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To Badri, Aditya and Anousha for putting up with me on the days I spent every free minute writing—you guys are the best family ever!

Table of Contents

Cover

About Shoma Narayanan

Title Page

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Copyright

PROLOGUE

The Times of India—matrimonial section:

‘Very successful lawyer, good-looking, 33, height 6 ft 2 inches, South Indian, Bengaluru-based, seeks beautiful high-caste Hindu, well-educated, as bride.’

TARA looked up in disbelief.

‘You guys answered this? Without checking with me first?’ Her temper was rising swiftly and her mother gave her a wary look.

‘Your father thought …’ she began.

‘I didn’t know he could think,’ Tara said, whisking the newspaper cutting from her mother’s hand. One lengthwise tear, fold, tear again. There. One successful lawyer, ready for the dustbin. She carried the pieces across and threw them in. ‘If they write back, tell them I’m not interested,’ she said.

‘It’s not so simple, Tara,’ her mother said. ‘They’re coming over this evening—the parents are at least.’

Tara stared.

‘That was … fast,’ she said. ‘Wasn’t that yesterday’s newspaper? Are these people really desperate? Or are you that keen to get rid of me?’

‘No, we’re not,’ her mother protested, looking unhappy.

Tara relented, putting an arm around her and steering her to a chair. ‘Tell me all about it,’ she said. ‘Till yesterday I thought you guys wanted me to become a schoolteacher and give up my “stupid plans” to do a PhD in a strange city.’ Her face darkened as she remembered the recent fight with her father. ‘Now you want me to marry a good-looking lawyer. Six feet, two inches, no less. What’s going on?’

‘He’s Mr Krishnan’s son,’ Tara’s mother explained. ‘Mr Krishnan’s the new general manager at the plant, and he happened to mention he’d put out this ad …’

Tara let a low whistle out through her teeth. Now, that explained a lot. Her dad was a lowly supervisor at the steel manufacturing plant—his daughter marrying the GM’s son would be the ultimate in social enhancement, something like marrying into royalty. This needed some thinking through. Bengaluru … Tara’s brain was racing. It could work. As long as she figured out how to manage it smartly. Marriage at twenty-two was not what she’d planned. But it beat running away from home—something she’d been seriously considering over the past few days.

‘We wouldn’t force you into anything,’ her mother was saying, her worn face looking even more anxious than usual.

‘We’ meant her father, of course. The last thing Tara’s mother had forced her into was a pair of pink dungarees when Tara was three. Tara had hated pink, and the dungarees hadn’t lasted five hours. But her father was a different story. His parental style was very closely aligned to the ‘because-I’m-your-father-and-I-said-so’ school of thought, and he and Tara had clashed since the day Tara learnt to talk. Her mother had been stuck in the middle for the last twenty years, too scared to contradict her husband even if she secretly sympathised with Tara.

‘It’s a very good family,’ her mother continued, looking at her daughter appealingly. ‘I know you wanted to study further, but we might not get an opportunity like this again. It’s not as though you have anyone else in mind. And the son is really good-looking.’

Tara frowned. Her mother’s definition of good-looking was deeply suspect—it was likely that the man looked like a Bollywood movie star from the eighties, complete with shaggy hair and oversized tinted spectacles.

‘He is,’ her mother insisted, holding out a photo. ‘Take a look.’

Tara dutifully took a look, and then a second one. For once her mother wasn’t wrong: the man was gorgeous. Either that or the photographer was really good with an airbrush. She leaned closer, and her mother held on to the photo convulsively, obviously scared it might share the fate of the newspaper cutting.

‘Relax, I won’t do anything to it,’ Tara said impatiently. The man was definitely hot, all rugged features and sexy smile, but she’d reserve judgement till she actually met him. Maybe he’d have a stammer, or a dreadful accent, or be totally unappealing neck downwards—it was a head shot—or have BO.

‘When is His Highness the General Manager coming over?’ Tara asked.

Her mother looked at her in alarm. ‘Don’t talk like that!’ She grabbed Tara’s hand. ‘He’s your father’s boss’s boss—we can’t afford to offend him. Keep your tongue under control while they’re here, Tara, please. If only for my sake. If you don’t want to marry his son you don’t have to. I’ll speak to your father.’

Tara could appreciate the truly heroic effort her mother was making to promise something like that, and her heart melted. She leaned across and hugged her. ‘You won’t have to. I’ll speak to him myself if I need to. Don’t worry—I won’t let you down.’

She never had. When it came to choosing between getting her own way against her father and keeping her mother relatively happy she was a push-over. Her mother won hands-down every time. That was the main reason she hadn’t left home yet—though there had been practical considerations as well. Her father held the purse strings, and she’d thought it would be difficult to manage on her own, at least at the beginning. That bit was now sorted, with a friend having promised to lend her some money, but she was still hesitant.

One of the drawbacks of being brought up in a stereotypical traditional Indian family was that you ended up unconsciously buying into a lot of traditional Indian values. Bringing shame to the family was something your soul kicked against even when your brain was telling you that you were being an idiot.

Running away would definitely bring shame to the family. No one in the small industrial town they lived in would believe that a man was not involved. Her father would find it difficult to keep his head up in society, her mother’s friends would make condescending remarks, and all in all, their life would be a living nightmare. And in spite of all her father’s blustering and bullying, his archaic parenting style, Tara loved him a lot. The love was buried very, very deep down, but it was there—she couldn’t help it—and she knew he loved her back. His heart would be broken if he knew his daughter had run away because she couldn’t bear living in the same house as him any longer. She couldn’t do that to him unless it was absolutely necessary.

‘What’s the guy’s name?’ she asked. ‘The general manager’s son?’

‘Vikram,’ her mother said, happy that Tara was finally taking an interest. ‘It’s an unusual name for a South Indian, but his parents have lived in Mumbai ever since they got married, so they must have decided on a North Indian name.’

Tara nodded, as her mother twittered on. Vikram … Hmm … Gorgeous, sexy and successful Bengaluru-based Vikram Krishnan didn’t know it, but he just might be the answer to all her problems.

CHAPTER ONE

TARA looked at the photograph she’d saved on her phone, and then up again at the passengers alighting from the air-conditioned section of the train. There were several families whom she ignored, her eyes searching for a man travelling alone. That one, maybe? No, he looked too old—forty at least, or even older. And the next man getting off alone was almost completely bald.

Maybe Vikram Krishnan wasn’t on this train after all, she thought, her heart sinking. Maybe his flight into Kolkata had got delayed, and he’d missed the connecting train to Jamshedpur. She punched a small fist into the palm of her other hand in an unconscious gesture, and more than a few people on the busy platform turned to look at her curiously.

So far her plan had seemed to have a reasonable chance of success. The general manager and his wife had turned out to be an extremely likeable couple—for a few minutes Tara had actually caught herself wishing her parents were more like them. She’d set out to charm them and had succeeded, having them laughing at her carefully self-censored little jokes and practically eating out of her hand in a few minutes. They’d told her parents eagerly that they thought she’d be ‘perfect’ for Vikram.

Now Vikram was coming down to Jamshedpur for the express purpose of meeting her and deciding whether she was worthy of becoming his wife—Tara involuntarily curled her lip at the thought—and all she needed to do was to catch him alone before he came to her house to inspect her. Her parents had said that he’d told them not to meet him at the station, but it seemed the ideal opportunity. Assuming she could find him, that was.

There was a flurry near the door of the compartment opposite her as an elderly lady carrying two suitcases and a Peke got jammed in the doorway. A porter tried to extricate her as the Peke yapped wildly and a bunch of excited relatives on the platform shouted encouragement. Tara’s attention was drawn to them for a few seconds and she almost missed seeing a tall, well-built figure push open the other door of the compartment, and swing lightly down onto the platform.

It was definitely the man in the photograph—though he looked a little older, and harder somehow. Tara pulled up the image once again to make doubly sure. It was blurred, a shot of the original that she’d clicked sneakily on her phone’s camera when her mother wasn’t paying attention. Same man. No doubt about it.

Vikram Krishnan had taken his luggage down and was now surveying the crowded station with deep-set jet-black eyes, his slanting eyebrows giving him a rather cynical look. In spite of the cold his jacket was slung over one shoulder. He was wearing designer jeans and a long-sleeved white shirt open at the collar, and he looked like a model for something foreign-sounding and expensive. As Tara watched, he waved away the red-coated porters milling around him and, picking up his suitcase with one capable-looking hand, started walking towards the exit.

Now that she’d finally spotted him, Tara felt a large part of her confidence desert her. He looked so big, for one, and so terribly sure of himself. She’d been crazy to think he’d even want to listen to her.

His long strides had taken him halfway down the platform before she managed to gather her wits and run after him. The platform was full of people, and Tara found herself falling behind. ‘Sir!’ she called out, and then ‘Mr Krishnan! Vikram!’ He didn’t seem to hear her, though several other people turned to stare. ‘Vikram! Sir!’ she yelled again, hurrying after him.

He stopped finally. Tara was gasping a little by the time she caught up with him, and she felt the last bits of her courage ooze out of her as she looked up at his forbidding expression.

‘You want to speak to me?’ he asked.

His voice was deep, with a gravelly undertone that was so unexpectedly sexy it took her completely off guard. When she kept on staring at him without answering, he raised an eyebrow and repeated the question in Hindi.

‘I’m Tara,’ she said, and then, when he looked at her uncomprehendingly, she made a helpless little gesture. ‘I met your parents a few days ago. My dad works with yours …’ He still looked blank, and Tara abandoned the roundabout approach. ‘They’re looking for a wife for you, right? They want you to meet me—you’re supposed to come over to our house tomorrow.’

If she’d been looking for a lightbulb moment it wasn’t forthcoming. ‘There’s only one girl they’ve asked me to meet,’ he said. ‘And her name’s Naina, or something like that.’

‘Naintara,’ she said. ‘Most people call me Tara.’

‘Right,’ he said, frowning. ‘I’m sorry, I’m a little confused. Why are you here if we’re supposed to meet tomorrow?’

‘It’s … complicated.’ Tara said. ‘Can we sit down somewhere? I won’t take long.’ Her heart was pounding in her chest, and all her well-rehearsed speeches had flown out of her head. She was not normally susceptible to even the most good-looking men, and her reaction to Vikram had thrown her off balance.

Vikram led the way to the station canteen, pulling out one of the plastic chairs for her before sitting down himself. ‘Coffee or tea?’ he asked.

Tara said, ‘Coffee.’

He turned to give the waiter their order, and Tara waited till the waiter had gone before she spoke again.

‘I need to ask you a couple of things,’ she said. ‘Are you really serious about this whole arranged marriage thing? Or are you here just to humour your parents?’

Vikram didn’t look annoyed by the questions, but he did think a little before he answered.

‘I’m serious about an arranged marriage,’ he said finally. ‘But I’m not planning to blindly marry someone my parents choose, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Right,’ Tara said. ‘And do you have plans to move out of Bengaluru any time soon? Like in the next three or four years?’

This time he looked puzzled, his forehead creasing a little. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m pretty much permanently settled there.’

There was a brief silence. Tara had run out of questions and was wondering how to embark on an explanation of her behaviour. ‘I know this must seem odd, my turning up to meet you like this,’ she said, giving Vikram her most winning smile.

‘It’s unusual, I admit,’ he said, smiling back.

Tara was struck again by quite how good-looking he was. He looked like a completely different person when he smiled, his eyes losing their rather grim expression and the corners of his firm mouth tilting up boyishly.

‘Maybe you could tell me a little more about why you’re here?’ he said. ‘I assume there is a point to your questions?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Tara said. ‘It’s this—I’ve got a place in the Institute of Science at Bengaluru to do my doctorate in environmental studies and my dad is refusing to let me go. He thinks I’ve studied enough, and he’s desperate to get me married off. I told him I’m not interested, and he said he wouldn’t force me, but he won’t let me go to Bengaluru, either. The maximum he’s willing to do is allow me to become a schoolteacher till he manages to palm me off onto someone.’ She paused a little, a troubled look on her vibrant face. ‘I could ignore him and go, of course, but now my mum’s told me that they’ve spoken to your parents, and you’re from Bengaluru …’

Her voice trailed off, and Vikram continued the sentence for her. ‘And marrying me would please your parents and get you to Bengaluru? Is that it?’

She nodded, her big eyes absurdly hopeful as she stared at him across her coffee cup. ‘It did seem like the ideal solution,’ she admitted. ‘Assuming we hit it off, of course.’

Vikram leaned back in his chair, surveying her silently. She’d turned out to be a surprise in more ways than one, and he was at a stage in life when very few people surprised him. She was very direct, and very clear about what she wanted—both traits that he’d come to think of as uncommon in women. And her looks … His mother had told him that she was pretty, but ‘pretty’ didn’t begin to cover the allure of frank, intelligent eyes set in a heart-shaped face, and the mischievous smile trembling on her lush red lips. She wasn’t very tall, but the proportions of her slim body were perfect. And her hair was lovely—thick, straight and waist-length. A jolt of lust took him by surprise, turning his academic appreciation of her looks into something more urgent and immediate.

‘Why is doing your doctorate so important?’ he asked, partly to break the silence and partly because he genuinely wanted to know. ‘And especially one in environmental science? Aren’t the career options rather limited?’

Tara flushed a little. People kept asking her that, and she tended to get a bit worked up and annoyed about it. ‘I’ve always wanted to be an environmentalist,’ she said, in what she hoped was a calm and neutral-sounding voice. ‘I’d be getting an opportunity to work with one of the most well-known scientists in the field, and the research facilities at the institute are world-class. As for career options—I want to lead my own research team one day. Science isn’t a very well-paying field, but I’ll earn enough to get by.’

‘If you marry me you won’t have to worry about money,’ Vikram pointed out.

Tara gave him an appalled look. The money angle of marrying him hadn’t struck her at all, and for a second she’d been so busy defending her choice of career that she’d forgotten the reason she was talking to him. Now he probably thought she was out for a cushy corporate wife lifestyle while she played at being a scientist.

‘If you don’t marry me I’ll have to worry about it,’ she said, recovering quickly. ‘My stipend won’t be enough to keep a cat alive. I’ll need to work part-time until I complete my doctorate. But I think it’s worth it.’ The last bit came out sounding a little defiant, because Vikram’s expression was unreadable and she couldn’t help feeling that she wasn’t convincing him.

She was wrong, though—Vikram was intrigued. He didn’t come across too many starry-eyed idealists in his line of work, and Tara’s unshakeable confidence in her dream was impressive and oddly endearing at the same time.

‘Worth it?’ he asked, stretching the words out a little. ‘Even worth marrying someone you hardly know as long as you get to complete your degree?’

‘That part’s a little complicated,’ Tara muttered, hoping he wouldn’t ask her anything more right then. She didn’t want to explain the situation with her parents until absolutely necessary.

Thankfully, he didn’t probe further, instead asking abruptly, ‘How old are you anyway?’

‘Twenty-two,’ Tara said, and as a nasty thought struck her she bubbled into further speech. ‘I hope you’re not thinking of talking to my dad about this? He’ll burst a blood vessel if he finds out I came here to meet you. If you decide not to marry me tell your parents you don’t like the shape of my nose or something. Or say I’m too short. I’ll figure some other way out.’

‘But you’ll go and enrol for that PhD, no matter what?’ Vikram said. ‘Relax, I’m not planning to tell him.’ His lips twitched slightly. ‘And, for the record, I quite like the shape of your nose.’

‘Really?’ she asked. Distracted from her immediate woes, she put up a hand to touch it. ‘Everyone says it ruins my face—too snub.’

‘Snub is cute,’ Vikram said, standing up and touching her hair gently, sending an unexpected thrill through her body. ‘I need some time to think, and it’s time I left. We’re meeting tomorrow in any case—you can call me on this number if you need to talk.’

‘OK,’ Tara said, taking the card with his mobile number.

She managed to flash a smile at him as he said goodbye in the car park, but she felt deeply despondent. He’d sounded more like an indulgent older brother than someone even remotely interested in marrying her.

The next day Vikram sat silently in Tara’s parents’ living room, listening to his parents making polite conversation with her father. Tara’s father had so far not made a very good impression. He was over-eager to please, and his wife—an older, washed-out version of Tara—was obviously scared of him. Tara herself had not made an appearance yet, and Vikram was getting impatient.

He cut into a long-winded description of Tara’s various accomplishments and said pointedly, ‘Maybe she could tell us more herself?’

‘Of course, of course,’ Mr Sundaram said effusively. ‘You must be eager to meet her.’ He turned to his wife and said in an angry undertone, ‘Get Tara here quick. She should have been ready hours ago.’

‘I thought you said …’ his wife began, and then quailed under her husband’s glare.

‘I’ll call her right away,’ she said hurriedly, and left the room.

She came back with Tara a few minutes later.

Vikram blinked. Tara was almost unrecognisable. The day before she’d been dressed in jeans and a loose sweater, with her long hair gathered back in a ponytail. Today she was wearing a pale-pink salwar-kameez, and her hair was done up in an elaborate braid. Huge dangly earrings swamped her tiny shell-like ears and she was wearing a bindi in the centre of her forehead. His initial impression was a picture of modest womanhood—except for her eyes, which had a little glint in them that hinted at her being less than pleased with the situation she found herself in.

‘This is my daughter,’ Mr Sundaram was saying proudly. ‘Very well-educated, MSc in Botany, gold medallist. Tara, you’ve already met Mr and Mrs Krishnan.’

‘Namaskaram,’ Tara said, folding her hands in the traditional gesture.

Both the Krishnans beamed back, clearly enchanted by her. Vikram could see why—Tara looked the epitome of good daughter-in-law material, and in addition she was vibrant, intelligent and very pretty.

‘This is their son, Vikram,’ Mr Sundaram continued. ‘Very successful lawyer.’

‘Thirty-three years old, six feet two inches,’ Tara said demurely. ‘Bengaluru-based.’

Her father glared at her, but Vikram’s parents burst out laughing.

‘I told you the ad was a dumb idea,’ Mr Krishnan said to his wife. ‘Vikram’s annoyed we put it in without telling him, and Tara thinks it’s a joke.’

‘Of course not, sir. How can you say such a thing?’ Tara’s father said immediately.

Vikram remembered that his father was Mr Sundaram’s boss. That went a long way towards explaining his overly eager-to-please attitude.

‘You can ask Tara what you want,’ he was saying now, the ingratiating smile still in place. ‘She’s been very keen to meet you.’

The thought of conducting a stilted conversation under the eyes of both sets of parents obviously appealed to Tara as little as it did to him, because she shot him a quick look.

‘I’d actually prefer to talk to her alone,’ Vikram said crisply, and before anyone could suggest that they move to another room—or, worse, go outside and talk in the garden—he continued, ‘I was thinking of taking her out for dinner tonight.’

Going by the stunned silence that greeted this, he might have been suggesting that he take her out and rape her in the bushes. Tara’s father was the first person to find his voice.

He said weakly, ‘But, son, we’ve made dinner. I mean Tara’s made dinner. I thought it would be a good idea for you to sample her cooking …’

‘I chop vegetables really well,’ Tara said before she could stop herself.

She knew she was going to get into trouble with her father later on, but really! Sample her cooking, indeed. Not that she couldn’t cook, but for this occasion her mother had done everything—other than chop the vegetables. The whole charade was beginning to irritate Tara intensely—right from the fake smile her father had plastered on his face to the ridiculous earrings she’d been forced to wear.

‘I’ll leave my mother to judge her cooking,’ Vikram said, as if Tara hadn’t spoken. ‘I’ll take the car, Dad, I’ll pick you up from here when I drop Tara off after dinner. OK by you, Tara?’

‘Can I change first?’ she asked. This time her mother gave her an appealing look, so Tara muttered, ‘Oh, all right. I look like a Christmas tree in this, that’s all.’

‘Have a good time!’ Vikram’s mother called after them as they left the room together.

Tara’s room was at the front of the house, and she stopped to pick up her handbag and a sweater before running outside. Vikram was holding the car door open for her, and she slid in with a muttered thank-you.

‘Where do you want to go?’ Vikram asked as he drove out of the lane.

‘Mmph,’ Tara said in response, her face obscured by the grey cashmere sweater she was trying to tug down over her head.

Vikram pulled to the side of the road, and waited patiently as she struggled. ‘Do you need help?’ he asked politely after a few minutes passed, and his prospective fiancée continued to wrestle with the sweater.

‘Darn thing’s caught on my earring,’ Tara panted, lifting a corner of the sweater to reveal her flushed face. ‘I should have taken the earrings off first. They’re like bloody chandeliers.’

‘Stop wriggling,’ Vikram said, clicking the car light on and reaching across to disentangle the earring. Tara obligingly leaned closer, and he was treated to a sudden glimpse of cleavage. Despite himself Vikram found himself looking—he had to tear his eyes away and concentrate on getting the earring out of the delicate wool. ‘Done,’ he said finally, his voice coming out a little thicker than normal.

In addition to the cleavage, there had been soft skin at the nape of her neck that he hadn’t been able to avoid touching several times. And she was wearing a perfume that managed to be sweetly innocent and madly tantalising at the same time—a lot like Tara herself, Vikram thought, before he shook himself. He’d been celibate too long, he thought cynically, if he was starting to get excited about touching a woman’s ear.

‘Thanks,’ Tara said, giving him a cheeky little smile. ‘I thought I’d be stuck inside that thing for ever, blundering around like a headless horseman.’

‘You’re welcome,’ he said, his voice sounding a little cold even to his own ears. ‘Now, where would you like to go for dinner?’

‘I don’t know,’ Tara said cheerfully as she tugged off the annoying earrings and deposited them in her handbag. ‘Dad always takes us to his club, but the food’s horrible and all the waiters have known me since I was ten years old.’

‘There’s a restaurant in the new five-star hotel, isn’t there?’ Vikram asked, mentioning the only decent hotel he’d seen in the city. ‘I don’t know Jamshedpur very well. This is my first visit since my father got transferred here.’

Tara was busy scrubbing the lipstick off her lips with a tissue. ‘I’ve never been there,’ she said. ‘It’s too expensive for the likes of us.’ A little too late she realised that the remark could be interpreted in several ways, and tried to correct herself. ‘I mean Dad doesn’t like eating out much. He says it’s a waste of money. And when we do go out …’

‘You go to his club.’ Vikram said. ‘You told me. How do I get to the hotel from here?’

‘You take the next left and go straight for around five kilometres,’ Tara said, sounding a little subdued.

Vikram glanced at her. She had managed to get her hair out of the complicated-looking braid it had been in and was now finger-combing it into obedience. It was really lovely hair, he thought, as she bent her head to dig in her purse for a scrunchie, and it fell over the side of her face like a jet-black curtain. An auto-rickshaw honked indignantly, and he turned his eyes hastily back to the road.

‘What’s the news on your PhD?’ he asked.

‘I spoke to my supervisor again,’ Tara replied. ‘She said she’s willing to wait for me till January, but after that she’s going to take on the next research applicant on her list.’

Vikram nodded, and she didn’t dare to ask him if he’d made up his mind. Presumably, as he was taking her out to dinner, he hadn’t decided definitely not to marry her. Or maybe he had, and he just wanted to tell her in person rather than on the phone. This was all very confusing, Tara thought, wrinkling up her nose and peeking quickly at his rather stern profile.

‘You look quite different now,’ Vikram remarked as Tara got out of the car at the hotel.

‘Different from yesterday, or different from five minutes ago?’ Tara asked.

‘Both, actually,’ Vikram said. ‘Though I meant your in-car makeover. An immense improvement, if you don’t mind my saying so.’