Secrets of a Bollywood Marriage(36)
“You keep slipping rupees to anyone who asks,” she said. “They’re going to follow and ask for more. And the other beggars will see that you’re a soft touch and it’s going to get out of hand.”
“It’s okay, Tina. I can always get more. I just...” He snapped his mouth shut and gave a shrug. “I can’t help it.”
“I know.” Dev didn’t know what it was like to go hungry or worry about money, but she could tell how much it upset him to see the suffering. He had always refrained from asking her what it had been like to live in extreme poverty. Tina was grateful for that. She wanted to protect him from the ugly truth.
“Oh, look.” She grabbed his arm and pointed at the magazine racks in front of a DVD store. “Movie magazines!”
“I know you love reading these rags, but you can’t believe everything they say,” he warned.
“I read these all the time when I was trying to break into the business.” She turned the carousel until she found the weekly magazine she had always enjoyed. She gasped when she saw an old picture of herself on the cover. “Bollywood’s Bad Girl?” she read the headline.
“That reminds me,” Dev said as he watched her flip through the magazine to find the story, “how did your meetings go with your agent?”
She winced. “I don’t want to talk about it.” If there had been any good or promising news, Tina would have immediately shared the information with Dev. It was difficult to share the disappointing news with someone who had the Midas touch.
“It couldn’t be that bad.”
“Yes, it could.” Tina paused and glanced up at Dev. “The shampoo company dropped me from my endorsement deal because of my haircut.”
He nodded as if he wasn’t surprised. “I’m sure they had a clause about you changing your appearance without their permission.”
“And I lost out on a role,” she admitted as her shoulders slumped. “One of the Kapoors got it. I should have known. The director is a cousin.”
Dev hesitated. “You know, Arjun Entertainment...”
She immediately straightened her shoulders back and continuing flipping through the magazine pages. “Thank you, Dev, but I can’t work for you.”
“But you can work for my competitors?”
His sharp tone compelled her to look up. Dev’s frustration poured from him like billowing heat. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“Actresses marry producers and media moguls all the time in Mumbai,” Dev continued. “And when it happens, the actress only works for her husband’s film company.”
“Which is usually what the actress is hoping for all along. I didn’t marry you for my career.” He didn’t understand. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—be financially dependent on him. He had displayed enough power over her life.
An emotion chased across Dev’s face that Tina couldn’t define. “Why—”
“Oh, here’s the article!” she said, desperate to change the topic before another argument began. “Huh. Apparently, I have risen from the dead.”
Dev scowled. “You don’t want to read that. Nothing good comes from hearing the gossip about yourself.”