Chapter 1
"What’s new with me? Only everything!"
Nav Bharani’s neighbor Kat widened her chestnut brown eyes
theatrically. She
dropped her laundry basket in front of one of the half
dozen washing machines
in the basement laundry room of their apartment building,
then hopped up on a
dryer, clearly prioritizing gossip over chores.
Nav grinned and leaned back against his
own washer, which was already churning his Saturday morning
laundry. "I saw you
Wednesday night, Kat." She’d taken him to one of her
girlfriends’ to supply
muscle, setting up a new bookcase and rearranging
furniture. "Everything can’t
have changed in two days."
Though something major had happened in
his own life yesterday. A breakthrough in his photography
career. He was eager
to tell Kat, but he’d listen to her news first.
She gave an eye roll. "Okay, almost everything.
My baby sister’s suddenly getting married."
Even in the crappy artificial light, with
her reddish-brown curls a bed-head mess and pillow marks on
one cheek, Kat was
so damned pretty she made his heart ache.
"Merilee? I thought she and . . . what’s
his name? always intended to marry."
"Matt. Yeah, but they were talking next
year, when they graduate from university. Now it’s, like,
now." She
snapped her fingers.
"When’s now?" he asked.
"Two weeks today. Can you believe it?"
She shook her head vigorously. "So now I have to take a
couple weeks off and go
to Vancouver to help put together a wedding on virtually no
notice. The timing
sucks. June’s a really busy month at work." She was the PR
Director at Le
Cachet, a boutique luxury hotel in Old Montreal—a job that
made full use of her
creativity, organizational skills, and outgoing
personality.
"Too bad they didn’t arrange their
wedding to suit your workload," he teased.
"Oops. Self-centered bitch?"
"Only a little."
She sighed, her usual animation draining
from her face. Lines of strain around her eyes and shadows
under them told him
she was upset about more than the inconvenience of taking
time off work. Nav
knew Kat well after two years. As well as she let anyone
know her, and in every
way but the one he wanted most: as her lover.
He dropped the teasing tone and touched
her hand. "How do you feel about the wedding?"
"Thrilled to bits for Merilee. Of
course." Her answer was prompt, but she stared down at
their hands rather than
meeting his eyes.
"Kat?"
Her head lifted, lips twisting. "Okay, I am
happy for her, honestly, but I’m also green with envy.
She’s ten years
younger. It should be me." She jumped to the floor, feet
slapping the concrete
like an exclamation mark.
That was what he’d guessed, as he knew
she longed for marriage and kids. With someone other than
him, unfortunately.
But this wasn’t the time to dwell on his heartache. His
best friend was
hurting.
He tried to help her see this rationally.
"Your sister’s been with this guy a long time, right?" Kat
didn’t talk much
about her family—he knew she had some issues—but he’d heard
a few snippets.
"Since grade two. And they always said
they wanted to get married."
"So why keep waiting?"
She wrinkled her nose. "So I can do it
first? Yeah, okay, that’s a sucky reason. But I’m thirty-
one and I want
marriage and kids as badly as she does." She gave an
exaggerated sniffle then
launched herself at him. "Damn, I need a hug."
His arms came up, circling her body,
cuddling her close.
This was vintage Kat. She had no patience
for what she called "all that angsty, self-analytical, pop-
psych crap." If she
was feeling crappy, she vented, then moved on.
Or so she said. He was dead certain it
didn’t work that easily. Not that he was a shrink or
anything, only a friend
who cared.
Cared too much for his own sanity. Now,
embracing her, he used every ounce of self-control to
resist pulling her
tighter. To try not to register the firm, warm curves under
the soft fabric of
her sweats. To fight the arousal she’d so easily awakened
in him since they’d
met.
Did she feel the way his heart raced or
was she too absorbed in her own misery? Nav wished he was
wearing more clothing
than thin running shorts and his old Cambridge rugby
jersey, but he’d come to
the laundry room straight from an early run.
Feeling her warmth, smelling her
sleep-tousled scent, he thought back to his first sight of
her.
He’d been moving into the building,
grubby in his oldest jeans and a T-shirt with the sleeves
ripped out as he
wrestled his meager belongings out of the rental truck and
into the small
apartment. The door beside his had opened and he’d paused,
curious to see his
neighbor.
A lovely young woman in a figure-hugging
sundress stepped into the hall. His photographer’s eye had
freeze-framed the
moment. The tantalizing curves, the way the green of her
dress complemented her
auburn curls, the sparkle of interest in her brown eyes as
they widened and she
scanned him up and down.
As for the picture she saw—well, he
must’ve made quite a sight with his bare arms hugging a
tall pole lamp and a
sandalwood statue of Ganesh, the elephant god. Nani,
his mum’s mother,
had given him the figure when he was a kid, saying it would
bless his living
space.
The woman in the hallway gave him a
bright smile. "Bonjour, mon nouveau voisin," she
greeted him as her new
neighbor. "Bienvenue. Je m’appelle Kat Fallon."
Her name and the way she pronounced it
told him that, despite her excellent Québécois accent, she
was a native English
speaker like Nav. He replied in that language. "Pleased to
meet you, Kat. I’m
Nav Bharani."
"Ooh, nice accent."
"Thanks." He’d grown up in England and
had only been in Canada two years, mostly speaking French,
so his English
accent was pretty much intact.
His neighbor stretched out a hand,
seeming not to care that the one he freed up in return was
less than clean.
He felt a connection, a warm jolt of
recognition that was sexual but way more than just that. A
jolt that made him
gaze at her face, memorizing every attractive feature and
knowing, in his soul,
that this woman was going to be important in his life.
He’d felt something similar when he’d
unwrapped his first camera on his tenth birthday. A sense
of revelation, and
certainty.
Already today, Ganesh had brought him
luck.
Kat felt something special too. He could
tell by the flush that tinged her cheekbones, the way her
hand lingered before
separating from his. "Have you just moved from England,
Nav?"
"No, I’ve been studying photography in
Quebec City for a couple years, at Université Laval. Just
graduated and I
thought I’d find more . . . opportunities in
Montreal." He put
deliberate emphasis on the word "opportunities," wondering
if she’d respond to
the hint of flirtation.
A grin hovered at the corners of her
mouth. "Montreal is full of opportunity."
"When you wake up in the morning, you
never know what the day will bring?"
She gave a rich chuckle. "Some days are
better than others." Then she glanced at the elephant
statue. "Who’s your
roommate?"
"Ganesh. Among other things, he’s the
Lord of Beginnings." Nav felt exhilarated, sensing that
this light flirtation
was the beginning of something special.
"Beginnings. Well, how about that."
"Some people believe that if you stroke
his trunk, he’ll bring you luck."
"Really?" Her hand lifted, then the
elevator dinged and they both glanced toward it.
A man stepped out and strode toward them
with a dazzlingly white smile. Tall and striking, he had
strong features,
highlighted hair that had been styled with a handful of
product, and clothes
that screamed, "I care way too much about how I look, and I
have the money to
indulge myself."
"Hey, babe," he said in English. He bent
down to press a quick, hard kiss to Kat’s lips then, arm
around her waist,
glanced at Nav. "New neighbor?"
Well shit, she had a boyfriend. So, she
hadn’t been flirting?
Her cheeks flushed lightly. "Yes, Nav
Bharani. And this is Jase Jackson." She glanced at the
toothpaste commercial
guy with an expression that was almost awestruck. "Nav,
you’ve probably heard
of Jase, he’s one of the stars of Back Streets." She
named a gritty
Canadian TV drama filmed in Ontario and Quebec. Nav had
caught an episode or
two but it hadn’t hooked him, and he didn’t remember the
actor.
"Hey, man," Jase said, tightening his
hold on Kat. Marking his territory.
"Hey."
"Jase," Kat said, "would you mind getting
a bottle of water from my fridge? It’s going to be hot out
there."
When the other man had gone into the
apartment, Nav said, "So, you two are . . . ?"
"A couple." Her dreamy gaze had followed
the other man. "I’m crazy about him. He’s amazing."
Well, hell. Despite that initial
awareness between them, she hadn’t been flirting, only
being friendly to a new
neighbor. So much for his sense of certainty. The woman was
in love with
someone else.
Nav, who could be a tiger on the rugby
field but was pretty easygoing otherwise, had felt a
primitive urge to punch
out Actor Guy’s lights.
Now, in the drab laundry room, hearing
Kat sigh against his chest, he almost wished he’d done it.
That rash act might
have changed the dynamic between him and Kat.
Instead he’d accepted that she would, at
most, be a friend, and had concentrated on getting settled
in his new home.
He’d just returned from a visit to New
Delhi and a fight with his parents, who’d moved back to
India when his dad’s
father died last year. In their eyes, he’d been a traitor
when he’d rejected
the business career they’d groomed him for and moved to
Quebec City to study
photography. Now that he’d graduated, they said it was time
their only child
got over his foolishness. He should take up a management
role in the family
company, either in New Delhi or London, and agree to an
arranged marriage.
He’d said no on all counts and stuck to
his guns about moving to Montreal to build a photography
career.
Once there, he had started to check out
work opportunities and begun to meet people. But he’d moved
too slowly for Kat,
at least when it came to making friends. She’d figured he
was shy, taken him
under her wing, kick-started his social life. Enjoying her
company—besides, who
could resist the driving force of a determined Kat Fallon?—
he’d gone along.
But even as he dated other women, his
feelings for Kat grew. He’d known it was futile. Though her
relationship with
Jase broke up, and she ogled Nav’s muscles when he fixed
her plumbing or helped
her paint her apartment, she went for men like Actor Guy.
Larger than life—at
least on the surface. Often, they proved to be men who were
more flash than
substance, whose love affair was with their own ego, not
their current
girlfriend.
No way was Nav that kind of man. In the
past, growing up in England with wealthy, successful,
status-oriented parents,
he’d had his fill of people like that.
Though Kat fell for other men, she’d
become Nav’s good buddy. The couple times he’d put the
moves on her when she’d
been between guys, she’d turned him down flat. She said he
was a really good
friend and she valued their friendship too much to risk
losing it. Even though
he sometimes saw the spark of attraction in her eyes, she
refused to even
acknowledge it, much less give in to it.
Now, standing with every luscious,
tempting inch of her wrapped in his arms, he wondered if
there was any hope
that one day she’d blink those big brown eyes and realize
the man she’d been
looking for all her life was right next door.
She gave a gusty sigh then pushed herself
away. She stared up at him, but no, there was no moment of
blinding revelation.
Just a sniffle, a self-deprecating smile. "Okay," she
said. "Five minutes is
enough self-pity. Thanks for indulging me, Nav."
She turned away and opened two washing
machines. Into one she tossed jeans and T‑shirts.
Into the other went
tank tops, silky camisoles, lacy bras, brief panties, and
thongs.
A gentleman would never imagine his
friend and neighbor in a matching bright pink bra and
panties, or a black lace
thong. Nor would he fantasize about having hot laundry room
sex with her.