Forbidden India Ch 01 1

Roma Knows How To Negotiate!

"Husband, tell me again why I am here?" Roma asked.

"It is important for our business."

"That will explain why you are here. It does not explain why I am here with you."

"It is good for my negotiations that I will show a strong stability that comes with marriage." Fenil explained. "Perhaps then the investors will see that I am a stable man and will become convinced enough that they will fund our business. We cannot return to India with empty hands. Look there. That is the hotel where we are to meet the investors. You must be quiet while we are there. I will talk for us both. You must not speak out of turn while I negotiate."

Earlier, their yellow taxi had traveled over a bridge so high that Roma had become frightened by it. She had looked down at her lap until they were no longer traveling over that bridge, to avoid looking through the windows. Roma did not like riding on airplanes or taking elevators to the uppermost floors of high buildings. Only now had she discovered that she did not like traveling over tall bridges either, because she had never been over a bridge as tall as that one.

"Everything on this island is named Coronado." Fenil said, sounding marveled where Roma was not. "The island is Coronado, the bridge is Coronado and even the hotel is Coronado. This hotel is a historical place. It is a famous place throughout the world."

If the hotel was so famous, Roma thought, then why hadn't she heard of it before? Not for the first time, the thirty-two year-old Indian woman wished she were back home in Kanpur. For her, stability came from familiar places and people, and not from great big hotels that looked like giant British plantations.

Fenil felt it necessary to remind her of her place again. "Remember, you must remain quiet while I negotiate."

This irritated Roma, to have husband refer to her as having less intelligence than he did. Perhaps she did not know American investors as well as he, but she could do many things that her husband could not. She was a highly respected woman in India, not only because she was Upper Caste and married to a wealthy businessman. On her own, Roma had come to manage five large beauty shops between Kanpur and Delhi, and would have twice as many if her great negotiator of a husband had not failed in convincing the Chinese to open up the borders to their business.

That was the face that most people saw of Roma, but even more important was that through her and her husband's efforts they had acquired and invigorated a good number of manufacturers of cosmetics. By re-branding and marketing their products with a new, distinctive flair, the Roma line of cosmetics had become trendy and popular in northern India, especially among the young people from the Upper Caste. It seemed that every time Roma released an old cosmetic in a new package, her beauty products would go viral on Facebook and Twitter.

The Chinese were already creating knock-off products based on her merchandise, but legally nothing could be done about that. The Japanese and the Koreans were ready to welcome them with open arms. Those are the countries they should have gone to, Roma reasoned, instead of coming to the United States. The problem was that too many of the investors in these Asian countries were older men who saw women as inferior to them. On the other hand, if Western investors backed Roma and Fenil, it would be a hundred times easier to get their shops and their cosmetics into the Asian nations.

And so, to further expand their business Roma had come on a plane with her husband and had taken elevators inside high buildings twice already. She had just crossed over a great bridge and now she was looking out at a great hotel she had never heard of before. Things were so much easier to manage in India, where people kept their thoughts and their feet grounded.

The taxi pulled up alongside a row of neatly trimmed hedges. Roma listened as Fenil paid the driver, appalled to hear that the price for the ride was sixty American dollars. From Roma's point of view, it was only a short ride from their hotel in La Jolla to this second hotel in Coronado. She hadn't seen the point of why they couldn't simply meet the investors in their hotel, instead of having to be taken to another hotel in another part of the city. That's when Fenil started telling her about his agreement to play tennis with the potential investors.

"Come with me." Fenil said, as he slid out of the car.

Roma followed her husband closely. They ended up standing on the broad sidewalk that ran alongside the long row of hedges. As usual, Fenil was so worried about his appearance and his composure that he paid no attention to his wife. It would be up to her to make sure she was equally presentable. If Fenil's negotiations failed, he could very well blame her for having said or done something to embarrass or disgrace him.

Roma considered herself as best she could. She was a tall woman by the standards of India. Her skin was fair and her hair dark brown. Many times, it had been suggested to Roma that the image of her face should be used on her products. She was as pretty as any Indian fashion model. However, the last thing she wanted was to look upon shelves of merchandise showing little faces of her on their boxes.

In India, a respected businesswoman would not be showing off any portion of her body to the public. Her clothing would be much more conservative. Here in the States, things were vastly different. There were a number of people crowding up the main thoroughfare, most of whom Roma suspected were tourists. The men wore silky shirts that fluttered with the breeze, while the women wore colorful blouses. Among that sort of crowd she saw a lot of hats, sunglasses, cameras and shorts. Everyone was showing off their legs, which caused Roma to feel a little less anxious in showing off hers.

It wasn't that Roma's form was unsightly. To the contrary, she still had her enticing and womanly figure of full breasts and queenly hips. The Americans might see her as being thick-bodied, but their fashion models were all skinny twigs. In India, where so many women ate their fill or did not maintain their figures, a face and form like hers was highly sought after by influential men.

"Tell me how I look, husband." Roma asked, because if she didn't Fenil would have continued to ignore her.

They were both fully dressed in white. Fenil had his shorts and Roma had her skirt.

"Don't bother me with such questions." Fenil told her. "Come with me. Don't speak to me, as I have to arrange my thoughts for this approaching negotiation."

Roma dutifully followed her husband, but she did not understand all this wooing and socializing with investors, which she felt was unnecessary. To her it was a simple matter. They had a successful business and were looking to expand into other countries. Did the investors want to be a part of that success or not?

While they walked along, Fenil became more anxious. He always behaved this way, Roma knew. Perhaps this is why he hadn't been very successful as of late. The people from other countries did not look well upon a man who was nervous and sweaty, and who had a clammy handshake. The presence of Roma, as Fenil had said, was to calm the investors enough to secure a deal with them.

Fenil asked a random passerby for directions to the hotel's tennis courts. The person merely pointed toward the hotel. They walked along that way, ending up not at tennis courts but in a large parking lot that had perhaps a hundred cars on it. Fenil asked another person and this time they were pointed toward the beach. Roma didn't trust those directions because who would put tennis courts on a beach? After a few more minutes of walking, they realized the hotel had a great patio built behind it. They found several places for guests to sit and chat, a large swimming pool, and finally they came to the tennis courts.

"You must not mix up the names of the investors." Fenil told her, more to ease his own worries than to inform his wife of anything. "These two men are business partners. Mr. Wagner owns several buildings in La Jolla, including the only theater. Once Mr. Wagner purchases a building, Mr. Plaidy steps in to occupy it with important businesses. Most recently, Mr. Plaidy has expanded a chain of expensive restaurants in the same way we wish to expand our own business. These are very important men."

Roma was busy thinking about tennis. She played more often than her husband and usually did very well against other women, and also against a number of men. Roma was an aggressive player, whereas her husband was a player of average skill. Because they were in the midst of a negotiation, Fenil would have preferred that his wife would allow their opponents to win, but Roma was not that sort of woman. If she was to play, she would play to win regardless of who was standing on the other side of the net. They hadn't come to the States with the intentions of playing games, however, and so neither of them had the right attire or even the equipment. Because Fenil was entirely compliant, he'd agreed to the match and so they'd gone out at the last moment to purchase their white clothes. Their rivals would lend them extra tennis rackets.

"Remember to speak only when spoken to." Fenil said, as he spotted the two investors already engaged in a match.

Her husband's attitude changed before Roma's eyes. He waved his hands too much. He smiled and laughed too much, even at statements not meant to be taken as jokes. This angered Roma, to see her husband acting this way merely because he was meeting men with larger bank accounts than his.

The investors were both in their fifties. The German Wagner was the taller of the two, standing at over six feet. This man had arms and legs long enough to cover his side of the court like an octopus. Plaidy was as tall as Roma, an American as agile and spry as Wagner was long and powerful. Both men were adept at the sport. Roma watched them closely, trying to gauge their strengths and weaknesses before they were playing against each other.

The first game was a disaster.

Fenil kept calling the two investors by the wrong names. He did this so often that the investors ended up laughing at Roma's husband as if he couldn't possibly be making the same mistake so many times.

They asked Fenil a few specific questions about the line of cosmetics, which the man knew nothing about. That was Roma's end of their business. She could have easily made the replies, but in his infinite wisdom Fenil didn't defer the questions to her. He tried to answer them on his own. The investors were savvy enough to pick his replies apart, yet still the man would not trust his wife enough to bring her into the conversation.

What made things worse was that Fenil got snappy, not at the men with the big bank accounts, but at his wife who was playing tennis so much better than he was. Fenil was a liability at the game, not playing up to his average skill on purpose and expecting Roma to do the same. Instead, the woman grew resentful at being ignored and played harder. She went into Fenil's side of the court to take balls way from him, and covered nearly as much ground as that octopus Wagner across from her.

They still lost badly.

In the second game, Fenil played against Plaidy. The American expected some sort of adversity but got none. Instead, the anxious Fenil allowed the other man to control the entire game and trounce him.

In the third game, Roma went against the octopus. Fenil stood as nervous as ever on the sidelines. She could see that her husband expected her to capitulate subtly against her opponent. Fenil made faces whenever Roma scored, instead of cheering her on like a good husband would have done. Wagner won the game, mostly due to his strong serve, but Roma managed to make that game a close one.

The worst blow came after the matches were over. Both Wagner and Plaidy said they had no interest in promoting a chain of cosmetics stores, when there were hundreds of similar companies already competing in the United States. The market was simply too crowded.

All of Fenil's frustrations came out during the ride back to their hotel. The man yelled at his wife, blaming her for his being unable to come to a working agreement with the two investors. After having been so quiet during the games, Roma finally had enough of it. The angry woman pointed out how Fenil had kept her out of the conversation when she was clearly more knowledgeable on the topics. She brought up how Fenil had played the part of a limp fish and ended up becoming a joke in the eyes of men who were not superior to them but equals. Their argument continued in hotel lobby and in the elevator, which Roma despised because it would take them up ten floors above the ground. Even when the couple reached their suite, their argument continued.

At the end of it, Fenil stormed out and went to some unknown place. Her husband didn't know anyone in that entire country, so Roma had no idea where he could have gone. She was still steamed, however, and wondered how the negotiations would have gone if she'd been allowed to be a part of them. The investors were two men with money who were out looking for new opportunities. Roma and her husband had a lucrative venture for them to invest in. What could have possibly ruined that opportunity except for Fenil's incompetence?

If she had been charged with the negotiations, Roma thought, things would have been much different. The thought that it was her husband that had prevented success burned her. Roma walked from one end of the hotel room to the other. She saw the phone sitting on the end table, and the business cards and contact information Fenil had used to get in touch with the investors.

"I could do ten times a better negotiation than Fenil did today!" Roma snapped, even though there was no one else in the room to snap at.

Roma paused by the end table where the business cards lay. It was getting late in the afternoon by then, but still within normal business hours. She wondered if she might set up a new meeting with those same investors, but without Fenil coming along this time to blunder things. After thinking this over for few moments, she picked up the hotel phone and called the secretary they'd spoken to before.

Decisions must be made quickly and competently, Roma knew. This way of thinking was what had caused her to become such a big success in the first place. She was not about to abandon her strategy of spotting a target and going after it like a hunter. This was not the way her husband did things, but his negotiating tactics had already failed. Roma had nothing to lose and so she could afford to take a few risks.

Once Wagner agreed to meet with her, Roma took a taxi to the nearest upscale clothing store. She went through a number of outfits but didn't like any of them, mostly because she didn't approve of the way Western businesswoman dressed. Too many of the outfits made Roma feel as if she was a woman wearing a man's clothing.

Roma tried to convey what she wanted to the women that worked at the store. "I need to impress to these investors that I am as capable in business as they are. I have nearly as much money in the bank as they do."

From the looks the clerks gave her, Roma could tell they didn't believe her.

"I own many businesses in India!" She told them.

Because of her temper and her argument with Fenil, Roma had never changed out of her tennis outfit. Perhaps if she had come to the store wearing attire and jewelry more fitting of an Upper Caste woman, these simple clerks would show her more respect. She did not have the time to dally, however, because the time for her meeting with Wagner and his partner was fast approaching.

"Listen to me!" Roma told the clerks. "I need to dress as an American woman of business and I need to impress two men! My time is running short!"

Finally, the clerks began doing their work. One quickly took her measurements, while the other ran off to find her an outfit. The second clerk came back with two sets of clothes, one in blue and one in gray.

Roma glanced at the time on her phone. "Here, give me the gray clothing. I must put those clothes on at once!"

She hurried into the dressing room with three items, a coat and skirt in houndstooth gray and a blouse in white. This was nothing like what she would wear at home and so she had to trust that the clerks were giving her attire befitting her high social status. As Roma donned the clothes, she found them a bit restrictive, especially the skirt that was snug against her butt. The Indian knew that American women were proud of wearing the tightest clothing they could squeeze their skinny bodies into, but was this really what smart businesswomen wore when speaking with important clients?

It didn't matter. Roma didn't have the time to choose another outfit. She finished dressing and went to pay for her items. Because she was still wearing tennis shoes, she made one quick stop for a pair of stylish black heels.

After that she scurried out of the store to catch a taxi.

Luckily, Mr. Wagner's office was in La Jolla and not that far away from her hotel. During the taxi ride, she thought of how she would make her pitch for her business. If she could pull this off, she would be smug when telling her husband that she had succeeded when he had failed. Perhaps then, the next time they were in negotiations Fenil would trust that his wife knew what she was doing. She didn't even want to call her husband until her meeting with Mr. Wagner was over, in case matters didn't work out.

The moment the taxi stopped, Roma jumped out of it. As she went toward the business building where Mr. Wagner's office was located, she noticed that a man was staring at her. No matter, she was a pretty woman with a curvy figure. Men had stared at her before. Confidently, Roma made her way to the receptionist.

"I will be speaking with Mr. Wagner." Roma announced.

The receptionist knew right away whom she was talking about. She made a single call on her phone with many extensions. After this call, the woman pointed Roma toward the bank of elevators.

More elevators, Roma grumbled as she walked toward them. Three people stepped out of one of these, and so Roma hurried over before the doors shut. The people were American men. Two of them turned to gawk at her. One of the men even let out a short whistle. Roma didn't know what to make of that whistle because she hadn't been expecting it. She simply pushed the button to floor number six and waited for the elevator to start moving.

These foreign men kept looking at her, Roma considered, when other men hadn't been looking at her all that much before. The back wall of the elevator was mirrored, and so she turned to look at herself to make sure she was as presentable as possible. The image she saw in the mirror nearly stunned her.

The clothing she'd purchased had felt snug when she'd first put it on, but now that Roma was looking at her reflection, she realized how tight it was on her body. Her breasts were bold little melons poking at her blouse. She turned to her side and then gave her back to the mirror. The skirt gripped her butt even tighter than the blouse gripped her chest. Her hips were clearly defined for the entire world to see. No wonder those men were staring at her! The clerks at the clothing store had dressed her up like a prostitute!

"This cannot be happening!" Roma worriedly told her image. "I cannot go into a business meeting wearing these clothes! These men will throw me out to the street when they see me!"

Regardless, Roma felt she had no choice but to go through with the meeting. Breaking the appointment would be much worse than failing at negotiations. She would not be able to look her husband in the eye if she went as far as entering the elevator to Mr. Wagner's office, only to turn around and run away before even reaching his door. After regaining some of her composure, Roma held her head up and braced herself for what was to come.