Bootie and the Beast Read online

“We’re not. You can assure Rayna of that when you speak to her next,” Krish replied with more confidence than he felt about his new venture.

  Darren and he, along with a couple of other investors, had decided to pool in their collective resources and buy a cyber school. More than simply invest, Krish wanted to get involved in running the enterprise. But, whether he did or not or it worked out or not, it was none of Aya Ahuja’s business. It was Rayna’s though, but knowing Darren, he hadn’t explained anything to his wife.

  That reminded him that he should talk to Diya about it once the proposal was out of the way.

  “Is that all?” he asked, impatient to get on with his day.

  Aya was taken aback by his brusqueness. Shit. None of this was her fault. Not her concern, true, but not her fault.

  He took her hand and squeezed it, both in apology and good-bye. “I’m sorry, Aya. About … everything. I know you mean well, but …”

  “It is not my business,” she finished for him with a shrug. This was what he liked about her—this ability to leave the drama out. “I’ll see you at the hoedown?”

  He hadn’t expected to see her at the office farewell party either.

  “I won’t be alone,” he warned. He’d never lied to her. Not about his limits. Not about his affections or expectations. Some things were just not meant to be.

  Aya nodded stiffly and walked away without another word.

  * * *

  Around noon, Diya received a message from Krish that he wouldn’t make it home for lunch, and since it was no fun cooking for one, she simply reheated the breakfast oatmeal she’d prepared in unsweetened almond milk to soothe her stomach. She ate at the kitchen counter while getting some work done on her tablet.

  She responded to e-mails, CCing Rocky on all of them. She checked her schedule and rearranged some of it. Then, she started fiddling around on Scheherazade’s designing app. Her cell phone buzzed as she tried to create her own bespoke version of a strapless sheath. It was her mother.

  Diya wondered why her mother was calling her again. She’d spoken to her parents not two hours ago. “Mummy, mummy, mummy,” she sang. “Play some Rummy … in a rich man’s world. That makes no sense, does it?”

  “No, it doesn’t.” Her mother’s voice sounded oddly tense. Lubna Mathur was never tense.

  Diya’s stomach dropped. Had the trolls started up again? When would it stop? Had something happened to Daddy?

  “What’s happened, Mummy?”

  “Diya, sweetie, are you absolutely sure about this? What is the rush? Tell me you have thought this through sensibly, baby.”

  Okay, that was … weird.

  “Um, what are you talking about? Thought what through?”

  There was no way her mother had guessed what had happened—or not exactly happened—last night. No mother was that attuned to her child, even a favorite child.

  “Enough, Diya. Stop joking about something so serious. Yes, I dearly want to see you married. But only if you want it, too. Tell me the truth, baby. Did you get engaged because Daddy pressured you?”

  The world tilted sideways until gravity was a joke.

  Engaged? To whom?

  Was it Hasaan’s doing? Had he leaked rumors of a phantom engagement across the internet while she slept? But he would’ve warned her before making any such announcements. Texted her. E-mailed! She’d spoken to him the day before, and he’d not said anything. In fact, he’d been a ball of nerves about meeting Saira for the first time.

  “Who in heaven’s name am I supposed to be engaged to?” she shouted. “Don’t tell me Daddy thinks I’m interested in Neil just because I said he was cute. I find all men on motorbikes with doctorates cute. Is this some roundabout way your husband is trying to get me to say yes? I swear, I’m this close to committing patricide, Mummy.”

  “Diya, what is going on?” her mother asked.

  “You tell me because I have no idea.” Diya jumped to her feet and nearly fell. Her legs were as wobbly as a runway neophyte’s on her first pair of platform heels.

  O-M-jeez! The Shakespearean comedy of her life had just taken a very non-comedic turn. The Beast was going to blow up like Mount Doom over the new rumor, which would spell the end of their two-second, unconsummated affair. And, to think, she’d wasted a whole morning dithering over whether to heart or not to heart him again.

  She was torn between the desperate desire to call the Beast and reassure him or to catch the next flight home, so she could strangle her meddlesome father to death.

  “You’re not engaged?” Now, Lubna Mathur sounded as confused as Diya.

  “No!” Who the hell had spread those rumors?

  “Then, why did Krish call us and his mother and ask for our blessings?”

  Whaaat?

  The fashion neophyte who’d been teetering about on polka-dotted Lady Gaga platforms keeled over and fell off the runway with a splat.

  Apparently, she was mad at the wrong man.

  * * *

  To keep her wrath at the Beast’s high-handedness from exploding in an altogether unhealthy fashion, Diya distracted herself by going window-shopping. Oh, all right! She window-shopped only for herself, but for her near and dear ones, she managed to accrue some quality purchases.

  Like the stuffed ski bear for her nephew, Sidikins; the latest Apple watch for Daddy; perfumes, body lotions, and pashmina scarves for the women in her life; a set of makeup brushes for Millie, who was a makeup artist; a smartphone skin for her agent, Rocky; et cetera, et cetera. Up and down the mall she marched until her crampy womb hurt less than her biceps and fingers did from carrying all the shopping bags. She only stopped at a Starbucks for a chai latte and another dose of meds.

  Another benefit of shopping therapy was that it helped her work out why the Beast had done what he’d done.

  Control-freak Menon did not do emotion well. She’d forced him to confront his feelings, asking him point-blank if he loved and/or desired her. The admission must have scared the bejesus out of him. It must be making his belly curdle. Gah! It was making her belly throb—but in a good way. The engagement was Krish’s way of taking control of his out-of-control pheromones.

  Fine. She got it. And she wasn’t exactly averse to the idea of an engagement. So what if he’d told the family before he’d actually proposed to her? Of course he wanted their approval first. His actions were time-honored and his intentions noble.

  Dadima used to say that a person’s values were interwoven with their family traditions. Of course, Dadima had meant it as a taunt to Kamal and Lubna Mathur who’d broken every stringent family tradition possible—they’d fallen in love, two people of different faiths, eloped in a penniless state, and against all odds, survived. It grated on Dadima’s nerves that her daughter-in-law never relinquished Islam and that her own Hindu son never insisted his wife do so.

  Unlike Dadima, neither her parents nor Savitri Aunty were inflexible or narrow-minded people. They wouldn’t be offended if Krish hadn’t sought their blessings. But Diya was glad that he had. It was an auspicious beginning to a happy ending. She’d insist on a long engagement though since he’d deprived her of a long courtship with bouquets of snogging and wooing.

  Her phone buzzed halfway through her chai break.

  “Lovey! What’s up, girl?” Diya said into the microphone.

  Lovey’s reply was a shrill screech. “Congratulations! Oh my God! I can’t believe it! Oh my God!”

  Diya had to hold the phone at arm’s length to save her eardrum.

  “Who told you?” Diya asked, gritting her teeth.

  Krish is a dead man, she swore. She was going to be widowed before ever getting married. Asking their parents’ permission was one thing, but how dare he tell Lovey that it was a done deal before he’d even proposed to her.

  Apparently, someone in Krish’s office had overheard the happy news from someone else who’d heard it from someone else and so on and so forth across DFW’s American-Indian grapevine until it had reached Lov
ey’s big-lobed ears. She’d called Krish first, but he hadn’t answered, so she’d called Diya.

  Diya didn’t bother telling Lovey about the non-proposal and promised to meet up for a wild celebration soon.

  She called Krish as soon as Lovey disconnected. The call went to voice mail. She left a pithy message, asking him to call her back.

  He didn’t. He didn’t send a text either.

  With her mood reverting back to PMS sour, Diya exited the mall in long, angry strides. She dumped the bags in the passenger seat of the Porsche and peeled out of the parking lot. She was so upset with the Beast that she forgot to switch on the GPS, and twenty minutes later, she was well and truly lost.

  She pulled up alongside a shoulder on a highway—or was it a parkway?—and scrolled down past addresses on the GPS. As she did, she noticed a saffron-colored flag flapping in the breeze on top of the marble-white steeple of a Hindu temple across the road.

  Not one to ignore omens, Diya took the next exit that would lead her to the temple.

  It had been two months since she visited a temple or mosque or church. Two months since she placed the bootie at Lord Vishnu’s feet and prayed over it. Today seemed like a good day to have one of her mental tiffs with God.

  * * *

  Meanwhile, across town, Krish and Dillo were on a mission inside a boutique jewelry store.

  Bodine Johnson—owner, head designer, and Dillo’s personal jeweler—was giving the soon-to-be groom a master class on engagement rings in general and diamonds in particular. After an intense show-and-tell, Krish settled on a two carat, D flawless, ideal-cut diamond set in a platinum casting. The media often ascribed the “flawless” accolade to Diya, which made the stone perfect for her.

  That morning, Krish had palmed one of Diya’s fashion rings from her bauble pouch—an eminently ingenious move according to Bo and Dillo—which allowed Krish to walk out of Bodine’s with the right-sized ring in his pocket.

  Krish slipped a sweaty hand inside his pants pocket and curled it around the velvet box.

  “That was the easy part,” Dillo said, slanting an amused look at Krish.

  Krish exhaled through his nose. “I know.”

  “Treat it like an arbitration, my boy. Wheeling and dealing, back and forth—you’re already good at it. You’ll be fine.” Dillo climbed into his black Chevrolet Silverado parked at the curb. “Let’s get together over dinner soon and celebrate. I’d like to meet her. The missus would, too,” he said before driving off.

  Krish mulled over Dillo’s advice as he got into his own car. Kamal Uncle had said something similar nine years ago—about marriage being a kind of merger.

  Krish somehow doubted any business-type arrangement would please Diya. It certainly did not appeal to him. It never had. If he were to marry, he wanted his marriage to be like the one the Mathurs shared and not what his parents had had.

  He had no doubt Diya would be the perfect wife for him. But what kind of a husband would he make her?

  Regardless, it was time to get the show on the road. He sent his intended a text.

  Start primping as if it’s your birthday. I’m taking you out to dinner.

  It was too late for doubts. He’d crossed a line last night, and there was no going back now.

  Chapter 14

  The temple visit had done wonders for her mood.

  Now, back home, Diya lounged about on the terrace, munching on apple slices and chair-dancing to her Bollywood party playlist. Call her insane, but the loud, fast-paced music relaxed her.

  Not so much the cats. All three had scampered over the wall the second music blared out of the Bluetooth speakers. Nora had actually snarled at the boom box as if she were a dog in attack mode.

  Her phone screen lit up with an incoming message in the middle of a particularly noisy number. From Krish.

  She rolled her eyes at his incredibly provoking message and continued to twerk on the chair. Whatever happened to please and thank you and making smiley faces at the woman you supposedly loved and were about to abjectly beg to be your wife?

  She texted back grumpily: First or last birthday?

  * * *

  The Beast: Is there a difference since you were swaddled in pink both times? You can slip into your REAL BIRTHDAY SUIT once we’re alone ;)

  * * *

  Diya narrowed her eyes at Krish’s attempt at text flirting, then fired back.

  * * *

  Ha-ha. You are hilarious—NOT!

  * * *

  But, he certainly was trying.

  She let out a gargantuan sigh and switched off the music. Then, she went into the room and began to sift through her trunks. She knew what she wanted to wear for her proposal dinner. Last November, after she’d signed the contract with Scheherazade, she’d visited the headquarters in Turkey to get familiarized with the brand and outfitted for the PR tours. Marianna Jordan, the head designer, had encouraged Diya to describe and also design a couple of her ideal outfits. It had been as if she’d given Diya the keys to paradise.

  Diya had gleefully experimented with stylized cuts and easy-maintenance fabrics and colors. She’d imagined wrinkle-free couture for a travel wardrobe. Of course, until today, she hadn’t worried about wrinkly clothes because someone was always there to iron out those pesky details.

  Diya found what she had been looking for. She’d worn the dress at a garden party in Milan, and it fit her like she’d been poured into it—the next best thing to a birthday suit.

  She held up the dress by its beaded halter strap and wondered if it was a bit much. Then, she shrugged. He had said to dress up. After all, tonight was going to be the most important night of their lives.

  She hung the dress on a hanger and hooked the hanger behind the bathroom door. The steam would take care of any stray creases in the dress while she showered and washed the day from her skin along with the final vestiges of her peeve.

  Life was too short to be pissed off at the people you loved.

  She’d worked it all out in her heart-to-heart with the gods that afternoon. The awesome meet-cute with Sharda Patel had further cinched the deal.

  At first glance, the old woman sitting on a bench outside the temple looked like a Dadima clone. But appearances were nothing if not deceptive. The book in Sharda’s hands—Sharda Patel had asked Diya to dispense with the respectful honorific of Aunty that all Indian women of a certain age got saddled with; that was how cool she was—had obliterated any similarity between her and Diya’s grandmother. Not that Dadima didn’t read, but Diya would bet she’d never read what Sharda had been judiciously blushing over. It had been a Regency romance, the cover with the typical half-naked rake nearly smooching the half-naked damsel who was practically begging to be smooched.

  Diya’s snigger had made Sharda Patel look up from the book.

  “That’s something you don’t see outside a temple,” Diya said with a cheeky grin.

  “Are you wondering why I’m reading a romance novel outside the temple?” Sharda said in perfect, accent-less English.

  “Only a little,” Diya replied.

  “It’s my husband’s death anniversary, you see.”

  “Right. Totally makes sense then.” Diya had been delighted by the old woman’s offbeat humor.

  “He used to tease me about my romance addiction. Called the novels my ‘puppy-shame’ books. They’re my way of remembering him … and to see if my lady parts still work as they are meant to,” she said, her eyes dancing with unholy glee.

  Diya had nearly fallen off the bench from laughing, and the two of them ended up exchanging phone numbers after a lovely, long chat.

  Giggling at the memory, Diya got out of the shower and began to dry herself.

  Puppy-shame books indeed! Diya had some puppy-shame stories herself. A precocious toddler, she’d routinely run around the house naked, flashing her plump butt for all to see. With an older sibling’s clothed authority, Priya had mercilessly tormented Diya. Krish, too. They’d sung the puppy-sha
me song nonstop until Diya would burst into tears.

  “Shame, shame, puppy shame, all the monkeys know Dee Dee’s name.”

  Smiling as the past played peekaboo in her head, Diya paraded between the bathroom and the bedroom, naked as puppy shame, doing the glamour dance she did so well. She rubbed a bronze-tinted moisturizer on her epidermis. Applied only a bare minimum of makeup on her face—no need to detract from the dress—emphasizing her doe eyes and masking the bite marks. She air-dried her hair, pulling the long, straight length of it over her left shoulder. She secured her breasts with sticky gel cups and shimmied into the zipless dress before slipping her feet into a pair of golden stilettoes. Last, she slid a beaten gold armband over her right upper arm and adorned her ears with a pair of long diamond earrings.

  “Et voila!” She blew a kiss at her reflection like she did before any major event. “You are magnificent, my love. Absolutely ready to be proposed to.”

  Then, a horrible thought struck her. What if Krish was in jeans? Worse, what if he didn’t change out of his office suit at all? Eek!

  She ran toward his room to prevent disaster. His door was ajar, the room empty. She heard the shower running in the hall bath. Whew. Saved. Time enough to adjust his wardrobe to her approval.

  She waltzed into his room and stopped short by the queen bed, gaping at the clothes laid out on it. A pair of dark trousers, the self-on-self dark blue Versace shirt she’d nagged his mother into buying for him in London last September, and a sport coat with reinforced suede elbows from Zara. A bit on the casual side, but she honestly hadn’t expected him to go formal—no matter how important tonight was for them. Even this much was too much chic to take in.

  The shower shut off, and Diya quickly crossed over to the armchair by the window. But, as she was about to sit down and adopt a nonchalant yet vogueish pose, her eyes fell on the small red velvet box sitting on the dresser.