Bollywood Fiancé for a Day (3 page)

‘Kicking their heels', Vishakha had said. It couldn't be helped. The columnists were certainly going to have some fodder for tomorrow's page three.

Hell, it hadn't even been his fault. The filming that should have finished this morning had been delayed till late afternoon. All thanks to Mia, his current leading lady. He knew her tantrums were designed precisely to drive him up the wall. He had to admit she'd been succeeding admirably. She'd known he had a busy schedule today. She could wrap his PA around her charming finger and get that information with little effort. She hadn't let the shot be finalized till the director had come close to chewing off his fingers, his nails already long gone. The price the poor guy was paying for having a ‘heroine', as the old-fashioned term went, for a wife.

Thank God he'd escaped the traps Mia had set him when she'd decided she should settle down for good. After witnessing his parents' fiasco of a marriage and a first-hand view of how spouses could wreak misery on each other, he had no wish to fall into that trap.

There was no difference between his father and a walking zombie where feelings were concerned and his mother had always lived up to the silent suffering wife stereotype. He knew she'd been hurt so much, trapped in a marriage with a cold, indifferent man like his dad. No, his parents' relationship didn't inspire one to rush into the institution of marriage and he didn't want to get manacled any time soon. So he'd avoided Mia and her clever attempts to sink her elegant but deadly claws into him.

However, dodging the bullet had whetted the actress's appetite that marital bliss with an upcoming director had failed to appease. Mia still pursued him in her own way. She'd tried to delay him so he would miss the charity programme and instead have to attend the after-shoot party she had organized. She'd known he wouldn't leave till the work was finished. Permission to shoot at Chittorgarh Fort had been given by the authorities for a limited time and the pack up had to be that day. So she'd taken it on herself to interfere with his peace, and to an extent had succeeded.

His attention returned to Vishakha, chin tilted up, soft mouth pursed. She did have a point. He couldn't deny he was leaving just to meet his own engagements. It certainly wasn't going to be easy on his conscience to ignore her jibe.

Instinct rebelled against conceding to her. But, reluctant though he might be to give in to the reproach in her big brown eyes, he realized he'd have to if he hoped for a good night's sleep. Despite eight successful years in Bollywood, he hadn't lost touch with reality. The fans who had made him a huge success could pull him down any time. He never forgot those initial shoe-tearing, soul-wearing years of struggle and he never displeased people if he could help it.

The feeling which had been like a fly nagging him now assumed the eye-watering discomfort of a dust storm that couldn't be ignored.

‘So, tell me—what do you want?'

Whatever he might surmise, it certainly didn't hit even close to her next words.

‘Nothing less than what you owe me,' she said simply. ‘A date with you.'

CHAPTER TWO

S
HE COULDN'T BELIEVE
she'd said that.

A date with you.

Her glance meshed with an annoyed hazel gaze.

She inhaled at her own daring. In her rashness, she hadn't paused to think, her pulse quickening even as she said the words that echoed like a battle call, a
shankh naad
of the olden war times when the conch shell blown into sounded the hoot of challenge.

‘Why?'

The succinct query threw her. ‘What do you mean why?' she snapped. ‘It's the right thing to do.'

His face gave nothing away and her bravado began to slip in the face of that impassivity.

‘It was promised,' she reminded him. She hated sounding so defensive. ‘How…'
How would you feel if you were left waiting for something that never happened?
she meant to say but she stopped, because she didn't want him feeling sorry for her. She did want to hold him to his commitment, though. She'd just been disregarded by two important people in her life. She had no control over that, but here—Her shoulders squared. She wouldn't be sidelined for the mere convenience of this actor. And that was that.

‘What. I. Owe. You,' he said, echoing her earlier words. ‘You do realize the only way for me to accede to your request would be for us to go privately—you know, like a real date?'

A
dun dun dun
sounded in her head in tandem with his announcement.

‘What?'

‘What else?' he jibed, standing there looking down at her with thumbs hooked into his belt in a cowboy pose. Every inch the arrogant, soaked-in-confidence male daring her to defy him, with that eyebrow slanted upwards. ‘Everyone's on a schedule here and I'm not upsetting their applecart. It's not their fault things got this delayed; in fact they wouldn't have done so, except for—' He broke off again and asked, ‘So? Would you come on a real date with me? You have to decide what you want, Vishakha. It's your prize, after all.'

Prize.
What a word to use when it was him—six foot odd and with a physique like the Deccan Plateau—they were talking about. What he said filled her unduly with a heady rush and an odd sense of power. She gave herself a mental shake. He could make anyone feel what he wanted them to. It was his business after all. Tweaking the strings in the hearts of the unwary audience sitting in the darkened halls, so that when he said ‘I love you' on the screen, every riveted girl had the illusion she was his particular target.

Was he really giving her precedence or just acting that way? Maybe hoping that when given the choice she'd gracefully bow out.

Maybe she should. But no…not after going on and on about him looking after his own interests. She cringed now how self-righteous she had sounded. Well, she owed it to herself to keep her end up.

‘Very well,' she conceded.

‘Very well?' he repeated, obviously surprised. ‘You want to go on a date with me?' He directed a quizzical glance at her.

‘Isn't that what you just offered?'

‘I just wonder what you're offering.' The overtly sexual innuendo in his deep voice, with that sensual husky emphasis on the last word, made her toes curl in her silver slip-ons. At the same time her breath escaped through her teeth at his brashness.

Well, she wasn't going to let him get to her. ‘A real date.' She dared to say, ‘That's what you said and that's what you get.'

‘This evening just got interesting, I think.' The Zaheer Saxena brand was highlighted by the sexy clefts in his lean cheeks as he smiled slowly. She totally wished she'd missed that. Hazel eyes caught her gaze, the look sinking into hers slowly, like a knife sliding into butter. She felt the effect of it curl to her fingertips. With an effort she dragged her attention away. She knew it was a bad idea to go on this date, the way she felt near him. Or maybe quite a brilliant one if she wanted to seize the opportunity to…

To what? Lengthen the time she spent with him? Explore why little electrical charges seemed to be running across her skin every time he stepped nearer to her?

This hadn't happened to her before. Oh, she had had her share of crushes on handsome resident doctors. But she'd always known her Papa wanted an arranged marriage for her, so she'd stayed away from them. It hadn't required effort to fight that attraction. Unlike now. As though this man had a beam-you-up spotlight just like the starship in a game she'd used to play. You stepped into the circle and whoosh, you were swept up into its mysterious insides.

‘Zaheer…' someone called. He was wanted and he excused himself. ‘If you have to wait for me again, remember I'll be making it all up to you later on.' He winked and was swallowed up in the group.

Left to her own devices, Vishakha stood frowning. The crowd was dispersing. The image of those glinting gold flecks still in her mind, she made her way to the patio encircling the hall. Her head spun with the after effects of meeting Zaheer Saxena.

She supported her hands on the cool rail, inhaling the scent of damp earth. It had rained during the time she'd been inside. The breeze coming from the wet garden hit her bare arms.

What had she been thinking? If she hadn't been so rattled from last week, she'd never have pressed him for this ridiculous ‘real' date.

Her last date had been with her ex-fiancé. Admittedly a total disaster. She'd been so pleased a two-year-old patient with pneumonia had survived against all odds, she'd provided Munish with the details of it all through the evening. He had listened with what she'd thought must be interest, but could only have been politeness because he'd cut short their date saying he had an urgent call from home. She had tried not to mind but the evening had left her disturbed. She cringed at herself now. What a dim bulb! He'd been making an excuse to get away from her obviously boring ravings about her patient and she hadn't even guessed.

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.