Page 3 of The Surprise Bollywood Baby

“But accurate, yes?”

She sighed and nodded. “You’re mistaking my intent here.”

“Am I? Do you want me to pretend that we’re innocents who don’t know how the game is played?”

She glared at him, a glittering intensity to her brown eyes. But the damned woman didn’t back down. Of course, she didn’t. Despite everything she had done to get to where she was now, Virat couldn’t help but admire her sheer tenacity in forging the glittering career she’d always wanted, and for sustaining it for so long.

In four-inch heels, she made up the difference between their heights. When she leaned closer still, her luscious, pink mouth reached his ear. Virat had to fight down a shiver. Gilded by long eyelashes, her eyes held his with a stubborn resolve. “Fine, then. Believe me when I say that this is a much-needed distraction. One small farce to be played out so that...”

Those expressive eyes flicked to someone in the back. Virat followed her gaze and found his on Naina, his soon-to-be sister-in-law, who was trying to downplay her curiosity at Zara’s sudden public display. And with him, of all men.

But what he didn’t miss was the sudden surge of curious whispers that already filled the hall, like the drone of bees.

“So that what?” he prompted, having already noted the dark circles under Naina’s eyes when he’d met her earlier in the day. Caught up as he’d been in his own work, he still hadn’t been oblivious to all the nightmarish, nasty rumors swirling around his brother and his fiancée. With Zara at the center of it all, being portrayed as the poor rejected ex-lover.

Zara noted his impatience. “So that other genuinely deserving people like Naina and Vikram can be given a respite from all the drama. So that you can save your own backside from the powerful minister’s reach. So that we can both stop Vikram’s biopic from sinking before it even gets released.”

For a few seconds there, he’d wondered if Zara had started all the rumors to make herself look better in the world’s press. But Virat couldn’t discount the genuine quality of her friendship with his brother or the generosity with which she had taken Naina under her wing.

He had no idea what she saw in his eyes but she sighed and said, “Oh, for God’s sake, Virat, don’t look at me like that. You can’t be surprised that I know of the troubles you’re having thanks to your affair with the minister’s young wife. Or that the biopic has been mired in one trouble after another ever since production began.”

“I’m not surprised that you have your finger on the pulse of it all, as usual,” he countered, as hundreds of eyes stared at the spectacle unfolding right in front of them. As much as he hated it, he couldn’t discount the genius of her idea. Of how close he was to wrapping up everything he needed for the documentary series he was secretly filming, and how much he didn’t need the extra scrutiny from the powerful and corrupt cabinet minister he was about to expose. “Or that you have contacts in high places and know how to use them.”

She blinked and he had a feeling he’d hurt her with that last comment. But he’d learned his lesson the hard way to never trust Zara. To never believe the bright, intelligent eyes, or the flashes of vulnerability that had once fascinated him. Even now apparently. “So what is your concern, then?” she asked, a bite to her tone.

“For myself, of course,” he added, his blood buzzing on a new high already. There was nothing more addictive than going toe to toe with this woman. Mere words bandied with her had more effect on his libido than rolling around naked with any other woman he’d known. He traced the line of her jaw, wrestling with his own hunger. “I don’t know that I’m up to playing the role of your willing slave again,shahzadi. I don’t know that I’m strong enough to survive it.”

She gasped and swatted him. And he had a feeling that at least a hundred cameras were recording them right now. Of course, that was why she’d made her move at this launch party. Where she was already playing the central role. “It’s not like I mean to swallow you and spit you out. You’re not some innocent prey caught in the claws of some hungry female predator.”

He raised a brow, a smile tugging at his lips. “Those are your words, Zara. Not mine.”

“So?”

“So what?”

“So will you play along and pretend we’re together?”

“For now, yes. Not that you have left me much of a choice.”

He flicked his finger at the tip of her nose, refusing to give weight to the flash of hurt in her face. “Let’s finish what you started. Then you and I will walk out of here and have a long talk.”

“Long talk about what?” Uncertainty filled her voice for the first time this evening.

“You sound scared, Zara.”

“Of course I’m not scared of you. I ambushed you tonight, didn’t I?”

“Ah...of course. The cryptic message I got about a source if I came here tonight was from you.”

She shrugged. “You left me no choice. I had Naina call your assistant three times in the last week since I returned from my shoot. You were incommunicado.”

“I was busy.”

“With the minister’s young wife, of course.”

“Beginning to feel jealous of younger women like the papers are hinting at, are you?”

“Of course I’m not. You should know that everything they’re writing about this strangely perverted love triangle between Naina, Vikram and me is...utter rubbish at best. Disgusting drivel at worst. Also remember that while I can shove it under the rug and rise above it, your soon-to-be sister-in-law can’t. This has cast such an awful pall over Naina. I’d hate for it to cause more problems at the wedding or for their life together to begin on such a sour note.”

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