Page 21 of Claiming His Bollywood Cinderella

“Right, of course! You won’t even know I’m there, except to say yes to whatever you say.” She took a deep breath. “And after it’s over, you’ll never hear from me again.”

“What the hell does that mean?” he said with a frown, not liking that idea one bit. Just like that, she got under his skin again. Made dust of his own damned rules. “I thought your aim was to work in the film industry. Or did I misunderstand Daadi?”

She shrugged. “It’s clear that you’re doing this to honor Daadiji’s wishes to look after me, Mr. Raawal. I won’t take advantage of her good nature or your sense of obligation. I don’t like lingering where I’m not wanted.”

“No, you prefer to hide from real life, don’t you? From your stepmother, from your stepsister, from...anything that’s uncomfortable, no? You prefer to escape. Live life in stolen moments under darkness and disguises.”

Her hands fisted by her sides, her eyes glinting with a brightness that made them look like large pools. Anger vibrated from her, as honest and pure as the laughter she’d delighted him with that night.

He waited, breath on hold, for her to lose the tightly held control, to come at him, cutting words and all. His heart beat at a pace that drummed loud in his ears. It shook him to realize how much he wanted her to admit it had been her that night at the ball.

How much he wanted to see the same laughter and desire in her eyes when she looked at him now. Whatever common ground they’d achieved unwittingly in the last hour was gone now. And maybe it was for the best, he realized, especially if they were to spend several weeks together in close quarters.

“You don’t know anything about me,” she said finally, her breasts still rising and falling. “Not my fears, nor my dreams.”

With that fierce statement, she firmly slammed the door on the self-indulgent drama he was forcing on them both. Not by a flicker of an eyelid did she show that she got his pointed remark about living life under darkness and disguises. But... Vikram knew that face. He’d witnessed the most intimate pleasure and joy and irreverence written on it even while it had been more than half covered by the mask she’d worn.

And that was for the best. There was no permutation of events in which he could see her in his future on a permanent basis.

“Your days and nights will be mine, Ms. Menon. I will ask you to fetch coffee, dry cleaning, send gifts to friends and family, even break up with my exes. Are you quite sure you have the constitution to quietly take orders from me without any further preaching?”

There was a minute hesitation he’d have missed if he wasn’t obsessed with every nuance of her face. “I’ll just pretend that you’re the most fascinating man I’ve ever met. And keep any criticism to myself.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t want you to curb your opinions, Ms. Menon. What would the world be if it didn’t have your tart tongue in it?”

He walked out of her room, leaving her steaming mad. His own mouth was curved into a wide smile and Vikram realized he hadn’t felt this good in a long time. If ever.

CHAPTER FIVE

“YOUPREFERTOlive life in stolen moments under darkness and disguises.”

Vikram’s parting shot still haunted her as the taxi drove along a narrow, winding road on the outskirts of the city leading to a private airfield.

Had he already realized she was the woman from the masked ball?

No, he couldn’t. She looked so different, he couldn’t possibly have recognized her.

That comment had to be his way of aggravating her, as he’d done from the beginning. Getting under her skin just because she’d criticized him.

Why would he give her a job if he knew she was Dream Girl? If he had, he’d have thrown her out of his grandmother’s house because he’d automatically assume she was cooking up some nefarious scheme to trap him. At best, he’d have openly asked what her game plan was.

The man that the world saw, and who she had seen initially, was a hardened cynic. Except he hadn’t been on the night of the party or a few days ago when he’d asked her about the meaning of her mother’s favorite song.

When he’d talked about his own family, when he’d asked after hers, he had been genuine. Oh, of course he was still arrogant, coming to the conclusion that her family were taking advantage of her. But beneath that arrogance, there had been understanding too.

Which had prompted her to blurt out this idea of working for him.

For a few weeks, in gorgeous Maldives, all she’d need to do was keep her head down. Figure out where her future lay after what had happened with Rohan and now that Maya was moving on. Think of how best to save the house.

She paid off the taxi driver, wincing over all the crisp notes she pressed into his hand. It was the price of her pride. Of course, her new boss had offered to pick her up on the way to the private airport on the outskirts of Mumbai that she’d had no idea even existed.

But that meant spending more time in Vikram’s company while that gaze of his drilled into her. Being coherent while he permeated the space around her with his vital masculinity was too much to ask of herself right now.

Before that night, her old teenage infatuation with him had been silly, one-dimensional, completely based in fantasyland. Fueled by her mooning over him for years.

Yes, he’d been funny and approachable and let’s not forget, hot. But now...now she knew the man and she found him even more fascinating, to say the least.

The taxi driver mumbled something about living the high life and Naina turned away with a smile. He’d no idea how much she wanted to crawl back into the taxi and run away from the man waiting for her on the plane.

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