Bootie and the Beast Read online

  Krish fell into step beside her as they made their way to the building entrance, making her smile. Maybe he wasn’t a total lost cause.

  A uniformed doorman let them in through a glass-paneled door. “Buenas noches, Mr. Menon,” he greeted with a smile.

  “Hola, Juan. ¿Cómo estás?” Krish replied, slapping the man on his back.

  An exuberant exchange of Spanish flowed between the two hombres; after, Krish placed his hand on the small of her back and gallantly guided her into the lobby.

  Diya’s smile widened. It was the first time she’d noticed that the public Krish was a whole different animal from the private Beast. Interesting.

  “Swanky complex,” she purred as they clip-clopped across a spacious urban-style lobby that was sectioned off into several seating areas by oversize garden pots. Steel sculptures, colorful artwork, and lots and lots of glass accentuated the merry space. Happy-looking people lolled about here and there; some of them smiled, waved, or exchanged greetings with Krish as they walked past. He seemed to know them.

  They stopped in front of a line of elevators. A festive sign stood in one corner, announcing V-Weekend Party Tonight! inside a golden heart with Cupid’s arrow pointing toward the ceiling.

  Diya’s insides fluttered. Was he taking her to a real party? Probably not. Krish had said they’d be meeting some friends for dinner and that she’d like the gang and Lovey. He’d separated Lovey from the gang like she was special. Was she special?

  “How do you know all these people in the lobby?” she asked. Subtler than, How often do you visit your girlfriend that her doorman knows you this darn well?

  Krish slid his hands into his pockets. “I lived here for the last two years. Moved out only last month.”

  Delight and surprise zinged through Diya. Delight because him knowing hombre Juan had nothing to do with being familiar with his GF’s boudoir and surprise that this cool building used to be the Beast’s lair. Still, she wouldn’t exchange it for the fairy-tale house.

  “Wait! I don’t think I can take this in. It’s too much.” She touched the back of her hand to her forehead like a B-grade movie heroine and pretended to swoon, her other hand clutching her black patent leather Scheherazade clutch to her chest. “You lived here? You? This hedonistic dream palace was once your home? Who are you, and what have you done to the boring Beast?”

  Her theatrics were ignored. Krish’s gaze was fixed on the number panel above the elevator door where they glowed green in decreasing order. When the doors opened, he steered her into an elevator cab with mirrored walls.

  Perfect.

  Diya removed her poncho and did one last check on her face, hair, and clothes and blew herself a kiss. “I approve of your choice in real estate. Very cool.”

  “Hardly my choice. It was a company flat. The office is only two blocks down,” he said, sounding very uncool.

  “Sneer all you want, but I have your number. I know the fuddy-duddy inside you is on his way out, and a bolder, better animal has emerged from the chrysalis. Wait till I tell Leesha. She’ll want to jump on the next flight here to witness the miracle firsthand.”

  “Clown,” Krish said, tapping her nose.

  Diya tried to feel annoyed about the constant nose-pulling and being treated like a toddler, but she couldn’t quite muster up the feeling because the action seemed to put a heart-melting smile in Krish’s eyes. Pathetic—that was she.

  A blast of club music hit her when they landed on the terrace-clubhouse floor. And there was the final proof of the Beast’s metamorphosis. It was a full-blown party with lots and lots of people and hearts and flowers and dancing and disco lights and a DJ.

  “Liar, liar, pants on fire. Just a dinner with some buddies, was it?” She poked him in the chest as he held the elevator doors open for her.

  Stupendously happy that he was taking his job as her knave to heart, she cha-cha-cha-ed into the clubhouse.

  * * *

  Krish tipped the bottle of Heineken to his mouth and watched Miguel Rodrigo, the guy from A1-F, and Diya do the hustle to Enrique Iglesias’s latest hit.

  By day, Miguel was part-owner and designer of a landscape company. By night, he was apparently a young John Travolta. The party was in full swing, saturated with people and noise. It was all a bit much, in Krish’s opinion. Just like the dancing queen.

  Diya had picked the perfect spot on the dance floor to dance and pose. Of course she had. She knew exactly what she looked like, awash in the pale red disco lights. Beyond alluring. Enchanting. Those endless legs of hers had been created to drive men stupid.

  Krish had stupidly been staring at them, too, until a group of revelers obscured his vision, inadvertently saving his sanity. He could only hope Diya’s jet lag would kick in soon, and he could take her home and lock her up. He was sick of having to watch every single man in the room—himself included—pant and drool. If that made him a fuddy-duddy, so be it. At least, she couldn’t accuse him of being a sexist fuddy-duddy because he didn’t care to watch women turn into fools in front of her either.

  Krish rotated his shoulders, trying to alleviate the knots of tension in them. He’d known what would happen as soon as Diya stepped out of the bedroom in her costume—he refused to call what she wore a dress. What had possessed him to think she’d be easier to handle in a crowd than at home alone? He should have known how the evening would play out. How many times had he chaperoned her before? A thousand? A million? He knew such nights always gave him an ulcer by the end.

  She wasn’t going to leave him alone. She’d make him dance with her. Why did she want to dance with a fuddy-duddy anyway?

  Why couldn’t women take no for an answer? And why were they not happy with the result when men did exactly as they’d predicted all along?

  Krish took another long chug of beer, tore his gaze from the dance floor, and forced it across the clubhouse, hoping to catch the eye of a known face or two. His work hours hadn’t left him with much free time, and he’d very rarely attended social events at the complex. Yet he knew enough of the long-term residents not to feel completely out of place. And he knew Lovey Onden, one of the key organizers of such events, who knew everyone and everything about everyone.

  Diya and Lovey had hit it off like a house on fire, as Krish had expected and hoped. Both girls were bubbly, chirpy, and fun-loving. Though, for a moment, when he’d first introduced them, he’d thought he’d made a mistake in bringing them together.

  All his life, he’d watched women act weird around Diya. He realized it was a kind of envy or a slice of awe, like something a man would feel in the presence of Azeem Premji or Warren Buffet. Diya tried hard to be normal—Krish paused, contemplating the word. Maybe normal was stretching it, but Diya hid behind a veneer of affability and goofiness to blend in with the crowd. She wanted to be treated like just another woman. But she wasn’t just another woman, was she?

  Short, curvy Lovey with her mop of boyish hair and easy clothes had been struck dumb by Beauty Mathur. And Diya in turn had been quite out of character, staring down her nose at Lovey. Had it been his imagination that Diya gave Lovey the same frigid treatment she reserved for him alone? Must’ve been because, as soon as Lovey had begun to tell him about the bid on the three-bedroom condo in the complex, Diya’s mood had flipped three hundred sixty degrees. She’d thrown her arms around a dumbstruck Lovey, begging to be shown the flat, and succeeded in making the shorter woman her fan. She hadn’t been kidding about her obsession with house-hunting, had she?

  “Stop brooding, Beast. You’re at a party.” Diya snatched the bottle of Heineken from his hand and guzzled it down. There had only been a few sips left.

  He opened his mouth to deny it but closed it without uttering a word because, damn it, it was true. He’d been brooding so hard that he’d missed the vision in pink bouncing toward him. Her mood had done another switcheroo. She was no longer miffed with him. For the life of him, he couldn’t recall what he’d done or said to piss her off after the Lov
ey incident. Whatever it was, he was glad it was gone.

  She handed the empty bottle back to him, covered her mouth with the back of her hand, and burped. Alisha had her laughing hiccups, and Diya had her burps.

  “Nice.” Krish laughed, setting the bottle down on the table covered with tiny red, white, and silver heart confetti.

  “Sorry. You know I can’t control it.” Her heart-shaped face was flushed from dancing, not embarrassment. Like he’d said, not an ordinary woman.

  “Do you even try?” he asked.

  “Only in polite company,” she purred, giving him a slow wink.

  His eyebrow kicked up. “I’m not polite company?”

  She carefully shook her head as if she was a little tipsy. “You’re the Beast with a Y chromosome. You’re used to all kinds of obnoxious sounds.”

  “I’m not the one who was uncouth just now,” he pointed out.

  But he had been when they were children. He’d once fart-bombed the girls’ sleepover and then been hairbrush-attacked by a trio of outraged banshees.

  Diya waved a hand in front of his face, bringing him back to the present. “You’re a dolt. Why are you standing around, brooding into a beer? Come dance with me. Unless your girlfriend won’t like it. Does she give you grief if you dance with another girl in her absence?”

  “I supremely dislike that form of hedonism,” he declared, not bothering to correct her false assumption about his mythical girlfriend.

  She’d been on his case since his Valentine’s date. His fault. But she’d been goading him about it and about taking the day off, as if he’d never done something like that before. She made him sound like Sisyphus, laboring to push a boulder uphill for eternity. He’d deflected his annoyance by keeping silent, not fully grasping until later that he’d aroused her romantic curiosity by his actions.

  Diya was a closet matchmaker. Show her two single people giving each other the look, and her head would conjure up vials full of love potions that she’d try her dandiest to spritz on the couple. Most of the time, she was way off the mark. Like with him. He’d had dinner with Aya, his ex, on Valentine’s Day, true, but it had been a business-cum-good-bye dinner. But, if he owned up to it, Diya would smack him on the head and call him a fuddy-duddy again.

  “Krish, do something fun for once. Stand on the dance floor and march if you must, but don’t be such a fuddy-duddy.”

  And he rested his case.

  “Yes, milady.” Krish gave Diya a mock bow. Then, he grabbed her hand and pulled her to the dance floor.

  She was going to dance the night away, with or without him, and he’d rather not have her dance with a stranger in her tipsy state.

  Laughing in delight, Diya started bouncing as if she were on a pogo stick instead of pointy shoes that defied gravity, but soon, she settled into her familiar, fancy dance moves.

  Krish shuffled his feet and silently cursed the gods of dance. Only a sadist would invent this kind of torture and call it entertainment.

  Obviously, he was a masochist for giving in to her. Why had he?

  “Spin me.” Diya threaded their hands together.

  He had danced with her countless times before and knew what she wanted. He spun her out. She spun back in. She twirled and twisted around him, and all he had to do was hold on.

  They danced for a long time, through the Macarena and the Chicken Dance. Well, she did that last one while he resumed shuffling his feet. He absolutely refused to flap his arms about. But he enjoyed watching her be silly. She sparkled so brightly under the disco ball that his eyes hurt, but it was hard not to stare at her. Not to feel envious of her unfettered joy.

  Then, the music mellowed, and so did their movements. He’d slow-danced with Diya before, too.

  He placed his hands on her hips and drew her close. She circled her arms about his neck, and with a sigh, she tucked her face into the crook of his shoulder. It didn’t matter if she wore high heels or was barefoot; she somehow managed to make them fit together.

  The touch of her lips on his jaw made his chest feel heavy and airless at once.

  Diya was a tactile creature, and affectionate gestures were only an extension of her limbs. She touched as often as she used her hands, kissed as much as she talked. For his own sanity, Krish kept his distance. Mostly. And Diya toed the line he’d drawn between them. She’d crossed the line only twice—once on her twenty-first birthday and then at Alisha’s wedding. No, that wasn’t true. They had both crossed the line. He didn’t know what Diya’s excuse was, but he’d been rip-roaringly drunk both times.

  The kiss they’d shared on her twenty-first birthday could almost be excused. It had been a special day, and they’d both been young and stupid in addition to being under the influence. But he didn’t know what beast had gotten into him six months ago on the night of Alisha and Aryan’s stag party.

  Diya had been hell on heels, as usual. Not at all shocking after the staggering amount of alcohol they’d all consumed. And, while he hadn’t approved of her flirting with Mann and Harry—Aryan’s closest friends—he’d believed she was in safe hands.

  He should have worried more about the boys.

  Still, he’d watched her closely, and when Diya had asked Harry to escort her to her room, Krish had told himself to stay out of it, even when he saw them staggering out of the ballroom.

  I’m not her father, he’d said to himself. She is a grown woman—despite all indications to the contrary—and she makes her own decisions.

  That self-talk had lasted about five minutes, and Krish had found himself taking the elevator up to Diya’s floor. He’d only wanted to make sure she was okay.

  But then he had seen her kiss Harry on the lips outside her door, and then Harry had laughed at something she’d said. Then, he’d swept her up in his arms and carried her inside the room, and Krish’s control had snapped.

  His rage at her cavalier attitude about herself and her reputation had erupted like a volcano. He’d barely refrained from grabbing Harry by his tuxedo lapels and chucking him out the door. The man had looked more worried than amorous when he left the room, Krish had realized later—much later.

  Right then, when everything had looked red and vile, he’d said nasty things to Diya. Things he shouldn’t have said. Things he would never have said had he been sober. Things he could never take back.

  He’d remembered feeling jealous all night. He’d wanted her to flirt with him and no one else. Dance with him and no one else. Kiss only him.

  She’d laughed at him instead. Then, she had kissed him—nothing more than a teasing bite of his mouth—and suddenly, he’d found himself kissing her back. When sanity had returned, he’d been horrified and repulsed by himself, by his need of her, and so, he’d called her names.

  She’d slapped his face then and shoved him out of her room. Like she should have done right at the beginning.

  He’d left her with his father’s warning ringing in his ears. “Don’t trust women, son. Don’t ever let them get close. They will drive you mad or running to the bottle.”

  With Diya, Krish felt perpetually drunk even if he hadn’t had a drink.

  “Why do you flirt so much, Diya?” he asked in an effort to lift the pressure off his chest.

  She went still in his arms. She dropped her arms from his neck and stepped back to stare at him. “What?”

  “Your behavior.” He indicated the small space between them with a hand. “This easy familiarity you have with people … with men, is what gets you in trouble. Sober down before it’s too late, Dee. I feel it’s my brotherly duty to point out that having a good time is one thing, but is it worth it when it costs you your reputation?”

  She flinched at the question. He wanted to cringe at himself. But he had to protect her from herself, from the nasty world. From him.

  “Do you understand what I mean?”

  “Perfectly.” She wasn’t sparkling anymore. “Your brotherly advice is duly noted,” she said and walked off the dance floor.
r />   He sighed. At least, this time, there was no engagement to break off.

  * * *

  If Krish thought he’d gotten through to Diya, he was massively mistaken.

  The evening regressed even further, and as Diya’s spirits rose, his sank. Diya gushed about her Turkish prince to anyone who cared to listen—and plenty did—all within his hearing range. She set his teeth on edge with her poems of praise for the inimitable Hasaan, who it seemed, “Never, ever, ever used sarcasm to make a point.”

  Hasaan, the cross between a god and a saint, gave Krish indigestion in addition to a bad name.

  Conversely, she flirted with every man in sight and made a spectacle of herself on the dance floor, writhing and gyrating and rubbing it in his face. To his shock—and sorely against his will—his body reacted to her blatant sensuality.

  If any hot-blooded, straight man on the planet, even Prince Hasaan, could resist the sight of a beautiful woman in the throes of a body-jiggling dance without reacting to it, Krish would eat his boot.

  Belle of the ball? he snorted. This avatar of Diya’s was as far removed from the demure Cinderella as any woman could be.

  When Diya made a beeline for the bathroom, Krish sighed in relief. Finally. But his reprieve was short-lived when Lovey scooted onto a barstool next to him.

  “You and Miguel seem to be hitting it off,” Krish said, grinning at his friend.

  Lovey had been flirting up a storm with Miguel, who seemed just as interested in her. Krish had to admit, they made a good couple.

  “Never mind that,” Lovey said, tut-tutting at him. “I can’t believe you never told me that you know Beauty Mathur. You know my sister is in love with her.”

  Lovey’s older sister was gay. Diya wasn’t—as far as he knew.

  “Want me to get her autograph? Or set her and your sister up on a blind date?” he asked before stuffing his mouth with a burrito. He wasn’t doing himself any favors by imagining Diya with another woman either.