Page 1 of The Secret She Kept in Bollywood

CHAPTER ONE

SOMETHINGMOMENTOUSWILLhappen today. Follow your heart bravely.Anya Raawal stepped out of the car, the little line from her favorite astrology app running circles in her mind. From the moment she’d opened her eyes this morning, Anya had felt the change in the energy around her. Even her quick call to the astrology pundit she consulted with every month had shown that Saturn was leaving some part of her chart and was going to grant her a departing boon.

Several years of tormenting her with health issues and the loss of her beloved grandmother—who’d been more of a parent to her than her real ones—and the cranky universe was apparently going to give her a gift.

Anya wassoready for it—whether that was a new creative challenge that would push her to her limits, an old friend walking back into her life or she’d even settle for Mama finding a new hobby that would stop her from trying to set up Anya with yet another “perfect” man.

Sighing, she gestured at Salim Bhai to drive off. A major problem with having staff who had seen you skin your knees and soothed the bumps with Band-Aids and hugs was that they all saw far too much of things she wanted to keep private.

She didn’t mind their concern, for the most part. To be honest, she was more than grateful for the staff who had more than once stepped in as caring, concerned adults when her famous movie-star parents had been far too busy with their very messed-up, mostly public, marital dramas and ego wars.

It had been Salim Bhai’s wife, Noor, and Anya’s grandmother who’d nursed Anya back to health from a serious case of blood loss after giving birth to a baby girl at eighteen and from the spiral of depression she’d gone into after giving her up for adoption.

But today, she couldn’t stand the extra scrutiny. Nor for them or any of her family to mock her for her beliefs.

She walked up the steps of the luxury five-star hotel where the rehearsals were happening for their production company Raawal House of Cinema’s next blockbuster. Her brother Virat was a critically acclaimed director but also often a beast on set.

Now, with his wife, Zara, back to work after giving birth to their son, rumors were that his rudeness had reached new heights. So there was no reason for Anya to be here today.

As the head costume designer for the period movie, she wouldn’t be needed at the rehearsals. But it was as if there was hook in her belly, pulling her toward this meeting. She knew she was being even more eccentric than usual. That her deep belief in all things cosmic bothered her eldest brother Vikram, to no end.

But it was her chosen madness, her comfort blanket, and she was loath to give it up. It wasn’t that she waited for some kind of sign from the stars, but that she believed in listening to the universe.

She breezed in through the front doors and took the lift, refusing to be thwarted by the idea of her bossy, overprotective older brothers focusing their unwanted attention on her. Hopefully, their respective wives—God, how she adored her two sisters-in-law, Naina and Zara—would tell her two big brothers to stick their big noses out of Anya’s business.

The security in the lobby of the twenty-second floor waved her in. Anya ducked into one suite after another, absorbing the energy of the room and then walking out when it didn’t resonate with her. There was something here...she could feel it thrumming through her veins.

She walked into the biggest suite on the floor to find her brothers, Vikram and Virat, and her sister-in-law Zara and a number of other team members.

A small makeshift dais had been created out of the raised sitting area.

Anya waved at her sister-in-law, who’d looked up from the script when the girl on the stage caught her attention. The movie was about a warrior queen that Zara would be playing, and the younger girl had been cast as the teen version of the queen. While Anya hadn’t met the young actress chosen for the role, she’d already started researching the time period and had begun sketching out her wardrobe. Sooner or later, she’d meet her. Especially since both her brothers had sung the praises of the girl’s natural talent on stage.

Her name was Meera Verma—daughter of the now-late Rani Verma, one of the most celebrated actresses of Bollywood more than a decade ago. The actress had retired from Bollywood and public life to raise a family and had never returned.

The girl was reading lines from the script in her hand, her voice deep and loud, her plump face illuminated by the overhead lights.

Anya walked closer to the stage, her heart racing so fast that she could hear the echo of it in her entire body. Even thirteen years later, she couldn’t forget that beautiful face. Those large distinctive light brown eyes—catlike eyes of the man that had fathered Anya’s child—were almost too big for her round face. And then there were the wide pink lips and the dark little finger-width mole that made a slash through the girl’s left eyebrow...the one imperfection in her baby’s face which had only made her even more perfect in Anya’s eyes.

The very baby girl that she’d given up thirteen years ago, the baby she hadn’t been strong enough to look after—not mentally, not physically—the baby who’d stolen a piece of her heart in the couple of hours that she’d been held in her mother’s arms...this young actress was her daughter.

Meera... The girl’s name was Meera... Her daughter’s name was Meera.

That’s what the universe had brought her here for?

To show her the baby that had been a piece of her heart all grown up?

To dangle the girl in front of Anya when she couldn’t be a part of her life, when she couldn’t claim any kind of relationship with her?

To make Anya’s torment that she had struggled with for thirteen years, even more sharp and painful?

A huge sob built through her chest, sucking out all her breath, leaving her shaking.

Somehow, Anya managed to walk out of the large sitting room, her eyes full of unshed tears, careful to not catch any of her family’s eyes.

Her heart breaking all over again...even after all these years.

Simon De Acosta was not a fan of the movie industry and everything it entailed. He’d seen firsthand the high accolades and the low reviews and broken contracts and nepotism at play and the wreckage it had created within the fragile but brilliant mind of his wife Rani. He would never forget the number of years she’d paid her dues in minor roles, forever trying to stay on the right side of powerful men who pulled all the strings.

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