Free Bollywood Fiancé for a Day by Ruchi Vasudeva

Bollywood curiosity rearing its head for some hands-on news.
    â€˜I’m impressed by your knowledge of celebrity gossip. Really!’ He resumed, without catering to her curiosity, ‘Even after her marriage, Mia hasn’t stopped trying to throw herself my way. She delayed me that day of our date, deliberately too. She’s more persistent than Columbus was for his voyages. Plus the fact that she happens to be my current leading lady complicates things for me.’
    â€˜So you need a barrier, namely a fiancée, to show her you’re unavailable? But why? I mean why would you object to her attentions?’
    â€˜Her attentions…as you put it…aren’t welcome. The foremost reason is because she’s married, of course.’
    â€˜And you have scruples?’ She couldn’t help sounding patently disbelieving.
    â€˜You wound me,
señorita
! Yes, even I have them, bottom of the gutter that I am, according to you. I draw the line at married females. Besides, it would be career suicide to take up with my director’s wife.’
    â€˜So you want me to pretend to be your fiancée to get Mia off your back?’
    â€˜Once she’s satisfied I’m engaged and not likely to be interested in her, she’ll leave me alone. She’s getting more and more temperamental and I don’t want her upsetting the shoot. I’ve put a lot into this movie and I’m not letting it suffer for any reason if I can prevent it.’
    The film had become a top priority.
    He’d done the so-called masala films in their hordes. While they sold well, he knew he wasn’t considered a ‘serious’ actor. Now he had the opportunity to do something the celluloid slammers would sit up and take notice of. The film was an epic tale—an authentically researched period drama. He had high hopes it would propel his career into a different stratosphere and win him critical acclaim. He didn’t want anything to hamper this.
    â€˜Wouldn’t it be better if the director knows about his wife?’ Vishakha put in. Maybe she was thinking of her own narrow escape from her louse of a fiancé.
    â€˜He’s certainly insecure about her. But I doubt if he would hear anything against her, being more than a bit besotted with her. And I don’t have anything to back me up except my own word.’
    â€˜And he’d be more likely to believe his wife?’
    â€˜You’re certainly quick on the uptake. I can tell you didn’t pass your medical exams by cheating.’ His mouth curved in a mocking slant.
    â€˜Of course I didn’t.’ She straightened with annoyance. ‘But I’d bet you got through school by looking over your friends’ shoulders at their notebooks.’ She couldn’t resist that.
    â€˜Right first time.’ He raised brows in exaggerated surprise and she bit back a chuckle.
    â€˜So is it a deal?’ he drawled.
    â€˜I don’t know. I don’t think I can carry it off,’ she said doubtfully.
    â€˜It’s what you need to do if you want to make it through that wedding.’
    Attractive though the idea might be, it would still bring him closer into her circle than felt entirely comfortable. Did she want that? Charm was his forte and all that chiselled attractiveness spelled danger in letters a mile tall. Not that she was as susceptible to his appeal as other girls seemed to be, she assured herself. As long as he kept away from kids.
    â€˜And what happens when it’s all off and we each go our own way? I’m going to be worse off than before. It’ll be all over the press that I’ve been ditched by a Bollywood star. Has that occurred to you?’
    â€˜That can be remedied. I won’t ditch you,’ he said casually, but with all the aplomb of having dropped a bomb, a flash of satisfaction in his eyes at witnessing her mouth-dropped-open reaction.
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜That’s what I