Bollywood and the Beast (Bollywood Confidential) Read online

  She glanced at him, her unpainted mouth curving upward with a faint disdain. “I grew up outside Chicago, Ashraf. I’ve seen farms and suburbs and walked through neighborhoods that time forgot. When I was in college, I took the El almost every day, not a fancy hired car, and saw plenty of real people—poor or otherwise. Don’t pretend I’m a snob just because I wasn’t born here.”

  The lecture made him laugh, like so few things did lately. She was surprising, Rocky Varma. Not the silly, bubbly Amrikan the gossip rags painted her to be. She’d proven nothing but professional these past few days, and very refreshingly outspoken. That, in this business, was sometimes the true curse. Silence and secrets were currency in Bollywood. To speak up, to say what no one else would dare put into words, was a privilege of only the most elite, of Khans far more famous than him. Ashu certainly had not earned the privilege. His mouth was closed tightly, lest his star lose its precarious place in the constellation.

  And now he was traveling to a land of endless night.

  Chapter Six

  The Khans’ haveli was not, in fact, anything like George Clooney’s villa in Lake Como. It was more like something out of an old noir thriller…the stones crumbling from the rooftop parapet, the wrought-iron latticework on the windows caked with rust, every hallway dark and the rugs threadbare with age. The driver of their hired car left so fast, it was like he’d pulled in to the parking lot of the Bates Motel instead of a long, curving driveway and an arching portico—probably the only similarity to an Italian mansion.

  Though Ashraf had promised her dad a full staff, the only person waiting for them inside was a housekeeper, Usha, who was in her mid-fifties and full of joy at seeing her “Chote Saab”. Beyond that, Rocky couldn’t translate. And it took approximately ten minutes after Ashraf and Usha deposited her in a room and vanished for her to get hopelessly lost. After two wrong turns from her bedroom, she somehow found the stairs and managed to trace her steps back to the house’s once-grand foyer and the dark, forbidding parlors that winged it. Had no one in this place heard of lights? Or feather dusters? It was like a haunted house, Hindi movie-style. Any minute now, she was going to be ax-murdered by a psychopath.

  As if a celestial director had a window into her thoughts, she was drawn into the west parlor, a sprawling living room that had more shadows than light despite its huge windows and a dormant fireplace. Most of the furniture was covered with sheets. And one piece was occupied.

  All she saw were his legs at first: dark track pants, the reflective white stripes up the sides ruining the camouflage of a man encased by a high-backed wingchair. Gradually, as she walked farther into the room and her eyes adjusted, the rest of his outline took shape. Broad shoulders, shoulder-length hair, a hand curled around the edge of the chair’s arm. And a voice as dark and rich as chocolate. Deep and glorious, like Amitabh Bachchan’s. “Who are you?” he asked, even as she mentally answered the same question about him.

  Taj Khan. The mysterious brother. The infamous brother. Her curiosity would be sated far sooner than she’d expected. All she knew of him was his movies and what little Ashraf had told her on the flight from Mumbai. “Stay out of his way” and “Don’t make him angry” and “His favorite food is street food. But Usha will make gol-gappa at home because he does not go out into the old city.”

  He didn’t go out at all. Forget visiting the stalls and shops in Chandni Chowk or anything else.

  “I’m Rocky Varma,” she said, hurrying to fill the sudden yawn of silence between them with chatter. “I’m shooting a movie with Ashraf. I know he must have told you. Have you seen him around anywhere? I can’t seem to find him. This house is huge.”

  There was a rustle of movement in the chair, but she still couldn’t get a good look at his face. It was obscured by his hair, by the dark, maybe by the entire chilly ambience of the haveli. “Rocky? What sort of name is that?” His icy tone left no room for doubt that he’d already made up his mind what kind of name it was. “Sylvester Stallone picture ki fan ho kya? Go back to Hollywood, little girl.”

  Or what? He’d ax-murder her? Get a grip, Rocky. “My name is Rakhee,” she said, willing her voice not to shake, to stay cheerful in the face of his creepitude. “But there was a Rakhee in the industry before me. More famous. A total fan favorite. So my mom and dad thought it’d be like trying to do movies with the name ‘Natalie Wood’ or ‘Audrey Hepburn’. And they’ve got a point: I shouldn’t remind people of that Rakhee, right?”

  “Haan. If you are reminding…why not go for Madhubala? Widen the gulf.” It wasn’t a nice suggestion. And though she couldn’t see his eyes, she could feel his gaze. Flickering from her head to her toes, it dismissed her as so much less than the legendary heroine. He said something else, too rapid for her to catch it, because his Delhi Hindi was heavily accented, oddly paced and different from Mumbai Hindi—not that she could really understand either one. Maybe that blankness showed, because he translated into English, and it managed to sound three times as condescending. “Madhubala. The great. Where is she, and where are you?” Insult coated his words like a layer of grime, and he followed them up with hand motions to indicate the gap in their statuses. In case she was really stupid.

  Maybe another girl would’ve cried a little at that. He probably liked making people cry. Rocky wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of getting to her. She’d dealt with plenty of assholes on movie sets trying to play head games. One of her earliest lessons in the industry had been how to push back when someone shoved her. “You know what, buddy? Screw you. I didn’t come all the way out here to put up with your crap or for a refresher course in Bollywood history. Now where’s Ashraf?”

  He ignored the question. “You need lessons,” he whispered in that insanely hypnotic voice. He probably used it to lure his victims to their doom. “So many lessons. But who will teach you, sweet Rocky? Kaun hain woh lucky admi?”

  Her completely unladylike snort was automatic, and combative. “Not you, that’s for sure,” she spat, shaking her head. Ashraf’s warnings had not quite encompassed just what a jerk his older brother was. “I mean, a real man doesn’t have to make a woman feel small just so he can feel bigger. I’ve met the lucky guys, the legitimate heroes. Michael Gill, Harsh Mathur, Avinash Kumar…where are they, and where are you?”

  He only stared at her, wearing the room’s shadows like a crown…letting the minutes tick by until she was shifting from foot to foot and he could laugh at her show of discomfort. “You think to hurt me with the truth? I don’t feel pain, Miss Rakhee.” He leaned forward until the faint streaks of sun finally illuminated his features. “I’m made of stone. Broken stone.”

  The tears she’d resolved to stifle sprang to her eyes unbidden. Not because of the vicious network of scars and the sunken lid where his left eye should have been, but because of what was untouched: the perfect slope of his right cheek and the thick-lashed, mutinously angry brown eye were still absolutely gorgeous. Half of Taj Ali Khan’s face was more handsome than the whole of many of the stars in Mumbai.

  And the other half reflected his soul.

  Rocky backed up. Her feet hit the threshold and she nearly tumbled over the short divide. The raw sound of his laughter dared her to run…and assumed she would.

  Everyone, since the moment she’d set foot in India, had expected her to turn tail and run. To give up and crawl back to the U.S. regretting the day she’d ever wanted to be a Bollywood star.

  Fuck that noise.

  He could play psycho lord of the manor all he wanted. He could cue up the music and do his Phantom of the Opera reveal a million times. She wasn’t going to run.

  She took a deep, steadying breath and clenched her fists. Like she could hold on to her composure that way. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily, Taj,” she assured him. “The thing about being nicknamed ‘Rocky’? It means I’m a fighter. And I’m here to work. So, for the next eight weeks, you’re stuck with me. Not the first Rakhee, not Madhubala. Not Sridevi or
Rekha or Trishna. Just me. Deal with it.”

  She turned and walked away with measured steps, so there was no possible way he could think she was beaten.

  “Stay out of his way.”

  “Don’t make him angry.”

  Oh, yeah. Her stay in Delhi was off to a great start.

  Taj’s knees creaked like door hinges as he levered himself up from the chair. His left thigh ached ahead of the coming storm. Of course, every day was the coming storm now. He was an old man at thirty-five, retired when heroes fifteen years his senior still romped amid the flowers and shot out tires from astride a motorcycle. Perhaps he could still play the villain, but it would be only one archetype: ugly, weak, unable to walk on his own power.

  Kamal unfolded his chair—hidden so long as the girl had been here—setting the lightweight contraption before him so he could fall into it in a graceless tangle and then slowly arrange himself.

  “Do you need anything else, sir?” his man asked in painfully polite Urdu.

  Yes, goddammit. I need my legs. My face. My pride. “My brother,” he said aloud in the same tongue. “Call Ashraf to me.”

  “Ji haan, sir.” Kamal executed a formal bow, like an ancient Mughal courtier, and walked swiftly away to comply with his wishes.

  He would think it mockery, but Kamal was utterly sincere. Combination manservant and nursemaid, he was perhaps the only sincere creature in this crumbling house of horrors.

  Taj shook his head, placing his hands atop the wheels of his chair and rolling out of the shadows he’d cloaked himself in for the girl’s benefit. Hero or not, he still knew how to command a scene. He’d scared her back to Bombay, no doubt. Perhaps back to America as well.

  Rocky. As if she could fight someone like him? Nahin. A woman so small, so delicate, could not possibly beat his demons. Would she blink them away with the sweep of her lashes? Mock them down to nothing with her soft, pink lips?

  What had Ashraf been thinking, calling her here? Did he hope his Amrikan candy fluff would erase the bitter taste of Nina Manjrekar’s ambition? Nahin. It would take more than a naïve little girl to fix those mistakes. But his brother was a slow learner. Grasping for success with his cock instead of his talent.

  “Like a junior artiste.” He snorted as he wheeled from the front room to the library that had long ago been expanded to house his suite. His chair made only the barest clicks over the smooth marble tiles of the hall, and then he was blissfully, thankfully, locked away from the rest of the house. Surrounded by books, by stacks of classic film reels in their hulking metal canisters, Taj felt almost young. Art stood the test of time when man couldn’t even rise. When he couldn’t.

  Art was all he had left.

  Chapter Seven

  “You will be fine. Nani will love you.”

  “Because I was so popular with your brother?”

  Rocky was suddenly on a meet-the-family tour, despite being at the Khans’ barely a day. Once she had tracked him down, Ashraf was apologetic, but only just, pointing out that it was her parents’ demand for privacy and honor that had landed her here. “And you can’t get any more honorable than paying respects to Nani. Once you have her blessing, you have the run of the house.”

  She didn’t want the run of the house, but that was beside the point. Rocky made a mad dash to her appointed room to change into a modest, blue salwar kameez and tie back her hair, hoping Grandma Khan was less moody than her grandsons.

  Now, they headed up the old stone-and-marble staircase to the haveli’s top floor—a climb Taj couldn’t possibly make. Did he want to? Did he visit with his nani at all, or did he growl at her like a wild creature, too?

  “What happened to him?”

  Ashraf gave her a scathing look that was almost a twin to his brother’s scowl. Good to know that she and her dad weren’t the only ones who matched.

  “Okay, I know what happened to him,” she amended, giving silent thanks to Internet encyclopedias and gossip blogs. “I mean, why is he the way he is? He’s a jerk to you, he’s a jerk to me…and I just met him. Why does he have to be that way?”

  “Khuda ki maarzi?” Ashraf suggested with a shrug, before remembering her Hindi was crap. “What should he do, Rocky? Throw a party proclaiming ‘Hurrah, I am an invalid with no career!’? You don’t know what it’s like for him. For us. Each day a torture. Each month a failure. You have not lived with it for ten years. Taj died that day,” he said, with a ferocity that surprised her…and made her flinch.

  If Ashraf thought his brother was basically dead, then what was he doing? Living the life Taj should have had? She wasn’t going to ask. Not now. Not yet. She had way too much to learn first.

  You need lessons. So many lessons.

  Repeated in her head, the words didn’t sound sinister, but they still sent a shiver down her spine. Taj, in her memory, sounded like he wanted to teach her a hundred different things. All of them filthy.

  It was a completely inappropriate thought to have in one’s head when about to meet your costar’s eighty-two-year-old grandmother, but Rocky couldn’t shake it. There was no question: Taj was hot, probably the hottest man she’d ever met—and between her short time doing theater at Northwestern and her months in Mumbai, she’d met a lot of hot guys—but he was also the scariest. There was something mean and cold and hard about him, and it was no act for a camera. He’d wanted to intimidate her and had fun doing it. What else could he have fun doing?

  “Rocky?” Ashraf’s hand at her elbow was like a slap of cold water. “Come on. Don’t drag your feet.”

  For a supposed Bollywood playboy with a slutty reputation, Ashraf sounded a whole hell of a lot like he was someone’s nani. And it was him dragging his feet that had led to her oh-so-auspicious first encounter with Taj. She made a face at him but dutifully picked up her step, following him through a wide entryway at the very top of the staircase. It opened up into a small ballroom of sorts, with a door on each side.

  “Nani and Nana-ji moved to the top floor when my parents were married. After…” Ashraf swallowed, clearly not wanting to finish the sentence but forcing himself to do it anyway. “After Abba and Ammi died, they stayed. After Nana died, she stayed. We’re a stubborn lot, na?”

  “Stubborn, huh? That’s what’s wrong with your brother?” She hoped teasing would get a smile out of him…and she was quickly rewarded.

  His dark eyes lit up, and a dimple flashed in his cheek. “Among other things.”

  Nani’s room was spacious, part parlor and part bedroom. It looked almost too big for the tiny, frail woman who sat in the center of a backless divan, knitting some sort of shawl. Her concentration broke instantly, as if she sensed her grandson had walked in, and she greeted them with a joyous flurry of rapid Hindi. Her smile was so bright, so welcoming, that Rocky almost stopped in the doorway in shock.

  “Ashu! Beta! Aao, aao!”

  Grandma Khan was definitely not as moody as the boys. She set aside her knitting needles and pulled Ashraf into a hug before peering over his shoulder at Rocky. The perusal was the universal sizing up of a potential daughter-in-law. Rocky knew it well, because even older Indian ladies back home did that. The minute you were old enough to get married off, you were eligible for the once-over.

  Whatever she said to Ashraf probably went with the look, because he shook his head and his tone was chiding. “I’m telling her that, no, you’re not my fiancée,” he confirmed as he sank down beside his grandmother and gestured for Rocky to take the adjacent chair. “Nani wants to see great-grandchildren before she passes on.”

  “And I want to see Elvis. Somehow, I think she’ll have better luck, even if it’s not with me.” Rocky giggled. “Tell her I say it’s nice to meet her.” She pressed together her palms in a namaste and inclined her head to underscore the message.

  Nani’s bright smile expanded to include her. To encompass and embrace her. She’d never met her father’s parents—they’d died before he even left India—and her maternal grandparents were sp
orty, tanned retirees who had a condo in Boca Raton and insisted she call them by their first names. She’d argued them into a compromise: Mimi and Pops. Nani was a…nani. A bona fide Indian grandma who meddled in family business and crocheted things. Rocky smiled back until it hurt.

  She didn’t need a blessing. Just the acceptance was enough.

  He’d put it off for hours, hiding himself away in parts of the house that his brother couldn’t reach. But when night fell, Ashraf could delay it no longer. He let himself into the library. Taj’s uncontested domain teemed with shadows, with stacked film canisters and DVD cases. Taj lived in a fortress of wall-to-wall books, of words and pages that couldn’t wound as a person could.

  “At last, the prince returns from exile.” Taj’s voice was a low rumble, like the first thunder before a storm. And when he raised his head from his hardback novel, his bitter smile was as jagged as a cut of lightning.

  “Aren’t you the one in exile, Bhaiya?” He knew Taj’s face as well as he knew his own. Still, the first look after a long gap always hit him like a fist to the gut. It was a struggle to keep a cool smile, to pretend they were meeting under normal circumstances. “But yeh baat chohro; leave it.” He dismissed the obligatory snide remarks. “I would have come down earlier, but I wanted to get Rocky settled. Nani and Rocky became fast friends. When I left them, they were talking about the gardens, mostly with theatrical hand gestures.”

  “The little Amrikan is good with her hands?” Taj’s words were vulgar enough, but he illustrated nonetheless. “I am not surprised your girlfriend is so talented. Are you training her up, or is she training you? Iss main kaun hain expert aur kaun hai student?”

  Ashu recoiled before he could stop himself, and bile leaped into his throat. He had to swallow it back, to breathe, to forget fingers wrapped too tight around him and a blood-red smile. Rocky. They were speaking of Rocky. Speaking very badly, at that. “She is not my girlfriend,” he forced himself to say, “and khabardar. Don’t speak of her like that. She is a good girl.”