Nights of Roshan Read online

  Funny, she’d been on edge from the moment she left the house she’d shared with Adil and now, with everything all over, she couldn’t switch it off. Her gaze fell on her enormous Christmas tree, the fairy lights timed to switch on the moment she returned home. She’d bought it to thumb her nose at Adil, who didn’t celebrate Christmas. Not even to give her a gift or accept one from her. They’d spend the day at home without any lights or decorations, just watching the TV and having something non festive to eat. She’d so hoped this year she’d be with her parents and the food they’d eat. God, for even a sip of her mother’s special soup…

  Do something, anything, just don’t damn well dwell. She brushed the pine needles from beneath her tree. Food seemed like a good idea, until she lost interest in the halloumi she’d grilled. She read a few academic articles, mindlessly flicked through her TV and then thought about a swim. “Ah! Sneaking outfit.”

  What was suitable attire for the Mystery of the Cat Hair in the Pool? Rollneck. Leggings. All black and over a swimming costume just to cover the practicality of catching her hair assailant in the pool. Roshan had exclusive use of the pool between the hours of ten p.m. and six a.m. Neiri tucked her mobile phone inside the left cup of her costume and tugged her jumper down over it. Damn, she could still feel the hair on her tongue.

  Quarter to ten on the dot, Neiri opened her flat door and waited for the security camera to swing right. She had thirty seconds before the camera turned back to scan the corridor. Keeping to the walls, she moved quickly and slipped into the stairwell. Hovering beneath the cameras ensured she stayed out of view all the way to the basement floor. She quickly shed the rollneck and the leggings, tucking them and her trainers behind one of the huge potted palm trees that decorated the pool. Skimming along the walls, she made her way to the sauna, which offered a perfect view of the pool.

  Neiri removed her phone and glanced at the time. Five to. Well, she could be stuck down in the sauna for hours. She turned the sound down and played a few games instead. “Fuck, someone send me a goddamn life!” she whispered angrily at the screen. The lights outside the sauna switched off and she gasped. Show time!

  Crouching by the circular window, Neiri saw Roshan stride past to the far end of the pool. With a black robe wrapped around his lithe frame and the blue glow from the water, he looked unworldly. “Where’s the cat?” she murmured. He halted and his gaze went straight towards the sauna. Clapping a hand over her mouth, she sank to the floor and tugged her legs out of the way. Her heart beat rapidly, pounding in her ears. She hadn’t thought about what would happen if he caught her spying on him. What would he do to her? That’s unnecessary, she told her nipples, tightened at the idea of being at Roshan’s mercy.

  A splash of water thankfully disturbed her thoughts so she could focus on the task at hand. Where was this cat? She raised herself up to the window and examined the scene. Roshan’s robe lay discarded at the side but she couldn’t see his toned limbs moving through the water. Instead, she could see a tail. An unnaturally large tail swishing the surface. Time to go.

  It was something of a running joke. Extravagant Arabs who could buy anything and kept tigers and lions as pets. People with too much money and not enough sense. Well, she could just add Roshan to that list. There was still a cat in the pool. A bigger cat than she’d actually anticipated but a cat all the same. She wasn’t made for this life. No siree. Tucking her phone back inside her costume, Neiri made a dash for it.

  “Neiriouri.”

  She turned her head. Foolishly. She turned on her heel and caught a dash of water under her sole. The floor abandoned her and she landed in the swimming pool, flat on her back. The air slammed from her lungs, and she panicked, struggling to stay afloat when there was little to no oxygen in her body. She gasped for breath, flailing her limbs in panic, and all her natural instincts to swim like a logical human being left her. In a whoosh, she felt the nip of teeth at the back of her neck and, in the blink of an eye, she was spluttering at the side of the pool. When she could finally focus, the gas-blue eyes of a white tiger met hers. It rested on paws tucked underneath its gigantic body, looking even tempered and… Was that amusement?

  “Well, Dr. Halabi,” the tiger spoke in a deep, measured voice, “if you wanted my attention, you could have simply knocked on my door.” It glanced around the pool before splashing the water with a black-padded paw. “This was a rather dramatic diversion.”

  “Roshan?” she coughed. Blinking didn’t make the enormous, sinewy-muscled creature disappear. Beside the lights of the pool, the tiger’s white fur looked luminous. She’d bumped her head. She must have done.

  “Yes, Dr. Halabi?”

  “You left your fur in the pool.”

  The tiger bent its head, ears twitching. “It’s supposed to be thoroughly cleaned after I enjoy my nightly swim. I’ll have to fire the company.”

  Neiri nodded. “Probably a good idea, since I choked on one… You’re a tiger?”

  It stood and arched its back, its tail curling into a C shape as it yawned widely. “So it would seem.” It padded towards Roshan’s discarded robe and in a flash, the man stood, briefly naked before he enveloped an admirably well-built body in cotton. Allergies. She reminded herself. You have allergies. He caught her by the arm and pulled her to her feet.

  “You’re shivering. Come with me.” He didn’t wait for a reply, only wrapped his arm around her shoulders and whisked her to a set of lift doors.

  “You can’t use those,” she chattered through her teeth. “They’re broken.”

  “No,” he corrected, glancing down at her. “They’re just for me.” He lifted a small gold panel and tapped in a code. The doors swished open and he hustled her inside. “You’re in shock.”

  “Not every day I find out I’m living with a wild cat.”

  “Tiger.”

  “Still in the cat family.”

  He used the sleeves of his robe to brush down her goose pimpled arms. My dear man, she thought, her own mental voice heady with lust, that’s not going to help either of us. The doors pinged open and Roshan didn’t let her toes touch the floor as he manoeuvred her through his premium penthouse. “Here.” He turned her sharply to the left, not into a bathroom but a tropical oasis. Granite rock surrounded the room, formed like a waterfall. Two conch shells, positioned at Roshan’s height, began to flow with warm water. As soon as he placed her beneath the shells, glass walls emerged from the granite to surround them. “Fifteen minutes,” he called out. Suddenly jets pulsed from all sides and steam rose from the heat. Neiri squealed in surprise.

  “Stay,” he insisted, huge palms stroking over the length of her arms, “until you’re warm. I’m going to make you some tea and then we can talk about your er… nightly activities.”

  Before she could turn around and argue, he was gone. Quickly, she peeled off her costume, washed her hair and scrubbed a loofah over her skin. Wrapping her hair and body in separate towels, she stepped to the glass which slid smoothly out of the way. Where was Tigger? The apartment was so huge, she had no idea where to go.

  “Here.” Roshan’s voice came from nowhere, and she whipped around to see him standing in front of her, fully dressed and holding out a robe similar to his. “Don’t want you catching a cold.”

  She took it from him warily. He raised hawkish eyebrows. “I’ll be waiting right here until you’re ready. Easy to get lost in this place.”

  “I wasn’t spying,” she said with nothing less than pure bravado.

  He grinned at her and, not for the first time, she realised just how prominent his canines were. Don’t lick them.

  “Put this on and you can convince me.”

  Neiri snatched the robe from his hand and marched back into the bathroom. She made several knots in the belt loops and rejoined him in the corridor. With a guiding hand to her back, Roshan lead her into the living area. She couldn’t help the gasp that escaped her throat at the sight before her. The changing lights of the London Eye, flickering
over the Thames. The Shard dominated the skyline and St Paul’s glowed eerily white at what seemed like a hairsbreadth from her reach.

  “Take a seat,” he insisted, nudging her into the soft grey sofa and sitting opposite her. Staring at the view was a much better option than taking in what was really happening. He handed her a delicate cup and sat back, his arm stretched across the back of the sofa.

  “So.”

  “You’re a cat.”

  “Tiger.”

  “A big cat.”

  “Specifically a tiger, not a domesticated feline. Not something you’re entirely unaware of.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He leaned over and reached for his teacup. “Just a little something you did with your family. In your flat. With leaves. And prayers. And incense.” How the hell did he know about that? “Very intense summoning spell you two cast.”

  Neiri pushed her still damp curls to one side. Fair enough, but she didn’t expect an eight-hundred-pound white tiger to start playing guardian angel in her life. She’d told her grandmother it wasn’t something that would ever work, but her grandmother couldn’t understand the word no. Now look.

  “Listen, it was a silly ritual my grandmother did with me when she found out I was getting divorced. I didn’t think anything would come of it.” Roshan looked at her, blinking slowly. She carried on in a rush. “Before Christianity and Islam got a hold of us, we were, as a nation, ever so slightly obsessed with cats. You may have seen one or two drawings in pyramids and on vases and things.”

  “And as you helpfully said, I’m a big cat.”

  She pressed her hands to her forehead. If she pressed a little harder, this could possibly be not taking place or Roshan would just point to a tiger in a cage and shout fooled ya! No such luck. “I let my grandmother get carried away. She even cursed my ex-husband with no testicles and that didn’t work.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  It gave her pause. “The point is, it’s all superstitious, properly ancient madness that I didn’t mean. I didn’t mean to have any of this, least of all for me to be swallowing your moulting fur.”

  “I do not moult,” he growled. “I came here because I was called. We have good hearing.”

  “Really?”

  “Better,” he corrected, adjusting the crease of his trousers with a flick. “It’s been a long time since anyone has called for our protection in that manner. So here I am.”

  “That’s why you bought this place? Because my grandmother prayed?”

  “Because you did,” he said softly. “Never heard of that? The grain of faith of a non believer being stronger than a whole field of wheat.”

  Her grandmother had told her the prayers would only work if she truly believed in them. And in those desperately lonely moments, she wanted someone to come and make it all stop. Make it better. With her hands tight around her grandmother’s as the incense had burned before one of the many statues belonging to her family, she had the briefest vision of a cat padding towards her, growing in volume with each light jog, until it was as big as a man. It had touched her head with an enormous paw and vanished in a puff of smoke. Neiri’s grandmother asked her if she’d seen anything and she flat denied it. Instead, she’d gone to her GP for medication, saying the stress of the divorce was making her hallucinate. Oops.

  She warmed her hands on the teacup, watching him for any sudden movements. “And you made Adil change his mind about the settlement?”

  Roshan’s face flickered slightly, like a boy working out how to tell his parents he’d done something naughty. “I made him a decent offer which he accepted. It means you’re free.”

  Her eyes narrowed with suspicion. “To owe you.”

  “To do me a favour in return.”

  Neiri closed a fist around the lapels of her robe. “I can’t give you anything.”

  Roshan leaned back and glanced out the huge windows that lined the entire apartment. “Did your grandmother teach you the fertility ritual?”

  She made a face of confusion. “Now you’re just making things weird.”

  “I assume she would have, since you married.”

  “It didn’t work.” She halted and waited until the bitterness wasn’t so sharp at the back of her throat. “It’s a fad.”

  “But you know what to do.”

  It was something she’d tried a thousand times before. She knew it better than her own name. “It really should be done in autumn.”

  “Accounted for.”

  “And you can only really do it on a full moon.”

  “Indeed. Which is tomorrow.”

  Checkmate. She tapped the side of her teacup. “So what, I do this ritual and what… We’re quits?”

  Roshan nodded his head. “Absolutely.”

  She didn’t quite believe him. Big cat or no, he was still a man. Men always wanted something. “When we say fertility ritual, it means no sex. Not that anything in me works for anything to come of it, anyway…”

  “Neiriouri.” The way he said her name… She sat still and stared at him, eyes wide. “It will work. If you do it. And you mean it. Will you do it or not?”

  Blinking rapidly, she nodded. “Yeah. Okay. I need some things first…”

  He took a card from the coffee table and handed it to her. “Call this man. He will bring everything you need for the ritual. Be here. 9:30 p.m. The moon will be at its highest.”

  “You can’t believe in this stuff,” she said, nervous laughter lilting her tone.

  “You did,” he replied, getting to his feet. “Or else I wouldn’t be here. And neither would you.” He took her hand and tugged her to standing. Gathering the cup from her fingers, he set it down, and then led her from his wonderful flat. In silence, he took her to the lifts and walked with her until they reached her door.

  “Until tomorrow.”

  She opened her mouth to dissuade him and even managed to get a few words in. “Roshan, I’m not…”

  “Faith,” he told her, his hands tightening around hers. “I know it’s been a long time, but have some in yourself.” He took a key from his trouser pocket and opened her door. With a short, almost bowing nod, he turned and walked away.

  Well, she thought. That will teach me to snoop.

  Chapter Four

  The third night…

  Roshan opened the door for her. That’s a loincloth. Seriously, where were the rest of his clothes? It took her a minute to remember to breathe. “Good evening, Neiri.” He tilted his head towards her in a respectful nod.

  “Hi,” she croaked. It took nothing less than incredible force of will to not drop everything in her hands, reach out and draw the tips of her fingers over the bumps of his pectoral muscles and trace the lines that divided his torso. To know if his skin felt as smooth as looked. Under her hands, her mouth, against her own chest…

  “I believe you think I’m somewhat underdressed. But it should be appropriate for the ceremony.” She made a noncommittal murmur in her throat. “Follow me,” he said, a smile lighting his face.

  Clutching the ivory statue of the god Min in one hand and a gold-handled scythe in the other, Neiri watched the muscles in his bare back ripple as he led her through the apartment. She’d spent the better part of her night dreaming that the white tiger had padded into her bedroom, tunnelled under her duvet, laid its head on her stomach and grumbled in its sleep. If she closed her eyes, she could feel the bristles of the fur on her skin.

  Disturbed and with an aching migraine, she’d spent the rest of the day irritable. She’d gone to the storage unit where she’d shoved most of her most precious items and scrambled through piles of taped-up boxes to find the statue. Neiri had spoken to the man named on Roshan’s card and within an hour, she had a gold-handled scythe delivered to the block. Her dress, a plain linen dress dyed in the purest of reds, wrapped around her in ripples of material and hung on one shoulder from gold link chains. Her grandmother had it made for her. For whatever use it was, Neiri wore it in the
hope that just like the summoning ceremony, it would work for this one. She had no intention of being beholden to anyone, certainly not Mr. Rock-Hard Buttocks. “Stop, stop it,” she snapped.

  “Sorry?” Roshan turned to look at her.

  She shook her head rapidly. “Don’t worry.”

  He waited for her to reach his side, and then he edged her in front. “Just up these stairs.”

  As much as she loved the statue, it would make for a good weapon if she saw anything she didn’t like. The glass-framed staircase led up to yet another floor. Her sandaled feet made loud slapping noises against the marble tiles. As she reached the level, her mouth parted in shock. A tall wheat field stretched across the length of the building. The hell had he done this? In the midst of the fields of rippling gold strands stood a large wooden pole. It had intricate markings, indicating that it was, or at least strongly resembled, the festival poles that were climbed by men during the celebrations of Min in the autumn harvest. Rolls of coloured ribbon topped the post; the honours of reaching the top.

  Roshan gently touched a hand to the small of her back. “The moon will be at its highest point soon. Do you wish to start?”

  “All of this,” she said, ignoring his direction, “takes time and effort. You had to have…”

  “Planned it? Yes. Precision is key.”

  Neiri wrinkled her nose. “Like I said. It didn’t work with me.”

  Roshan took the statue and scythe from her hands, set them both on the ground and caught her chin on the edge of his fist. “You still don’t understand, do you? The ritual isn’t for you.”

  “But my…”

  “You misunderstood. With the wheat sheaves and the moon at its fullest and the hymn to Min?” He nodded down to the statue. “You’ve carried an ivory carving with a prominent erection, and it didn’t cross your mind that this is for the male of the species?” He sighed heavily. “It’s not for the women. It never was. There’s nothing wrong with you. Not by a cell.” He gently closed her mouth with a fingertip, stepped away from her and picked up the statue from the floor. “Now. Are you ready?”