Synopsis

Lost is a story of love, betrayal, honour, revenge, and everything in between. It’s also a love story that sets fire to the world they live in leaving them with no choice but to rise from the ashes anew…

Lieutenant Rahul Jaishankar of the Indian Navy is a man of honour, principles and commitment. His love for his family, his ethics, and his integrity is only eclipsed by his love for his country. He has no time or space to love anything or anyone else. Until the day Ayaana Sahni explodes into his life. Suddenly, she’s all he can think of, all he can hope for, all he dreams of, awake or asleep…

But Ayaana isn’t a dream he can afford to have. She’s an illusion. Ayaana Sahni is actually Aarushi Mittal. And Aarushi Mittal wants only one thing…Vengeance. And no man, not even one as deliciously gorgeous as Lieutenant Rahul was going to get in her way.

An award winning, intrepid journalist, Aarushi spends most of her life abroad working on the kind of devastating stories that the world would never hear of if not for people like her. But it has come at the cost of her personal life, at the cost of time with family, and at the heartbreaking cost of her friend’s devastating tragedy.

Aarushi needs to atone for her negligence, she needs to right the wrongs done in her absence, and she needs to make the villain in her friend’s story pay. What she really needs to make that happen is a way into the tightly knit community of the Indian Navy and Lieutenant Rahul Jaishankar is it. And if that means there is some collateral damage along the way, then so be it. Even if the collateral being damaged makes her yearn for dreams that don’t exist. Surely, the Lieutenant would understand, wouldn’t he?

Aarushi isn’t built for love. She’s built to burn down the world for her loved ones instead. So what if this man makes her want things she’s never wanted? So what if this man makes her heart ache for something she’ll never have? So what if, suddenly, this man is all she wants?

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Excerpt

She swung the door open, her eagerness on full display. Rahul leaned against the wall outside her flat, in loose tracks and a t-shirt that had probably been washed ten thousand times. He looked warm and rumpled and enticingly cuddle-able.

“Hi Ayaana.” Rahul smiled, a weary smile.

Ayaana.

Her smile dropped in wattage as she held the door open and made way for him to enter. He didn’t move, instead waiting on the threshold for her to precede him.

Oh right. The whole gallantry thing. She turned around and started hopping back down the little corridor. She heard the door shut behind her and then a warm hand captured her crutch holding hand.

A shiver worked its way through her. He was so close. So big, so warm, so everything. A ridiculous urge to curl into his solid, stable presence and cry overcame her but she shook it off. She shook it all off.

“Problem, Navy?”

His eyes, so close to her own, flashed in amusement at the nickname.

“You’re doing it wrong,” he murmured.

“Doing what wrong?” Why was she breathless?

“The crutch thing.”

She raised one eyebrow and tried to look haughty. “You’re criticizing my ability to limp on a damaged foot?”

But she ruined the effect with the breathless whisper that accompanied the words.

He looked down at her, his gaze dropping to her lips before moving to land on her crutch. “You’re hopping too much. All the weight and pressure is on your shoulders and back. You’re not leveraging the crutch enough.”

He slid one arm around her waist to anchor her, his other hand going to wrap around the knuckles she had tightly clenched around the handle of the crutch. He helped her raise the crutch in the air and place it forward while using his other arm to coax her body into not leaping into a hop to compensate. Only when her weight rested on the crutch did he let her body slide into step with it.

“Better?” he asked, the word a waft of heat against the shell of her ear.

Aarushi shut her eyes, as unreasonable sensations cascaded through her. She nodded her head, just once, in response to his question.

He released her and stepped back, cold air rushing in to take the place of the delicious warmth of his body. She reached instinctively for him but stopped herself before she made contact. Her fingers curled in mid-air before her hand dropped to her side.

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 copywriting 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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