LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER ONE

      ‘DUBEYJI, UTHO. Wake up!’ Riya hissed at the watchman snoring away behind the locked gates of her apartment building.

      It was a Friday, and she’d gone out for dinner with a bunch of colleagues in central Mumbai to celebrate a deal they’d just cracked. She’d not bothered to check if the gate was open when her friends dropped her off, and now she was standing all alone on a deserted and not very safe road in the middle of the night, dressed in form-fitting black and fake designer jewellery. She pulled her scarf around her a little more closely as a pair of young men roared past her on a bike. For a minute she contemplated calling her flatmate—only he had a cousin coming down from Singapore that evening, and was likely to be out partying as well.

      The snoring rose to a crescendo as Dubeyji settled himself into a more comfortable spot on his plastic chair. Riya rattled the gate a few times, then picked up a handful of little blue pebbles from one of the fancy flowerpots flanking the entrance. The third pebble did the trick, shaking Dubeyji out of what was probably a most interesting dream starring a bevy of luscious Bhojpuri beauties.

      ‘Yeh koi time hai, ghar aane ka—madam, is this any time to come home?’ he grumbled as he unlocked the gate.

      Dubeyji hadn’t got over his disapproval yet that the multinational firm Riya worked for provided accommodation for both male and female employees. He still liked Riya, though, partly because she looked a bit like his favourite movie star, and partly because she came from his part of the country.

      Riya was still giggling to herself when she reached the flat, remembering Dubeyji’s outraged expression when the pebble hit him. It took her a minute to open the door—Gaurav had dutifully left it on the latch. He had, however, neglected to leave a single light 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

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