Monsoon Wedding Fever

A door slammed in the flat, and Dhruv’s thoughts jerked back to the present. Riya was home. She was sweating slightly after her hour in the gym, and her cheeks were slightly flushed. Dhruv felt his heartbeat accelerate as he saw her—his first thought was that this was exactly how she’d look after being made love to, and he shook himself mentally to get rid of the further images that this conjured up. A second wave of lust hit him as he noticed the hint of cleavage that showed as she bent down to untie the laces of her gym shoes, and he looked hastily away.

Riya checked for a second when she saw Dhruv in the living room. She’d been half hoping that he’d be out of the house by the time she returned, so that she wouldn’t have to struggle to keep up the coolly sophisticated front she’d donned. Her initial impulse was to run to her room, but she forced herself to walk slowly—partly because she didn’t want Dhruv to think he affected her in any way, and partly because she didn’t want to trip and fall flat on her face. Her sense of balance had improved significantly since college days, when she’d fallen over at least once a week, but she didn’t trust herself while Dhruv was around.

‘Where’s Gaurav?’ she heard herself ask.

‘Gone for a bath. By the way, he’s still not come up with any ideas for a gift for Madhulika, so if you can think of something I’d be really, really grateful.’

He smiled up at her, and Riya found herself unable to tear her eyes away from him. He was still impossibly good-looking, she decided. A beam of sunlight from the window glinted off his dark brown hair and highlighted the honey-gold planes of his almost perfectly chiselled face. His lips were just the right shape—not too thin, and not too full—quirking up a little at the corners to offset the firm cast of his jaw. But his best features were still his eyes—golden-brown with flecks of green, framed in impossibly long lashes.

Something in his expression finally cued her that she’d been staring at him like an idiot.

‘Gift?’ she repeated, parrot-like, dragging her eyes away from his. ‘A watch, maybe?’

Dhruv was still looking at her and she kept talking, as if the sound of her own voice would keep her from doing something moderately embarrassing, like reaching a hand out to brush back the straight hair falling over his forehead, or really, really stupid, like flinging herself into his arms.

‘Madhu collects watches, and there’s a new one with a purple dial she likes—Gaurav won’t get it for her because he has this crazy theory about watches being a countdown till the day you die.’

‘Yes, I know about that one,’ Dhruv said drily. ‘It also explains why he’s late for pretty much everything. Thanks for the idea, Riya.’

Riya said politely that he was most welcome, and escaped to her room to collapse onto the bed and stare at the ceiling. Dhruv had changed, she thought. She’d known him very well at one time, and she could sense that something fundamental about him was different. His looks hadn’t altered much—he looked older, of course, and there were a few strands of silver in his thick, floppy hair, and of course his body had...improved.

Riya had to pull her mind back from dwelling lovingly on those improvements. No, that wasn’t it. In college he’d given the initial impression of being laid-back, slightly lazy, even, and that had been part of his charm—the fact that he never really exerted himself to make a good impression, but made one anyway. When she’d got to know him better, however, she’d figured that appearances were deceptive. The chilled-out exterior covered a lot of inner turmoil, the reasons for which, at seventeen, she hadn’t even begun to understand. Now it seemed to be the other way around. Dhruv’s personality was far more compelling, dynamic, but internally he seemed more detached than he’d been before, his wild streak completely dormant. Maybe he’d just grown up.

‘I’ve grown up, too,’ she informed the bedpost. ‘I’m no longer a lovesick donkey. So there’s no way I’m going to make a fool of myself over him again.’

The words were brave, but Riya felt about as confident as she had as a quaking four-year-old on her first day of school. Dhruv Malhotra meant trouble, and the less she saw of him the better.

CHAPTER TWO

GAURAV knocked gently on Riya’s door. ‘Come in!’ she yelled out. He came in quietly and sat down, gingerly perching his bulky frame next to her.

‘I’m sorry about foisting Dhruv on you,’ he said, tugging gently at a lock of her hair. ‘I wish I’d known—I wouldn’t have asked him to stay here.’

‘Relax. You’re not a clairvoyant, so there’s no way you could have known. It doesn’t matter, anyway.’

‘Should I ask him to move to a hotel? He’s offered to, in case you’re uncomfortable with him being around. Chutki’s staying over at a friend’s place from tonight anyway.’

Riya shook her head and laughed. ‘It’s not that big a deal, Gaurav. Really. Dhruv and I used to hang around in college—I took it a little too seriously and scared him off.’

Gaurav hesitated. ‘He seemed to think it’d be better if he moved out.’

‘So let him move, then, for God’s sake,’ Riya snapped. ‘It doesn’t matter to me.’ But it did. It mattered a lot. Chutki’s saying that he’d held on to her picture had made her think that maybe, after all, Dhruv had cared for her—just a little. But if he still wanted to run away from her, even after twelve years, she couldn’t help feeling some of the old hurt creep back.

Gaurav said gently, ‘Do you want to tell me about it?’

Riya shook her head decisively. ‘No, thanks. I made enough of a fool of myself over your cousin the first time around, and I don’t want to think about it any more.’

‘Poor girl.’ Gaurav pulled her against himself for a quick hug. ‘You know what? I think you guys should talk it over now, put it behind you.’

‘Yeah, thanks for the advice, Oprah, but I think I’ll pass.’ The last thing she wanted was more time talking to Dhruv—it wouldn’t be possible to conceal how much he affected her for more than ten minutes.

‘Is it OK if he comes for my surprise party tonight?’

Riya groaned. ‘Gaurav, you aren’t supposed to know that there is a surprise party. Who blabbed?’

He gave her a smug grin. ‘That’s for me to know and you to find out... Come on, Riya, did you really think anything in the office would stay a secret?’

It didn’t. Her office was the original leaky sieve—one of a dozen people could have told Gaurav, and she had been crazy to think that she’d be able to keep the surprise party actually a surprise.

‘You can help clean the house before the party, then,’ she told Gaurav, ‘now that you know. Remember to put all your smelly socks in the wash.’

Gaurav groaned. ‘I should have just pretended to be surprised. Like my grandmother says, there’s no room for honesty in this black era. So, can Dhruv come?’

‘I guess so,’ Riya replied grudgingly, and he beamed back at her, evidently convinced that all was forgiven and forgotten between his cousin and his best friend.

* * *

The house was chock-full of people by eight p.m., and more kept arriving. Gaurav was popular in the firm, and because he was in HR he knew everyone. It was a bring your own booze party, and the food was Chinese takeaway and pizzas—it hadn’t been much trouble to organise—but Riya was finding it difficult to concentrate even on simple things, like making sure someone responsible was in charge of the drinks, and that people didn’t spill ketchup on the company-owned sofas. Her eyes automatically went to the door every time the doorbell rang—Dhruv had said he’d be late, but she couldn’t help searching for him among every group of entrants.

It was nine-thirty when Dhruv finally made an appearance. Riya was perched on the balcony, swinging her legs against the parapet as she talked to a group of colleagues. The atmosphere in the room seemed to change as he walked in, looking around the room and hesitating a little before coming up to her. Riya gave him a polite, noncommittal smile, noticing bitterly that even with a day’s stubble and rumpled clothes he was by far the best-looking man in the room.

As he walked towards her more than a few heads swung in his direction. The reaction in the little group on the balcony was palpable. The two women smoothed their hair, clearly in a bit of a flutter. Rishabh, the only man in the group, straightened up and squared his shoulders—the typical male reaction to a man several inches taller. Riya tried to stay unaffected, but she knew that she more than anyone else was conscious of every movement he made, every change of expression.

‘So, what do you do, Dhruv?’ one of the women asked after Riya had introduced Dhruv. ‘Let me guess... Not a banker, obviously—not boring enough. Lawyer? Businessman?’

‘I’m an architect,’ Dhruv replied quietly.

‘Really? What’s your firm called?’ Her expression was one of animated interest.

Dhruv, used to female attention, hardly noticed the effort she was making to capture his attention. It had been a long day, and he’d come back hoping for a relaxed evening, but with the house full of guests it didn’t look likely. The woman was still looking at him expectantly, so he answered.

‘Icarus Designs,’ he said, wishing they would all go away and leave him with Riya. She was wearing a sleeveless turquoise top in some silky material over jeans, and her hair was loose over her shoulders—she looked younger, and far more as he remembered her from college, and if they had been alone he’d have been tempted to take her into his arms and kiss her senseless.

Rishabh looked up. ‘There’s a Singapore-based firm of that name—any connection?’

‘I’ve been working out of Singapore the last few years, but I started in Delhi and I still have an office there,’ Dhruv said. He had an eye on Riya, sensing that she was withdrawing from the conversation. He figured that while she was on friendly terms with Rishabh, she didn’t really like him.

‘Dude, I love the buildings you guys have done in Singapore,’ Rishabh was saying. ‘I worked in one of them, and the design was out of this world. I actually researched the firm as part of a project. Are you setting up something in Mumbai?’

‘I’m considering it,’ Dhruv said. ‘I’ll be coming back to Mumbai after Gaurav’s wedding to scout for office space, and if things work out I’ll set up here by the end of the year.’

Rishabh hopped down from the parapet onto the balcony and took a card out of his pocket. ‘Maybe we can meet up once you’re back? My contact details are on this—or I can call you if that’s OK?’

‘Sure,’ Dhruv said, taking the card but not offering one of his own in return.

Riya frowned. It hadn’t even occurred to her to ask Dhruv about his work, but Rishabh had sensed a business opportunity and honed in. That was how he managed to hold his own at work, she thought. They had joined CYB around the same time, and got along well at least on the surface, but professionally they had been at loggerheads since the day they’d started working together. Riya knew that she was technically far more competent than he was—where she fell behind was on the ability to spot new business.

She looked over the parapet, down at the city. She needed to get at least a couple of new clients on board this quarter to secure a decent bonus. God knew she needed the money. She earned a good salary, but a lot of it went home to her parents. Her mother didn’t work, and her dad had retired on a very small pension—and he’d had a lot of health problems recently.

She pursed her lips worriedly. If Icarus Designs was big—and Rishabh evidently thought they were—she should speak to Dhruv about a possible project. He’d be far more inclined to talk to her than to Rishabh, but she felt very reluctant to broach the topic with him.

She cast a quick look in his direction, and all thoughts of work immediately flew out of her head. He was impossibly good-looking, she thought, confused, and his rumpled hair and unshaven chin only added to his dangerous bad-boy looks.

Dhruv looked up at her suddenly. ‘Riya, don’t lean so far back—you’ll topple. We’re on the twenty-second floor.’

Gaurav walked up to them, drink in hand, slinging a careless arm around Dhruv’s shoulders. ‘Yeah, you’ll make a lovely splat on the concrete. You guys heard the joke about the idiot who fell from the roof of a ten-storey building?’

Rishabh grinned—he and Gaurav were the clowns of the bunch. ‘He heard the doorbell ring and ran to open the door.’

‘Right. And the one who drove his truck off a cliff?’

‘He wanted to check his air brakes!’

Dhruv moved closer to Riya and said in an undertone, ‘Riya, please get down.’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘Dhruv, I’m not about to fall. Back off.’

Rishabh said, ‘And the one who fell out of the window?’

‘He tripped over the cordless phone,’ Gaurav said, grinning, as the girls groaned in mock exasperation.

Riya was still stubbornly perched on the balcony railing, giving Dhruv a defiant little look as she laughed at Gaurav’s completely pathetic jokes. Dhruv had had these sudden bouts of over-protectiveness in college as well—worrying about her getting home when it was getting dark, insisting on dropping her home on his motorbike from college after she’d had an accident on her two-wheeler. She’d never objected then, thinking it was a sign of how much he cared for her, but there was no way she was going to take orders from him now.

‘Don’t be childish, Riya. What are you trying to prove?’ he said, and Riya immediately saw red.

‘Leave me alone,’ she said.

Dhruv gritted his teeth and moved closer to her, putting one arm on either side in a protective stance.

‘Get away, Dhruv,’ Riya said angrily, not sure which was stronger—her irritation at his bossiness, or her intense awareness of his proximity. His sleeves were rolled up, and she could see the smattering of fine hair on his forearms. Her fingers ached to run up his arm, feel the muscles under the warm, velvety skin. His face was really close too, and she had a sudden mad impulse to touch his silky hair and pull his head closer till his mouth touched hers.

A surge of annoyance at her own susceptibility made her shove at his shoulder—hard. He didn’t budge, but the movement made her lose her balance. She teetered on the edge for a second, and then Dhruv’s arms came around her, steadying her and firmly lowering her to the balcony. His arms felt every bit as delicious as she had imagined. She looked up at him mistily—to encounter two golden eyes glaring furiously down at her as his hands came up to her shoulders.

He gave her a little shake. ‘What did you think you were doing?’ he demanded. His heart was still thudding loudly in his chest—for a moment he had really thought she was going to fall.

‘I was perfectly OK till you tried to play the hero,’ Riya retorted, shaking herself free from his clasp and storming off into her room.

Dhruv stared after her, a sense of déjà vu sweeping over him. The last time they’d spoken in college...

The circumstances had been very different, of course. Things had gone wrong between them, and he’d started cold-shouldering Riya, hoping she’d get the message and stay away from him. She hadn’t stood for that very long, and had confronted him as he was leaving his hostel for a morning class. The altercation had turned bad very quickly. In the long years of hearing his parents fight he’d unconsciously acquired a knack of saying bitter, hurtful things, and it had taken him barely minutes to rip apart the delicate fabric of their relationship.

Riya’s chin had gone up, and she’d said in a voice that was very firm, though tears were trembling on her long eyelashes, ‘I don’t believe you mean any of the nonsense you’re saying, Dhruv. You’re hurting yourself as much as you’re hurting me, and that’s just plain stupid.’

She’d turned and started walking away, and a blind wave of anger had ripped through him. He’d stretched out an arm and grabbed her, swinging her around against him. Her eyes had blazed up into his, and for a second he’d had a crazy impulse to crush her ridiculously childish little mouth under his. She’d felt very light against him, very fragile, and as he’d held her the fight had seemed to go out of her slim little body. He’d closed his eyes for a second, and then, very slowly, he’d released her, turning her away from him and pushing her gently back onto the path that led away from his rooms.

She’d turned back once to look at him as she walked away. If he’d made the smallest gesture he knew she’d have run back into his arms, but he’d kept his face blank, wiped clean of all expression and emotion. She hadn’t looked back again.

Back in her room, Riya was thinking of the same morning, and the sense of utter desolation that had swept over her when she’d left Dhruv. A light tap on the door made her restrain herself from bursting into a flood of uncharacteristic tears.

‘Come in,’ she said gruffly.

Dhruv opened the door and stepped in, shutting it behind himself. He sat down next to her and took her hand in both of his.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said softly. ‘I overreacted. I have a bit of a thing about heights.’

Riya nodded, not trusting herself to speak. His hands were warm, slightly rough, and the temptation to fling herself into his arms was stronger than ever. Then a thought struck.

‘You were OK with heights in college,’ she remembered. ‘You used to go on all those treks and things.’

Dhruv squeezed her hand slightly, and said after a brief pause, ‘Yes, well, I’m not acrophobic. I saw a worker on one of my projects fall from the roof of a thirty-story building many years ago. Died instantly. I haven’t been able to stand seeing anyone even lean out of a window since that.’

Riya’s marshmallow heart immediately brimmed over with sympathy. ‘That must have been terrible,’ she blurted.

Dhruv shrugged, wishing he hadn’t brought the subject up. It wasn’t something he normally did—exposing vulnerability to win someone’s sympathy. He hadn’t done it consciously this time, either, but he’d felt a need to justify his behaviour. And not just his behaviour today. He looked away, pushing a hand through his hair. God, this was difficult. Seeing her walk away from him in anger today had brought back the guilt about how unfairly he’d treated her in the past, and he wasn’t prepared to deal with it right now.

Riya felt her throat close up as she surveyed his back. The instant of sympathy she’d felt for him had temporarily breached her defences, and the old, confused sense of loss threatened to swamp her. She gritted her teeth and looked down for a second. She’d spent the day trying to convince herself that she’d put the past behind her, but who was she kidding? The past was right there, waiting for her to let her guard slip, and the sooner she figured out a way to deal with it the better.

‘Dhruv?’ she said finally, and he turned back to her. ‘I never did get to ask you in college, but it’s bothered me all these years—why did you change?’ Her heart was pounding in her chest so hard that she could hardly hear herself speak, but she couldn’t stop herself continuing. ‘I know I threw myself at you a bit at the end, and you kept trying to knock some sense into me—was that it?’

‘Not really,’ Dhruv said, and after a little pause he continued very formally with a shuttered look on his face that she remembered from college. ‘I don’t believe in explanations, Riya—they always end up sounding like excuses. But I do apologise. You deserved a lot better from me, and I let you down.’

The temptation to say more was almost irresistible, but his reasons for dumping her were too closely linked to the crisis his family had been going through at that time. The old habits of reticence and concealment died hard—even after so much time. It seemed preferable that she think him fickle and irresponsible rather than know the real reason.

‘I’d better join the others—Gaurav looked like he needed help with the food.’ While Riya stared at him in disbelief, he turned around and went out of the room, shutting the door gently but firmly behind him.

‘So much for waiting half a lifetime to figure out what the hell happened,’ Riya said out loud to the closed door.

The sense of frustration was so strong she felt like screaming. Twelve years since they’d parted, and explanations still didn’t seem to be among Dhruv Malhotra’s strong points. In a way, she felt worse than she would have if he hadn’t apologised—his getting angry or avoiding the topic would have made her feel that it really bothered him deep down, but the empty token of an apology relegated the whole college episode to an unfortunate but not very important incident in his distant past.

Suddenly furious, she picked up a little ceramic troll from her bedside table and hurled it across the room. It hit the wall and smashed into pieces with a most satisfying crash.

Her door opened a little, and Gaurav poked his head inside cautiously. ‘All OK?’ he asked.

Riya looked up and gave him a tight little smile. ‘Yes. Your cousin is the...the most infuriating man I’ve met in my life—not that I care!’ She didn’t want to let Gaurav know quite how upset she was. He seemed to be fairly close to Dhruv, and given his general ineptitude at keeping his mouth shut the chances of him letting something slip were high.

Gaurav’s pleasant face was creased with worry. ‘He’s leaving tomorrow, but he’ll be there at the wedding. You sure it’s OK?’

‘I’ll avoid him,’ Riya said. And when Gaurav’s frown didn’t go away she said, ‘Relax. I won’t smash his face in during the ceremony. Or will it be simpler if I don’t come?’

Gaurav’s expression changed and he came in swiftly, sitting down next to her and saying earnestly, ‘I wouldn’t be getting married if you hadn’t helped sort out things with Madhulika’s parents. If anyone needs to skip the wedding, it’ll be Dhruv.’

Sudden tears came to Riya’s eyes, and she fumbled for Gaurav’s hand and squeezed it hard. He’d been her best friend for many years now, and he’d been miserable when Madhulika’s parents had refused to let their daughter marry him. They’d picked out a Bengali bridegroom for her, and had had no time for the brash, burly Punjabi man their daughter had chosen. Riya had played the go-between for some months, gradually bringing them round to the idea, and Gaurav had been absurdly grateful ever since.

‘Don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘He’s family—you can’t tell him not to come. I promise I’ll behave.’

‘Come on out and join us, then,’ Gaurav said, gently tugging her to her feet. ‘I’m setting up the karaoke thing on the TV. Don’t bother about Dhruv. Every unmarried girl in the room is making a beeline for him, and he’ll be too busy fighting them off to bother you.’

Riya frowned as she followed Gaurav out. He was right—Dhruv was knee-deep in women, and in spite of herself she couldn’t suppress a little flare of annoyance.

* * *

It was almost three in the morning when the last people left. Chutki had left for her friend’s place at eleven, and Gaurav was dozing on the sofa. Riya started clearing up—there were beer cans and empty disposable plates and glasses scattered all over the room. Dhruv began to help, stacking boxes of half-eaten pizza and carrying them into the kitchen. She silently handed him a few garbage disposal bags, and picked up a broom and mop to clean the floor.

‘Won’t the maid do that tomorrow?’

‘The place will be overrun by cockroaches by then,’ Riya said. ‘Armies of them come crawling in under the door if there’s the slightest bit of food lying around.’

Gaurav looked at them sleepily. ‘A cockroach can live for a week without its head,’ he informed them, and fell asleep quite suddenly, his mouth wide open.

Both Dhruv and Riya cracked up, the tension of the evening dissolving in gales of laughter.

‘Let me get him to his room,’ Dhruv said finally, and putting his arm around Gaurav, he half dragged him to bed.

Gaurav’s room was a mess as well, but he decided not to do anything about it other than clear a couple of ashtrays off the bed before he headed back to the living room.