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After several years, Rani’s perseverance had finally borne fruit and she’d reached the heights of fame even she’d only dreamed of. But by then, it had done indelible harm to not only to their marriage but also her mental and physical health. Their failure to conceive had broken her down even more.
The only saving grace had been the arrival of Meera in their lives—she’d wrought the miracle that Simon had tried to achieve for years. At only a day old, Meera had gotten her mother to slow down. At a month old, she’d gotten Rani to quit the long hours and the brutal pace—even though her career had been at its peak—and retire.
No lifestyle where she disappeared for weeks on a shoot and he also traveled internationally for work would work for her precious baby girl, Rani had announced with that focused fixation that had often unnerved Simon. But he’d been more than happy to go along with her decision. With his real estate business at a place where he could dictate his own lifestyle, they’d moved to Singapore immediately. Even their marriage had had a second life breathed into it after years of conflict created by two ambitious, demanding careers and the strife and pain caused by their failure to conceive a child.
Until Rani’s restlessness had begun once more three years ago and things had begun to fall apart. All over again.
And now, eighteen months after losing Rani in a car crash, he was back in the city of Mumbai with Meera in tow. He’d done his best to persuade Meera to turn away from Bollywood but acting was in her blood, just as it had been in Rani’s. It didn’t matter that she was adopted.
Simon rubbed a hand over his face and stepped out of the lift into the expansive lobby. It seemed like he’d only blinked twice, and in that time not only had Meera been scouted at a shopping mall of all places, but the acclaimed director Virat Raawal himself had given her a screen test and called her his next incredible find.
Since losing Rani, it was the first time Simon had seen Meera excited about something. Neither had he been able to argue with his thirteen-year-old daughter’s wisdom that without her mom, their home was not a home anymore, nor were they any more than automatons surviving each bleak, empty day.
He’d been so wrapped up in his guilt and grief—two emotions that fed each other—that he hadn’t even noticed that Meera’s grades had been suffering or that she’d retreated from a vibrant social life.
This was a good move, he reminded himself now. It wasn’t healthy for him or Meera to be so...isolated as they’d been the last eighteen months. Now, he just needed to find someone trustworthy to watch over Meera for the next few months during the preproduction and the shoot, especially when he traveled for work.
He’d already interviewed several agencies but Meera, being thirteen, hated almost every one of the candidates they’d met. His wife had raised Meera to be not only a well-adjusted, independent girl but also confident in her own decision-making.
For the next few weeks, though, Simon was determined to spend every spare minute their schedules afforded with Meera. He checked his watch. It was six in the evening, which meant Meera wouldn’t finish for another hour at least. But he would hang around. He needed to get to know all the members of the production team despite his irrational aversion for the industry. Even the powerful Raawal brothers of whom everyone sang litanies of praise.
Simon was about to walk into the rehearsal suite when he saw a woman kneeling on the floor in the small circular lobby tucked at the end of the corridor.
With Mumbai’s skyline visible through the high glass windows, her long neck and slender back were clearly delineated. A faint light spilled into the small sitting area hidden from the view of the long corridor that opened into the various suites. Her shoulders were shaking, her head bowed as if weighed down by insurmountable grief.
Should he walk away?
Rani used to tease him mercilessly for his unmodern instinct to help damsels in distress. But he couldn’t just...ignore the woman, could he? Especially now, when he was the father of a teenage girl and had to hope that someone would show her a kindness if she needed it, under any circumstance.
Stopping at a short distance from her, Simon crouched down with one hand on the sofa behind him. “Miss, is everything okay?” he whispered, trying to make his broad form shrink into something less threatening. Which was nearly impossible.
The woman raised her head, her gaze full of shock and...grief. Grief that he’d seen in his own reflection far too much these past eighteen months and recognized only too well.
The woman was young, barely late twenties maybe. Large brown eyes, followed by a distinctive nose that was too big for her face and a wide mouth...not classically beautiful like Rani had been. But the strong, stark lines of her face and the stubborn resolve to her pointed chin tugged at him.
He didn’t dare look below her neck for something about her was ringing all the bells in his body, waking up a hunger that had been choked by grief and guilt even before Rani had died.
Despite the warning, his greedy senses nonetheless registered the smooth expanse of golden-brown skin left bare by the deep square neck of the woman’s white top. Thin lace shimmered at the neckline kissing the upper swells of her breasts. She was tall and slender and yet curvy in all the right places—voluptuous. Her hair was jet-black with golden highlights in it, cut stylishly to frame her face. The silky ends moved with her baby-bird-like movements as she tilted her head.
What the hell was wrong with him?
The last thing the woman needed was a forty-three-year-old man to be checking her out while she was in the middle of what was clearly a panic attack. Simon exhaled roughly, willing his traitorous body to calm down. And yet he couldn’t help but enjoy the slow hum of attraction simmering beneath his skin. It had been so long since he’d felt anything like it.
Tears had drawn rivulets over her sharp cheekbones and pooled around her mouth. She stared at him and yet, Simon knew she hadn’t really registered his presence. There was a blankness in her eyes that terrified him to his bones.
“Hey, I’m Simon,” he said in a soft, steady voice. “Are you in pain? Should I call for a doctor?”
The woman shook her head. A fat tear dropped to her chin and disappeared down her neck and into the blouse.
“Okay, that’s good,” he said, settling onto his knees, keeping his hands on his thighs where she could see them. “I’ll just sit here for a while with you, yeah?”
She didn’t nod but he saw her shoulders relax.
He waited like that for a few minutes before prompting, “Is there anyone I can call for you? A family member?”
She shook her head very emphatically at the last. Was she in danger from them? His blood roared at the very idea. “Okay. That’s okay.”
Slowly, she scrubbed a hand over her face.
