an appearance. Riya was perched on the balcony, swinging her legs against the parapet as she talked to a group of colleagues. The atmosphere in the room seemed to change as he walked in, looking around the room and hesitating a little before coming up to her. Riya gave him a polite, noncommittal smile, noticing bitterly that even with a day’s stubble and rumpled clothes he was by far the best-looking man in the room.
As he walked towards her more than a few heads swung in his direction. The reaction in the little group on the balcony was palpable. The two women smoothed their hair, clearly in a bit of a flutter. Rishabh, the only man in the group, straightened up and squared his shoulders—the typical male reaction to a man several inches taller. Riya tried to stay unaffected, but she knew that she more than anyone else was conscious of every movement he made, every change of expression.
‘So, what do you do, Dhruv?’ one of the women asked after Riya had introduced Dhruv. ‘Let me guess... Not a banker, obviously—not boring enough. Lawyer? Businessman?’
‘I’m an architect,’ Dhruv replied quietly.
‘Really? What’s your firm called?’ Her expression was one of animated interest.
Dhruv, used to female attention, hardly noticed the effort she was making to capture his attention. It had been a long day, and he’d come back hoping for a relaxed evening, but with the house full of guests it didn’t look likely. The woman was still looking at him expectantly, so he answered.
‘Icarus Designs,’ he said, wishing they would all go away and leave him with Riya. She was wearing a sleeveless turquoise top in some silky material over jeans, and her hair was loose over her shoulders—she looked younger, and far more as he remembered her from college, and if they had been alone he’d have been tempted to take her into his arms and kiss her senseless.
Rishabh looked up. ‘There’s a Singapore-based firm of that name—any connection?’
‘I’ve been working out of Singapore the last few years, but I started in Delhi and I still have an office there,’ Dhruv said. He had an eye on Riya, sensing that she was withdrawing from the conversation. He figured that while she was on friendly terms with Rishabh, she didn’t really like him.
‘Dude, I love the buildings you guys have done in Singapore,’ Rishabh was saying. ‘I worked in one of them, and the design was out of this world. I actually researched the firm as part of a project. Are you setting up something in Mumbai?’
‘I’m considering it,’ Dhruv said. ‘I’ll be coming back to Mumbai after Gaurav’s wedding to scout for office space, and if things work out I’ll set up here by the end of the year.’
Rishabh hopped down from the parapet onto the balcony and took a card out of his pocket. ‘Maybe we can meet up once you’re back? My contact details are on this—or I can call you if that’s OK?’
‘Sure,’ Dhruv said, taking the card but not offering one of his own in return.
Riya frowned. It hadn’t even occurred to her to ask Dhruv about his work, but Rishabh had sensed a business opportunity and honed in. That was how he managed to hold his own at work, she thought. They had joined CYB around the same time, and got along well at least on the surface, but professionally they had been at loggerheads since the day they’d started working together. Riya knew that she was technically far more competent than he was—where she fell behind was on the ability to spot new business.
She looked over the parapet, down at the city. She needed to get at least a couple of new clients on board this quarter to secure a decent bonus. God knew she needed the money. She earned a good salary, but a lot of it went home to her parents. Her mother didn’t work, and her dad had retired on a very small pension—and he’d had a lot of health problems recently.
She pursed her lips worriedly. If Icarus Designs was big—and Rishabh evidently thought they were—she should speak to Dhruv about a possible project. He’d be far more inclined to talk to her than to Rishabh, but she felt very reluctant to broach the topic with him.
She cast a quick look in his direction, and all thoughts of work immediately flew out of her head. He was impossibly good-looking, she thought, confused, and his rumpled hair and unshaven chin only added to his dangerous bad-boy looks.
Dhruv looked up at her suddenly. ‘Riya, don’t lean so far back—you’ll topple. We’re on the twenty-second floor.’
Gaurav walked up to them, drink in hand, slinging a careless arm around Dhruv’s shoulders. ‘Yeah, you’ll make a lovely splat on the concrete. You guys heard the joke about the idiot who fell from the roof of a ten-storey building?’
Rishabh grinned—he and Gaurav were the clowns of the bunch. ‘He heard the doorbell ring and ran to open the door.’
‘Right. And the one who drove his truck off a cliff?’
‘He wanted to check his air brakes!’
Dhruv moved closer to Riya and said in an undertone, ‘Riya, please get down.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Dhruv, I’m not about to fall. Back off.’
Rishabh said, ‘And the one who fell out of the window?’
‘He tripped over the cordless phone,’ Gaurav said, grinning, as the girls groaned in mock exasperation.
Riya was still stubbornly perched on the balcony railing, giving Dhruv a defiant little look as she laughed at Gaurav’s completely pathetic jokes. Dhruv had had these sudden bouts of over-protectiveness in college as well—worrying about her getting home when it was getting dark, insisting on dropping her home on his motorbike from college after she’d had an accident on her two-wheeler. She’d never objected then, thinking it was a sign of how much he cared for her, but there was no way she was going to take orders from him now.
‘Don’t be childish, Riya. What are you trying to prove?’ he said, and Riya immediately saw red.
‘Leave me alone,’ she said.
Dhruv gritted his teeth and moved closer to her, putting one arm on either side in a protective stance.
‘Get away, Dhruv,’ Riya said angrily, not sure which was stronger—her irritation at his bossiness, or her intense awareness of his proximity. His sleeves were rolled up, and she could see the smattering of fine hair on his forearms. Her fingers ached to run up his arm, feel the muscles under the warm, velvety skin. His face was really close too, and she had a sudden mad impulse to touch his silky hair and pull his head closer till his mouth touched hers.
A surge of annoyance at her own susceptibility made her shove at his shoulder—hard. He didn’t budge, but the movement made her lose her balance. She teetered on the edge for a second, and then Dhruv’s arms came around her, steadying her and firmly lowering her to the balcony. His arms felt every bit as delicious as she had imagined. She looked up at him mistily—to encounter two golden eyes glaring furiously down at her as his hands came up to her shoulders.
He gave her a little shake. ‘What did you think you were doing?’ he demanded. His heart was still thudding loudly in his chest—for a moment he had really thought she was going to fall.
‘I was perfectly OK till you tried to play the hero,’ Riya retorted, shaking herself free from his clasp and storming off into her room.
Dhruv stared after her, a sense of déjà vu sweeping over him. The last time they’d spoken in college...
The circumstances had been very different, of course. Things had gone wrong between them, and he’d started cold-shouldering Riya, hoping she’d get the message and stay away from him. She hadn’t stood for that very long, and had confronted him as he was leaving his hostel for a morning class. The altercation had turned bad very quickly. In the long years of hearing his parents fight he’d unconsciously acquired a knack of saying bitter, hurtful things, and it had taken him barely minutes to rip apart the delicate fabric of their relationship.
Riya’s chin had gone up, and she’d said in a voice that