Free A Bollywood Affair by Sonali Dev Page A

her with that utterly absorbed look that made chicks go all gooey in the head.
    Her onyx eyes narrowed, then widened in shock. “You’re not Ridhi’s brother?”
    Now they were getting somewhere. He nodded. “Not her brother-slash-cousin-slash-any other relation.”
    Her flawless chocolate skin went the oddest shade of maroon. He didn’t know how she did it but her super-tiny form shrank into itself. “Oh. Then why were you chasing me?”
    Great question. And the perfect cue.
    He reached for his messenger bag with the papers that had brought him here, playing the lines he had to say in his head: Virat’s plane. The annulment.
    The yellow notepad slipped from his hand and fluttered to the gray linoleum floor. He squatted next to it. It was more than half-filled with closely scrawled words. He picked it up and stroked the ink-filled lines with his thumb. The words had burst from him all night like water from a hose. And man, had it felt good.
    “What’s that?” Her onyx eyes skimmed the pad and met his as she tried to sit up. Pain exploded in her eyes and she folded over on her side.
    He sprang up and leaned over her curled-up body. “Shh, it’s okay.”
    Hair spilled over her face. He pushed it aside to reveal wet cheeks and a face scrunched up in pain. “Try to breathe. I’ll call the nurse.”
    By the time the nurse had pumped her full of pain meds again, Samir found himself firmly in the middle of a classic good news–bad news scenario. The bad news was that he was stuck playing nursemaid for the next few weeks. For one, there was no one else to do it. For another, he just couldn’t bring himself to serve her annulment papers while she lay there doped out of her mind. The good news was that when he went home in a few weeks not only was he going to have his brother’s annulment, he was also going to have a completed script.
     
    “Thanks.” It was the first thing she said when she opened her eyes.
    Samir looked up from the yellow pad—it was almost out of pages—and found a shyness on her face that hadn’t been there before.
    “How are you feeling?” he asked.
    “I’m afraid to move,” she said, barely moving her lips, but her eyes smiled. “You didn’t answer my question earlier. Why were you chasing me?”
    “I wasn’t. I just moved into your building. My uncle is from your village, Hari Bishnoi. He gave me your address. I was just trying to stop by and say hello when you took off. I just followed you.” His writing mojo was definitely back. In all its genius.
    “Well, that was stupid.”
    So much for genius.
    Seriously, she jumped off a balcony and rode a bike into a tree and he was stupid? But instead of telling her that he gave her one of those made-just-for-chicks smiles he had honed to an art form during his modeling years.
    She frowned. “So, you’re just my new neighbor?”
    “Yup.” Or at least he would be as soon as he got DJ to find him an empty flat in that shit-smelling building of hers.
    “And you sat here all night watching over me when you don’t even know me?” Her eyes filled with tears.
    What the fuck?
    She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again and met his eyes with such directness he felt it all the way in his gut. “I think it’s time we started over.” She touched her heart with her unhurt hand, a one-armed namaste. “Hello, Samir. My friends call me Mili and I’m honored to make your acquaintance.”

8
    T he sound of Samir moving about in her kitchen woke Mili. She had been home for almost a week and Samir had planted himself by her side so firmly she was reminded of her neighbor’s goat in Balpur. The goat had shadowed Mili so insistently Naani had named him “Viratji” in a bid to move the fates along. Except that unlike the goat or his namesake, Samir had actually saved Mili’s life. If not for him, surely she would have died either of starvation or an exploded bladder.
    She sat up on the mattress on the floor. Samir had moved Ridhi’s