Page 21 of Power

He returned to my side and offered me a teacup, one eyebrow raised. He studied my face as if he could read my thoughts. He witnessed the wheels turning in my head. “Where did you go, Amelia?”

I ignored his question. The last thing he needed to think was that I was some jealous girl pining for her hunky boss.

I took the cup into my hands and inhaled its warming scent. The spiced aroma soothed my senses. I took a sip, and notes of cinnamon and ginger warmed me on the way down. I felt my head clearing from its effects, my sanity returning.

“This is delicious. What is it?” I asked. I licked my lips slowly to clean off the milky foam that stuck to them. Shyam’s eyes focused on my mouth, unwilling to look away. His lids were heavy with desire.

After a moment, he cleared his throat and replied, “Masala chai.” His gaze lifted.

“This tastes nothing like the chai I get from Starbucks. It’s so much better.” I took another sip, savoring the taste.

“That stuff is fake and overly processed. This is my mother’s recipe. She used to make it for us when we stayed up late studying in high school.”

I was interested to hear about his upbringing and suspected he didn’t share much of it with strangers. “Did you go to high school in America?”

“No. India,” he replied.

I had heard stories about the education system in India from my friends in the industry and it sounded intense. I imagined that Shyam and Jai must have spent a lot of late nights studying to pass their exams.

“Is that where your mom lives now?” I asked, finishing off my chai and placing the cup on a nearby table.

His demeanor changed and he looked away. “She was killed five years ago.”

My heart lurched in my chest for him. I reached for his hand. His gaze met mine again, touched by my gesture. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Jai and I were abroad in America when it happened. He was twenty-four and had just graduated from Stanford with his master’s degree. I had already started working in the family business, using my contacts from business school to expand our network in the States.”

“How old were you?” I asked.

“Twenty-seven,” he said.

I did the math. That would make him thirty-two right now. Our age difference should have surprised me, but I couldn’t deny the connection I felt despite it.

“Do you know who did it?” I hoped he didn’t think I was prying. I just wanted to understand his past.

He pulled his hand away from mine. I felt the loss immediately. Stepping closer to the window, his eyes focused far into the horizon even though it was dark outside. “Tarun. His men kidnapped her on her way home from the market and held her hostage. They took her when her maid was distracted with one of the vendors.”

“Where did they take her?” I whispered in horror.

“To the basement of one of his factories. They took turns raping her and hung her after they had their fill.” His voice never wavered, but his eyes still determinedly avoided mine.

“Jesus,” I gasped, tears threatening to spill over. The vivid image of how his mother had suffered was making my stomach churn, and I swallowed down the bile that had risen into my mouth. I would die if anyone laid a hand on my own mother.

“Tarun left a note for my father with the coordinates to her body. He found her in a landfill. He never got over his grief and took his life to be with her.” He stared intently at whatever held his focus outside of the window, most likely to avoid the look of pity in my eyes.

My heart broke for the man standing in front of me. He had closed himself off from anyone because of his own grief. He was the patriarch of his ever-diminishing family. All the responsibility to carry on the family legacy was on his shoulders. It was no wonder why he was so serious and intense all the time.

I moved behind him and placed a hand on the center of his back. I could feel the vibration of his heartbeat. His hard muscles relaxed under my touch. I slid my hand down soothingly, bringing it to the side of his waist, and rested my cheek against his back, letting my tears wet his shirt.

Shyam turned to face me and framed my face with his large hands. As his thumbs wiped away my tears, I saw the torment he had kept hidden over the past five years reflected in his beautiful hazel eyes. In that moment, I didn’t see a criminal or a tech tycoon standing in front of me. I just saw a man with a bruised heart—a man that I wanted to protect from his own past. “We will make him pay for what he did,” I whispered as I stared up at him.

His eyes softened with gratitude and his lips met mine, offering me a silent thank-you. His kiss was so tender that it contradicted his powerful exterior. It consumed every part of me. I dug my fingertips into his biceps to steady myself…Because I am falling for this man.

He deepened the kiss. I opened my lips to let him in. His tongue tasted my mouth with fervor. Our tender kiss became wild and reckless as my tongue met his with the same need. One of his hands slid into my hair above the nape of my neck. He yanked hard on the strands as he bit my bottom lip, drawing blood. His tongue soothed the sharp pain. I couldn’t help but let a moan escape from my throat.

In one fell swoop, he lifted me in his arms, cradling me against his chest. I wrapped my arms around his neck to hold on as he carried me upstairs.

He carried me into what I assumed was his bedroom, with black walls illuminated by soft golden light from two bedside lamps. Lush green plants decorated the corners on either side of the bed. It felt like a dark jungle, and the man holding me was a feral predator about to consume his prey.

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