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  I looked into familiar dark eyes. Eyes filled with confusion...and then fury, which was only underscored by the question that followed: “What the hell is going on? Why are you here?”

  Oh, shit. My bag fell from my suddenly nerveless fingers and I stumbled backward into Lock’s flat. “I can explain,” I said, feebly, as my cheeks flushed and my palms started to sweat.

  “I certainly hope so.” Jyoti Kopekar, aka Mom, looked back at me with arched eyebrows and no small amount of suspicion. I knew that expression. I wore it all the time, a genetic copy of the original. Mom. Mommy. Ma. You’re here.

  I didn’t know whether to spill and tell her everything or to run and hide from the inevitable inquisition.

  So, I took the path of least resistance and burst into noisy tears.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lachlan wandered the streets of Mumbai for hours, leaving the Worli high-rises for the squat, noisy, shopping districts and then catching a taxi to the crowds and food stalls at Chowpatty Beach. Eventually, he did what any self-respecting but cowardly piece of shite would do and found a bar in which to get well and truly drunk. Mid-afternoon on a weekday. A scandal almost anywhere but here, where no one cared who he was.

  Here, he wasn’t Lachlan Christie, celebrity chef. It didn’t matter that StarPlus had a Hindi-language cooking show based on his. Unless he was Shahrukh “King” Khan, no one was going to look at him twice. So, when he stepped into the trendy little bistro, he was just another gora with an expensive watch. An easy mark or a fast buck. A waiter was happy to seat him at a back table and bring over a bottle of their top shelf scotch whisky—blended and not single-malt, oh, the horror—and a shot glass.

  The first dose went down smooth and easy, like water. After all, he was parched from the sticky heat and thirsty for it. The second and third shots were where the punishment began. He saw Naya’s sweet face. Her eyes welling with tears. Her white-knuckled fists. The rapid rise and fall of her breasts under his thin cotton t-shirt. She’d never looked so vulnerable, not even while cuffed to his headboard and blindfolded. What he’d done to her today was worse than any flogging he’d ever delivered. Because he’d betrayed her trust, broken her faith.

  Lock swore a blue streak, pouring himself more of the gold label blend. He had a highlander’s liver; he wouldn’t feel any of the liquor just yet. Not unless he asked for another bottle. Drunkenness left him maudlin and guilty, but not obliterated. No matter how hard he tried to be rid of her, Naya still haunted him.

  So, how was he going to meet Ran and Attwood’s absurd terms? If he couldn’t even banish her from his mind, could he really expect to expel her from his life?

  No.

  The flurry of text messages he’d received from Jyoti throughout the day had disabused him of any notion that Naya was truly done with him. His stepmother had blasted him up one side and down the other, telling him to come home and “fix what you wrecked.” She’d raised him better, she said. It hadn’t been prudent to point out she’d got him nearly grown. As far as Jyoti Kopekar was concerned, Lachlan and Naya were both her responsibility. When she wasn’t furious with him, she asked after his health and his job and made sure he was eating right. He barely remembered his mum, so Jyoti’s care was welcome...but not today. He thumbed through her messages, deleting them, and then moved on to the unlisted number.

  The folder he’d been consciously avoiding for days was a malevolent beacon. The Eye of Sauron. Taunting him. The most recent text said only “Well?” The single word was as sharp as a cleaver blade. The message before it held nothing but a video file. He didn’t want to click on it, knew what it must contain. There was no point in prolonging the inevitable. If he didn’t watch it now, he would just have to confirm the content later.

  Lachlan’s gorge rose, and he washed it down with more scotch. Fifth shot? Sixth? Did it matter? It wasn’t nearly enough to dull the burn when the grainy home video started playing. There was no sound, and the silence somehow made it more obscene, like a ghastly pantomime. Starring a voluptuous girl with golden brown skin and a fair-haired man. Her hair was in a ponytail. She had on private-school knee socks. And they were doing things he would absolutely do with someone of age but would never record.

  After a few seconds, he stopped the clip and shoved his phone across the tabletop so he wouldn’t throw it. Fuck. Bloody fucking fuck. He hoped his father was suffering all of hell’s torments. As for Kyle Attwood, Lock had a very specific punishment in mind for him when all was said and done. Meat hooks, butcher’s twine and a complete lack of safe words figured very prominently. Then, I’ll kill him, he thought. I’ll bake him into a pie. Enough disgruntled rivals and critics had accused him of being Sweeney Todd that it wasn’t so big of a stretch.

  Neither was drunkenness. Eventually, Lachlan began marking time by the level of scotch in the bottle. Minutes ceased to have meaning. The only thing that mattered was striving for numbness. He wanted some respite from Naya, some distance. A futile goal. Impossible. But when the waiter brought him a second bottle, he almost believed he could attain it.

  Fuck and bollocks, all he wanted to do was protect her. Even if that meant keeping her as far from him as possible. And only a handful of hours ago, she’d been as close to him as a person could be. She’d loved him openly and unabashedly. Licking, sucking, rimming, until he came all over her. Then she’d rubbed his come into her skin. “I want to absorb you. I want to breathe you in and sweat you.” No woman he knew was as honest. No woman he knew could replace her.

  Lord knew he’d tried. At 21, at 22, at 28 and 30. He’d dated supermodels, actresses, accomplished submissives. He’d been taught to wield the whip by the most exquisite San Francisco domme. He had the kind of decadent experiences that could only come with wealth, privilege and fame. He’d fucked and he’d flogged, but he’d never forgotten. For him there was only Naya. Always Naya.

  A taste of her would have to last a lifetime.

  Kyle Attwood’s lifetime, at least.

  * * *

  If there was one lesson you learned growing up with a skilled chef, it was that there wasn’t much that food couldn’t fix. My mother’s spicy papri-chaat and spiked mango lassi almost did the trick for a busted heart and a bruised ego. She whipped up the snacks in Lachlan’s spotless, industrial-quality kitchen while I poured out the whole, sorry tale of “done me wrong” and “wtf.” Hours later, when we were down to the tamarind-laced crumbs of the chaat and had swapped alcoholic lassi for wine, I felt 88% better...and probably 94% drunk.

  My tirades had ceased to have a narrative thread a while ago. I was mostly working through my repertoire of English, German and Marathi cuss words along with some Riesling. “Asshole,” I muttered, putting my crystal goblet down on the coffee table before I could clumsily, tipsily, drop it. “I just don’t get it. He was so mean.”

  “He’s a man,” Mom said, gesturing with her brimming glass of Lock’s best pinot noir. “That automatically means he is not fully cooked.”

  “Then why am I the one who’s raw?” I flopped back on the sofa, frowning up at the ceiling. Our favorite food pun game wasn’t quite as fun in this context, but it was certainly accurate. I felt pink and pulverized.

  “Because you’re best served like a tartare?” she offered, irreverently. “Because you are sushi-grade?”

  When most people pictured a British-Indian mother, they went straight for the image of Parminder Nagra’s Punjabi one in Bend it Like Beckham. Jyoti “men aren’t fully cooked” Kopekar was as far from a matchmaking Sari Auntie as you could get. Sure, her kitchen was her domain—her kitchen, yours, and everybody else’s—but her skirts were short and so was her hair and her temper. She still looked like she could be on TV. I’d grown up thinking she was glamorous as well as hard-working. She was a staunch liberal, infinitely practical and, oddly enough, Team Me-and-Lachlan all the way.

  “Don’t scowl, beta. You’ll get wrinkles.”

  Okay, maybe she had a little bit of Sari Auntie in
her. “Why are you okay with this?” I wondered. “Us, I mean. Not what Lachlan did today.”

  Cool celebrity chef or no, I knew few parents who would approve of a relationship between stepsiblings. Especially a kinky relationship. Not that I’d explained any of that in explicit detail. But my mother had reacted to the broad strokes without surprise or judgment, reminding me that it was Ranulf who’d sent me away to boarding school all those years ago. Sure, she’d let him, but even I knew that was more about self-preservation than anything else. “When I was younger, you had no problem with me and Lachlan hanging out. You always let us go off together. Do whatever we wanted. Weren’t you worried it might get creepy?”

  Mom sipped at her wine thoughtfully for a moment before speaking. “I trained him. And I had access to knives. If I thought he was a bad boy, that he would hurt you in any way, I would have castrated him before he ever got a look at you.” We both shuddered at the bloodthirsty declaration. “But Lock is decent,” she added, with a soft smile. “He is a good son when he listens and makes smart choices. Why would I not want you both happy?”

  That was the question I wanted to ask him. Why didn’t he want us both happy? What was standing in the way?

  From my experiences in the BDSM community in and around Cologne, I knew that Doms expected and exerted a certain level of control over their submissives’ lives. I’d never been particularly good at giving up all of mine to someone else—I was by and large a bedroom-and-playroom-only sub. And this? Lachlan shutting me out and shoving me away in such a blatant manner? It didn’t track as BDSM at all. No game I’d ever played had these parameters. No pain I’d ever taken hurt so badly.

  So, it had to come down to Ranulf’s will and that smarmy lawyer. They’d forced his hand somehow. There was no other rational explanation for his behavior. At least not one I was prepared to hear.

  Mom stared at me for a long stretch of seconds, and I tried to figure out what was going on in her head. Her eyes, dark and thick-lashed like mine, gave nothing away. She'd perfected the Mona Lisa air of mystery long before I was born. If you looked up “unflappable” in the dictionary, you'd find a picture of Jyoti Kopekar. Me? I was flappable. In a constant state of flap, in fact. “What is it?” I asked her, glancing over my clothes. “Did I spill something?” All my wine, as far as I could tell, was either in my glass or in my stomach.

  “No.” She laughed softly, gaze softening as she shifted positions on the sofa and stretched out her long legs. “I was just thinking...do you regret the way I raised you?”

  “Absolutely not!” The answer was immediate and honest. How could I possibly be sorry for what Mom had given me? A world-class education, friends from so many cultures and faiths...Lachlan. She'd given me everything...and sometimes I wondered just how much it had cost her. My awesome, powerful, famous mother hadn't expected my biological father to help in my upbringing—and he hadn't offered, since he had a wife and kids back home in Mumbai. So she'd done it all alone—a career in the spotlight and a kid. “Do you regret how you raised me?” I wondered. “Did you want something else for yourself?”

  I was probably the only person on earth who could identify her flinch. Just the tiniest flicker of reaction. And then she scoffed, like even the smallest suggestion that I wasn't the best thing in her life was completely ridiculous. “Naya! How can you ask such a thing? I wanted you. My daughter. My best friend. You are all I need.”

  “Then why'd you marry Lock's father?” I countered. “Don't tell me you loved each other, because we both know that's a lie.”

  She hid behind her wine, though she'd never call it hiding. “That's a story for another time,” she dismissed. “Let's focus on you, beta.”

  A story for another time. She'd been putting me off for years with that line. And I let her put me off again. Because I was still wrapped up in my own drama. Because I'd always accepted Mom's word as enough. Because she was the only person in my life who'd never hurt me.

  I’d changed my ticket to a flight leaving in the morning. My mother was planning to stay on in Mumbai for a few weeks. She often used Lachlan’s flat when she was in town and hadn’t expected anyone to be here when she let herself in. After discovering me and my basket of problems, she’d arranged a suite at the Leela. “I can’t stay here now,” she’d said with a theatrical shudder. “God only knows where your naked arse has been.”

  “That counter,” I’d lied ever-so-sweetly-worth it just to watch her jump backward and fling cilantro every which way. I had to find laughter where I could. It was either that or cry again, and I’d had my fill of tears. I was done weeping and wringing my hands. The Taylor Swift breakup songs were off the rotation. I’d pack my things and go with Mom to the Leela tonight and then start fresh tomorrow. New York, take two.

  “Go home,” she said now, from her chair, as if she’d read my mind. Knowing her, it was entirely possible. “When Lachlan gets back to the city, show him who is boss.”

  Ha. That a task for the ages. I’d tried my hardest this morning, and to what end? “He’s dominant,” I reminded. “He’s the boss.”

  She clicked her tongue in that judge-y way that only a brown woman of a certain age could manage. “He is a man. You are a woman. In the oldest, most important of ways, you are still in charge.”

  God, I hoped so. Because if I couldn’t appeal to his brain or his heart, then my only hope was his cock. Firmly attached to his body, thank you very much.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Lachlan woke up face down in the bed that still smelled of her. Passion and sweat and sandalwood soap. Sandalwood products were sold in every corner shop, it was no wonder so many people here seemed to be steeped in it, but he could still identify the combination as uniquely Naya. He, himself, was decidedly more pungent. He reeked of scotch and smoke.

  He’d stumbled home in the twilight hours to find his flat empty—Naya and her mother having decamped to a hotel, the two of them resolute in his villainy. He would find no sympathy from Jyoti, he knew. As much as she adored him, her baby girl came first. In that, they were actually of like minds.

  He gingerly rolled over, devoid of headache or nausea but still carrying the consequences of the day before. Morning was both a cruelty and a blessing, because he’d dreamed of Naya despite the thorough soaking in Johnnie Walker. Her echo, her shadow, had stayed with him in the dark—was still with him now. He stared up at the ceiling and brooded for a while, because it seemed warranted. How did it come to this?

  Twenty-four hours ago, a beautiful woman—his beautiful woman—had been sucking his cock. Now all he had was a morning erection and his hand, Rosie Palmer and her five friends, with no one to blame but himself.

  Her hair spills around him, a dark fall of silk tickling his thighs and his groin. She grins up at him, his darling brat, before she lowers her head and closes her lips around the tip of his cock.The tip, then the shaft, then down to the base.

  She takes all of him. Nearly chokes on it. Keeps going. But it is not an act of submission. It’s war. And he loses. Against her wicked mouth and talented tongue and down her slender throat.

  She drinks him up without hesitation. Paints herself with his come. There is no part of him that she doesn’t treat as sacred, as valued, as desired.

  “How was that, Sir?” she wonders afterward, licking her slick bottom lip.

  He can’t speak. He has no words. So he hauls her up and across his lap, and shows her with the flat of his palm on her pert bum. He spanks her until she’s writhing and red, dripping with arousal and begging for release.

  Lachlan groaned, his cock rallying painfully at the memory. He batted at it ineffectually, too frustrated to even wank off. Naya was gone. She’d taken her things and cleared out while he wandered Bombay. He was alone. A man adored by millions, and he was alone. Stinking of ill-advised debauchery. With an obligatory “Fuck!” he scowled and forced himself upright. Then he cursed his own miserable hide and all his fucking antecedents until he got out of bed and went abou
t the business of washing up.

  So what if he stumbled in the shower? So what if the razor shook while he shaped his half-arsed beard? So what if he fumbled with the button on his tailored trousers? No one was there to see, to know.

  Lachlan packed a bag quickly, knowing his jet was fueled and ready and the pilot rested after a holiday at the Four Seasons on his dime. One call and everything would be prepped for takeoff. What was the point of being absurdly wealthy if you couldn’t do what you wanted when you wanted? He paid his staff well for excellent service. It was a damn sight more efficient than relying on family—his father had instilled that lesson well. No, he’d branded it into his skin.

  Ranulf Christie was moldering under the dirt now, but Lock’s anger was still fresh, still right there on the surface. What had he and Naya done to deserve the hand they’d been dealt? All they’d done was love. All they’d done was need. Innocent and pure and true. They’d never sullied it, never made it dirty, no matter what Ran had insinuated or Photoshopped.

  “Guess who’s on track for a 4.0 this semester?”

  “Hmm. One Nayantara Christie, perhaps?”

  “Got it in one! What’s my reward? Will you kiss me?”

  “Certainly not. I will, however, buy you that Falcon Crest box set you’ve been going on about.”

  “Ugh. Fine.”

  What was so wrong with letting them be? Where was the sin in letting them wed? What was so terrible about Naya screaming his name?

  Naya had never known her father, and from what he’d gleaned from Jyoti, it was no great loss. “I used him for his sperm,” his mentor had said once, as she taught him to make perfect scrambled eggs. “He was handsome fellow. Smart. Came from good stock. We had fun. We never would’ve lasted long term.” Practicality had driven her decision, and he sometimes wondered what could’ve been at all practical about marrying Ranulf. That she never shared, but there was no mistaking the shadows that still lived in her eyes so many years after the divorce.