buried the disturbing sensations deep down but the feelings that she was now experiencing were eerily familiar.
As she walked behind Vikram’s rigid back she felt mortification and shame creeping over her. She had behaved like a slut by responding to his kiss. She knew he had kissed her in anger and he, too, was at fault but why had she responded the way she had? She cringed inside. She had never been physically demonstrative and had always been reserved and reticent with everyone, including her father, despite the bond they shared. However, her brother had been warm, open and physically demonstrative with her and he would hug and hold her. He had been the only one whom Gauri had hugged and embraced. Therefore, such intimacies with Vikram shook her up. She had never felt such feelings engulf her and she felt lost, confused and guilty.
Vikram led her back to the bedroom she had woken up in and suddenly she realised this area had earlier been part of her brother’s rooms.
‘This is the suite I use whenever I am in residence,’ Vikram informed her curtly. He went towards a set of doors which were situated at the far end and opened one of them.
‘Come here.’ He beckoned with an imperious finger.
Gauri decided not to antagonise him further.
She went towards the open door and saw that it opened into a bathroom.
‘Go and freshen up. I’ll have some clothes sent to you. And don’t try anything foolish because you won’t be able to find a way out of this suite without my assistance,’ he added in a steely voice.
He turned and the door shut behind him with a click. Gauri stood irresolute for a moment and then decided to go for a shower. She was feeling gritty and maybe a quick shower would put things in perspective.
The shower proved to be refreshing and she felt better physically but her mind continued to run around the kiss. She wondered what Vikram would say if he came to know that he was the only man to have touched her so intimately and kissed her. Of course there was an exception—one other who had tried to assault her—and her mind rushed back to that traumatic night six years ago and panic engulfed her as she recollected the memory of breath reeking with drink and thick, coarse lips kissing her cruelly and she almost gagged. But she beat back the vile memories as she had been counselled to do and took deep long breaths.
Putting on the towelling robe she found hanging behind the door, she peeked out, unwilling to face Vikram, and saw to her relief that there seemed to be no one around.
She came out, wondering what to wear since the clothing she had been wearing was all creased. Her breath caught as her gaze fell on the clothes laid out on the bed.
It was a beautiful red-and-cream churidaar kameez. As a little girl, her favourite colour had been red and she had loved wearing clothes which were red in colour. Who could have brought these clothes for her? Madhav Dada had known that she loved red and whatever clothes he bought for her had always been red. Her breath caught as the memory of her brother engulfed her again, but she pushed back the grief grimly, bracing herself with the thought that she would believe in his death only when she had checked out the facts for herself.
She looked at the clothes, torn between her pride, which dictated that she wear her own creased clothes, and sheer practicality, which exhorted her to appear presentable in case she met the family.
Suddenly the door opened and she looked up, alarmed. It was Vikram.
‘Go away—I’m not dressed!’ Gauri screeched, turning red with mortification.
She rushed into the bathroom.
Vikram surveyed her fleeing figure with narrowed eyes. The thick robe had clung lovingly to her delectable body and her slender legs and dainty ankles had been clearly visible from under it.
He pushed away in his mind the attractive picture she had made and asked, ‘Why aren’t you dressed yet?’
‘Why can’t you knock before entering?’ Gauri asked back angrily from behind the closed door.
Vikram ignored her question and reiterated, ‘Why aren’t you dressed? I had sent clothes for you.’
‘I want to wear my own clothes. I will not wear these clothes,’ Gauri replied truculently from behind the bathroom door.
‘As you wish! If you want to go around looking like something the cat dragged in it’s fine by me. I would have thought you would want to at least appear presentable when we go. But of course you must dress as you wish,’ Vikram said derisively. ‘But if you are not dressed in five minutes I’ll take you out as you are,’ he added threateningly and walked out.
Gauri opened the door and rushed out, putting on the clothes hurriedly. She knew that Vikram was capable of carrying out all his threats.
Vikram sprawled on the sofa in the living room and stared broodingly at the closed door. His usually unflappable mind was in turmoil. Today’s loss of control was totally out of character for him. Only once earlier had he lost control so completely and that had been when he had kissed Gauri six years ago in the moonlight.
He had never been short of girlfriends but never had he felt such an incendiary desire for anyone else. None of his girlfriends had ever inflamed him to the extent of making him forget everything. In every relationship there had been an emotional and mental distance, with a part of him always remaining aloof and detached.
His childhood experiences had underlined the futility of emotions and relationships. Life in boarding school had further hardened him and made him contemptuous of human frailties and weaknesses. Wary and guarded, he found it difficult to warm to people, let alone trust them, and no one was permitted to cross the iron-clad barriers he had set up.
He knew that most people found him cold and intimidating and kept a safe distance. Even his employees, who had no complaints about him as an employer and were a dedicated lot, dared not cross him.
Madhav, with his infectious grin and generosity of spirit, had been the only one who had breached his defences and forged a deep bond with him. Raw ache inundated him as he thought of his friend. He would never get used to Madhav’s loss. Cold determination filled him. And never again would he let himself be vulnerable or dependent on anyone.
Therefore, it was all the more disquieting to realise the strange powerful pull that Gauri exerted over him. She tugged at his emotions—emotions he knew he was incapable of feeling. Was it because she was Madhav’s younger sister? But he had never felt the same way about Madhav’s other sister, Maya.
It was probably sexual attraction, he thought morosely, more so since it had been a long time since he had slept with a woman. Once this business with her was settled he would look for a girlfriend.
His thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of Gauri in the red and cream churidaar kameez he had selected.
Immediately his body hardened as he saw how the kameez clung lovingly to her body and the churidaar revealed her long shapely legs and thighs. She looked sensational and he was suddenly angry with himself. He would have to guard against falling under the spell of her attraction.
He stood up with a brusque, ‘Finally!’
He walked out of the room. Gauri followed behind, trying to get a bearing on her surroundings as well as form a coherent plan, but she received a shock when she saw that the palace had changed drastically. This part of the palace
