Kiran spotted a semi-flat soccer ball sat on the side of the busy street in Mumbai and made a beeline for it. It was just what he needed to release some anger.
He had ten minutes to get to his meeting with Lucy Vanderbilt in his office down the street from his father’s building, but it was the last thing he wanted to do. He hadn’t been this angry and confused in a long time. It was bad enough to feel such rage, but to not know what to do about it was maddening.
Hence the abandoned soccer ball.
He sprinted a few yards to it and kicked it hard and fast down the block where it knocked over a wall of trash cans brimming with garbage. An older woman poked her head out of the shop and started yelling.
Normally Kiran would feel badly and stop and clean it up. This time, he kept walking, passing her by with a menacing stare that silenced her immediately. He was looking around for something else to kick or punch and she didn’t want it to be her.
She popped back inside.
Calm down, you idiot, he told himself. Then he decided he should take up boxing as he strode through the tall glass doors of his office building. Yeah, boxing. That’s what he needed. If only he could get through this day, perhaps tomorrow morning things would be clearer.
No they wouldn’t. She still kissed that man. I can’t trust her.
He nodded to the security guard and the front desk, then he took the elevator up to his office where Sai—who’d join him in the city as his unofficial assistant—told him Miss Lucy was already waiting for him. Kiran noted with amusement that Sai was chewing on some English chocolate, no doubt from the same hotel stash she had used to entice him a few days ago.
Hopefully she didn’t ask Sai to examine a non-existent sprain as well.
When he entered the office, she was wearing a white, flowing summer dress which showed off her long, tan legs, standing in front of his tall floor-to-ceiling picture window, the bustling city below.
He had touched those legs.
To be honest, he had touched more than that.
He shook off the thought, feeling his face heating up from the memory. Today was just business and he would maintain his distance and keep it that. There would be no impromptu doctor-patient sessions today even if she passed out and needed CPR.
Besides, Sai would be happy to assist with his chocolate-covered 12-year-old lips for mouth-to-mouth is she needed it. Kiran would not touch this woman again.
“I hope I didn’t keep you waiting,” he announced, keeping his tone friendly but professional.
Lucy turned around from the window and smiled, her blue eyes sparkling clear in the sunlight. She gazed at him like a lover would. “No problem. Just enjoying the view, which has just improved dramatically.”
Kiran brushed off the double meaning and sat down at his desk where Lucy had laid out a set of building plans for the new orphanage. “You have the plans drawn up. That’s wonderful.”
She leaned over his shoulder at the desk and they both looked over the large blue-inked drawings. She moved her red manicured nail over the plans, her arms lightly brushing his shoulder. “There’s the dormitory and the school room. Bathrooms here, cafeteria on the same wall for plumbing.”
Kiran moved slightly away so she wasn’t making contact with him. “It looks fine. Just fine. Thank you.”
Lucy scrunched up her face in a pout. “You don’t seem too happy about it. Something wrong?”
“There’s no atrium. No place for the children to play really.”
“We discussed that, Kiran. If we streamline the design and make it a model for the rest of the orphanages throughout India, we will save so much money that we can build more and help more needy children. Isn’t that the idea here?”
It made sense and was completely in-line with his father’s philosophy. Yet, he was unsettled by it.
His thoughts were interrupted by Sai who had entered the office, a long cylindrical tube in his hand. “Sir! It’s from Miss Annika!”
It was obvious Sai loved her. She had doted on the boy after his sister’s death. There wasn’t a better dressed or cared for orphan in all of India. His four hundred dollar Air Jordans were the stuff of legends back in the slums.
“Thank you, Sai. Wait outside and we’ll go eat later before returning to Goa.”
Lucy eyed the parcel with interest. “What’s that? Looks like plans.”
He was just as confused. What did Annika send?
Then it hit him. She said she was having her own plans drawn up for the orphanage. This was it.
“I think my fiancée has some ideas for the orphanage,” he said while pulling out the set of plans. “Ah, yes, I’m right.” He couldn’t repress a small smile. She had come through. This was important to her.
“How cute,” Lucy said through a strained smile, looking over his shoulder at the new set of plans which he laid over hers on the desk. “Is that a swimming pool?”
Kiran’s eyes danced over the plans; it was exactly as Annika had described, but beautifully and professionally laid-out as promised.
And she had included an atrium in honor of his mother.
He looked up at Lucy, unable to hide a hint of excitement like a boy opening a present on Christmas. “Yes, it is. And she designed a water slide for it too. There.” He pointed to the plans. “And see right here? That’s the garden she talked about, and over there is a massive playground.” He whispered to himself in amusement. “It’s amazing.”
But Lucy didn’t have anything to say. She was too busy laughing.
Kiran looked at her quizzically. “Sorry, did I miss a joke?”
“Kiran, that’s the most ridiculous set of plans for an orphanage I’ve ever seen. Your fiancée wasted a lot of time on this. It will never work.”
“It would work if we built it.”
“It’s too much money and we already decided on my plans—our plans. God, Kiran, I don’t know how to read you.”
Kiran stood up from the desk and faced her. “No, actually you don’t,” he answered, irritated, referring to her poorly executed seduction at her hotel. He stepped past Lucy toward the window and gazed outside. “I think some of her ideas are worth considering. Impoverished and orphaned children deserve the dignity of beautiful and fun things enjoyed by the wealthy, don’t you think?” It was something Annika had said to him one time, and he almost laughed out loud realizing he was quoting her.
Lucy joined him at the window and touched his arm in an intimate gesture. “I won’t fund any orphanage except one that takes practicality into consideration. We’re not building another Taj Mahal.”
The Taj Mahal. Kiran’s mind immediately went to the fantastical building he had visited as a child, and how the way he saw Annika was forever connected to the awe he felt taking in its beauty—beauty that was lavish, extravagant, wondrous, and yes, wholly impractical.
Just like the woman he loves.
He pulled his arm away from her. “Lucy, in that case, please take your money elsewhere. I do not care for the strings you seem to have attached to it—I’m in love with…an amazing woman.”
“Kiran, didn’t your father tell you?” Lucy almost seemed authentic in her concern, but she couldn’t hide a hint of desperation in her voice. “Annika hasn’t been exactly faithful to you.”
Now it all made sense—Lucy was closer to his father than he thought. They were colluding together to take down Annika and then lure him into her arms.
And he let it happen.
Kiran rolled up Annika’s plans and called in Sai. “Sai, keep these safe and get my father on the phone. Tell him that I need access to his private files—the ones he keeps locked up. I’ll be there shortly.” He turned to Lucy. “I’d like to say it was a pleasure, Miss Vanderbilt. Good luck to you.”
Lucy stood there in shock, looking like a girl who had just had her pony taken away. And that never happened to her.
Then he left.