Free Bollywood and the Beast (Bollywood Confidential) by Suleikha Snyder

out, warrior swift, steadying him with a hand on his arm. Nahin , barely a hand. Two fingers. Such was his strength. Such was his damnable, mystical understanding that a firmer touch would only make Ashraf’s meager breakfast come up and meet the flagstones. “Is everything all right, Chote Saab ?”
    Kamal’s eyes, as pure and enveloping as a room without light, always saw too much. And in his low, melodious voice, “little sir” sounded almost like an endearment.
    “If I wasn’t all right, what would you do, Kamal? Hmm?” he spat in English. “Heal me as you’ve so successfully healed Taj?”
    Kamal didn’t rise to the bait. He never did. All pride and defiance and secrets, he had no patience for the Khan brothers’ rages, for their sentiment. He simply let Ashraf go and stepped back, allowing him to pass. “When you need my healing, Chote , you will come to me.”
    That, too, was an endearment…and a curse.
     
     
    “These are gorgeous,” she sighed, breathing in the light, exotic scent of the hybrid roses.
    Taj gave her as close to a smile as he was willing to part with. “I know.” The pride in his voice he didn’t skimp on at all. “They just opened. I think they were waiting for you.”
    “Like you? Blossoming from the sunshine of my personality?” The teasing came surprisingly easy, considering how wilted she still felt from that wonderful, terrible afternoon in his room. “It’s amazing I haven’t lit up the whole house.”
    “But you have.” Taj twisted in his chair, looking her full in the face, no flinching, no hiding behind his long, razor-sharp hair. “You’ve brought Diwali into this place, where none of us want light or joy or evidence of God. You lit every corner, every shadow. Why? What’s in it for you, Rakhee?”
    It was the nicest thing he’d ever said to her. Maybe the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her. And she had to take a second to sift through each nuance…to keep her knees from buckling. “Why does something have to be in it for me?” she wondered, slowly crouching down at his feet. “Hasn’t anyone ever just been… nice to you? Can’t I like laughing and dancing and making people feel good? It’s why I’m an actress, Taj. Because I want to brighten lives. Even yours.”
    “Even mine,” he echoed, something like humor in his guarded countenance. “It’s too dark, sweet Rocky, for a woman as bright as you.”
    “It doesn’t have to be. Look at how much care you put into your garden. If you showed one-tenth of that in the rest of your life, imagine what you could accomplish.” Her palms slid up his calves, then his legs and thighs. Hewn solid from exercise, even if he didn’t trust them to carry him. “ You could make me bloom, Taj Khan,” she whispered, suddenly the seductress. Knowing he could throw it back in her face but playing the role anyway. “Don’t you think I’d open for you, too?”
    Except for the rapid rise and fall of his chest, he was still. Solid as stone. Everywhere. Her fingertips brushed the rise of his zipper, and it was only then that he jerked in his seat, biting out her name like an expletive and chasing it with “Stop!”
    “You didn’t when I asked,” she reminded him, rising so they were face-to-face. “What makes you think I will? What makes you think I’m any less cruel than you?”
    He stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers, leaning close enough to devastate her with a kiss or a condemnation. His mouth brushed over hers with the quiet, regret-laden words. “Because I’ve heard you crying.”
    And then he wheeled backward, leaving her kneeling alone in the grass.
    “You wouldn’t bloom with me, Rakhee. You would die on the vine.”

Chapter Fourteen
    Again, Kamal was watching him, those ink-black eyes taking in everything and missing nothing. Ashraf tried not to acknowledge it, bent over his mobile as he answered a SMS from Priya Roy Anand, who wanted to know how he was faring. But Kamal was