Free Twelve Hours of Temptation by Shoma Narayanan Page B

asked. Her face clouded over again, and she bit her lip.
    ‘Josh was Australian—that was one thing. And he was definitely not serious about me; it was just a holiday romance as far as he was concerned.’
    Samir hesitated a little. He’d shifted the conversation away from his own botched-up love life because he hated talking about the one period in his life when he’d let another person control him emotionally. He hadn’t, however, wanted to make Melissa relive what had probably been a more traumatic experience—in his case at least his family had been kept out of it. Now he could hardly change the topic again without seeming callous, so he searched around for a question that would show he was listening without being overly intrusive.
    ‘How did you meet Josh?’ he asked finally.
    ‘He came into the restaurant when I was doing the lunch shift. He was a travel writer, and he was in Goa to do some background research for his new book. I was used to foreigners—our restaurant had got good reviews on quite a few travel websites and we got dozens of tourists coming in every day. Josh was different. He’d been in the country only for a few weeks, but he seemed totally at home—like he was born here. We got talking, and...well, before I knew it I’d agreed to help him out with his research. I speak Konkani, and even a little Portuguese, and he needed someone to translate when he interviewed the locals.’
    Samir felt a totally alien emotion sweep over him—it took him a few seconds to realise that it was jealousy. Melissa’s voice had taken on a wistful tone that he’d never heard before, and he had a mad urge to hunt Josh down and smash his face in for him. Because he’d quite obviously hurt Melissa—not to mention messing up her relationship with her family.
    It took some effort keeping his voice neutral as he asked, ‘Your father didn’t stop you from dating him?’
    ‘He didn’t know for a long while,’ Melissa said. ‘Josh used to flirt with me a little, but I didn’t take it seriously at first. Then we started spending more time together—he showed me the work he’d already done on the book, and it was amazing. He wrote really well. You could visualise each sentence. I think I fell for his writing first. My dad found out I was having an affair with Josh just a week before he was due to leave India. I didn’t want to miss those last few days with him and I refused to listen to my dad. Just packed up a bag and moved into Josh’s place. He’d paid the rent for a full quarter, so after he left I had a place to stay for a while. My dad refused to let me into the house.’
    ‘How did you end up in Mumbai, then?’
    ‘I called Aunty Liz. She’s Brian’s wife, and she’s a kind of cousin several times removed. I’ve always been close to her, and I thought she could help me get a job outside Goa. I majored in English literature—it’s a pretty useless qualification, but I write pretty well. Brian offered me a copywriting job, and it seemed like the perfect solution.’
    ‘Are you still in touch with him?’
    ‘With Brian?’ Melissa asked, looking puzzled.
    For an instant, Samir felt like shaking her.
    ‘Oh, you mean Josh. Well, yes—he e-mails me sometimes, but we’re just friends now. I’m over him, if that’s what you’re asking.’
    It was exactly what he was asking, and the casual way in which she said she was over Josh was more believable than if she’d protested vehemently.
    ‘I don’t know if I was really in love with him either,’ she said after a while. ‘It was all so mixed up. I didn’t mind working in the restaurant, but a part of me had always wanted to escape. Then there was something glamorous about dating a foreigner—especially a writer. Maybe I just got a little carried away, trying to prove that I was an independent woman with a life of my own.’ There was another little pause, and then she said, ‘Or at least that’s what I tell myself now. At the time I was