Page 34 of The Surprise Bollywood Baby

Her bare breasts rose and fell, the plump light brown nipples puckering up. His arousal lengthened, his muscles tightening with a desperate need that didn’t look like it would ever be sated.

She huffed and pulled on the T-shirt he’d thrown away in a hurry earlier. He pouted and she sighed. “I do want to get through the scene with you. The last thing I need is a fresh rumor that Zara Khan has lost whatever little acting talent she possessed because she can’t get enough of her fiancé’s hot body.”

He folded his arms behind his head. And her greedy gaze traced his muscular arms, his hard chest and everything in between. He grinned and sighed. “Fine. Let’s go back into the sitting room.”

“Don’t worry, Virat. I can take the shift from sexy lover to demanding director.”

She sat down on an armchair opposite the bed with a blue pen and the script in hand, and looked at him. He sighed. “Fine. Your monologue sounds preachy. Like something you learned by heart to just regurgitate in front of the camera. You’re not able to get a handle on her character in this scene. Especially Mayavati’s final decision,” he added, mentioning the name of the prostitute spy Zara was playing.

Surprise painted over her features. “How did you know I don’t like the final scene?”

He shrugged, glad to know he’d hit the nail on its head. “It’s my job to figure out what’s blocking you. My job is to get you to connect with the character, to help you immerse yourself in it.

“What exactly is bothering you about her, Zara?”

“I struggle with how Mayavati plays such cunning games with not one or two but three different men—the budding actor who goes on to establish the biggest studio house that becomes the foundation of Bollywood later, the British general and the solider turned manservant.

“She constantly puts her life on the line for the first, plays dangerous games with the second and takes advantage of the third’s quiet devotion. All three men adore her and yet...she’s far too fickle with her affections. I don’t...understand how any woman could be so...outrageous and cunning and...” she whispered the last word “...brave.”

“I thought her interesting background would give you a better understanding of her,” he prompted. “That you would connect with her better than, say, a...twenty-year-old actress whose biggest accomplishment is that she’s convinced her powerful daddy to sink a few crores into launching her career because she can act.”

“I did think you’d go with a fresh face. Not that I doubt my own talent.”

“Mayavati, despite being the underdog, despite being a prostitute on the lowest rungs of society, knows how to play the game. Knows how to make all the men around give her her due.”

Her head jerked up, a sudden tension around her mouth. She looked down and then back up at him. “Is that how you see me? As someone who plays games?”

A few weeks ago, Virat didn’t know what his answer would have been. But now there was a certainty in him. “I see you as someone who wins despite the odds. When you started your career doing Bhai’s masala popcorn mass blockbusters, I didn’t think you’d last long. For a while, you played nothing but a glamorous sidekick at best, a one-dimensional accessory at worst.”

“Ouch,” Zara said, knowing that he was absolutely right.

“Until you produced and released that series of short films for TV. You... I was stunned by the breadth of acting you showed in those.”

“You watched them?”

A smile lingered around his lips. “At the first chance I could get. That was a first-class move. You shut up most of your critics. You pivoted your career at the exact right moment. You...made us all sit up and take note of you.”

“Thank you,” Zara said, her heart bursting with pride and pleasure and something more. “Your praise means a lot to me.”

“Because I’ve criticized you and Bhai more than once?”

Zara shook her head. “Because even ten years ago, you were full of raw talent. I’ve always respected your opinion, Virat.”

He stared back at her, something in his eyes that Zara couldn’t recognize. She’d complimented him, but the moment became weighted with something else.

“Tell me what you like about Mayavati,” she asked to break the mounting tension.

For a second, she thought he wouldn’t answer. Then he said, “She’s the most complex female character I’ve ever handled—they are thin on the ground to begin with. Wily and cunning and stubborn. Even with all the pressures society puts on her, even with all the demands the first two men make on her, Mayavati lives only for herself. By her own rules.

“But it’s her final decision that shows us how truly complex she is.

“Her choice in the end to spend the rest of her life with the manservant—the one man who truly loves her despite knowing everything she is—instead of the general who could give her riches, or the visionary Vijay Raawal who promises to launch her as an actress, tells the audience that Mayavati is, at the end of it all, desperate to be loved. To be accepted for who she is.

“Andthatis a universal emotion.”

He held her gaze, a flash of something in his own. “Maybe you’re struggling because you can’t see why she’d make such a selfless choice? Why she’d walk away from the chance of being a wealthy actress with my grandfather’s character or the call to adventure with the general?”

There it was, at the core of it all, the shadow of the resentment she’d always spied in his eyes. “You think I’m not able to connect with her because I don’t see why she values love and acceptance before everything else.” It wasn’t even a question anymore.

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