AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He raised a brow, an unholy light suddenly shimmering in his eyes. “When we...what?” he teased.
“When you and I...” Anya said, licking her dry lips and casting a quick glance in the direction that Meera had gone in, “when we had—” she lowered her voice to a bare whisper, but it took another swallow to get the word out “—sex, were you...already in a relationship with someone else?”
The thread of humor in his beautiful eyes disappeared. His thick brows knotted into a scowl and the step he took toward Anya had her backing up against the wall.
He swore. “Stop acting as if you’re scared of me.”
“Of course I’m not,” she retorted, feeling hot all over.
“Is that why you scurried off and hid in the bathroom for five minutes last time I picked up Meera?”
So he had noticed that. “I’m just...” She rubbed a hand over the nape of her neck. “Being near you does a number on me, okay?”
That answer burned away the quick flare of his temper. But a shimmer of a remote coolness remained. “Are you asking me if I was cheating on someone with you, Angel?”
His frigid tone was answer enough and still, some wild, wanton part of Anya didn’t want to release him yet. Because she had a strange feeling that she had a hold on him just then. He didn’t like that she could think him capable of something like that. “It’s just...” She swallowed Meera’s name, feeling heat creep up her cheeks. “Something made me wonder.”
When the glacial coolness in his eyes didn’t thaw, Anya pushed at his chest with her palms, a strange belligerence rising up in her. “It’s not my fault if I did wonder, is it? We barely knew each other and ever since...you’ve been acting as if I’ll proposition you if you so much as look at me. I thought with everything that happened, we were friends at least.”
“You’re even more naive than I assumed if you think we could be friends after what’s happened.” His voice softened, as if he was trying to not upset her delicate sensibilities. That in turn only angered her.
“So you weren’t cheating then? You weren’t with anyone else romantically?” she probed shamelessly, wanting to know if he was in a relationship with Ms. Sampson now.
“No, I wasn’t. Even when Rani and I were married...” He exhaled roughly, biting away the rest. “And that ends this discussion.”
Anya’s curiosity about his marriage, about his loyalty to his wife, about everything related to him, basically, went up another notch. “I’m sorry if I implied you were capable of infidelity.”
“You’re forgiven,” he said with an ease that said he’d grant her anything if she just stopped talking to him.
“But I do have something else important I want to talk to you about. Why don’t we meet during lunch tomorrow here at the hotel? Meera and my brothers will be busy. My suite is out of everyone’s way and we can—”
“Are you asking me over for an afternoon quickie, Angel?”
“What?” Her pulse raced at the very idea, her body softening at the picture her overimaginative brain painted immediately. Quickie or not, this time she’d make sure there was a bed available. Definitely.
Simon tapped her shoulder, grinning wickedly. “I was just kidding.”
“I know that. And of course I’m not inviting you for a—” she lowered her voice again “—quickie.”
He shrugged. “I can’t have lunch with you tomorrow. I’m...busy.”
“Simon, this is—”
“Good evening, Ms. Raawal,” he pronounced stiffly in a raised voice.
Anya looked behind her to see Meera had just emerged from the bathroom at the other end of the long gym. She pressed a hand to Simon’s chest and leaned closer. He straightened from his relaxed stance, tension swathing him at her touch. She bent and whispered, “So you’re available for the quickie but not to talk?”
Without waiting for his answer, Anya pulled away, a feral satisfaction flooding her at his stunned gaze. Pasting a beaming smile to her lips, she bid Meera a quiet good-night and walked away on trembling knees.
Before the infuriating man tempted her to more unwise actions.
She was playing with fire—and thank God he hadn’t called her bluff. No way could she do the casual thing with him again. But she also didn’t remember a moment where she’d felt so alive in her entire life.
Long after Meera went to bed, Simon poured himself a drink at the bar and wandered toward the terrace attached to the penthouse. The night was balmy and muggy with a storm in the making.
Despite the fact that the penthouse at the hotel—one of his own group—was the height of luxury, he didn’t like the temporariness of it any more than he’d liked the empty silence of their home in Singapore over the last year and a half. It smacked of uncertainty. After growing up with a single parent who’d dragged him up and down the country in search of work, Simon didn’t like not having a solid home base. They could choose any one of his residences in a number of the big cities in India, but this was where Meera wanted to be now.
Where she was thriving.
