on, and the living room was in complete and utter darkness when she finally got in.
‘Dumb idiot,’ she said out loud, and then she struggled to get her strappy high-heeled sandals off in the dark. ‘Damn these shoes!’
Barefoot at last, she began padding across the room—to find herself suddenly tripping and falling down in a heap right onto the warm, hard, very muscular and very male body sprawled across the middle of the floor.
For a wild moment Riya wondered if she was in the wrong flat. Then, as she yelped in alarm and tried to push herself off the man, an amused voice drawled in her ear.
‘Gaurav’s missing flatmate, I presume?’
By then she’d found her footing, and she bounced off in a hurry and snapped a switch on. Bright fluorescent light bathed the room as she glared at the man trying to get free of the scarf that had landed on his face. An extremely appealing-looking man, she thought, her annoyance abating as she took in the perfectly sculpted physique, the rumpled hair, and...hang on...the extremely familiar face. Not to mention the extremely, familiar golden-brown eyes, blinking now as they adjusted to the bright light, and the excruciatingly familiar, eminently kissable lips, and the strong hands, with their long, sensitive fingers...
‘Dhruv Malhotra!’ she wailed, sitting down abruptly on the nearest sofa.
‘Shh...people are sleeping inside,’ he said, his deep voice with its slight gravelly undertone as sexy as ever.
‘But—but I don’t understand,’ Riya stammered. ‘What are you doing here? Are you Gaurav’s cousin?’
Dhruv nodded, standing up from the makeshift bed spread out on the floor.
Riya automatically ran her eyes over him. Even in a ratty black vest and faded jogging bottoms, he looked gorgeous. He’d filled out since college—the once boyish frame had morphed into a body worthy of an athlete, all lean limbs, broad shoulders and taut muscle.
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t warn you—I figured out you lived here only when we arrived and I saw your name on the door. We came in quite late and I thought we could deal with the situation in the morning—I wasn’t expecting you to fall over me.’
‘And you were sleeping right in the middle of the living room because...?’
‘My kid sister decided to come along at the last moment, so she’s in the spare room and there was no place left for me.’ He flashed her a sudden grin. ‘I didn’t think you’d appreciate coming home and finding me in your bed.’
‘You’re right. I wouldn’t have,’ Riya said firmly.
She walked up to him and took the scarf from him, willing herself not to touch his hand while she did so. She’d thought about him a lot in the twelve years since they’d last met, and rehearsed countless scenarios in which she confronted him/pretended he didn’t exist/made crazy, wild love to him... Now that they were finally face to face, all she wanted to do was run away and keep going.
‘Goodnight, Dhruv.’
‘Riya?’
She turned. He was looking at her, an oddly appealing glimmer in his eyes.
‘It’s good to see you again.’
Riya gave him a tight little smile and went on to her room without answering.
Dhruv switched off the light and got back into bed. He’d been awake when Riya came in, and had smiled to himself when he’d heard her cursing in her adorably husky voice. Seeing her again had been more of a jolt than he’d expected, even though he had been mentally prepared. She had changed. Not so much in appearance, though she’d probably put on a few kilos—she’d been waif-like in college, so thin that he’d been able to pick her up with one hand, but so energetic and full of life that she’d seemed twice her real size. Now she’d developed some womanly curves—as he’d discovered when she landed on top of him.
For a few seconds he’d been tempted to drag her closer, enjoy the feeling of her soft breasts heavy on his arm and her silky hair spread over his chest. Her hair had been short in college, and she’d always been bundled either into a shapeless salwar kameez—the traditional Asian tunic and loose trousers—or an over-sized T-shirt and scruffy jeans. She looked far more sophisticated now, with figure-hugging clothes and long, wavy perfectly styled hair cascading down her back. Her face was unchanged, with large eyes, sooty eyelashes, flawless dusky skin, rosebud mouth and dainty little tip-tilted nose all present and correct. The eyes were wary, though. Nowhere near as open or as trusting as they’d used to be.
Dhruv punched his pillow in frustration. Five minutes and the woman had already got him tied up in knots. He should make some excuse to Gaurav and move into a hotel for the remaining two days he needed to be in Mumbai. On the other hand Gaurav was getting married in a week, and the whole point of this visit was to spend time with him before the wedding—they’d been very close when they were younger, but hadn’t met in the last six years. Moving out wasn’t the best option—perhaps he should try talking to Riya, laying old ghosts to rest.
Riya latched the door to her room and slowly started clearing the mess of books off her bed. Dhruv still affected her strongly, she noted, feeling extremely displeased with herself.
Over the years she’d come to believe that he had only managed to completely bowl her off her feet because he’d been the first really attractive man she’d come across in the seventeen years she’d spent growing up in a small, conservative North Indian university town. Her schoolmates had been OK, but she’d known them all her life, and the fact that some were male hadn’t really registered even when she was in her teens. It was difficult to lust after someone you’d seen peeing in their pants in kindergarten!
In college Dhruv had stood out among a largely nerdy and uncouth crowd like...like a peacock in a yard full of sparrows. Or, she thought, trying to think of a more appropriate simile, a Swiss chocolate in a bowl of peppermints. Or a Ferrari in a line-up of taxis.
But after college she’d met at least a dozen men who displayed at least as good a combination of looks and brains as Dhruv, and not a single one of them had made her heart race the teensiest bit. Not Sandeep, the hottest man on her graduate course, nor Sikandar, serial heartbreaker and her second boss. Not Marcelo, the drop-dead gorgeous Brazilian she’d met in a training course last year. Not Vinay, whom she’d dated for almost two years before deciding not to marry him. Not even Anurag, the CFO of one of her top corporate clients. Well, maybe Anurag. Just a little bit. Even though he was married and at least fifteen years older than her. But compared to the effect Dhruv had on her even Anurag faded into insignificance.
‘Concentrate on the bad things,’ Riya told herself firmly, chewing on her toothbrush fiercely. ‘He walked away from you without any explanation whatsoever—’ she spat into the sink and rinsed her mouth vigorously ‘—and never bothered to get in touch with you afterwards.’
She climbed into her pyjamas and got into bed. She lay for a while looking up at the ceiling, remembering the feeling of utter bewilderment and loss that had stayed with her every waking minute for months after Dhruv had stepped out of her life. Even now just thinking about it made her feel empty inside... Humiliating as it was to admit, unless she was very, very careful she was in just as much danger of falling for him now as she had been when she was seventeen.
‘Pathetic, man-crazy moron,’ she said sternly to herself, but it didn’t help. Not when Dhruv lay stretched out on the floor
