Chapter 1

It was Friday evening and most of the team at Mumbai Sky Developers central Andheri office had gone home to could get ready for a night on the town. Only Priya and Nandini, two of the more successful sales brokers, were left.

“Are you coming, Nandini? It’s nearly half eight.”

“Not yet, I want to finish the paperwork on the Deol sale.”

“I don’t blame you. I can’t believe you managed to sell it. You did a good job there, girl. Worthy of a bonus, I reckon.”

Nandini laughed. She and Priya knew there was only one sure fire way to get a bonus out of their boss—and it didn’t involve selling houses. “I’ll have to ask him for a private meeting on Monday morning. Is the regular room at the Taj free?”

“I don’t know, you’ll have to check the diary. Well, don’t work too late. If anybody deserves to party tonight, it’s you.”

“Thanks. This shouldn’t take me too long.”

“Don’t forget to lock up after you leave,” Priya said as she left.

“As if. I’ll see you at the club later.”

“Later.”

Once Priya was gone, Nandini felt a little strange being left alone in the office. It was dark outside, and with only her tiny desk lamp to light the room, it was a more than a touch creepy. She shivered, shook from her mind the thoughts of what happened to nice girls alone in the dark and returned to the paperwork for the house sale she’d negotiated earlier that day.

The Mumbai Mirror had dubbed Shankar Deol “the filthiest man in Maharashtra.” He’d hoarded tons of useless crap in his one up one down terrace in South Mumbai’s least desirable district and when the authorities had found him lying in his own vomit and asked the neighbours why they hadn’t noticed the potent aroma of dead old man, they’d replied that it didn’t smell any different than usual. After the house had been cleared, two elderly cousins from Nagpur, the old man’s closest living relatives, had put it straight on the market to try to recover the clean-up costs. That was almost three years ago.

The house had been marketed by a string of estate agents but generated very little interest. It had been on Mumbai Sky Developers’ books for nearly six months, and the elderly cousins were getting restless. There was talk of changing agents again. But now Nandini had sold it. That was something to celebrate. So what if the buyer had been hanging on to that week’s copy of ReadIndianSexStories, Maharashtra’s post visited adult website. And so what if she was the star of the “Local Lovelies” feature that week. It’s not as if she had promised to fuck him if he bought the house. The idea had crossed her mind, but she’d dismissed it. Something told her he wouldn’t go for it. The dimwit actually seemed star-struck by her. If she’d suggested a little horizontal rumba, he’d probably have shot his load in his pants.