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It didn’t feel like a compliment. She pointed to the paper in his hand. “Can I have that?”
He looked at the paper in his hand for long seconds. As if it was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen. As if... Then he looked at her, his expression completely shuttered. “No. You may not,” he said, and walked out.
Zara Khan arrived at the resort the next afternoon, straight from the morning photoshoot, arm in arm with Vikram. Naina would have given anything to hide, but the entire team had been determined to welcome the actress, their enthusiasm contagious.
She looked like an island queen in a two-piece yellow bikini and a bright white sarong wrapped around her waist as she walked over the wooden bridge, flanked by water all around, her beauty one of strong lines and angles rather than something that would fade with age.
In contrast to her extravagantly sunny look, Vikram was the perfect foil for her with his sculpted features and unshaven jaw. Dressed casually in khaki slacks and a white linen shirt rolled back at the sleeves, he was darkly sexy, his appeal a byproduct of his arrogance and power. That intensity of his presence, which was always a huge draw on the screen came from how deeply he felt about things. To call him cold and calculating had been unfair on so many levels, Naina knew.
She’d learned that the photoshoot was for an exposé that would feature Vikram and Zara as long-standing top Bollywood stars, their rise to stardom, their long-sustained careers, and their coming together for a behemoth project for the biggest project Raawal House had taken on in its seventy-year history.
At exactly the same time as the article ran, the sensational news about Vijay Raawal’s biopic would also hit the industry.
Just because it was the project of his heart didn’t mean it wasn’t a huge, commercial machine that he was setting up to succeed at every level. With the knowledge of how many employees were involved, Naina was relieved that he was at the helm.
“So many livelihoods depended on me,”he’d said, and she could see it in action now. But at the end of the day, she wanted to be the one he leaned on, for pleasure, for laughter. She wanted to be the person with whom he could be just Vikram. The strength of that feeling increased with every passing moment.
As the rest of the team surrounded them, Naina stayed back.
From a PR point, it was sheer brilliance to use the long-standing rumors about their possible romantic association to fuel the news cycle. Naina had never paid much attention to the gossip about them, but with them standing front of her right now, it was unavoidable.
Impossible to miss the ease and affection between them, to not see their gazes meet in wordless communication. Impossible to not notice that Zara Khan enjoyed a level of intimacy that Vikram didn’t even allow his family.
Naina couldn’t even hate her because the woman was graceful and down-to-earth when introduced to the team. Fresh fruit tasted like ash in her mouth when Naina returned to lunch.
Had he already lost interest in her then? Was it as simple as switching from her back to Zara?
Could Naina blame him when she’d made it so clear that she wanted nothing to do with him? When she continued with the pretense that night at the ball had been a one-off?
What would happen if she openly admitted to him that she was his Dream Girl? If she met him in the daylight as his equal? If she walked up to him and said,I want more than a few hours of stolen kisses. I want to see where this will go. I want to make you laugh again like I did that night. I want you to kiss me again.
What would happen if instead of doing what was safe, Naina reached out for what she really wanted?
CHAPTER NINE
CURSINGHERSELF, NAINApicked up what felt like twenty pairs of earrings she’d thrown around the room when she heard someone come in.
“I’m almost done packing. You can start in the—”
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
She straightened up to see Vikram and Zara standing at the entrance to her room. Damn it, she’d meant to leave before they returned from wherever they’d gone. For most of the afternoon and the evening. All seven hours of which she’d been acutely aware, down to the last minute.
Zara was dressed in a beautiful white pantsuit that made her look as if she’d just stepped off the pages of a magazine. Vikram, however, looked much more casual in a white linen shirt tucked loosely into blue jeans that hugged his lean hips and muscular thighs. He still hadn’t shaved. He looked deliciously scruffy, but there was also a look of resolution in his eyes.
“Ms. Menon?”
Naina jerked her gaze to his. Barely banked impatience shimmered there. It made her own hackles rise. She’d waited all afternoon to approach him. To...take her chance. And he’d been...gone. With the woman who occupied the closest familiarity with him.
Jealousy was a vile taste on her tongue. She closed her fingers over thejhumkashe was holding, the sharp metal of the earring digging into her palm. “I’m vacating the villa.”
His jaw clenched. “Why?”
Naina busied her hands and her eyes with trying to close the zipper on her bag. “Ms. Khan and you will have more privacy here without my constant interruptions.”
“You’re a beast to throw the poor girl out, Vicky,” Zara said softly.
“This is not on me, Zara. All I asked her to do was to make arrangements for your stay. Ms. Menon prides herself on anticipating every need anyone in this team might have and bends over backwards to fulfill them.”
