Spice and Secrets Read Online Free PDF Page B

Strange. Not unheard of, but definitely strange. There was no such thing as an audition process at most Mumbai production houses. A director or producer called you in because they wanted you, you either said yes or no , and the talking of crores and lakhs was left to secretaries and assistants. Kabir, who’d come with her from Kolkata, was particularly efficient at the money talk…and so discerning about the roles she took that he seldom brought word to her of anything he hadn’t already approved. When she’d asked after the cause of the abrupt cancellation, all he’d said was, “ Director ta shubidar chilo na , Miss Priya,” in crisp, almost fond Bengali. The director was not of good character. As if that explained everything. In reality, it explained nothing. Most people in the industry did not have much in the way of strong moral fiber. After all, hadn’t she left Mumbai in less-than-pristine condition?
    Every day for six years, Priya had counted her tiny store of blessings. If her parents had not been filmi folk, with money and connections and liberal ideals, she wouldn’t have seen her daughter grow up. Just a touch more conservative, a dash more religious, and they could have sent her away to her great uncle’s village in Bangladesh to marry someone twice her age. They could have disowned her. Beaten her. Forced an abortion. Forced a miscarriage.
    She knew of students from her girls’ high school whose lives and hopes had been so cruelly wrenched from them, all to maintain propriety and a family’s good name. Seeing Shona laugh, watching the rise and fall of her chest as she slept…it was a gift. How could Priya ever complain that the package came tied with strings?
    She hugged herself, as if to ward off a sudden chill, as she crossed her flat’s front room and came to stand in front of the windows. The wide expanse of the sea was spread out like a carpet of darkness, with the bright lights of buildings dotting the shore. Her palms pressed flat against her belly, that tiny cradle where Shona had spent nine months growing into being, and suddenly, it wasn’t the night-clad city that floated before her eyes. It was day…one perfect day.
    Sunlight streamed in through the glass. Above her, he looked like a young god…all golden skin and unruly hair and the gleam of a diamond stud in his ear. He was so beautiful it hurt to look at him. It hurt elsewhere, too. A strange newness that didn’t make any sense…and yet made all the sense in the world.
    “Rahul, are you sure? Yeh tik to hain ?”
    “ Haan , Priya. Just there. Touch me.”
    He was so confident. Confident of her fingers curling around him. Confident of his lips claiming hers. Confident they were going to last.
    Priya couldn’t bear to tell him that she didn’t have the same confidence. In fact, all she had was doubt. But she took him into her anyway, arching her hips and winding one arm round his neck as she continued to stroke him where they were joined.
    “Don’t stop,” he gasped, mouth hot and sharp on her earlobe. “Don’t stop.”
    One day she would have to stop. She couldn’t bear that either.
    Beyond those precious, stolen moments, there was one role she’d never gotten to play: Rahul’s girlfriend. And no one person had canceled it. Just Fate.

Chapter Six
    Sunita, Sunita, Sunita. Her name reverberated through his skull even as his ears were being otherwise assaulted. “Why’ve you gone so far away, Davey? It’s not fair.” As he threaded through the brief maze of café tables, the pout came across loud and clear over the line. Petulant, spoiled…and ever so dear. “You know I’d love you closer at a time like this. At my beck and call. Catering to my every whim.”
    God, George certainly knew how to push his buttons. Davey rolled his eyes heavenward for an instant, wondering how it was that he always found himself in these sorts of predicaments. Tied up with drama queens. Forever worrying about them, no matter how