Kip flipped open the hinged counter flap meant for employees to get behind the bar and pulled her in, then ushered her through the cluttered kitchen and out the back door. The aroma of mozzarella sticks and roasted peanuts followed them outside.
The rear patio was a small but neat square of concrete, enclosed by a six-foot-high brick wall. A picnic table and two benches were the only outdoor furniture. The temperature outside was refreshingly cool. Kip was right: it was too hot inside although it was only June and summer had barely begun.
They sat on a bench side by side, leaning against the edge of the table, their backs to the building. Anjali still nursed her drink while Kip sipped his coffee and stretched his long legs out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. He never drank alcohol while on duty and expected his staff to do the same.
He slipped a comforting arm around her shoulders. “So what’s bugging you, kid?”
She stared at the row of trash cans lined up like dark sentries standing guard against the wall and took a deep, shuddering breath. “We might lose the store, Kip.”
“Your old man’s selling the place?”
“He might be forced to,” she said. “Financial problems.”
His arm tightened around her. “How did that happen?”
“It’s been happening for a while. We’ve been expanding our inventory, hoping the increase in Indian weddings and upscale parties would mean more business, but that hasn’t happened. Sales are low. I was too careless to notice and my dad was too optimistic to take it seriously until now.”
“I thought your shop was booming. Every year there are more Indian people moving into Jersey, aren’t there? I see them everywhere.”
“That also means more competition,” she reminded him. “Other stores like ours have mushroomed. Ours was the only exclusive boutique at first, but now there are copycats within a stone’s throw. Dad says if we don’t turn a profit soon, we’ll go bankrupt.” Her voice cracked a little. The tears were hovering close to the surface.
Kip remained silent for a minute or two. “Your dad’s a smart businessman. I’m sure he’ll think of a way,” he said softly.
He sounded warm and sympathetic and Anjali instinctively leaned closer against him. Kip was right. He had a big shoulder to cry on, but she quelled the urge to burst into noisy sobs. It would ruin her makeup and make her eyes look like boiled shrimp. She knew she had a passably attractive face and nice eyes, but she just couldn’t cry prettily like some women.
Kip smelled of his usual spicy cologne and coffee and cigarette smoke—a blended scent that she’d come to like a lot. It was potent and very male. Very arousing. “Yeah, Dad thought of a way all right. It’ll kill us all.”
“He’s hired someone to torch the place?” Kip turned to her with wide, stunned eyes.
“No!” She threw him a horrified frown. “How could you even think that?”
“Well, I figured—”
“You figured wrong,” she retorted, interrupting him. “My dad’s a decent and principled guy. He’d never dream of arson and insurance fraud.”
“I grew up in a rough neighborhood; my thinking’s warped.” Kip squeezed her arm. “I apologize.”
She slumped against him once again. “In some ways it’s worse than torching the place. My rich uncle, Dad’s eldest brother, is arriving next week from India to assess the situation.”
“All the way from India?”
“He’s some kind of business mastermind.”
“Well, that explains it.” Kip chuckled. “A nice, rich uncle—Daddy Warbucks, or is it Uncle Warbucks? I thought rich uncles were a cliché. Most of us don’t have one of those, you know.”
“No, some of us have rich grandfathers who hand down flourishing bars,” she mocked.
Kip’s chuckle turned into a laugh, a rich masculine sound that was both droll and seductive. “Guess I deserved that. So what can Uncle Warbucks do that your father can’t?”
“Dad thinks his brother might have some fresh ideas to save the business and even pump some money into it. Strictly a loan, of course. My uncle’s a notorious Scrooge.”
“Rich and stingy?”
“Jeevan Kapadia’s not rich; he’s loaded.”
“Is that what’s getting you down?” He ruffled her hair with his fingers.
“That and everything else. Mom’s going to be impossible to live with as long as my uncle Jeevan is here. The last time he came to stay, she nearly ended up in an institution.”
Kip let out a low whistle. “Mean son of a bitch. Want me to get rid of him for you?”
“Don’t start planting ideas in my head, Kip.”
“I have connections.”
“It sounds awfully tempting, but he’s not that bad,” she replied on a laugh, realizing she was feeling a little better. The headache was finally wearing off. Kip’s warm hand traveled from her shoulder to the nape of her neck and made firm, circular motions that she found deeply soothing. “Mmm…that feels great.” She sighed as he continued to rub and knead her skin and follow a downward path all the way to the small of her back. Kip had great hands, large and hard but not too rough. At the moment he was making her purr like a well-coddled kitten.
Suddenly her breath came to a standstill before lurching back into a jerky rhythm. His hand had circled around her rib cage and wound itself about her right breast. She turned her head and looked up at him. Sure enough, he was staring at her with a gleam in his eyes. The tiny diamond in his earlobe glinted in the muted glow cast by the streetlight beyond the wall. “You are one hell of a beautiful woman, Angelface,” he murmured.
Anjali shivered. Lord, but Kip had a way of getting her excited. With his long fingers caressing her through the thin fabric of her silk blouse and lacy bra, and the expression on his face looking like he wanted to devour her whole, it was hard not to surrender to the urge to let him have her.
So she did. Somehow she always did—despite the lectures on caution she delivered to herself time and again.
Kip had a breathless effect on her. He was different. At forty-six, a full nine years older than she, he was a suave, practiced lover who knew how to pleasure a woman while pleasing himself in the process. She’d never asked him how many women he’d slept with. As long as he wore protection, what did it matter?
He was her one outlet from long hours of work and the strict, puritanical atmosphere of her home. Her parents would never understand something like the basic, carnal needs of a young woman. All they knew was how not to talk about sex and to satisfy anything remotely sexual within the sanctity of a nice, neat marriage bed concealed behind locked doors.
And Anjali didn’t have that luxury.
She wasn’t in love with Kip, thank goodness. Her feelings for him were based on lust and genuine affection. He was a confirmed bachelor and way too independent for her to think about anything permanent with him. Besides, in her old-fashioned Gujarati environment, Kip would stick out like Mount Everest planted amidst gentle, rolling hills.
And Kip never concealed the fact that he liked women—all colors, nationalities and religious affiliations included. His only criterion seemed to be beauty. As long as he thought a woman looked good, and she was able and willing to put out, Kip was available.
How had she, a second-generation Indian-American widow raised in a conservative family, ended up with a Don Juan like Kip?
She had stepped into Rowling Rok one night with two of her girlfriends on a Ladies’ Night. She’d been wearing one of her own designs, a sleek peach silk dress