him halfway.

Little did he know that Rocky would meet him at the gates of hell if he asked her to. She
ran
the last few yards, and when she launched herself into his arms, his misstep was worth it, too.

“Rocky.” Her name was a groan of relief. Maybe even a nonbeliever’s prayer. “Sweet Rocky,” he murmured into her hair as he gathered her close.

She clung to him, practically ripping holes in his crisp button-down shirt with her nails. He was real. Solid. Smelling of sandalwood cologne and heat and man. “You’re here,” she marveled, breathing him in. “You’re really here.”

His laugh rumbled between them like thunder, and his fingers tangling in her hair were lightning, sending tiny shocks through her body. “It’s the brilliant thing about airplanes. They can carry me places as easily as they carry you,
hai na
?”

“Not as easily. I know that.” She pulled back, just enough to take in his face. His stupid, arrogant, beautiful face. “I
know
that,” she repeated.

His mouth quirked up at the corners, and there was almost,
almost
a twinkle in his eye. “I know it is not easy for
you
, Rakhee. Caring for a man like me.”

A man. Taj had called himself a man. Was it bizarre that such a little, verbal thing almost meant more than the grand gesture? “That’s where you’re wrong,” she assured him. “Loving you is the least complicated thing in my life. One look at you, and I was done.”

He only left her for a moment, likely flashing back to that look, that first exchange in the shadows of the
haveli
’s front parlor. “And to think I was so rude to you that day.”

That day. And so many days after. It was what he knew. It was part of who he was. She wouldn’t trade an ounce of it for flowery compliments and false promises. “We’ve said it before: you’re lucky I have a soft spot for assholes.”

He stroked his thumb along her jaw…and then followed the line with his lips, apparently not giving a damn what the people gawking at them thought of such an intimacy. “
Haan
,” he whispered against her skin, “I am very, very lucky. To have found you. To have loved you.”

More little words with gargantuan meaning. Rocky was dizzied by them—and glad to be held in the safe circle of his arms, so that she could savor the sentiments…and tease him about them, too. “Only past tense, Taj?” She knocked his knee with her own.

His growl was pure theatrics. But when he nipped at her ear, a deliciously sharp tug of teeth,
that
was serious. “Present also…and, if you choose, future as well.”

Was it really in question? Had Taj doubted her just because she’d left Delhi? Rocky would never, ever give him cause to doubt again. They could, and
would
, have everything she’d ever dreamed of. “I choose.
Of course
I choose.”

And the happily-ever-after—fights, flights, thorns and all—was a given.

About the Author

Writer and editor Suleikha Snyder always dreamed of being a published author…but she took the long way around and got a little lost en route! Cue fifteen years of detours involving a degree in English literature, a job in college administration, and a gig in entertainment media. After publishing her first romantic short story in early 2011, she’s finally putting pedal to the metal on the fiction freeway.

Suleikha lives in New York City with her neuroses, her sense of humor and a menagerie of stuffed animals. Find her on Twitter at
www.twitter.com/suleikhasnyder
and online at
suleikhasnyder.blogspot.com
.

Look for these titles by Suleikha Snyder

Now Available:

Bollywood Confidential

Spice and Smoke

Spice and Secrets

When fear writes the past, only love can direct the future.

Spice and Secrets

© 2012 Suleikha Snyder

Bollywood Confidential, Book 2

Priya Roy is back in Bollywood with a rock-hard body, a precious gem of a secret and a heart of ice. Producer/director Rahul Anand won’t waste this second chance at his first love. He’ll melt Priya’s resistance at any cost—even if it means returning to acting and negotiating his way onto her next project. Hell, if she’d give him half a chance, he’d write himself into every scene of her life.

Talk show host Sunita “Sunny” Khanna and her brand-new producer, Davey Shaw, are determined to get Rahul and Priya on her show for a ratings-boosting reunion episode. She and Davey strike instant sparks, but Sunny, burned after her disastrous marriage to a Bollywood bad boy, is determined not to fall into the fire.

Lurking on the edges of the frame is Rahul’s stepmother, trouble-making man-eater Nina Manjrekar. And when she hijacks the script, only honesty can turn a first draft into the romantic superhit it’s meant to be.

Warning: This book contains smoking, smoking and then kissing, kissing while lying, and some really, really questionable décor.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Spice and Secrets:

“What do you want?” she asked him, as if she honestly didn’t know.

Rahul shouldered past her into the room before he answered. “Everyone’s partying in the lounge. Trishna asked for you.” It was a flimsy excuse in the age of the text message, and they both knew it. But he’d waited for her for weeks. Biding his time. Pretending he cared about the production when all he was truly invested in was her arrival on set. Now that she was here, he didn’t give a damn about anything else.