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CHAPTER ONE
After a decade-long affair, Bollywood Queen Zara Khan is dumped by Vikram Raawal for a younger model!
“Nobody Naina” steals boss Zara Khan’s man right from under her nose!
Vikram Raawal’s massive biopic set to sink even before release!
ZARAKHANLOOKEDat the headlines on three different websites in dawning horror and put away her cell phone. She stole a quick glance at her assistant, Naina, also her longtime best friend Vikram Raawal’s fiancée. Her signature curls framing her small face, Naina sat at the back table with Vikram’s sister, Anya. Even from this distance, Zara could see the strain on Naina’s face.
Had Naina already seen these? Was that the reason for how subdued she’d been for the past week—this ridiculous suggestion that somehow she’d stolen Vikram away from Zara? That she’d destroyed Zara’s chance at happiness?
Where and how did the media come up with these disgusting lies?
This was the last thing the happy couple needed, just a week before their wedding—Zara’s rabid fan base to send ill wishes their way. After standing by Zara through thick and thin, after a lifetime spent righting the mighty ship of his family’s rocky finances and reputation and that of the Raawal House of Cinema, Vikram deserved to have his and Naina’s happiness unmarred by all this drama and dirt.
Even though she had already made a public statement about how happy she was for Vikram and Naina, it hadn’t made a speck of difference to her legion of fans.
And it wasn’t limited to silly rumors, either, that she wished all of them could simply weather until something more salacious hit the news cycle.
This gossip about Vikram’s supposed breakup with Zara and his simultaneous engagement to Naina was becoming the defining narrative around the upcoming biopic telling the story of how Vikram’s grandfather, Vijay Raawal, had been inspired to create his production house. Every interview Vikram had tried to give about the project had been hijacked by the media to ask him about his relationship struggles.
Frustration filled her muscles and Zara struggled to keep her expression smiling and graceful as the program for the launch of the lifestyle websiteSuperWomen, which Zara was one of the prime investors for, continued on stage.
If she hadn’t promised the group of smart young women who had created the website that she would throw her weight and name behind the launch, and if she hadn’t already spent the considerable goodwill she had in the industry to wrangle powerful men into attending it, Zara would have walked out of the event. The last thing she wanted to do right now was to be her graceful self on stage while every man and woman watching wondered if she was secretly nursing a broken heart.
Damn it, no one was going to reduce her to the role of victim. She hadn’t done that even when she had just cause to. She certainly wasn’t going to begin now.
It was time to take action. The last thing Vikram needed this close to his wedding to Naina was this much bad publicity.
With the biopic in full production already and slated to be finished within the next few weeks, this much bad sentiment toward Vikram had real consequences, especially as he’d sunk everything he had into the project. It was time to give the media a new distraction. Time to give her fan base something even more delicious and exciting to speculate about than Vikram and Naina’s engagement. Time to bring the focus back to the biopic, where it belonged.
A niggle of a plan began to hatch at the back of Zara’s mind the moment she saw Virat Raawal walk in from the foyer, all casual grace and swaggering masculinity. Heads turned toward him and whispers abounded as they always did whenever he appeared.
While Vikram was traditionally handsome and had established himself as the uncrowned king of the acting industry through various carefully designed blockbusters, his brother, Virat, stood at the top of the directing hierarchy in a way no one could even compete with. Known for his brilliant storytelling across a number of internationally acclaimed movies, Virat was a true rebel in every way that mattered. Actors and actresses vied with each other to star in his movies, while writers created stories for him to bring to life on the silver screen.
With a patrician nose and rugged features,beautifulorhandsomewere words too...simple to describe the brilliant director.Untamedwas the only word that came to Zara’s mind every time she saw him. A man who wouldn’t be caught by the simple constraints of a relationship or the boundaries by which everyone else lived.
A shiver of awareness gripped Zara—as familiar to her when he was anywhere in the vicinity as her own reflection. His tall, lean frame rounded the banquet hall, radiating an intensity that belied the cocky smile on his lips.
Zara always had the feeling he was laughing at the world, instead of with it. With pure contempt. As if they were all insignificant pawns in a game only he knew how to play.
While every man here—most of them pioneers in their industry—was dressed to the nines in three-piece suits, Virat of course flouted the dress code in a fitted white shirt and black trousers that molded to his six-foot-two-inch frame. His pristine shirt, three buttons undone, formed a deliciously contrasting V against his dark skin.
Ten years ago, at just twenty years old, he’d been full of an innate confidence and wicked charm that Zara hadn’t been able to resist. Now he wore his power as comfortably and as effortlessly as his custom-made shirts.
The shadow of a beard and a cigar hanging from the edge of his full mouth completed the picture of the disreputable genius, as the world called him. With him looking like that, the recent news of his dangerous affair with a powerful cabinet minister’s young wife was all too easy to believe.
Apparently, the man lived his life the way he made his movies—skating the edge of propriety, pushing the boundaries of society, with a hefty dose of mockery and contempt. No one had missed the showdown the minister had tried to force on Virat not a week ago. No one in the industry could be oblivious to the rumors that the minister was using every ounce of his reach to hurt Virat where it would do the most damage.
Zara sent a silent thanks to the universe that at least he hadn’t shown up at this launch with the minister’s young wife in tow. She had wondered if he would even show up at all.
But now that he was here, she didn’t have a moment to lose to execute her plan. If she thought about it too much, if she pondered on what she was putting into motion with the man who hated her very guts, the one man who’d always be her weakness, then she would talk herself out of it.
She would run far away.
Instead Zara stood up from her seat and dragged in a few deep breaths under the guise of straightening her white silk shirt and emerald green skirt. Her knees wobbled as she made her way toward the group of men that were laughing uproariously at whatever brilliant piece of wit Virat had bestowed on them.
Once, Zara hadn’t been his equal. She had walked out of his life because she hadn’t trusted herself to be good enough for him.
