Why would anyone want perfection when they could have Vaani Jaishankar instead?
Aditya Khamankar was a chartered accountant who built his life on a bedrock of numbers. For no matter what happened, numbers and math never let you down. They stayed the same. And that fundamental fact defined many of his choices. He was the obedient son, the diligent student, the overachieving employee, the reliable friend. All he wanted in his life was routine and sensible discourse. All he craved in that same life was peace and quiet. And then his senior partner’s flighty daughter came home. And life as he knew it was never the same again…
Reality television villain and tabloid fodder, Vaani Jaishankar lived for the arclights. The notoriety, the glamour, the larger than life noise that came with it held her in thrall. Until the industry she loved and the people she trusted used and abandoned her. And now, she was back home. Darkening the doorstep of her childhood home, something she’d sworn she’d never do and working in her father’s accountancy firm…Could God just take her now already? And then there was her father’s business partner…
What happens when Perfection meets Flawed? Do the cracks beneath his façade show? Or is it as well hidden as the foundation of grit and ambition her shiny polish conceals?
When attraction wars with common sense and love burns a fiery rope that ties them together, Aditya and Vaani need to decide if this is enough…If they are enough for each other? For the world doesn’t believe they are and the world isn’t done with them yet…
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Read an excerpt from Flawed
A few minutes later, Aditya joined her. They walked to the car in silence, their awareness of each other a live being that sparked and crackled between them. His fingers brushed against hers as they walked and her whole hand burst into flame. She swallowed hard and slid into the passenger seat as Aditya got behind the wheel.
“I’ll take you home then,” he said, his voice a hoarse rumble.
She didn’t reply, her gaze on the dark, empty road ahead of them. His knuckles whitened against the steering wheel for a brief instant before he put the car in gear and moved forward. They completed the drive in total silence, one fraught with words that neither could speak.
When Aditya finally rolled to a stop in front of her own, dark house, Vaani opened the car door and mumbled, “Good night.” She had one leg out of the car when he spoke.
“I have no future to offer you.”
She froze in place, her eyes on his tense profile. He wouldn’t look at her, keeping his gaze fixed firmly on the darkness spread out in front of the windshield.
Look at me, she willed him, but he wouldn’t. He just kept staring out at nothingness.
Look at me, damn you! This time her mental voice was strident enough to get through. He looked at her. Oh lord, he looked at her.
And in his gaze, she saw something she’d never seen before. Desperate need, an anguished yearning, and a ferocious hunger…for her. Never in her life had anyone looked at her the way this man did. Never in her life had anyone wanted her like he did.
“I have no future, Vaani. We have no future together.”
But it wasn’t what he said that she focused on. It was what he showed her. She took in the barely restrained control that leashed his body, the pained mask of his features and the hands that kept reaching for her and withdrawing, without his conscious thought.
“I don’t believe I asked you for one,” she said softly.
His hands clenched again. “What do you want?”
“You, Aditya. Only you.”
About the Author
A published author with Harlequin India – Mills & Boon India Collection and Juggernaut, Shilpa Suraj’s books have hit both the Hot New Releases and Bestseller lists on Amazon. Her next novel, tentatively titled ‘Wrong,’ has been contracted by Rupa Publications and will release later this year. She is also part of the Flipped Anthology by Harper Collins and had an audiobook book Insta Reddy release with Storytel.
She is, amongst other things, currently working on ‘Frazzled and Fabulous,’ a humorous, true-to-life parenting story that is part memoir and part nonfiction.
An avid reader with a passion for creative writing and storytelling saw her participating in writing competitions at school and dabbling in copy writing for an ad agency as a teenager. Twenty years in the corporate space, including a stint in Corporate Communications for Google, India, and a spell at entrepreneurship all hold her in good stead for her multiple current roles of author, mother and Head of Human Resources & Public Relations at an architecture and interior design firm.
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