Page 48 of The Secret She Kept in Bollywood

“It was our first time then?”

“By my calculations, yes. I guess I should have told you that that condom in my bag was a few years old. I... I just wanted you...needed you so much that night that I didn’t even think it might be out of date.”

This time, the corner of his mouth quirked up in that crooked smile of his that she adored so much. “I needed you too.”

He pushed a slightly shaky hand through his hair before looking up at her again. “Will you listen to me if I tell you what happened between Rani and me?” Before she could say either way, he pressed a hand to her mouth. “I want to tell you because I want you to know. To see why it took me so long to realize what I have in you. To realize what a blessing you are to me.

“Because you were absolutely right. I was using everything that happened with Rani as a grand reason to not move forward in life. I was letting guilt corrode everything. Letting fear control me. To not admit, even to myself, how hopelessly in love I was with you.”

Her lower lip trembled, hot liquid rushing to her eyes as if there was a geyser waiting to erupt behind them. “Simon...you don’t have to...”

“Although you have to give me some allowance for not seeing the truth when it was staring me in the face, Anya. I haven’t been in love for so long, not since I first met Rani over two decades ago. I’m rusty as hell and Rani’s death took away my trust in myself. That’s the worst part. I lost myself—my dreams, my desires, my joy for life. When we met, I was simply going through the motions for Meera’s sake. Even she could see that.”

Anya understood exactly what he meant about losing faith in oneself.

Her silence however made him draw in a deep breath. “Have I ever lied to you, Angel?”

Anya took a deep, shuddering breath. “No.”

Simon pushed to his feet and wrapped his arms around her. “Shh...sweetheart. No more tears, please. I can’t bear to see it.” But more than his words, the scent of him was like a kick to her heart. Everything within her settled.

Anya patted the space next to her on the bed. While her feet dangled, his legs kicked into a long sprawl. While they weren’t looking at each other, she smiled as Simon took her hand and laced their fingers together. As if he didn’t want their connection to be lost even for a second.

“Meera coming into our lives at the time she did...was a saving grace. Not just for our marriage, but for Rani. She’d already been through a lot trying to conceive. We’d been married for a decade and our marriage was at its weakest. Her career—even though she was at the top—had already lost some of its allure for her. Rani, you see,” he added with a long sigh, “used to thrive on challenge, on new things to be conquered, on being needed and adored. It took me a long time to see that about her.”

Anya waited, knowing that this was hard for him.

“So when Meera came, it was as if Rani got a new lease on life. She wrapped up projects she couldn’t get out of, got her lawyer to break contracts on a couple and threw herself into motherhood. But when Meera turned ten, things started changing. Rani raised her to be strong and independent and that’s exactly how Meera turned out. But Rani...grew restless then, started saying Meera didn’t need her as much anymore. I was traveling a lot and I didn’t take her seriously.”

He turned to face her then, and the ache in his eyes made Anya’s chest ache. “It’s not that she didn’t love Meera or being a mother.”

Anya shook her head. “You don’t have to clarify that, Simon. You really don’t. Some women are happy with just being mothers. Some need more challenges. There’s no wrong or right.”

Simon nodded. “Rani had those low periods before. She’d complain about being in a rut, that she needed a new hobby, that her body and her brain were vegetating. When I realized it continued to bother her, I reminded her that it had been her dream once to start an acting school. We went to dinner that night, just the two of us. She was glowing when she said she knew what she wanted. What would give her a new lease on life again.”

“Another baby?” Anya whispered.

“Yes.” He rubbed a hand over his face, his mouth tight and pinched. “To say that I was shocked would be an understatement.”

“Did you argue?”

“Not that day, no. I thought she’d listen to reason. I told her we should be glad that Meera was ten now. Tried to remind her that we’d been waiting for her to grow up so that they could both travel more with me. That there was no way, even if we could conceive by some miracle, that either of us wanted to go through the nappies-and-formula stage again. She seemed to agree with me and with usual masculine obliviousness—” his voice rang with bitterness “—I thought that was that.”

Anya tightened her grip on his fingers and leaned her body against his to remind him she was there. That she was listening.

“A month later, she told me she’d made an appointment with a new fertility expert. I refused to even indulge in the idea of IVF again. I didn’t want any more children and I definitely didn’t want them at the cost of Rani putting her mind and body through all those hormone shots and pain again when it didn’t work when we were younger. She retreated from me after that argument. For months and months, all I got from her was silence. It corroded everything good between us, killed what little we still had in common. She wouldn’t talk or engage, only wanted a yes from me. And the damned good actress she was, she made it look like nothing was wrong in front of Meera.”

He looked at his hands, as if he couldn’t bear to hold Anya’s gaze. As if he still felt shame over his actions. Anya’s heart ached.

“I thought she’d get over it in the end, see reason. I was busy launching a new hotel in Seychelles and I was traveling a lot. I even asked her if she and Meera would like to join me. She said she had plans with some old friends in Mumbai. She sounded so excited that I thought she was through the low. That she was finding her feet again. I was so happy that we’d made it to the other side of this rough patch too.” A shuddering sigh left him. “I was a damned fool. She took Meera with her to Mumbai. When I came back from Seychelles, she told me she’d signed on to the movie project and that must be when she visited a divorce lawyer too. She told me if I didn’t give her what she needed in our marriage, she could at least revive her career. As if I had ever stopped her before.”

“What happened?”

“I got mad...not because she wanted to go back to acting. But that she was so adamant about trying to conceive that she was giving me no choice at all. That she held that as some kind of sword over my head to prove that I still loved her, that I wanted the marriage. We got into a huge argument. She was furious with me and drove off. Her car totaled an hour later and she died. I don’t even know where she was going. The last thing she heard from me was an accusation that she had destroyed our whole marriage and everything I had ever felt for her.” A broken smile curved his mouth.

“I’m so sorry, Simon. Those words must have haunted you.”

“They have, ever since she died. I don’t want to paint her as some kind of villain, Angel. Because she wasn’t. She adored Meera.”

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