Where the Lotus Flowers Grow (5 page)

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“Don’t apologize. She was out of line.”

“Let me correct my mistake. I’ve put us in a bad situation.”

“Us?”

“The hotel.”

“Ah, of course,” he said, as if that statement could have another connotation. “You made an error, Miss Costa. Everyone is allowed the occasional error. But no one. No one is allowed to speak to
you
in that manner.”

I forced myself to remember he was talking to me as my employer and nothing else. Staring at the intricate design of the rose carpet we stood on, I decided to come clean. I lifted my head, taking in the cut of his dark designer suit, the navy pinstriped tie, the stretched fabric of his crisp white shirt. I forced my head up to meet his fiery eyes. As my father had said, “If you need to confess, don’t do it behind masked doors.” Liam’s eyes were more green today, shining as brilliantly as the foliage of the Banyan tree. “Sir, I purchased the wrong face cream intentionally.”

He blinked at me. I expected some anger, but his expression held only curiosity, maybe even a hint of amusement. “You botched it on purpose? Why?”

“I didn’t feel it was right. What she was asking for. But I know better. It was none of my business.”

“You’re right. It wasn’t. Unless the substance she sent you to buy was illegal. Was it illegal?”

An hysterical laugh echoed through the room. Although it was mine, the sound startled me just the same. “No, just face cream.”

His expression didn’t waver. The weight of his intense stare was suffocating.

“What is so controversial about face cream that caused you to stage a silent protest?”

“She wanted whitening cream.”

“You’ll have to educate me as I don’t know the first thing about women’s beauty products. What exactly is whitening cream?”

“Exactly what it sounds like. It lightens skin color. The kind she wanted contains bleach. It can burn your skin if it’s not applied correctly or left on too long.”

He regarded me with a look of concern. “Do you speak from experience?”

Don’t ask me anymore, Liam.
He had managed to learn more about me in two days than anyone else had in years.

“I’ll go fetch it now,” I said, hoping he would drop the subject. I felt foolish for bringing it up in the first place. For allowing him to defend me when my actions didn’t warrant it. Now, I only felt stupid for my admission. He didn’t budge from the doorway.

“May I be bold and improper?”

“Better than meek and weak,” I said, a little too loudly.

“Right you are.” He took a step back from me, shoving his hands in his pockets, rocking on his feet. “You’re lovely as you stand. You have beautiful skin, Mary.”

A warm flush spread across my body as my mouth went completely dry. I tried to swallow, unsure if a body could die from spontaneous dehydration.

He exhaled. “Anyway, it’s an awful thing, but there is nothing we can do about it. We are not the morality police. We have a business to run.”

I nodded. “I shall go now, sir.”

He backed away from the door. I went to turn the knob, but his voice halted me. “Mary.” There was a silent command in that voice. Something in me wanted to heed it…needed to. I’d never felt that way. It had nothing to do with our business dynamic. My stomach flipped, and my knees knocked against the stifling sari. “You are not to deliver it. Have someone else take it to her room. Also, have one of the drivers take you this time. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And what is that you understand…specifically?”

“I understand you won’t risk the guest’s satisfaction. Any more contact with me will only upset her further.”

“Not her satisfaction. Despite what our mission statement says, guest satisfaction currently ranks number three on my list of concerns right now.”

His statement was like a cracked doorway, too tempting not to open further. “May I ask what the first two are, sir?”

He stepped closer, not touching me, but only a thin span of space separated us. “Someone speaking to you disrespectfully is the first. Me not losing my temper when it happens is the second. Any further questions?”

“No, sir.”

“Good. You are dismissed, Miss Costa.”

Dismissed? I grasped the doorknob, fumbling nervously, as if I didn’t know the mechanics of the object. “Yes, sir.”

His hand clasped over mine, turning the knob.

“Liam. My name is Liam.”

I pressed my forehead against the door. “Thank you, Mr. Montgomery, sir.”

“Formal it is. Good day, Miss Costa.”

I hurried toward the driver’s area of the lot. He didn’t follow me, but I felt his eyes on me with each step. I prayed Kishore wouldn’t be there, because this day was already weird enough without another encounter. He wasn’t there. After two seconds, the other drivers filled me in. I needn’t have to worry about Kishore again.

He’d been sacked.

When I returned from my second trip, I asked Pooja to deliver the correct face cream and also another item I’d purchased from my own funds for Mr. Montgomery, telling her he’d asked me to get it. I sent a note with the product, explaining how to apply properly. He wouldn’t be able to read the Hindi lettering on the bottle. I lied and told Pooja he’d written the note for me to give the clerk, knowing she wouldn’t be able to read it.

She looked at it curiously. “He asked you for sunscreen?”

“Yes, the other kind made him burn.”

I didn’t understand my own motivations at the time, except that the sunscreen had stared me in the face at the shop. I thought he had beautiful skin, too. I would hate to see any damage come to it.

Liam

Her personnel file stated she had been with us since she was eighteen. She was twenty-two now. There was little information, except that she did her job with proficiency. She cleaned rooms and worked in the kitchen making room-service deliveries. I almost choked on my coffee when I saw how little we paid her. Maybe enough to indulge in a Starbucks latte in the States…after a week’s salary. Of course, the wages were aligned with our competitors in this region. That didn’t make it right, though. She didn’t even have an emergency contact listed. That made me sad. Who cared for her?

I had every right to this information, but my purpose was personal, not professional. I stared at the bottle of sunscreen she’d sent me, unfolding her note once again.

Sir, please use this as your sunscreen while you are in India. The other kind is worthless. You might as well hang a mirror around your neck. You have nice skin, too. This will protect you.

She’d written some additional instructions about its use, but didn’t sign the note. I smiled at the last line. She wanted to protect me? Guess what, love? That went likewise and double for me. I’d almost lost it when that hostile woman was yelling at her. Knowing that Mary earned so little and had used that money to buy something for me made me feel like a complete sod. Mary didn’t belong here. She definitely had an education. The cross on her neck, although old, appeared to be gold. The bangle she wore on her right wrist was more fitting though…a large, tarnished, fake silver band. She was always adjusting it. When I’d first seen her, I hadn’t thought much of it, but she wore it every day, and it wasn’t part of the uniform. But it was definitely part of
her
uniform.

God, she was a strange girl. Strange and intriguing and the last person I should be thinking of. Yet, she held the distinction of occupying all my random thoughts.

I picked up the bottle of sunscreen. Worried about an allergic reaction, I had placed only a small amount on my right shoulder, using the other brand on the rest of my body. As it turned out, it was only my right shoulder that didn’t sting from burn.

I chuckled, remembering this morning when she was picking up the discarded glasses at the pool. I wanted to talk to her, but she had given me her silent look of warning. So instead, I held up the bottle and mouthed the words, “Thank you.”

She’d nodded in response.

I wasn’t an idiot. Even behind the cloak of her nervousness, her gaze lingered on my body. Yet she was able to go on as if the conversation didn’t hold the same weight for her as it did for me. Each day since, I found myself searching for the girl who didn’t want to be found. Why had I gone against my own promise when I pulled her aside like that? It showed a lack of self-control on my part, but even worse, a blatant disregard for her. I understood the ramifications of rumors better than anyone. She didn’t need that. I’d told her that she was beautiful. I had needed to tell her. The words had been a fire in my belly, refusing to ease up until I said them.

Fucking idiot, Liam.

I checked through my emails, trying to appease the board and fend off my half brother, Stephen’s, ridiculous suggestions.
Sod off, Stephen.
I wondered if my father was having a good laugh over the torturous situation we’d inherited. I disliked my brother because…well, because he was a tosser who’d had everything handed to him. By the same token, he hated me intensely, showing off his feelings with brilliant displays of disloyalty. The most recent of which was suggesting to the board someone in our position should come on this trip. He’d meant me.

It was a private company, at least for the next few months. I could have declined, but truthfully, I wanted to get the hell out of Manhattan, and our Asian hotels did need a closer look than the quick figures we went over each month. I opened the email he’d sent with the subject line
sold
. I read through it three times, my anger rising with each sentence of the long contract.

I rang the obnoxiously long number, my fingers gripping the phone. It went to voicemail so I rang again.

“What the fuck, Liam. Do you know what time it is here?” Except he didn’t sound tired. He was wound up and awake.

“Yeah, Stephen, I know exactly what time it is. I just read your email. What the bloody hell? You know I’m trying to work through the problems here, and now you go and try to sell it.”

“You can’t fix it. I’m sure you’ll spin your wheels trying, but it’s time to admit failure and move on. The buyers came to us. The land is worth more than the building. It’s a solid contract. We need to clean up our bottom line before we take the company public.”

All good reasons, yet I argued. “You can’t sell without my permission.”

“Thanks for the reminder, bastard Brit brother from another mother.”

“Oh, that term of affection never gets old.” He did almost as good a job of getting under my skin as the scorching Rajasthani sun.

“Just look over the fucking contract. We are not in the hotel business. We are in the making-money business. And this place isn’t making any.”

“At least be original, bro. Stop copying lines from our father.”

A girl laughed in the background. Stephen sniffed. He fucking sniffed.

“Are you coked up?”

The line went quiet. “That’s no concern of yours.”

“It damn well is since we run a business together.”

“And if it were just you, it would be run into the ground by now.”

This was pointless. Conversations with Stephen were impossible under normal circumstances, let alone when he was under the influence. Despite his lifestyle, he did have a good mind for business. I would admit—never to him--that it was better than mine.

“Jesus Christ, Stephen. Get yourself sobered up and call me back.”

“Read over the contract, Liam.”

“Okay, brother. In the meantime, you should go over the proposal I’m presenting to the board at the next meeting.”

“What proposal?”

“All our employees will be randomly drug tested at least once a year, maybe twice. That includes us too, mate.”

He laughed, a mixture of irritation and fear. “Fuck you. They’ll never go for that. It’s too expensive.”

“I’ve done a lot of research and figured out ways to cut the expense. Besides, you don’t want drug addicts working for us…or do you?”

“What is your problem with me?”

“With you? Nothing. I don’t think about you. I don’t care about you at all. I do care about this company left in our charge. I am doing you a favor, though. It’ll give you an opportunity to get clean and stay clean.” If there was one thing Stephen cared about, it was his position.

“I fucking snort coke once in a while. It’s recreational. Do all British people have sticks up their arses or is it just you, bro?” He did his very weak, much too high-pitched, imitation of my accent.

“Don’t justify yourself to me. I’m not your therapist or your mother.”

“Read the fucking contract,” he yelled as I hung up.

I almost punched a hole in the plastered walls, but that would be counterproductive. I went to the hotel gym instead and lifted weights. Then I went swimming. I wanted to go for a jog, but the grounds weren’t set up for that, and I wasn’t in the mood to run about the city. It was early afternoon by the time I’d showered and gotten through the rest of the emails. The contract could wait.

I had planned to tabulate results of my interviews. That was my idea, and what a fucking useless idea it was. No one had been honest. Everyone loved working here and, accordingly, there was not one damn thing we could do to improve ourselves. I’d even made sure that Prabhat hid the fact that I owned this company. But it did nothing to lessen people’s inhibitions when answering my questions. Even the reassurance that their responses would be private did no good. I wondered what kind of scare tactics Prabhat had used on the employees. Did he not realize if I couldn’t come up with solutions to increase our bottom line, that the entire ship he was so desperately protecting would be sunk?

Including her.

Mary Costa… I bet she’d be honest with me, but how could I talk to her without mucking up her life? I picked up the phone, dialing down to the kitchen.

“Hello, Liam Montgomery here. Can you please get me the staff schedule for today? Yes, I want all shifts and breaks. Thank you.”

Mary

The whole kitchen staff grumbled about how much our Western taskmaster ate. I chuckled as the fourth round of room service was placed on the cart. The things he ordered didn’t even make sense. Dessert first, then tea, then lunch, then breakfast items.