Twelve Hours of Temptation
‘So it’d help if you told me exactly what people are worried about,’ he said, leading the way into his room. ‘I plan to address the team tomorrow, but I want to get my bearings first.’
‘The older guys think you’ll sack them,’ she said bluntly. ‘Especially the copywriters who work on regional languages. And people like me are worried that we’ll no longer be doing the kind of work Brian trained us for—we’ll just be churning out run-of-the-mill advertising. And a few, like Devdeep, just want to know how they can impress you and get promoted as soon as possible.’
Samir raised an eyebrow, and she went on.
‘I’m not criticising him. He’s probably the most sensible of the lot, and he has a wife and two kids to think of. It’s just that for the rest of us there was a reason we joined Mendonca’s, and the reason’s now gone.’
‘The work you’re talking about,’ Samir said. ‘Could I see some of the things the agency’s done in the past?’
‘It’s all around you!’ Melissa exclaimed, but then the bare walls of the room registered. ‘It’s been taken down,’ she said in surprise. ‘Brian had all our best work framed and put up on the walls. And there were the awards and certificates we won...’
She sounded distinctly upset now, and Samir found himself explaining.
‘I can’t work in clutter,’ he said. ‘I didn’t really look at the walls last time I was here, but I asked for the office to be cleared out completely before I joined. I assume Brian took the ads home.’
He was probably right—Brian had been inordinately proud of the collection of award-winning ads his walls had been plastered with and it was more than likely he hadn’t wanted to leave them behind. It felt a little as if the soul of the agency had been torn away, Melissa thought, and then gave herself a quick mental shake. Brian was gone, and agonising over the past wasn’t going to do her any good.
‘There are soft copies of everything saved on the common drive that we all have access to,’ she said briskly. ‘I can show you if you like.’
She went around to his side of the table so that she could show him where the ads were stored. As he turned the laptop, his hand touched hers briefly, and she pulled away as if from an electric shock. His lips tightened imperceptibly, making her flush. For a few seconds she’d forgotten that she was dealing with a rather dangerously good-looking man, and the sudden jolt of attraction had made her react stupidly.
‘So, the ads are here,’ she muttered, pointing at the screen. ‘I’ll...um...leave you to it, then.’
He looked up. ‘Which one is the ad you wrote—the one Brian said was nominated for an award?’
‘It’s in the Robinson folder,’ she said. ‘The third one.’
He pulled the ad up onto the screen and looked at it silently for a while. It was a text-only ad for a range of baby products, and she’d written it from the point of view of a first-time mum. It was charming, and a little whimsical, and it wasn’t really an ad in the traditional sense because it didn’t talk about the products at all—it just said ‘Happy Mother’s Day’ and the brand name at the end.
‘Interesting,’ Samir said. ‘Any idea on how it impacted sales?’
Melissa stared at him as if he’d suddenly grown a second head. ‘It doesn’t work that way,’ she protested. ‘Ads like these make customers connect with the brand. There’s no immediate effect on sales.’
‘Right...’ he said, but he was evidently not convinced. ‘Always helps to have sales figures, though.’
It took all Melissa’s willpower not to snap at him. ‘I work on the creative side,’ she said finally. ‘It’s the client servicing guys who work on the numbers.’
‘You’re not curious enough to ask for them?’
‘I did ask!’ she said. ‘The sales figures were good, but I’ve forgotten exactly what percent they went up by. Devdeep would have the details.’
Samir didn’t react, and she wondered if he’d even heard what she’d said. He was gazing intently at a spreadsheet now, his brows narrowed in concentration. In spite of her annoyance, one part of Melissa’s brain noted that he managed to look very, very hot in an intense, brooding kind of way. Even when he clearly found his spreadsheet more fascinating than her ad.
She moved towards the door in what she hoped was an unobtrusive manner, and her hand was on the doorknob when he looked up, his rather stern features lightened by a genuine smile.
‘It’s a great ad, by the way,’ he said. ‘I can see why Brian thought so highly of you.’
The smile made his eyes crinkle up at the corners—suddenly he seemed a lot more human and approachable, like a movie star morphing into the local college football hero. Except that he was far more potently male than the average college heartthrob, and Melissa felt her breath come a little faster.
‘Thank you,’ she said, all her usual poise deserting her. ‘I’ll...um...I’ll see you around, then, OK?’
She slipped out of the door, but it was a few minutes before Samir went back to his spreadsheet.
TWO
‘Where is everyone?’
Melissa looked up. ‘Devdeep and Shivani are in Goa for the ad awards,’ she said. ‘The rest of us are all here. As in they’re around,’ she added as Samir surveyed the empty cubicles and raised an eyebrow. ‘They’ve gone for breakfast, I think.’
Samir had been travelling, and it was a week since she’d last seen him. He looked tanned and fit and almost good enough to eat.
His brow creased in a frown. ‘If you wrote the ad why aren’t you on your way to Goa? Didn’t Devdeep think of taking you along?’
‘He did.’ Melissa bit her lip. She didn’t like Devdeep much, but the poor man wasn’t to blame for this particular situation.
‘And you decided not to go?’ Samir sounded positively incredulous now.
There was no way out of this other than admitting the embarrassing truth. ‘I...um...I have a slight phobia about flying,’ Melissa said in a rush. ‘The trains were booked solid because it’s a long weekend, and Devdeep said that going alone on a bus might not be safe.’
‘And a bullock cart would take too much time, I assume?’ Samir said, his lips twitching. ‘How about cycling to Goa? Did you consider that?’
‘Very funny,’ Melissa said crossly. ‘I did want to go. I’m just trying to tell you that it didn’t work out.’
Too late, she realised that snapping at the new agency head was probably not very bright of her. Luckily, he looked more amused than offended.
‘You could come with me,’ Samir said, taking even himself by surprise. ‘I’m driving down—I’m leaving early tomorrow morning and I can pick you up. Where d’you live?’
‘Colaba,’ Melissa said, trying not to gape at him. ‘But are you sure?’
‘Yes, I am,’ Samir said, though he was wondering whether he’d suddenly gone quite mad.
There was no way Melissa could know it, but he never volunteered to spend time with a woman—let alone thirteen hours closeted with one in a car. For a second he wondered whether he should retract the offer, but there was no way he could back out of it without coming across as being incredibly rude.
Oh, really, Razdan? he said wryly to himself as he took down her address and mobile number. As if the fear of being thought rude had ever stopped him in the past.
* * *
Melissa was ready on the dot of six, perched on her bed. It had taken some time to decide what to wear—too dressed up and he might think she was making a play for him—too casual and he mightn’t want to be seen with her. She’d finally settled for denim cut-offs with a long-sleeved white cotton shirt and sat down to wait.
Her phone rang at a quarter past six, and she picked it up, her heart suddenly beating a lot faster.
‘Hi,’ she said tentatively.
‘Ready to leave?’ he asked, not bothering to return her greeting. ‘I’m in a black car, right outside your hostel gate.’
And what a car it was. Melissa found it difficult to take her eyes off the sleek, powerfully built machine. Then she saw Samir, and her mouth went dry with longing. So far she’d only seen him in office clothes—in an open-necked T-shirt and cargo shorts he looked even hotter than he did in formals.
She took a deep breath before she crossed the road to join him. Letting him know how much he affected her was a bad, bad idea.
‘Thanks for doing this,’ she said politely as she got into the car. ‘I’m really looking forward to the awards festival, even if we don’t win anything.’
‘You’re welcome,’ Samir said.
She looked very young and appealing, with a little rucksack slung over one shoulder, and her hair held back with an Alice band, but there was something innocently sensual in the way she twisted her slim body around to toss the rucksack into the backseat. Her hair fell over her shoulder, and he caught a whiff of a fresh floral scent that made him want to reach out and touch—it took a strong effort of will to remain unaffected by her nearness.
‘Car rules,’ he said, passing her a bottle of water and hoping she hadn’t noticed him looking at her. ‘Seat belt on at all times. No eating in the car. And absolutely no attempts to change the music.’
Melissa peeked at his face to see if he was joking. Apparently not. With uncharacteristic meekness she tugged at the seat belt—the seat belt, however, seemed to have firm ideas of its own, and refused to budge.
‘I can’t—’ she started to say, and with an impatient shrug he leaned across to help her.
Melissa immediately froze. Her first thought was that he was much...much larger than she’d thought he was—the second was that if she moved just an inch she’d be touching him, and there was something terribly tempting about the thought. Then there was the smell of his aftershave... Woody, with a slight hint of citrus, it teased at her nostrils as he released the seat belt from where it was snagged behind her seat.
‘Here—it’s free now,’ he said.
He moved away from her, apparently completely unaffected by her proximity. Oh, well, maybe her three-hundred-rupee perfume and demure clothes just didn’t do it for him. Despite herself, she felt a little miffed. Sure, he was a hotshot executive and all that, but she would have liked him to take just a little interest in her as a woman. And her own reaction to him was annoying—she wasn’t usually the swooning-over-a-hot-man type. Then common sense reasserted itself. Samir was undeniably gorgeous, and there was absolutely nothing to be ashamed of in finding him lust-worthy. As long as she restricted herself to a purely aesthetic appreciation of his hotness she’d be fine.
Samir put the car into gear, his lips thinning. The tiny gasp that Melissa had let out when he’d leaned over her hadn’t escaped him, and he was regretting his offer of a lift more than ever.
Melissa was wrong about his reactions—one look at her long, tanned brown legs and her slim but curvy figure and everything male in him had responded enthusiastically. Being older and more experienced, he was just a great deal better at concealing his reactions.
They were both silent as the car sped through nearly empty streets all the way past Dadar and Chembur, and over the creek at Vashi. The sky was beginning to lighten, and the city looked as if it had just been through an extensive makeover. It was a wonder the amount of difference the lack of traffic and pollutants made.
They were nearly at the Pune expressway when Melissa finally spoke.
‘Can we stop for a bit?’ she asked.
Samir gave her an impatient look. ‘I’d like to get on the expressway before traffic builds up,’ he said. ‘Can you hold on till we get to the first toll? There’s a food plaza there, and it’s only around an hour off.’
‘I’m hungry,’ she said in a small voice.
She’d missed dinner the night before, and the hostel breakfast service only started at seven in the morning. It was all very well for Samir, she thought resentfully. He probably had a retinue of cooks who would have a piping hot breakfast on the table even if he decided to leave home at four a.m.
Unwilling to explain that she was actually feeling light-headed with hunger, she said, ‘And I need to use the loo. Right now.’ Ha—that wasn’t something he could argue with.
It didn’t look as if he was fooled, but he pulled into a burger joint.
‘D’you want anything?’ she asked, and he shook his head.
‘I’ll wait outside,’ he said.
‘I’ll be quick,’ she promised, and darted into the restaurant.
The queues were long, and after almost an hour in the car Melissa found that she was feeling distinctly dizzy—her ears were buzzing, and by the time she got to the head of the queue she knew she was in no state to order.
‘You can go ahead,’ she muttered to the woman behind her.
‘Oh, thanks,’ the woman said gratefully—she had several kids in tow, and they had been bouncing with eagerness to order their second round of burgers. Then she looked a little more closely at Melissa. ‘Are you feeling all right?’ she asked.
Melissa had just enough time to shake her head before black spots started dancing in front of her eyes.
Samir finished sending out a couple of urgent e-mails on his smart phone and looked up, thinking that as they’d stopped anyway a coffee might be a good idea.
The restaurant had plate-glass windows on three sides, and just as he was about to start towards it he saw Melissa sink gracefully into the arms of the middle-aged woman standing next to her. He took the next few steps at a run, bursting into the restaurant just as the woman helped Melissa to a sofa.
‘What’s happened to her?’ he asked, his voice harsh, and the woman looked up in undisguised relief.
‘Oh, are you with her? Thank heavens. I didn’t know what to do! I think she’s just feeling a little faint. Rishu, give me that soda! And the rest of you kids, go and sit with Vishal Uncle. I’ll be with you in a minute.’
The kid she’d addressed gave up the drink without a peep, though he looked rather upset. Melissa was trying to sit up now, and the woman held the paper cup to her lips.
‘Thanks,’ Melissa said after a few sips. ‘Sorry about this.’
‘No worries,’ the woman said comfortably, straightening up. ‘I’ll be right over there in case you need help,’ she told Samir. ‘I think she’s OK now, but a check-up might be in order once you guys get home.’
Melissa thanked her again, and gave Samir an awkward look once the woman went away.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘This hasn’t ever happened before.’
He was frowning. ‘Do you feel OK otherwise? Should I take you back to Mumbai? That woman was right—you need to see a doctor.’
But Melissa was already shaking her head. ‘There’s no need,’ she said. ‘I think I’ll be fine once I eat something.’
His frown deepened. ‘Did you have breakfast?’ he asked abruptly, and she shook her head. ‘Dinner last night?’
Feeling hideously embarrassed, she shook her head again.
‘Why not? What time did you leave work?’
‘Nine-forty,’ she muttered. ‘The hostel curfew is at ten on week-nights, so I had to rush back. And I forgot that I was out of instant noodles.’
‘We’ll talk after I get some food into you,’ Samir said grimly. The interested onlookers in the restaurant waved him to the head of the queue and he came back with a chicken burger and a milkshake.
Melissa took the burger, but shook her head at the milkshake. ‘Lactose intolerant,’ she explained before biting into the juicy bun. The rush of flavours had her feeling a little sick for a few seconds, but the nausea soon receded and she tore enthusiastically into the burger.
‘I’ll get you another one,’ Samir muttered, rejoining the queue. It took him a little longer this time, but he came back with another burger, a soft drink and a coffee for himself.
‘So did you have lunch yesterday?’ he asked conversationally.
Melissa paused mid-bite. ‘I did,’ she said cautiously. ‘At least I think I did. Yes, of course! I remember. Dubeyji ordered a plate of pav-bhaji, and I shared it with him.’
‘You do know that you’re allowed time off for meals, don’t you?’ he asked. ‘And that the agency won’t shut down if you leave early enough to have dinner?’
She laughed. ‘Yes, of course,’ she said. ‘This must be the first time I’ve missed dinner because of work. It’s just that I hadn’t originally planned on going to Goa, and I had a bunch of stuff to finish before I could go.’
‘So essentially it’s my fault?’ Samir said.
Melissa said, ‘Oh, no!’ before she realised he was teasing her. Blushing hotly, she buried her face in her paper cup of soda.
‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘Finally, you have some colour in your cheeks.’
‘I can’t have colour in my cheeks. I’m too brown,’ she retorted.
‘Rubbish,’ he said, and lightly patted her arm, sending a little tingle through her, all the way down to her toes. ‘Tell me when you’re feeling better and we’ll leave. No hurry.’
‘I’m good to go,’ she announced, bouncing to her feet.
Samir put a steadying arm around her. ‘Careful, don’t jump around,’ he said. ‘We can’t have you collapsing again.’
‘I won’t,’ she protested, intensely conscious of the strong arm around her waist.
He didn’t let her go till he’d handed her into the passenger seat of the car. Even then he waited till she was properly belted in before he went around to the driver’s seat and got in.
‘I need you to let me know if you’re feeling the slightest bit unwell,’ he said. ‘And I’m relaxing the no food in the car rule—you can have what you want as long as you don’t collapse again.’
In spite of her cynicism about rich playboys Melissa felt rather touched by Samir’s awkwardly expressed concern. It had been a while since someone had cared enough about her to fuss. Even if the fussing was being done in an off-hand, ultra-macho kind of way.
Samir connected his MP3 player to the car’s music system before they drove off. Melissa had assumed he’d be into rock or heavy metal, but surprisingly most of the tracks were ghazals or Bollywood oldies.
She hummed along to some of her favourite songs—she had a sweet and unexpectedly strong voice, and Samir found himself listening more to her than to the original song playing through the car speakers. She seemed so completely unselfconscious that he felt himself relaxing a little. It was a surprisingly liberating change, being with someone who didn’t have an agenda either to impress him or to get information out of him.
‘Who do you keep texting?’ he asked as he watched her type out her third or fourth message since she’d stepped into the car. ‘You’re like a stenographer on steroids, the way you keep hammering into that phone.’
The second the words were out of his mouth he realised that he’d let himself relax a bit too much. Making personal remarks to someone he hardly knew was completely uncharacteristic of him—no wonder she was staring at him as if he’d grown a third eye in the middle of his forehead like Lord Shiva.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said immediately. ‘None of my business—forget I asked.’
Melissa laughed, showing a perfect set of teeth, small, white and very even.
‘I’m texting a friend back at the hostel,’ she said. ‘We just passed the turn-off for that new amusement park that’s been built here. One of the girls is coming next weekend with her latest boyfriend—she wanted to know how long it would take to get here.’
‘Won’t it be more suitable for kids?’
‘No, there are rides for adults as well. And the tickets are quite expensive—it’s a rather cool place for a first date. For regular people, I mean.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘As opposed to irregular people like me?’
Refusing to be embarrassed, Melissa said, ‘You know what I mean. If you took a girl out for a date you’d probably go to the theatre, or to a restaurant in a five-star hotel. The guys my friends date don’t even own cars—they don’t have many places to take a girl to.’
‘Where does your boyfriend take you?’ Samir asked, half jokingly and half because he wanted to know for sure that she was unattached. This asking questions thing was pretty addictive—especially when the other person was as cool about it as Melissa.
‘I don’t have a boyfriend,’ she said, but there was something rather weird in the way she said it, as if she was mocking herself.
Samir wouldn’t normally have given himself credit for being perceptive, but instinctively he knew he needed to change the topic.
‘Do you like your job?’ he asked, and she gave him a startled look.
‘Yes,’ she said cautiously, and then, ‘Why? Is there any chance I mightn’t have it any longer?’
This time Samir looked startled. ‘Not that I know of. I’m not making any changes in the agency structure—not for now at least. And when I do it definitely won’t be at your level.’
‘Too junior?’ she asked, giving him a cheeky wink. ‘Or is my salary not big enough to dent the profit figures?’
It probably wasn’t, but Samir could hardly say so without sounding impossibly condescending. He hesitated for a second, and she let him off the hook by jumping to another subject.
‘I just found a pack of candy in my purse,’ she announced. ‘I’d forgotten I had them. You want one?’
Samir shook his head.
‘They’re nice,’ she persisted. ‘Tamarind and sugar.’
He took his eyes off the road for a second and glanced at the small packet in her hand. ‘I haven’t seen that stuff in years,’ he said. ‘They used to hand them out on flights when I was in college—I used to stuff my pockets full of them.’
‘Does that mean you want one, then?’
‘Yes, please. But you’ll have to unwrap it first. I can’t take my hands off the wheel.’
She took a sweet out of its wrapper and waited for him to take it from her. They were near Lonavla now, and at a rather tricky section of the road. There was no way Samir could let go of the wheel, and the candy had begun to melt in Melissa’s palm.
‘This is going all sticky,’ she warned, and then, feeling very daring, ‘Should I pop it in your mouth?’
He nodded, and she immediately wished she hadn’t been quite so forward. He parted his perfectly sculpted lips a little and she leaned across to pop the sweet into his mouth. The candy stuck to her fingers for a few seconds and finally he sucked it off, the feel of his lips and tongue incredibly erotic against her skin.
Pulse racing, Melissa sat back and shot him a covert look. He was as unruffled as ever, but there was a slight smile playing about his lips. Until that instant she hadn’t thought of him as someone she could actually get involved with. There were so many reasons, but right now she couldn’t think clearly about them. All she could think about was how easy it would be to lean a little closer to him, breathe in the heady scent of his cologne, drop a kiss on his lips when he next turned to speak to her...
And probably make him drive the car into a road divider and kill them both. She sighed. Having a pragmatic side was all very well, but it did have a bad habit of popping up and ruining her best fantasies. So, all right, perhaps trying to seduce him while he was driving wasn’t a good plan.
She stole another look at Samir. He had the kind of good looks that grew on you. The first time she’d seen him she’d thought he looked gorgeous, but rather cold—not her type at all. But the more time she spent with him, the more she noticed things—like the way his smile reached all the way up to his eyes when he was amused, and how he pushed his unruly hair off his forehead in an unconsciously sexy gesture every few minutes.
* * *
At around the end of the expressway Samir pulled out an electronic tablet and handed it to Melissa. ‘I’ve plotted the route on this—the car’s GPS isn’t terribly reliable in this part of the world. Will you keep an eye on it to make sure we’re on track?’
Melissa looked at him in horror. ‘Don’t you know where you’re going?’ she asked.
He laughed. ‘Goa,’ he said. ‘We’ll get there eventually. Sooner rather than later if you’re a good navigator.’
She proved to be an excellent navigator—though more than once Samir found himself getting distracted by the way her hair fell across her face as she pored over the map, and the way her brow wrinkled up with concentration.