Page 15 of Driven By Desire
Uneasy at the confusing mix of emotions blazing through him, Krish’s next words were harsher than he intended. “I won’t let anyone hurt them. Not even you.”
Unreasonable hurt speared through her at his words and had her lashing out, “Because you’re doing such a fine job of it yourself?”
CHAPTER 7
Shame and embarrassment were now Max’s constant companions. She couldn’t believe she’d been so cruel, even in anger. Krish and she had completed the rest of their discussion via email. Emails covered in frost that seeped through to her very bones. Much as she’d hoped otherwise, the freezing politeness hadn’t stopped the deal from going through. The only thing keeping her from pulling back herself had been the desperate affection of a little girl who seemed for some strange reason to have taken a shine to her and the inexplicable attraction she felt for an aggravating man she barely understood. She hadn’t seen him since she’d started working on the car. If she’d been deluding herself about her own importance, she would have thought he was deliberately avoiding her.
She was just finishing a complete body mock-up of the car when she heard Pooja skipping towards her. It amazed her how fast this had become a daily routine. While she might not have seen the eldest brother at all in the last one week, the littlest Mehra was her regular evening visitor. Aditya was home in time to pick her up from the school bus stop and he was the official babysitteruntil Chirag and Krish got home from their respective offices. Unofficially, she was Max’s little shadow.
“Hi.” Hair pulled back from her face by a plain, black hair band, green and cream school tunic drooping, she tossed her school bag down on to the ground and rummaged inside for a book.
“Hi. How was school?” A quick inventory of the scrawny body netted her a new bruise near the right knee.
A shrug was the only answer she got before Pooja buried her nose in a story book. Moving on to dismantling the car for painting, Max waited a few minutes before casually saying, “You know when I was your age, there was this girl in my class named Laxmi who was a terrible bully. Every day she would wait for me to walk out of the school gate before following me the whole way home.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad.” Shadowed eyes watched her from above the top of the book.
Smiling wryly, Max put her wrench down before saying, “The entire way she walked two steps behind me yelling ‘see the boy who pretends to be a girl’ along with other less repeatable insults.”
“You should have hit her.” Outrage had Pooja mangling her book.
Gently removing the book from her hands, Max sat down next to her. “Not that I’m defending her but I did look like a boy. Dad didn’t have a clue how to braid, tie or in any other form style my hair for school so he decided to cut it short. Really short. The army would have approved of my haircut.”
Pleased with the muffled laugh she’d gotten from the child, she continued, “My mom had died a few years before that and my poor father tried, really tried but he just never understood how important style could be to a girl just entering her teens.”
“What did you do then?”
Deciding that if she was trying to preach non-violence, telling Pooja that she’d clobbered Laxmi with her school bag wouldn’t work, Max improvised, “I told my father all about it and I got him to call hers. I think they grounded her for a month.”
Silence prevailed for a few minutes before Pooja whispered, “There is this girl in my class.”
Waiting patiently for her to continue, Max picked up the greasy wrench near her and started to clean.
“She teases me about…” The sentence trailed off as Pooja dropped her head into her arms and started to sob.
Alarmed now, Max scooted closer. Settling Pooja into her lap the best she could, she held and rocked the child till the sobs subsided into whimpers. After what felt like ages, Pooja whispered, “She calls me a cow.”
“A cow?” It took Max a minute to get the connection. “The little bitch.”
Belatedly realizing the audience she had, she groaned, “Please don’t repeat that word to anyone.”
Wriggling out of her lap with a watery giggle, Pooja sat down in front of her.
“Sweetheart, we all come in different sizes. My hair wasn’t the only reason I looked like a boy. For the longest time I was flat as a board.”
Tipping Pooja’s chin up, she forced her to meet her gaze. “Big, small, medium it makes no difference, Pooja. You are who you are on the inside and you, sweetie, are beautiful inside and out.”
“It shows through my uniform sometimes. I try to cross my arms and sit as much as possible.”
“That,” Max declared, “We can fix.”
“We can?” Hope and joy came together in a rib crushing hug that had Max holding on just as tight. Oh yes they could. It just meant facing her own, personal ogre.
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“I need to talk to you.”
Shutting the car door with a decisive snap, Krish turned and took in the sight of Max framed in his doorway. Dressed in simple gray tights and an oversize black t-shirt with comfortable sneakers and her trademark colourful bangles, she made for a soft, welcoming sight. Until she started talking.
