A Scandalous Secret
The truth will tear them apart…An engrossing novel about difficult choices and second chances that will enthral fans of DOROTHY KOOMSON and ERICA JAMES.They had the perfect marriage…Glamour, money, and a beautiful home– the golden couple of Delhi, Neha and Sharat appear to have it all. But a dark secret from Neha’s past is about to resurface, a heartbreaking moment in her past that she has tried to block out.While studying at Oxford, a naive eighteen year-old Neha fell pregnant and made the difficult decision to give the baby up for adoption, vowing never to contact her child again. But now, years later, her little girl – Sonya – is now a fully grown woman and determined to find her birth mother.With the foundation of Neha’s and Sharat’s world rocked to its very core, will Sonya’s arrival in Delhi push it over the edge? And as Sonya begins to confront Neha, can mother and daughter allow themselves to forgive and forget?An engrossing novel about difficult choices and second chances that will enthral fans of DOROTHY KOOMSON and ERICA JAMES.
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Jaishree Misra
A Scandalous Secret
Copyright
This novel is entirely a work of fiction.
The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
AVON
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A SCANDALOUS SECRET. Copyright © Jaishree Misra 2011. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Jaishree Misra asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Source ISBN: 9781847561862
Ebook Edition © APRIL 2011 ISBN: 9780007443208
Version: 2018-07-19
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Contents
Copyright
Chapter One
Neha stood at the door to her spacious living room…
Chapter Two
Sonya lay under her duvet and looked around the bedroom…
Chapter Three
By midnight, Neha was so exhausted by her hostess duties…
Chapter Four
The eighteenth birthday party was to be held in the…
Chapter Five
Sharat walked towards the breakfast room, humming a jaunty tune.
Chapter Six
Waking up the day after her party, Sonya studiously avoided…
Chapter Seven
On the evening after her dinner party, Neha mustered the…
Chapter Eight
In the kitchen of the Shaw household, Laura gave her…
Chapter Nine
It was only when she was two hundred kilometres outside…
Chapter Ten
Sonya glowered at Tim from her cross-legged perch on the…
Chapter Eleven
When the floor was icy cold, and Neha’s body had…
Chapter Twelve
Laura watched Sonya throw a handful of cotton bras into…
Chapter Thirteen
Neha sat up, unsure of how many hours had passed…
Chapter Fourteen
Sonya looked down at the massive city that her plane…
Chapter Fifteen
At Delhi’s domestic terminal, Sharat walked past baggage collection and…
Chapter Sixteen
Sonya managed to hold on until they had exited the…
Chapter Seventeen
The therapist indicated that the massage had ended by gently…
Chapter Eighteen
By the time Sonya and Estella had made their way…
Chapter Nineteen
By her third day in Ananda, Neha felt as though…
Chapter Twenty
Later that evening, back in her room at Ananda, Neha…
Chapter Twenty-One
It was 1992, my eighteenth birthday party – the last…
Chapter Twenty-Two
Neha’s voice hung in the air as she finally looked…
Chapter Twenty-Three
Sonya looked up at the towering Qutb Minar, the tip…
Chapter Twenty-Four
Neha watched the landscape change as the car she was…
Chapter Twenty-Five
After Keshav had deposited Sonya and Estella back at the…
Chapter Twenty-Six
Neha replaced the phone receiver with trembling hands. Her heart…
Chapter Twenty-Seven
There were no more tears from Sonya that afternoon, but…
Chapter Twenty-Eight
After her ghastly meeting with Sonya in Lodhi Gardens, Neha…
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Sonya was starting to get uncomfortable lying on the lumpy…
Chapter Thirty
Sharat shot a look at Neha sitting next to him…
Chapter Thirty-One
The Coffee Bean Café at the entrance to Select City…
Chapter Thirty-Two
In the dentist’s waiting room, Neha sat surrounded by dwarf…
Chapter Thirty-Three
Whenever Sharat looked back at that moment, it felt as…
Chapter Thirty-Four
Hours after she had left the Chaturvedi house in such…
Chapter Thirty-Five
Sharat walked into the elegant lobby of the Windsor Manor…
Chapter Thirty-Six
As their taxi pulled into Fatehpur Sikri, Sonya and Estella…
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Back in Delhi, Keshav was sprawled on Gopal’s mattress, sharing…
Chapter Thirty-Eight
After checking in at Delhi Airport on their return from…
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Neha sat by herself in the breakfast room, her mobile…
Chapter Forty
A day after leaving Delhi, Sonya looked at the scene…
Chapter Forty-One
Sharat spent over a week in Bangalore, going on long…
Chapter Forty-Two
Sonya quickened her footsteps as she and Estella pushed their…
Chapter Forty-Three
Sharat sat restlessly in the living room, listening to a…
Chapter Forty-Four
Hello, Neha,
Chapter Forty-Five
It was a dark English morning that threatened snow, and…
Reading Group Questions
About the Author
Other Books by Jaishree Misra
Chapter One
Neha stood at the door to her spacious living room in Delhi, surveying the party that was now in full flow. It hadn’t yet reached that freewheeling stage when people, mellowed by the fine wines and Scotches on offer, would start drifting around unreservedly, chatting without embarrassment or restraint to relative strangers. At the moment, most of her guests were gathered in small knots around the room, sticking to the people they knew, but loud bursts of laughter indicated that a good time was already being had. Waiters hired for the night were working the room with trays of drinks and canapés, and some kind of nondescript piano music was tinkling through the eight-speaker Bose system, Sharat’s proud new acquisition. It would need to be turned off for the Divakar Brothers’ live performance that would take place a little later on in the garden, but experience had taught Neha to keep things subtle at the start.
