Where the Lotus Flowers Grow Read Online Free PDF

me?
    If anything, he’d sack us both. The idea wasn’t frightening. I would survive.
    As I made my way down the choppy pavements of the city, I thought about severing the roots that had held me in place for the past four years. By the time I reached the shop, a sharp surge of rebellion coursed through me.
    When I returned, the mother from room 313 was waiting in the lobby. She tapped her foot and crossed her arms, clearly annoyed I’d taken so long. I held out the brown paper bag to her. She snatched it from my hands, nearly ripping the paper.
    “This isn’t the right cream,” she wailed in Hindi, then turned to the other woman with her and switched to English. “They hire these stupid illiterate girls at these places. Where is the class?”
    There was a benefit to secretly understanding a language. You got to hear what people really thought, not that she wasn’t saying the same thing with her sighs and tsks.
    Eyeing me with a sharpness that pierced my defenses, she returned to Hindi. “My daughter needs this cream. Her marriage ceremony is in two days.”
    She didn’t need it. She didn’t need anything more than what she was.
    “How could you get the wrong item? You only had to ask the clerk to help you if you can’t read.”
    “I’m sorry, Auntie,” I said. “I thought it was what you wanted. It’s cheaper.”
    “ Arey , cheaper?”
    I shrunk back, cursing my choice of words. She’d counted out the money so carefully, telling me several times she knew the exact change due back. I will know if you steal from me, she’d said. I’d hoped the words would make her soften, but they did the exact opposite.
    “Do you think I cannot afford it?” Her eyes narrowed into tiny slits. “Stupid kutiya .” At least she was insulting me in our native tongue. “Do you not see we’re staying at a first-class hotel?” Her hands gestured around the opulent lobby as if I didn’t realize where we stood.
    No good deed….
    What had I been thinking when I purchased this product? It was too personal. The past had slithered its way through the open cracks to the present. This woman berating me could have been my own mummy.
    I couldn’t run from the dark. Not when it was a part of my flesh, my bone, my very soul. No matter how far or fast I ran, I was always there.
    “Is there a problem?” A deep British accent interjected. His tall frame stepped between us. I took a step back from him—his imposing body, his spicy cologne, his throaty voice…all delicious and all equally as dangerous.
    “Problem? Yes, a very big one,” she said, pointing to me. Her face scrunched up, make-up caking into all the lines she’d worked so hard to mask. She looked at me as if I were something she’d scraped from the underside of her fingernail.
    When Liam cleared his throat, the woman’s focus shifted to him. She grew quiet, eyeing his suit with a slow up-and-down movement. She broke into a wide smile. Liam Montgomery obviously had the power to sweeten the bitter.
    He lowered his voice so that I had to step closer to hear. “How may I help you? Obviously something is quite wrong since you are yelling at my employee. Our guests are very important to us.”
    “Yes, that’s why I chose this place for such an auspicious occasion,” she said.
    “We appreciate it. We do,” he said. “But you are mistaken if you believe that allows you to abuse our personnel. Although I don’t know what you said, your tone was quite clear on the matter. I assure you I—Wilshire Hotels—has no tolerance for this sort of behavior.”
    “You’re taking her side? She’s incompetent and stupid.”
    His jaw flexed. He took a deep breath and adjusted his tie. They were stall tactics designed to dam the turbulent waves threatening to overflow. “I want to resolve your problem, but if you say one more unproductive or negative word against any person who works here, I will personally escort you from the building.”
    The woman looked as if he’d thrown