The Bestseller She Wrote (16 page)

‘Oh yes. I completely forgot about that. I am so sorry.’

It was Wednesday. A day more, and Shreya would be gone for two weeks.

Vaishali called Aditya later that evening. ‘I wanted to talk to you about two issues, Aditya. We are announcing your next book to the media in two days. The press release is going out. All the videos that we have shot with you for the book will be live this weekend. Amazon, Flipkart and all the other ecommerce sites will put it up for pre-booking this Sunday.’

‘Isn’t it too early?’

‘Not at all. It will be on pre-order for three months. We will work overtime to get it ready in time for the committed date. Be prepared. Life is going to be terrible for the next few days.’

‘Hmmm . . . and the second thing?’

‘We need to throw a success party for your nomination for the award. And we need to do it before the winner of the Crossword Awards is announced. We will get a fair bit of media attention and that will overshadow the winner, just in case it’s not you.’

‘Do we still need to do this, after all these years, and all these books?’

‘Aditya, irrespective of how big you become, it’s important to stay engaged with the media. Authors thrive on media hype. You know that.’

‘Of course, the one who is seen more, sells more—the age-old adage.’

‘So when?’

‘You decide.’

‘Too little time this week to do justice. We need time to make sure that everyone who matters is there. The media needs to come too. Will next weekend do?’

Aditya thought for a moment. ‘Fine.’

‘Cool. I will be in touch. I’ll let our CEO know. She will have to plan a trip to Mumbai around the same time.’

*

That night at around eleven, Aditya was on his computer working on his edits when he decided to check his Facebook account. Without social media interventions, books would take half the time to get written. He had just logged on to Facebook when he got a ping.

‘Hiiiii!’ It was Shreya.

‘Hi Shreya.’

‘What are you doing?’

‘Edits. The boring stuff.’

‘Not thinking about me?’

‘Haha . . . you think that is possible?’

‘You know what I am doing?’ she asked.

‘Tell me.’

‘Drinking.’

‘What?’

‘Beer. Me and Sunaina.’

‘What’s the occasion?’

‘Your award nomination. We are celebrating. The one who has been nominated is not giving us a treat. So we are celebrating amongst ourselves.’

‘Of course there will be a treat for you, baby.’

‘When?’

‘Once you are back from your training.’

‘Why not today?’

‘Today?’

‘Yeah. Why not today.’

‘You know the time?’

‘How does that matter?’

‘How will I get out of the house at eleven? What will I say?’

‘I don’t know. That’s your problem.’

‘Shut up now, Shreya. Go to sleep. You have work tomorrow.’

‘Are you coming with me to celebrate or not?’

‘Not today, baby. Let’s plan for later.’

‘Later is not today.’

There was radio silence for some time. There were no further messages from her for the next three minutes.

‘You there?’

‘Wait,’ she responded.

And then after a painful wait for five minutes, she typed, ‘Sunaina says that she doesn’t want to come.’

‘That’s why I am saying let’s do it tomorrow.’

‘I am going. If you don’t want to come, don’t. I will celebrate your award nomination on my own. I’m going to Marine Drive. Will hang around there for some time and come back.’ The moment he read this message, Aditya panicked. Marine Drive was about ten kilometres from where Shreya lived and almost equidistant from his house. Going there at that hour, that too alone, was not safe.

‘Shreya, you are drunk. It’s a bad idea.’

‘I think it is a good idea. The bad idea is that you don’t want to come along. But it’s okay. I will celebrate today’s success, today.’

‘Baby, wait.’

‘Bye. See you tomorrow.’

Aditya was worried. Going to Marine Drive at that hour in a cab was asking for trouble. He didn’t know what to do. He pinged her a few times on Facebook. Every time he got a seen receipt, but she didn’t respond. After five minutes even that stopped. She had gone offline.

He walked to his bedroom and glanced inside. Maya was fast asleep. He shut the door and walked to the other end of the house and dialled Sunaina. She didn’t pick up the first two times her phone rang. Finally on the third attempt she answered.

‘Where is she?’

‘Hi, Aditya. How are you?’ The slur in her voice was unmistakable.

‘Where is she, Sunaina?’

‘She is changing. Getting ready to leave.’

‘Are you going with her?’

Sunaina laughed. ‘I can’t walk a step and you want me to go to Marine Drive? And by the way congratulations, Aditya.’

In a split second, Aditya made his decision. ‘Hold her there. I am coming,’ he hung up. He was worried that Shreya would end up harming herself if she went alone. But what would he tell Maya? Obviously he couldn’t be going to work at midnight.

He walked back to his bedroom and shook Maya slowly to wake her up. ‘There has been an incident at the Andheri branch—a small fire in the basement. I need to go.’

‘Oh my God! I hope it’s nothing serious.’ Maya woke up with a start.

‘Will have to go and find out. Though from what the branch manager told me, it doesn’t look too bad.’

‘You want me to come with you?’

‘No it’s okay. No point in waking up Aryan. You stay here. I will be back soon.’

‘Take the keys with you,’ Maya said.

Aditya hurriedly wore his clothes and rushed out of the house. This was the first time he had ever lied to Maya to leave the house at night.

36

A
DITYA DROVE LIKE
a maniac through the deserted streets of Bandra and Khar to reach Santa Cruz, where Shreya stayed. It took him eleven minutes to cover the distance, which during the day would have taken him thirty.

Shreya was standing at the gate, waiting for him. Sunaina was nowhere to be seen. He presumed that she was drunk and not in her senses. Shreya too looked fairly zoned out. Dressed in a tank top and mini skirt, she looked straight out of any man’s fantasy.

The moment he saw her his anger melted. He stopped his car and got off. Shreya saw him and smiled. He walked up to her and hugged her. His hands roamed freely over her back and for a fleeting moment caressed the swell of her hips.

‘Naughty boy,’ she chided him. He smiled and held the car door open for her to get in. Once she was settled in her seat, he started driving.

‘Where to?’

‘Wherever you want to take me. The idea is to celebrate your nomination.’

Aditya grinned. He had calmed down by then. ‘Let’s go where you wanted to go,’ he said and turned the car towards Marine Drive.

‘Did you expect to be nominated for the award?’ she asked him the moment the car hit the Bandra Worli Sea Link.

‘I wanted it, for sure.’

‘I’m so happy for you, Aditya,’ Shreya said as she bent over to her right and kissed Aditya on the cheek. As she stretched, her skirt rode up a few inches. Aditya could see her lacy panties. He was getting turned on. As it is her cleavage was making life miserable for him.

He slowed down and extended his left hand which now rested on her inviting thighs. Shreya made no attempt to shake him off. An emboldened Aditya started caressing her thighs, even as he drove at over 100Kmph on the sea link.

‘What are you doing, Aditya? Focus on the road,’ Shreya chided. Aditya looked at her lustfully. But he didn’t remove his hand. In fact it moved up a few inches. He could now feel her panties.

‘Aditya’ Shreya whispered. ‘Don’t.’ Her breathing was heavy. ‘Not here. There are cameras on the sea link.’

Aditya removed his hand and stepped on the pedal. The moment they got off the sea link, he turned into Pochkanwala lane, which was deserted at that time of the night, and parked in a secluded corner, under a tree, hidden from the streetlights.

‘No cameras here,’ he said, as he turned towards her.

‘Weren’t we going to Marine Drive?’ asked Shreya. Her breathing had come down to normal.

‘We will, we will,’ whispered Aditya. ‘What is the hurry?’ He leaned towards Shreya and kissed her on her lips. His hands had snaked under her skirt and moved her panty aside. You are wet,’ Aditya stopped kissing her and mentioned, matter-of-factly.

‘What did you expect, Mr Writer?’ Shreya moaned as she took his face in her palms and ferociously kissed his lips, as if it was the last kiss of their lives. After savouring his lips, she pushed him back on his seat and moved her hand down his chest, further to the buckle of his jeans. She just fumbled for a moment as she unbuttoned him, even as she lifted herself off the seat, providing Aditya the much needed manoeuvrability to pull off her panties, at which he had been tugging for a while.

Aditya glanced at the side mirrors just to make sure that no one was approaching. By then, Shreya had freed his manhood from the dark confines of his jeans and Calvin Klein underwear. Her eyes lit up as she bent down and started teasing it with her lips. Aditya moaned in ecstacy as he stretched back on his seat.

In one defining moment, Shreya swung her leg over the gear shaft and even before Aditya could realise it, she was on top of him. Hurriedly he glanced at the rear view mirror again; no one in sight. Shreya’s top was open and her fabulously delicious globes were in front of him. He reached out and licked her nipples while Shreya guided his manhood into her. She put her arms around his head, held him tightly against her breasts and began to ride him. She loved it when his stubble grazed against the sensitive skin of her breasts. She also wanted to be as close to him as possible to avoid even the remote chance of her back coming in contact with the steering wheel and hence the horn. Who would want a midnight love-making session to be disturbed by a blaring horn?

‘This is my gift to you, on making it to the shortlist,’ Shreya whispered into his ears once they were done and had cleaned up. They stayed there, in the car, for a long time, possibly an hour, after which Aditya drove up to Marine Drive. He picked up his phone and looked at it. There were five missed calls from Maya. He had intentionally disconnected the bluetooth connection betweeen the phone and his car. Otherwise the ring of the phone would have been heard on his car speakers and would have surely interrupted them. He decided not to call her back. She would be fast asleep.

After driving around Marine Drive, Aditya drove Shreya back to her house. She was more sober than she had been when he had picked her up earlier that night.

Before getting out of the car Shreya looked at Aditya and said, ‘Vaishali called,’ much to Aditya’s surprise.

‘Today?’ he asked.

‘Yes, a few hours back.’

‘What did she say?’ Aditya asked.

‘She wants to meet me,’ Shreya looked at Aditya intently and added, ‘next week. Apparently she is coming for your success party.’

‘Hahaha! Oh that!’

‘How could you even think of having a party when I am away?’ She was angry and it showed.

‘Relax. No one is having a party.’

‘Well, that’s what Vaishali told me. Friday evening . . . next week. She even gave me the precise date. You have started lying to me too?’

‘No, Shreya, Vaishali wants to have the party on that day. Maya is not available. She is travelling on her community work. In any case it will not happen.’

This peeved Shreya even more. ‘So, if Maya had been fine, you would have gone ahead with it? Even for a moment you did not think that this could have been a wonderful forum for me to meet people who matter—people from the trade, production houses, publishing industry . . . all of them together at the same time.’

‘It’s too early, Shreya. Why don’t you understand that? First meet Vaishali , sign the book deal, get the manuscript in shape . . . there’s still lots to do. Once you are close to the book release, that’s when you need to worry about all this.’

‘Okay, fine. If you are hesitating to introduce me to them then tell me. I will figure a way out.’

‘What?’ Aditya couldn’t be sure if Shreya was behaving the way she was because she was drunk or whether she was actually upset.

‘You heard me,’ she walked out of the car, slamming the door in his face. A beautiful night had come to an end.

Aditya was shocked at her demeanour. After all, wasn’t he the one doing Shreya a favour? And if she knew about the party and was angry, why hold it back till the end of the evening? Was this celebration a façade? She could have easily confronted him on the phone. She made him come all the way, spent the evening with him and then at the end, pushed him off the cliff. As he was driving back that night, Aditya couldn’t help but wonder if she was really in a relationship with him, or she was faking it all just to achieve her goal.