Melissa said, exasperated. Apart from trivialising her concerns about the takeover, it wasn’t even true. Samir had hardly noticed Neera, and while he might not have been bowled over by Melissa she’d at least caught his attention.
Unbidden, her thoughts drifted back to the second their eyes had met...then she shook herself angrily. Brian’s habit of reducing everything to a simple man-woman equation was as annoying as it was infectious.
‘Look, I’m sorry I took off at you,’ she said. ‘It’s just that you and Aunty Liz have been like family to me, and I don’t know... I’m just a bit...’
The car had stopped outside the working women’s hostel where Melissa lived, and Brian reached out to give her a clumsy pat on the shoulder.
‘Sorry,’ Melissa said again, taking in his anxious expression. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not about to start howling. Just...stay in touch, OK? Even when you’re off living the high life,’ she added as she climbed out of the car, smiling at him before she closed the door.
‘Yes, of course.’
Overall, Brian looked rather relieved to be rid of her, and she couldn’t blame him. Emotional scenes weren’t really his thing.
‘I’ll ask Liz to call you. Fix dinner with us this Sunday, maybe, and we can talk things over.’
He was about to drive off when something struck him and he rolled the window down. ‘Don’t judge Samir too hastily, OK? He’s a great guy—just a little reserved. Wait till you get to know him better.’
Melissa waited while he drove off and then walked into the hostel, uncharacteristic tears pricking at her eyelids. She was distantly related to Brian’s wife, and two years ago, when her family had turned against her, Liz and Brian had brought her to Mumbai, given her a job and helped her settle down. Brian insisted that she’d more than repaid the debt with the amount of hard work she’d put in since joining the agency, but she felt more grateful and connected to the couple than she had to anyone else in her life. Brian’s announcement had come as a shock—it felt as if her last source of emotional support was now gone.
* * *
Three weeks later, when Samir moved into the Mendonca Advertising corner office, he found himself automatically looking for the dusky elfin woman he’d met the first day he’d visited the office. Brian had spoken to him about her later, and he was intrigued by the few things that Brian had let drop. He didn’t see her for the first week, though, and it was only at the beginning of the next week that he thought to ask someone where she was.
‘Is everyone in the office, Devdeep?’ he asked.
Devdeep wrinkled his forehead. ‘Yes, I think so,’ he said. ‘Was there someone you’d like to meet in particular? Because I’ve already lined up discussions with the team heads, but I can rejig them if needed.’
Distracted for a second by a vivid mental image of jigging team heads, Samir shook his head. ‘No. There were a couple of women Brian introduced me to the first day I was here. I can’t see either of them around.’
‘Ah, Neera and Melissa,’ Devdeep said. ‘Neera’s not well, but Melissa should be around—actually, she should be here already. I’ll speak to her about it. She’s normally never late.’
Samir heroically resisted the impulse to tell Devdeep not to get his panties in a twist and said instead, ‘Don’t worry about it. I was just wondering if she was on leave today.’
Ten minutes later he was left in no doubt as a pink-cheeked Melissa bounced into his office.
‘Devdeep said you were looking for me,’ she said. She’d already had a bit of a spat with Devdeep, and she was all set to do battle. ‘I got little delayed because there wasn’t a single cab on the roads today. There’s some kind of a strike. I’d have called and told someone if I’d known you needed to talk to me.’ She came to an abrupt halt, realising that it sounded as if she was making excuses. Damn, she’d wanted to come across as being completely cool and in charge of the situation.
Samir waited patiently till she was done. ‘I asked where you were because I was looking around for familiar faces,’ he said. ‘I didn’t see you all of last week.’
She was even prettier than he’d remembered—large, expressive chocolate-brown eyes in a piquant little face framed by masses of spun-silk hair. Right now, she looked defensive, and a lot less fiery than when he’d first met her, and he smiled at her reassuringly. The last thing he wanted was to terrorise the junior members of what he suspected was already a very apprehensive team.
Unfortunately Samir’s reassuring smile had the effect of making Melissa’s knees go just a little wobbly, and she took a few seconds to regroup before she said, ‘I was in a creative writing workshop last week. Brian suggested it, actually—he felt that it’d help with my work.’
‘That’s OK,’ Samir said, but Melissa still hesitated.
‘I paid for it myself,’ she volunteered.
At that, Samir looked up. ‘I think it would have made more sense for the agency to pay if Brian asked you to take the workshop,’ he said crisply. ‘I’ll speak to someone about it. And at some point I’d like you to take me through what you do—I’ll drop you a line and schedule a time. Is there something else you’d like to talk about now?’
Melissa’s slightly belligerent expression had vanished, but she still looked as if she wanted to get something off her chest.
‘Um, he mightn’t have told you, but it’s Devdeep’s birthday today,’ she said. ‘Brian’s secretary normally orders a cake, but this time she wasn’t sure what to do, so...’
‘She can order a cake,’ Samir said. ‘You know what? It’d help if you could spread the word—for now everything continues as usual. I’ll be making changes, but they’ll take time, and they’ll definitely not be about things like birthday cakes and what time people land up in office.’
Melissa’s eyes narrowed, but she didn’t say anything, whisking herself out of his office instead. In spite of his brusqueness there was a magnetic pull about Samir that was difficult to ignore. OK, magnetic pull was a really cheesy way of putting it, but that was how it felt. He was dressed casually, probably with the intention of blending in with the agency staff—but even in a linen shirt and faded jeans he exuded an aura of sheer masculine power that was difficult to ignore.
‘He said you should order the cake, Kash,’ she told Samir’s secretary on her way back to her desk. ‘Tell me when it’s here and we’ll set up the pantry for a party.’
Devdeep was dreadfully embarrassed by the fuss.
‘He’ll think we’re completely flaky,’ he protested, when Melissa and Kash told him.
‘Nonsense, even the president celebrates her birthday,’ Melissa said briskly. ‘Samir won’t think you’re flaky at all, and if he does we’ll put cockroaches in his room and spit in his water jug.’
‘Thanks for warning me,’ a dry voice said behind her, and Melissa jumped.
There he was, standing right behind her—all six foot two inches of scorching hot masculinity—and for the first time in her life Melissa found herself completely tongue-tied.
Devdeep turned a bright purple and said, ‘She was just joking, sir, of course we’d do nothing of the sort.’
‘Joking, was she?’ Samir gave her a long look that didn’t betray an iota of what he was thinking. ‘Many happy returns of the day, Devdeep. And you can call me Samir. I haven’t been knighted yet—and “sir” is a bit over the top, don’t you think?’
Devdeep was still in the midst of a rather incoherent reply when Samir interrupted.
‘Can I speak to you for a bit, Melissa?’
‘If you were trying to put him at ease it didn’t work,’