Page 16 of Driven By Desire

B y Monday morning, Max was ready to scream.

She’d woken on Sunday bubbling with anticipation for what the day would hold.

She’d spent all day sneaking glances at her phone or rushing to answer the front door, only to find herself disappointed over and over again. No call, no visit, no message. Nothing.

He’d retreated from them again. Or rather the promise of them. What was wrong with the man? Either he wanted her or he didn’t. He couldn’t have it both ways. He couldn’t make her want like this, yearn like this and then pull back. Every time. Damn him.

Steaming, Max dropped her empty mug in the sink with a loud clang. Wincing at the noise, her father looked up and over at the stiff, muttering figure at the sink.

“Problem?” He had a fairly decent idea what the problem was but some things needed to be voiced before they could be dealt with.

“No.”

Shrugging at the surly response, he buried his face behind the newspaper and waited. It didn’t take long.

“Dad?”

“Hmm?”

“Hypothetically speaking, what does it mean when a guy acts like he is really into you one moment and then ignores you the next?”

“Hypothetically, I would say he either doesn’t know what he wants or he’s stringing you along.”

Face falling, Max scrubbed her mug with renewed vigor.

“If we aren’t speaking hypothetically though, I don’t think Krish is either of those things.”

The mug dropped back into the sink with an earsplitting crash. Spinning around, Max gaped at him. “How? What?”

He took another sip of coffee and waited for her to finish sputtering. When she sank into the seat opposite him, he eyed her stupefied face over the top of his glasses.

“You didn’t think I was an idiot, did you?”

Shaking her head dumbly, Max reached over and stole his mug of coffee. “No but I didn’t realize you even knew-“ Breaking off, she fortified herself with an extra-large gulp of coffee.

“I don’t get him.” Frustration and pent-up anger had her choking on the words. “One minute, I think we have something special and the other he’s telling me we can’t have a relationship.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“Why, what?” She groused around another sip of coffee. God, she really hated coffee but if she wanted tea, she’d have to make it. Again. Giving the hob a look of deepest loathing, she drained her father’s mug and pushed it to the side.

“Why the two of you can’t have a relationship?” Her father’s gentle question brought her back to the conversation.

“No.”

“Really?” Raising an eyebrow at that, Brian rose to slide slices of bread into the toaster for breakfast. “He didn’t strike me as the particularly reticent type, especially when it came to voicing his opinion.”

Flushing slightly, Max walked over to help. Grabbing a frying pan from a cupboard, she lit the stove and plopped it down on top. “I didn’t let him.”

A small smile lit his lips at the low mumble. Moving Max aside, he poured a little oil in before saying, “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite get that.”

“I didn’t let him.” The words were accompanied with a slam of the fridge door that had Brian turning to eye his daughter sternly. Shamefaced, Max muttered, “Sorry.” Handing the eggs she’d pulled out to him more carefully, she moved around her father to start setting the breakfast table.

“So he wanted to explain his concerns and issues to you and you wouldn’t let him.

” Cracking the eggs in to the pan, he started to scramble them with an expertise that Max envied but could never hope to emulate.

“And now you’re grumbling that you don’t understand him.

Am I the only one seeing the flaw in the logic here? ”

Silence had him turning around to find his daughter staring at the plates in her hand like she’d never seen them before. Giving the eggs one last swirl in the pan, he transferred them to a bowl before retrieving the plates from Max’s still motionless figure.

“Max? Breakfast.” Settling himself in a chair, he gestured her over. He waited until she was seated before asking, “Do you want a future with this man?”

Keeping her eyes on the plate of eggs in front of her, Max answered cautiously, “I’d like to explore the possibility of one, yes.”

“I never thought I’d raised you to be a shy, retiring, Victorian miss. This meekness is terribly out of character.”

Choking on her mouthful of eggs, Max gasped, “I’m out of character? Shouldn’t you be pontificating at me like a good, responsible father?”

Chuckling, Brian sampled his eggs. Added salt.

Gazing fondly at his taste bud lacking daughter who had already cleaned her plate and was reaching for seconds, he said, “Sweetheart, if you wanted me to fish someone out of the arranged marriage pool, you’re going to be sorely disappointed.

I wouldn’t have the slightest clue how to even go about something like that.

You and I both know you’re going to have to find yourself someone. ”

Grinning, Max bit into her toast. They ate their way through breakfast in companionable silence.

Since her father had cooked, she was on clean-up duty.

Rolling up her sleeves, she piled the dishes in the sink and got to work.

Her father settled down at the breakfast table with the crossword.

A wave of affection swept over her as she watched him frown at the paper in ferocious concentration.

Here was her one constant. Her anchor in the chaos and confusion that she often floundered in.

“What’s a five letter word for a fast, lean sailboat?’ The question jolted her out of her musings.

“Sloop?”

Grunting in acknowledgement, he scribbled it in. She was almost done with the dishes when he finished his crossword and stood to get ready for the day. Turning with one hand on the door, he said, “Max?”

“Yeah, dad?”

“I like him.”

Wiping the last spoon with all the careful precision required in neurosurgery, Max asked, “Why?”

“He’s steady. In life, you can do a lot worse than steady.” Whistling softly to himself, he let the door swing shut behind him.

Steady. Yes, he was. When he wasn’t rocking her world with those searing, passionate kisses. Steady, decent, reliable and with so much love inside him for the people who mattered to him. She wanted to be one of them. Desperately.

---***---

Life Industries took up four floors of a very impressive building in the city’s business district.

Glass, steel and chrome came together to exude formidable success and had Max squaring her shoulders defensively.

She took the elevator to the fifth floor and stepped out into a world of plush carpeting, low voices and for some reason freezing cold air conditioning.

Taking a deep breath, she walked over to the receptionist sitting primly behind the front desk.

“I’m here to see Mr. Krish Mehra.”

The receptionist barely looked up from the screen in front of her before asking, “Do you have an appointment?”

“No, but if you tell him Maxine Sheridan is here, he’ll see me.” She hoped.

Eyes widening as she took in the large bunch of flowers Max was holding, she said, “If you could just take a seat, Ma’am, I’ll check and get back to you.”

Nodding, Max settled herself into the comfortable sofas in the corner of the lobby and waited. A discreet telephone conversation later, the receptionist walked over.

“Ma’am, if you could go up to the ninth floor, Mrs. Lata Sharma, his secretary, will be waiting for you.”

“Okay.” Gathering up her handbag and the flowers she’d brought with her, Max made her way back to the elevators. Punching the button for the ninth floor, she exhaled nervously and waited for the doors to open.

Walking out again, she walked over to the foyer to find a grey haired, distinguished looking lady waiting for her. In a crisp white cotton saree, with her hair pulled back in a severe bun, she reminded Max of her fourth grade English teacher.

“Mrs. Sharma?” A crisp nod had her continuing, “I’m here to see Mr. Mehra.”

“Mr. Mehra is in a meeting and can’t be disturbed at the moment. You can leave a message with me.”

“No, I can’t.” The firm refusal had the older woman reassessing her opponent.

Mentally instructing her shaking knees to behave themselves, Max added, “I can wait till his meeting is over. You can tell Mr. Mehra that Maxine Sheridan is here to discuss the vintage MG car she is restoring for him.”

“And should I also tell him you come bearing flowers?”

Flushing under that steady gaze, Max glanced down at the bunch of assorted flowers she was clutching. Maybe they hadn’t been such a good idea after all. “I’ll be waiting here in the foyer until he’s free to see me.”

The resolute answer brought a small smile to his secretary’s face. “About time someone didn’t give up on him.”

A little startled by the fact that the previously frigid welcome was warming up by several degrees, Max eyed the dragon lady warily.

“He’s not expecting you or he would have told me,” the woman mused aloud, “So maybe the best place for you to wait is in his office.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Max wanted to surprise Krish, not give him a heart attack. “I’ll just wait here till he’s done.”

“Follow me.” The brisk order was followed by the sight of the lady’s disappearing back.

Hurrying to keep up, Max tried to keep her interest in her surroundings as discreet as possible.

Rows of cubicles lined the floor with conference rooms flanking them on either side.

The muted clacking of keyboards, murmur of phone conversations and low hum of the air conditioning was a bit of a culture shock to someone who spent most of her working hours staring at the underside of a car.

Acutely conscious of the short, brown skirt and cream top she was wearing, she tugged at her wind tousled ponytail to try and make it more presentable.

She found herself ushered into a large, roomy cabin, the size of a small studio apartment.

An impressive rosewood table with its back to a wall of glass faced the room.

To her right, an L-shaped leather sofa set lined the wall with a glass coffee table in front of it.

“You can wait here. Anything you want to drink? Some tea, coffee? Something cold?”

The barrage of questions had Max blinking dazedly. “Why are you suddenly being nice to me?”

Eyes softening, Mrs. Sharma smiled. “Like I said, dear. It’s nice to meet someone who won’t give up easily on him.”

Smiling back nervously, Max wandered up to the frighteningly clean desk.

Even the files stacked on one side of his desk had been arranged till all their ends met with alarming precision.

Nothing on that impressively professional and technical looking desk looked familiar or like the Krish she knew.

Until she saw the photograph standing on the right hand side of the desk, within easy reach of his hand.

Chirag, Adi and Pooja sprawled in a tangled heap on what looked like their front lawn.

Beaming smiles and comfortable embraces had her smiling in return even as she reached out to trace a finger gently down its edge.

Looking back at the lady still waiting patiently near the door, she answered, “I don’t need anything, thank you. If you could just tell Krish that I’m here?”

“Half the fun is in the discovery, don’t you think?”

Max could still hear her chuckling at her parting sally even after the door swung shut behind her.

Finding herself alone with the privacy blinds down on the windows, Max heaved a quiet sigh of relief before plonking herself down on the sofa. Leaving the flowers to rest on the table in front of her, she settled in to wait for Krish’s meeting to finish.

When an hour went by with no sign of him, she loosened her brown ankle length boots and curled her feet up under her.

Pulling one of the financial magazines laid out in front of her, she thumbed through it only to find her eyes crossing.

Tossing it back, she pulled out her phone and played a couple of rounds of Candy Crush.

Another hour went by with nothing but the ticking of the clock for company. Closing her eyes, she ran over her checklist of pending jobs on the MG. Stretching a little to ease the cramp in her left leg, Max bent one arm under her head to cushion it and tried to get more comfortable.

And that was how Krish found her.