24 1/2 Kisses (A Bashir Family Romance) (8 page)

I
fell asleep in his bed drained and exhausted from our lustful battle. It was the nicest sleep I had had in years and it came quickly.

When I awoke early the next morning, he was gone, a note written in his sure, small cursive left on the bedside table.

Scarlett,

I’m so sorry.

I love you.

Dev

I felt chills when I read it. I had seen the remorse in his eyes as he touched my reddened skin, and I, too, became ashamed of the wounds I inflicted on his body. His lip was torn, his face bruised, and when he turned over, I saw the deep scratches down his back. As much as we had pleasured each other, so had we each been proportionately punished.

But I wasn’t entirely sorry.

That night challenged me—no—
changed
me into someone who would fight for her happiness, someone who wouldn’t shrink away and sulk when things got bad. I needed to be strong for us and I knew that I hadn’t been.

I so badly wanted to tell him this; I wanted to hold him in my arms and kiss away the bad memories, and softly chant “I love you” over and over in his ear.

But he was gone.

With my dress torn, I grabbed one of his long dress shirts from his impeccably organized closet and put myself back together enough to venture out in public. I decided to go home, take a long hot bath, and process all the thoughts that were bouncing around in my head. Dev would call me or send for me when he was ready. He loved me, so of course he would.

Wouldn’t he?

I spent the weekend waiting for his call that never came. On Monday, when I walked into work, I could tell something was afoot. Linda found me just as I made it to my cubicle. She had a strangely excited look on her face.

“Scarlett, you won’t believe this.”

I sighed. “I already know. My story’s dead. Bill called me.”

“Honey, you have no idea. Come on, Bill is fighting off a heart attack right now. He wanted me to fetch you as soon as you got here.”

Puzzled, I walked with Linda to Bill’s office. I noticed a few stares and whispers from the cubicles around us as we passed them.

What the hell is going on? Am I going to be fired?

Inside Bill’s office, he was shouting on the phone like sergeant in the Marines when we walked in.

“Yes, legal is looking at it right now. There’s still time to make it in this issue. Uh huh, no kidding. You got it. Bye.”

When he hung up, Bill looked like he might pass out from excitement.

“Scarlett, I knew I was right to hire you!”

So I’m not fired.

“I’m confused. I thought the story was dead.”

He threw down a yellow envelope stuffed with papers onto his desk.

“A courier dropped this off early this morning. It’s from Dev Bashir.”

Something caught in my throat.

Dev, what are you doing?

Linda chimed in, her excitement verging in hysteria. “He sent over dozens of memos from Gerald Franklin to himself and others regarding the Zambia loans. Holy shit, Scarlett, it couldn’t be more condemning! They knew exactly what would happen from the get-go.”

Oh my god.

I couldn’t find my breath.

Bill, sounding like a kid in a candy store, interrupted her. “He sent over figures with profit margins—everything. And there’s a copy of his resignation from Franklin Bank. He mentioned you, Scarlett.”

“What?”

Bill shuffled through the pile of papers and pulled one out. He started to read from it in his gruff, over-caffeinated voice. “I credit the book,
Portraits of Poverty,
by Scarlett Sommerfield, as the main catalyst in causing me to re-evaluate my career at Franklin Bank and to earnestly contemplate how my efforts there were either making the world a better or worse place in which to live.”

This is what he rushed off to do that morning when he abandoned me?

He couldn’t have mentioned any of this to me last night when our bodies were tangled up together? As we lay together in his bed breathing the same air, sharing our slumber, it didn’t cross his mind to tell me he would be executing his career in one fell swoop come Monday morning—and giving me credit for it?

One question came to mind quickly. “Was Dev involved in the Zambia loans or not?” I asked, hoping for clarity on something that had bothered me deeply.

Linda spoke up. “Doesn’t look like it. But he knew about this at some point obviously. He was the clean-up guy, and he did his job well.”

Bill jumped in. “That’s beside the point, Scarlett. After we print this, you know your little book is going to be a New York Bestseller, right? Congratulations.”

Funny, but I didn’t quite feel like celebrating, and Linda seemed to catch on.

“Honey, you’re looking pretty pale. You okay?”

I forced myself to breath and tried to look normal, but I was melting down inside.

“Yes, I’m fine. Just shocked.” I turned to Linda. “This is your byline, right? I don’t want it.”

“Since you’re personally involved, we can’t put your name on it. You’re okay with that?” She asked, carefully.

“I am. Thank you.”

When I left Bill’s office, I felt I was walking through a thick fog. It was surreal and oppressive. More questions loomed: Why did he do that? What is he thinking? I had plenty of questions, but no answers.

He would call. He would reach out. He would explain this to me.

But he didn’t.

I
looked out the window of my little New York apartment and watched as a single orange and brown leaf drifted on the cool breeze to the ground below. The summer had whipped by, and fall had fully arrived in all her northeastern splendor.

I blew on my tea—I had made it too hot—and turned the page to the last chapter of
Gone with the Wind
. I don’t know what made me decide to read it—it had been years since I picked it up—but as I was going through my closet looking for my winter sweaters, I found it in a box. It was the copy Dev gave to me that fateful Christmas years ago, a first edition and signed by Margaret Mitchell.

It had been four months since Dev left, telling no one where he was going, and leaving behind a tsunami of fallout for Franklin Bank. There were indictments—one for Gerald Franklin, his supposed father—and new investigations. The bank’s stock plummeted in a matter of hours after Linda’s expose was published. And Dev was the biggest target for every news and magazine outlet in the world.

But he was unreachable.

Gone. Just like that.

He had never called me. I finally went to his apartment, but it was empty, his things gone. I even called Annika, hoping she knew something. She didn’t, and she and her family were just as worried as I was.

Over the past few months, it started to sink in: he wasn’t coming for me. And I felt myself start to give up. I couldn’t work anymore—afflicted with near-constant nausea—and I ended up quitting my job with
Time
. My condition made me feel this strong impulse to stay hidden away inside, safe from the craziness and the noise of the city.

Thankfully, as Bill had predicted, my book took off and hit the top of the New York’s bestseller’s list, so there was enough money to sustain me. It seemed everyone wanted to read the words that prompted the Prince of Banking to renounce his throne and throw it under the bus to boot.

It was a cruel irony, indeed.

The tea now cool enough to drink, I settled in for the last chapter.

The one where Scarlett loses everything—
like I did.

The one where Rhett leaves her a sobbing mess on the floor—
like he did.

The one where Rhett won’t be coming back—
like Dev won’t.

As I read the words, tears ran down my face. I knew why I felt drawn to this book. It was my story. The universe had given me love—
the truest love
—and I managed to toss it away, to ignore it, to belittle it. But worst of all, I refused to fight for it until it was much too late. And now here I was, a pathetic crying mess, just like my namesake.

After I finished the chapter, the phone rang as if on-cue.

It was Annika. I had shared with her everything that had happened with Dev and she had been a true friend to me through it all.

I quickly wiped my eyes, blew my nose and tried to sound like hadn’t been crying.

“Hi Annika. How’s Texas today?”

“Are you crying?”

Damn, she’s good.

“No. Just fall allergies.”

“Okay, if you say so. Listen, I have some news.”

My heart stopped.
Was it about Dev?

“You finally set a date for the wedding,” I guessed, trying to sound casual.

“No. I mean, yes, we did, but that’s not what I’m calling about.”

“Okay, what is it?”

“My parents hired a PI—a private investigator—to find Dev. My mother is really messed up. She keeps saying she’s going to have a heart attack from stress if she can’t see her son—ugh, she’s so dramatic!—and she won’t leave her bed until she knows he’s alright. Anyway, we found out he’s in India. I thought you should know that.”

India?

Something clicked inside of me, like I should have known that already.

“Do you know
where
in India? It’s a big country.”

She sighed dramatically. “That’s just the problem. The PI can’t locate where he is
exactly
.”

“That’s a problem,” I commented, feeling quite conflicted about the news.

“Well, apparently it’s
my problem
. I’m going to fly there next week and try to find him. Rasheed can’t go because he’s doing his residency, and my father won’t leave my mother, and my mother is busy trying to not have a heart attack.”

I knew what she was going to say next and I quickly prepared to answer her.

“Anyway, can you go with me?” she finally asked.

I waited a moment, wondering what I would say. And then it hit me all of sudden:

That I
should
go, that I should have hope and fight for him. That he was worth it and so was I.

I remembered how the ending of
Gone with the Wind
had left just the tiniest bit of hope that Scarlett would go after Rhett and get him back. And that you just knew she was strong enough—tenacious enough to do it.

Wasn’t I?

And besides, I knew where he was. I think I always knew.

“Yes, I’ll go with you, Annika. I’m pretty sure he’s in—Baga Beach—and staying in a blue and white house…with yellow shutters.”

Annika gasped loudly.

“Holy hell, Scarlett. You might have mentioned this earlier.”

I almost laughed at her reaction.

After we went over the details of the flight, I hung up the phone and then instinctively touched my stomach. My nausea had finally eased.

And just in time for a trip to India.

W
e flew first class into Mumbai and then caught a domestic flight into Goa. Annika complained the entire trip about her toe, which she had sprained trying to play tennis with her fiancée the week before. In the taxi, on the way to our hotel, I noticed she was wearing three-inch pumps.

“Annika, maybe you should have worn different shoes if your toe is bothering you.”

She was applying a fresh application of red lip stick with the skill and accuracy of a brain surgeon.

“Nope, never. I will never go without heels. I would rather break my leg, and look good doing it, thank you very much.”

I smiled at her vanity and stretched my legs as much as I could in the cramped taxi cab, which smelled like wintergreen air freshener mixed with madras curry. I noted the comfortable flat sandals on my own feet. I wouldn’t be caught dead in heels right now. Not like
this
anyway…

When we made it to the colorful hotel, with a view of the Indian Ocean, I was relieved to finally get some rest before setting out to find Dev. Since Annika knew some Hindi, it wouldn’t be hard to track down every blue, white and yellow house on the beach just by talking to the locals.

But it’s never that easy, is it?

We were halfway up the steps when Annika fell, nearly taking me with her. She had lost her balance on her stupid high heels and fallen badly on her right ankle. I heard a sickening pop when she landed.

So, before we could even check in, and before I could finally get some much-needed rest, we ended up at the over-crowded and stuffy hospital in town.

“It’s broken, and we’ll need to pin it together before setting it in a cast.” The doctor who attended to us spoke perfect English, but he was all business as he pointed to an x-ray on the lighted screen in front of us.

“Pin it? As in, put a pin in it?” Annika asked, sounding beyond stressed.

The doctor almost smirked in reply. He was tall, about Dev’s height, and maybe 35 in age. He was handsome but his good looks were offset by a very sour attitude.

“Yes, a pin. We don’t fuse bones together with scotch tape here.”

I cleared my voice, which was raspy and tired. “Doctor, how long does she need to be here? We’re supposed to be looking for someone and—I can’t really do it on my own.”

Without looking up from his clipboard, he responded. “We can schedule her for surgery tomorrow morning, and she’ll need at least a week to recuperate before releasing her.”

“Oh god,” Annika gasped. “And doctor, can you please tell me who will perform the surgery? I mean, it will be a
real
doctor, not someone with an Indian voodoo license or some nonsense like that. You know what I mean, right? We have plenty of money to hire the best.”

I was embarrassed for her and tried to cringe out of her line of sight.

The doctor looked up from the clipboard with cold eyes. “I’m doing the surgery, Miss Bashir. I was trained at Oxford University. Does that help?”

“Yes,” she squeaked.

After he left the room, she turned to me in a panic. “Scarlett, I can’t believe this happened! What are we going to do? I’m going to be stuck in this dingy third class hospital forever. I mean, did you see the crazy eyed lady in the waiting room? She reached out and touched me and uttered some weird chant.”

I rubbed her arm trying to console her when in truth I felt just as nervous as she did. How would I get around without her?

“You’ll be fine, Annika. You’re in good hands—I mean a doctor from Oxford! That’s such luck. I’ll find someone to help me and I’ll go out on my own. You have your phone and you can call me anytime. Okay?”

“Just be careful.”

“I will.”

She laughed. “Can you believe I broke my ankle?”

I couldn’t repress a giggle. “No, but at least you looked
damn good
doing it, right?”

Back at the hotel, I fell into my bed and didn’t get up until morning. Upon checking in, I had made arrangements to hire a guide the next morning who could speak English. I would check in on Annika and then go exploring a bit. But until then, I would sleep and dream about Dev. I could feel him close to me and I knew he was there, breathing in the same moist, salty air, warm and heavy, with a slight aroma of Indian spices and smoke. I had one last thought on my mind before I succumbed to sleep.

Dev, where are you?