Where the Lotus Flowers Grow Read online

  “You’re far too busy, Prabhat.” I hated playing these games. I would rather tell him I didn’t trust him, but that wouldn’t be good for his productivity or mine.

  “I’ll find someone to translate.” He looked pleased, following my gaze out to the courtyard. “It’s a nice day. Would you care to sit outside while doing the interviews?”

  “Maybe.” He thought I was staring at the elliptical pool, not Mary Costa.

  “What about her?” I asked.

  “Her who, sir?”

  “I think her name is…Mary.” As if her name didn’t roll around in my head at all odd hours.

  “The maid?” he asked, as if the idea disturbed him. Not because he could detect my salacious thoughts, but perhaps the suggestion itself. “Is there another Mary?”

  “Ah…no, sir. It’s only she isn’t capable.”

  “She speaks excellent English.”

  Prabhat looked more nervous than I’d seen him since I arrived last night. “I’m afraid you are mistaken, Mr. Montgomery. Mary only speaks Hindi. Maybe she knows a few broken words of English, but nothing that would suit the skill set of a translator. Did she bother you, sir?”

  Now it was my turn to be surprised.

  Prabhat called for the woman in charge of housekeeping, giving her orders in Hindi. A few moments later, my beautiful Lotus Girl stood before us, visibly shaking under Prabhat’s glare. I cursed myself because I knew better. This was such a small thing. In the States, in England, in France, in any other fucking place we had a hotel, this would not be an issue, but here…here my stupid fascination would cause her distress.

  “Do you speak English?” Prabhat asked, ironically in Hindi. It was one of the few phrases I’d memorized in preparation for this trip. She stared between us, a doe caught in a trap. One I’d mistakenly set. Why didn’t anyone else know she spoke English? Why had she only revealed that part of herself to me?

  Mary parted her lovely mouth, but nothing came out. She shook her head furiously. She looked lost, a girl in need of rescuing. And although I wanted answers to all the questions rattling in my head, I wanted to rescue her even more.

  “Sorry, Prabhat. My mistake. This isn’t the girl I meant. I mixed up her name with someone else’s.”

  “Are you sure, sir?”

  “Positive. I’ve met so many people since arriving. It’s difficult to recall names.”

  He looked smug for a moment. “I can understand such mistakes. They are very common to foreigners who come here.” The accusation was clear. He thought I was some kind of racist who thought all Indians looked the same. He dismissed her. I caught her look of gratitude before she turned away.

  I’m sorry. You’re welcome. You’re beautiful. What I might have said in a different circumstance. Instead, I cursed to myself and bid her good-bye, wondering when I’d gone completely mental.

  Chapter 4

  Mary

  I found myself drawn to Liam, even spying on him as he prepared for an early morning swim. The pool area was surrounded by vegetation, which normally annoyed me when I tried to move about, but today it served me well. I’d wager he was part-fish the way he swam, his arms flexing with each rotation, his muscles glinting as he rose to the surface, shaking his head. He’d rubbed sunscreen over his body first. I didn’t recognize the brand. He might as well have put baby lotion on for all the protection the pretty white bottle would give him despite the promises on its western-style label.

  I clutched the list in my hand that the woman in room 313 had given me. Getting a shopping list wasn’t unusual. I normally didn’t mind shopping for guests. It often resulted in a nice tip. But I didn’t want to run this errand. Not just because I’d have to miss the personal erotic theater of Liam Montgomery swimming, but also because I didn’t care for the contents of the list, especially one very unnecessary item. I also hated the way the woman had spoken to her daughter, belittling her, pinching her belly as she barked commands at me.

  The girl was a few years younger than me, maybe eighteen or nineteen, but it felt like decades stretched between us. I offered her a reassuring smile, and she replied in kind but her chin quivered. Her uncertainty veiled her natural beauty as her mother hurdled insults at her. “You’re too fat. You’re too dark. You’re too spoiled. You’re too…” Always too something. Women were always too. Men were always just. “You’re just fine. You’re just perfect. You’re just right.”

  I wondered if Liam had ever been a too or was he always a just? He carried himself with a confidence I admired. But it was his compassion I found most attractive. He smiled…not just at guests, but at everyone—the cook, the driver, the other maids. I might have been jealous which was ridiculous in itself, except it was a more composed, good-natured-but-stiffer version of the easy smile he had offered me. He said “please” and “thank you.” He left generous tips and had a kind grace about him. I exhaled, reminding myself he’d be gone in a few days. I wouldn’t have to think about him. I honestly did my best not to, except it was near impossible with all the whispered murmurs about his looks, the gossipy guesses about his personal life, the deep dreamy sighs of affection women had whenever he walked by.

  Pooja said he looked like an actor, not a businessman. Although he filled out a suit well, his hair was too long, cut in harsh chops befitting a musician, not someone in his position. His body was long and lean muscles, unusual on someone who sits at a desk for long hours. His lips were full, and when they smiled just right, the knee-weakening creases would appear on the chiseled planes of his face. But most of all, it was his age. He was young. They said people in the west aged slower, the sun less harsh, the water less polluted, the air cleaner, not to mention the wide assortment of vitamins and skin remedies. Still, I doubted he was older than mid twenties.

  A hand clasped around my arm, ripping me back to reality.

  “What are you doing?” Kishore barked. The large mirrored sunglasses he used when driving covered his eyes. It irritated me when he wore them for show. He was very proud of having been promoted from a grounds person to a driver, but it boarded on a hubris I found unappealing. Ironically, I’d been the one to teach him English. He’d discovered my secret when he spotted me in the city reading a weathered paperback novel. He begged for my help. We’d worked each night on his pronunciations until he’d felt confident enough to apply for the open position. Somewhere in those late-night sessions, the flow of words stopped as we gave into the needs of flesh. I’d been paying for my lack of judgment ever since.

  I stared at his fingers pressed into my skin. “What are you doing? You’re not supposed to back here.” My voice was a harsh whisper, followed by a harsher stare.

  “And you are supposed to be cleaning, not acting as a peeping tom.” He looked disgusted as he turned toward the pool. “What is wrong with you girls? Has everyone gone gaga for gora?” Gora…white man. I considered that for a moment because I’d never been attracted to a white person. In fact, I’d say the opposite was true. But what else could explain the wild magnetic draw of Liam Montgomery? I had a stupid, stupid crush.

  “I don’t start for an hour. I was on my way to the market.”

  “I’ll drive you.”

  “You know I cannot ride with you unless Prabhat allows it.”

  “That lazy motherfucker has his lips so far up gora’s ass he wouldn’t even notice.”

  “Don’t be disgusting.”

  “We need to talk.”

  “We did talk.”

  “No, we didn’t. You walked away from me.”

  “I said what I had to. You chose not to listen. For the last time, I cannot marry you.”

  “Why the fuck not? Do you know how difficult it was to convince Mummy to allow me to propose? And you…you have the nerve to reject me? Someone like me won’t come along again. I am willing to marry a girl far beneath me because I love her, and that should mean something to you.”

  “Just how far beneath you do you think I am
?”

  He smirked. “In this world, you’re the floor and I’m the sky. You will not find anyone better. I may not be Christian, but I am capable of taking care of you.”

  “This has nothing to do with religion. I don’t need taking care of. I thought I made it clear to you that we were—”

  “Were what, Mary? Having sex? Fucking on your terms?” He fingered my cross. I smacked his hand away.

  He’d never treated me this way, not until that day last month when he made a spectacle by getting down on his knees. “What the hell has gotten into you?”

  “I don’t know the Bible very well, but aren’t there two Marys? One is wholesome and strong. The other is a whore. This is your time to choose the right path. The one I’m giving to you. Which Mary do you want to be?”

  He curled his fingers against my skin. I stood on my tiptoes, staring into his eyes, my nose almost touching his. “I am a whore? I wasn’t alone those nights, Kishore. I wasn’t pleasuring myself. Then again, you weren’t pleasing me very much either.”

  His eyes widened with fury. The sting wasn’t called for, but his verbal assault put us on the same level. “Don’t talk your filthy rubbish to me.”

  “I don’t want to talk to you at all. Take your hand off me.”

  His eyes softened, his fingers slackened. “Mary…”

  “If you don’t get your hand off me, I’ll yell bloody murder.”

  “Then we’ll both lose our jobs.”

  “But as you’ve pointed out, I’m already close to the ground without much of a fall. It’s you who has the long drop…one that’s likely to crack your neck.” I pulled back once more. “Now, let me go before I break your arm.”

  “Wah Wah, keep talking your nonsense.”

  My knee jabbed into his groin. “You’re right, I can’t break your arm. I’ll settle for another part of your anatomy you’re not using.”

  His swallowed a scream, his arm dropping. I marched away before he caused any unwanted attention.

  I turned back once. This time I wanted to scream. Liam was standing at the edge of the pool, drops of water rolling down his finely sculpted chest. I forced myself not to watch their descent. Our eyes locked for a brief moment until he turned toward the shrubbery. The planes of his jaw clenched. God, had he heard us? I pivoted and rushed toward the gate. I had walked away from Kishore, anger welling in my chest. But with Liam, I felt a need to run, to escape the intensity of his gaze before it rooted me in place as it had that first meeting.

  Once the gate was closed behind me, I breathed slowly until I could reason again. I would have told Prabhat about the harassment, but I knew how it would play out. Kishore was more valuable than I was. Ironically, the position I’d helped him obtain had changed the scenario. There were tens of me for every one of him. It was that skill that would save him and sack me. But now, Liam Montgomery most likely had heard everything. What would he do?

  Stupid, stupid girl.

  Why would he even care about me?

  If anything, he’d sack us both. The idea wasn’t frightening. I would survive.

  As I made my way down the choppy pavements of the city, I thought about severing the roots that had held me in place for the past four years. By the time I reached the shop, a sharp surge of rebellion coursed through me.

  When I returned, the mother from room 313 was waiting in the lobby. She tapped her foot and crossed her arms, clearly annoyed I’d taken so long. I held out the brown paper bag to her. She snatched it from my hands, nearly ripping the paper.

  “This isn’t the right cream,” she wailed in Hindi, then turned to the other woman with her and switched to English. “They hire these stupid illiterate girls at these places. Where is the class?”

  There was a benefit to secretly understanding a language. You got to hear what people really thought, not that she wasn’t saying the same thing with her sighs and tsks.

  Eyeing me with a sharpness that pierced my defenses, she returned to Hindi. “My daughter needs this cream. Her marriage ceremony is in two days.”

  She didn’t need it. She didn’t need anything more than what she was.

  “How could you get the wrong item? You only had to ask the clerk to help you if you can’t read.”

  “I’m sorry, Auntie,” I said. “I thought it was what you wanted. It’s cheaper.”

  “Arey, cheaper?”

  I shrunk back, cursing my choice of words. She’d counted out the money so carefully, telling me several times she knew the exact change due back. I will know if you steal from me, she’d said. I’d hoped the words would make her soften, but they did the exact opposite.

  “Do you think I cannot afford it?” Her eyes narrowed into tiny slits. “Stupid kutiya.” At least she was insulting me in our native tongue. “Do you not see we’re staying at a first-class hotel?” Her hands gestured around the opulent lobby as if I didn’t realize where we stood.

  No good deed….

  What had I been thinking when I purchased this product? It was too personal. The past had slithered its way through the open cracks to the present. This woman berating me could have been my own mummy.

  I couldn’t run from the dark. Not when it was a part of my flesh, my bone, my very soul. No matter how far or fast I ran, I was always there.

  “Is there a problem?” A deep British accent interjected. His tall frame stepped between us. I took a step back from him—his imposing body, his spicy cologne, his throaty voice…all delicious and all equally as dangerous.

  “Problem? Yes, a very big one,” she said, pointing to me. Her face scrunched up, make-up caking into all the lines she’d worked so hard to mask. She looked at me as if I were something she’d scraped from the underside of her fingernail.

  When Liam cleared his throat, the woman’s focus shifted to him. She grew quiet, eyeing his suit with a slow up-and-down movement. She broke into a wide smile. Liam Montgomery obviously had the power to sweeten the bitter.

  He lowered his voice so that I had to step closer to hear. “How may I help you? Obviously something is quite wrong since you are yelling at my employee. Our guests are very important to us.”

  “Yes, that’s why I chose this place for such an auspicious occasion,” she said.

  “We appreciate it. We do,” he said. “But you are mistaken if you believe that allows you to abuse our personnel. Although I don’t know what you said, your tone was quite clear on the matter. I assure you I—Wilshire Hotels—has no tolerance for this sort of behavior.”

  “You’re taking her side? She’s incompetent and stupid.”

  His jaw flexed. He took a deep breath and adjusted his tie. They were stall tactics designed to dam the turbulent waves threatening to overflow. “I want to resolve your problem, but if you say one more unproductive or negative word against any person who works here, I will personally escort you from the building.”

  The woman looked as if he’d thrown a bucket of water on her. I doubted anyone had ever spoken to her that way. Liam smiled at her, further throwing her off. That smile remained frozen on his face, as though they were having a friendly conversation, but the green in his eyes had brightened with a simmering rage.

  The women nervously knotted her colorful dupatta. Liam had no idea how much work went into planning a Hindu wedding or how ridiculous she’d look if she had to tell her guests to go to another hotel. Or judging from the smile on his face, maybe he did.

  “You cannot. I have paid for the room for two nights. We have booked the banquet hall.” She crossed her arms, an expression of righteousness, but her shoulders shook slightly. I almost felt sorry for her.

  “I will be happy to refund your money and find alternative lodgings for your party.”

  “That…that won’t be necessary.”

  “Good. Now then, what is the problem?”

  She pointed toward me. “I gave her a list with a specific item. She returned with the wrong type.”

  �
�That can easily be fixed. I’ll send someone else to get exactly what you need. Why don’t you return to your room? I’ll have some vouchers for our restaurant brought to you as well.”

  She nodded her head, clearly too stunned to speak.

  “What item did you want, madam?”

  “The girl...the girl has it.”

  “Her name is Mary. We’ll get it to you.”

  Liam stuffed his hands in his pockets, watching the woman and her friend walk away. His jaw unclenched as soon as they were out of sight. He turned to me, lifting an eyebrow. I held up the list, pointed to the door, and then back to myself in some kind of ridiculous pantomime I hoped he’d understand. I’ll get it. I’ll make this right. When he didn’t respond, for reasons I couldn’t understand myself, I let out a barrage of Hindi stating the same. It was the automatic response I had with foreign guests.

  Still, he was silent. He shifted, his face focused straight ahead as if there were something interesting in the long corridor ahead of us. I decided not to wait for his dismissal. I walked away, but his footsteps clicked behind me, his shadow reflecting on the white marble floors casting over me. I headed the back way through the employee entrance. The steady click of his shoes gave way to hard thuds as the floor switched from the marble to the soft rug, each sound pumping more blood to my heart.

  He cleared his throat. I paused. Pivoting toward him, I tried to ignore the tension in every one of my muscles. He opened a door to a vacant banquet room and jerked his head, indicating I should enter. Taking a much-needed steadying breath, I walked inside. “Sir?” I asked, embarrassed by how timid and weak my voice sounded.

  He closed the door behind him and leaned against it. The air suddenly felt thicker and warmer against my skin. I closed my eyes, preparing myself for the inevitable.