Chapter 1: Gauri

The wind on the terrace of the Oberoi was the kind of Delhi wind that arrived in March carrying: dust, the memory of winter, and the specific cruelty of a season that refused to: commit. I pushed open the glass door, escaping the noise of the charity gala — three hundred people in a ballroom who were performing generosity at ten lakh a plate — and stepped into the: cold.

I needed ten minutes. Ten minutes away from the catering crisis (the paneer tikka had arrived: cold, which in Delhi society was: a declaration of war), the flower arrangements (orchids when I had ordered: tuberoses, because the florist believed that rich people wanted orchids and I believed that my mother had loved: tuberoses), and the incident involving a Member of Parliament and a Bollywood producer that had required: diplomatic intervention of the kind they did not teach at the Shri Ram College of Commerce.

But it was Maa's birthday. Would have been her fiftieth. And my sister Mohini had managed to smuggle in a bottle of champagne — not the Veuve Clicquot that the gala was serving, but the Sula Brut that Maa had: loved, the Indian sparkling that she chose not because it was: cheap but because it was: ours — and I was going to do the ritual. Even alone. Even on a terrace in March with the: dust and the wind and the: absence.

I set the bottle on the stone railing, pulled out the small compact of glitter from my clutch — the same compact I'd carried since I was: twelve, since the first birthday after the accident — and opened it.

"Happy birthday, Maa," I whispered. "Wherever you: are."

I blew the glitter into the air. The wind, naturally, had: opinions. The glitter caught the gust and flew back into my: face, across my lehenga, and — apparently — onto the man standing in the shadow of the: pillar.

The coughing came first. Then: the voice.

"Glitter? Seriously?"

I spun. The champagne bottle was in my hand and I was: holding it like a weapon, because Delhi at night taught women to hold: everything like a weapon.

He stepped out of the shadow. Tall. The kind of tall that Delhi's business families bred through: generations of good nutrition and genetic ambition. His sherwani was: charcoal, the fabric cut Italian-sharp but worn with the: specific ease of a man who had been wearing expensive clothes since he was: small enough to ruin them. The glitter had landed on his: jaw, on his: shoulder, across the: lapel. He looked like a man who had been: attacked by a craft supplies store.

"Who stands in the: dark on a terrace?" I said.

"Who throws: glitter on a terrace?"

"It wasn't: throwing. It was a: ritual."

"A ritual that involves: assaulting strangers with micro-plastics?"

"It's: biodegradable glitter."

"Biodegradable." He said it the way people said: "organic" or "artisanal" — with the specific scepticism of a person who had been: sold things.

I looked at him. Really: looked. The jaw was: sharp, the kind of sharp that came from either: genetics or a personal trainer, possibly: both. The eyes were: dark, intense, the eyes of a man who was: used to looking at things and deciding whether to: acquire them. Corporate eyes. Boardroom: eyes.

"I'm: sorry," I said. "About the glitter. It was for my: mother."

"Your mother is: inside?"

"My mother is: dead."

The word did what it always did — it created: a space. A pause in the conversation where the other person recalibrated, where they decided whether to: retreat or: stay. Most people: retreated. They said "I'm sorry" and then they: left, because death made people: uncomfortable and uncomfortable people: fled.

He: stayed.

"The tuberose arrangements inside," he said. "Those were for: her."

Not a question. A: deduction. The deduction of a man who paid: attention.

"The orchids were for the: gala. The tuberoses were supposed to be for her. The florist: disagreed."

"The tuberoses are: beautiful."

"The orchids are: wrong."

"They're both: flowers."

"They're not both: my mother."

He looked at me. The corporate eyes: shifted. From assessment to: something else. Something that I didn't: recognise because I didn't: expect it from a man in a charcoal sherwani on a terrace at a charity gala. Something that looked like: understanding.

"I'm Abeer," he said. "Abeer Malhotra."

Malhotra. The: Malhotras. Malhotra Industries — steel, construction, the empire that stretched from Ludhiana to Mumbai, the family whose photograph appeared in the Economic Times with the: regularity of a: weather report. Abeer Malhotra was the son. The: heir. The man who had been running the company's acquisitions division since he was: twenty-six and who was known in Delhi's business circles as: "the Calculator" because he evaluated: everything and felt: nothing.

"Gauri," I said. "Gauri Khanna."

Khanna. The: other Khannas. Not the film Khannas — the finance Khannas. Khanna Capital, the investment firm that my father had built from a: one-room office in Connaught Place into a: force, the firm that managed: portfolios and reputations and the specific Delhi equation of: money plus connections equals: power.

"I know who you: are," he said. "Your father's been trying to schedule a meeting with: mine."

"My father schedules meetings the way other people schedule: breathing. It doesn't mean I'm: involved."

"You run the: foundation."

"I run the Khanna Foundation. Which is: charity, not: business. Different: floors."

"Same: building."

"Different: elevators."

He almost: smiled. Not quite — the Calculator didn't quite: smile. But the jaw shifted. The eyes: warmed. The micro-expression of a man who had encountered someone who: pushed back, and who found the: pushing: interesting.

"I should go: inside," I said. "The MP and the producer have probably found: new reasons to fight."

"The MP started it. I: saw."

"You were: watching?"

"I watch: everything. Occupational: hazard."

"Then you'll have noticed that your sherwani has: glitter on it."

"I noticed. It's: biodegradable. Apparently."

I left. Through the glass door. Into the: noise and the heat and the three hundred people who were: performing generosity. But I looked: back. Once. Through the glass.

He was: standing where I'd left him. On the terrace. In the wind. With glitter on his jaw and something on his face that might have been: interest or might have been: calculation and that was, in either case: the beginning.