by Farah Heron
But clearly she did need to find out what he was hiding from her. She was relying on him so much. And her family’s business was at stake. She needed to know if he could be trusted. “Saira, don’t tell Dad, but ask Rish for more information. Was Nadim into shady stuff, too?”
Saira nodded. “Okay, fine. Let me dig a little deeper.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Reena studied the pictures again once Saira had left. Nadim looked like a self-absorbed dimwit surrounded by other self-absorbed dimwits. Not the responsible project manager her father had hired. One eyebrow raised in mirth and lips ever so lightly pursed. Duck-face. Her new friend had duck-face on a yacht.
Her phone rang. Of course, Nadim’s name flashed on her screen. She answered it.
“I’ll come straight by after work,” he said when she answered. “Want me to pick up some takeout?”
He was coming by? She’d hoped she would have a little more time to process all this before she had to face him again. “Um, that’s okay. Thanks, though. I planned a quiet night at home. I did too much socializing on the weekend.”
“Reena, did you forget?” His voice lowered. “We have to do the lice treatment tonight.”
Her shoulders slumped. Yeah. Even if Duncan said she was lice-free, she’d still rather do the treatment again to be sure, and it needed to be Nadim who did it. As mortifying as it was to have her sexy neighbor shampoo and check her hair, she couldn’t let another person witness her shame.
Wait, sexy? Where did that come from? She’d just been worried he had deep dark secrets and now he’s sexy? Stupid libido…Reena wondered if it was time to get laid, so she could really focus on this issue with Nadim.
That did not make sense.
“Reena, you there? Will you let me do this for you?”
“What?”
“Are you okay? You seem a little spacey.”
“I’m fine.”
“I’m asking if I can bring you dinner tonight. Maybe that Thai place you told me about?”
Reena needed to get a grip as soon as possible. She sighed. “Yeah, sounds fine.” She let him know which dishes she liked and hung up.
* * *
Once Reena was done unpacking, she started cleaning to calm her nerves. Deep cleaning. Starting with the kitchen, she scrubbed, scoured, and polished until her fingers were numb and her mind was clear enough to make a decision: It was high time she and Nadim talked. Really talked. No more skirting any serious topics, no more pretending their pasts didn’t exist. She was going to ask him about his life in London and see if he mentioned the yacht people. She wouldn’t wait for Saira’s gossip train. No more deflecting.
She finished deep cleaning by midafternoon, but her low-level anxiety (okay, honestly not that low) about confronting Nadim hadn’t eased. Breathing deeply to slow her rising heart rate, she grabbed her iPad and logged into a few job search boards while her email loaded. And…crap. An email from Abigail, the employment counselor. She didn’t get the job she had interviewed for last week. They went with another applicant.
Because of course they did.
Reena threw her iPad on the couch. She had let her hopes sail a little too high there. She took a deep, long breath, but it didn’t help. She needed to cook something.
Since she didn’t feel like making a yeast bread, she decided on pie. Mixing the pastry and cutting the fruit would distract her from that stupid job she didn’t realize she had wanted so much. Eating the pie later, with a scoop of the crème brûlée ice cream in the freezer, would be just the thing to soothe the crushing rejection. And finally, feeding Nadim the pie would soften the impact of the personal questions she planned to spring on him.
She went with her favorite: sour cream apple pie. Rich, buttery pastry filled with tart apples nestled in a sour cream custard and topped with a brown sugar crumble. No one could hold secrets when faced with the scent of that pie, let alone the taste.
Nadim arrived on time, armed with a plastic bag and a huge paper bag of takeout in one hand, and a six-pack in the other. He had grabbed Thai beer to go with the Thai food. Nice choice. His jeans were worn and faded, and his T-shirt carried the emblem of her favorite brand of sriracha hot sauce.
“God, it smells good in here.” He grinned as he dropped his things on the breakfast bar. “Sometimes I still have to pinch myself that I get to live near these smells.”
Reena started opening the paper bag of take-out containers. “Thanks. And thanks for grabbing dinner.”
“No problem at all. I’m looking forward to trying that chicken mint salad…” He wandered over to the counter, near the stove. “I found the smell.” He leaned forward, nose inches from the cooling pie. When he stood straight his face looked luminescent with pleasure.
“Did you make the pie for me?” he asked.
“Yeah, um, for us. Dessert.”
He groaned. “You’re killing me, Ree.”
She bit her lip. Few people called her Ree, and only one person did it consistently, Amira. Hearing the nickname said from his lips with that accent made her shiver up her spine. “Where’d you get that shirt?”
He grinned as he pulled two plates down from her kitchen cabinet. “From a thrift store, if you’d believe it. There was one near a meeting I had with a restaurant developer, and I had time to kill. Here.” He went to the breakfast bar and took something out of the plastic bag and handed it to her. “I found this and had to get it for you.”
It was an old ceramic crock, probably from the seventies or older. Beige with a brown lid and the word SOURDOUGH stamped across it. An old starter jar. He bought her this?
“I don’t know why I’ve never been in a thrift store before, but you have to see all the stuff I got for my apartment! It won’t be so bare anymore. And I love that the stuff has, you know, history. Personality.”
“You’re a trust fund kid. Of course you’ve never been to a thrift store.”
His expression was incredulous. “I am not a trust fund kid!”
“Did you have a trust fund?” she asked.
He frowned. “Technically…But anyway, I cleaned out the jar for you. Although now I wonder if it had decades’ old traces of sourdough in it. Personality, right?”
She smiled, letting her finger trace the letters on the crock. She wasn’t sure she’d ever received such a casually thoughtful gift.
“Thank you for this,” she said, putting the crock on the counter. “I’ve actually always wanted one of these. I still can’t see you in a thrift store, though.”
“I’ve been missing out. But new life, new Nadim. Shall we eat?”
“Yes, let’s.”
Nadim made up for her terrible mood by being especially chipper and charming. He called her “goddess” no less than three times over their khao soi and made a suggestive comment when she said she preferred tom kha gai to tom yum soup. He couldn’t have picked a worse time to be all rakish again.
“You’re quiet today,” he said, twirling egg noodles on his chopsticks. “Nervous about the video going live? It’s up in four days.”
She shrugged. She hadn’t really thought much about the video, to be honest. Unemployment and the unearthed dirt about her fake fiancé was actually a pretty good distraction from stage fright. She should tell Hollywood.
“No. Not really nervous.”
“Worried about your parents finding out what we’re up to?”
She shrugged. Their finding out about her job and the yacht would be worse. “Nah. I mean, I’m not telling them, but they’re the ones who want us engaged, so what’s the big deal if we tell a national TV station that we are?”
“Then what’s bothering you, Ree?”
“Just a rough day.”
“Did you leave work early? That pie was warm.”
Crap. Of course, he noticed the pie was fresh. Ugh…she felt like an idiot.
She considered telling him the pie came from her freezer, when she sank in her seat. She planned this whole evening to get some honesty
out of him. She couldn’t start by lying. He bought her a starter jar, for god’s sake. He deserved the truth.
“If I tell you something, can I trust you not to tell my parents? Actually, not to tell anyone. At all. No one knows this, except Amira and Saira.”
“Of course. You know you can trust me. What’s wrong?”
Could trust him? The man on the gold yacht? She took a long breath. “I didn’t go to work today. I was laid off two weeks ago.”
He looked up at her, his eyes warm with concern. “Oh, shit, Reena, I’m so sorry. Did this happen that day I found you at the Sparrow?”
She nodded, not trusting her voice not to crack.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She bit her lip. “I didn’t want you to tell my father. I don’t want my parents to know until I have another job.”
“Why? Your dad can probably help you find one. He knows so many people.”
Reena fidgeted with her chopsticks, scraping the rough wood with her fingernails. “This isn’t my first…I’ve been downsized twice. Last time Mum kept saying ‘how could you let this happen to you?’ And Dad kept saying ‘now’s the time to join the family business.’”
“And you don’t want to do that.”
“No.” She pressed her eyes closed a moment. “I’m thirty-one. I can afford to live alone only because my parents own this building and charge me a fraction of what the average Toronto rent is. It’s still hard to stay afloat. As soon as things start going well and I start to think, there, I’ve done it, I am an adult now, boom. Downsized again. Don’t get me wrong, I know it could be worse, but I wish their help didn’t come with so many damn strings. Telling me where to work. What to eat. Where to live. Who to marry.”
Nadim sat silently for a while. Reena wondered if she had said too much. Delved too deep into serious talk. Not to mention that the marriage comment didn’t shine too brightly on him.
He finally spoke. “I’m sorry, Reena. I…I’m sorry you’re going through this. A part of me wants to say you should be happy your parents care enough to interfere. But that’s not right, either. There should be a middle ground, yeah?”
His parents didn’t care enough to interfere? Reena tensed. “I’m sure your parents care.”
He smiled sadly. “Let’s just say my father didn’t send me to school in England only for the quality of education. Out of sight, out of mind.”
“Nadim, that’s…I’m sorry. That’s messed.”
He sighed. “Yeah. Messed. I was such a cliché…screwing up to get noticed. And when he had no choice but to notice my mistakes, I wasn’t left with many options.” He absently glanced out the window.
There it was. A little hint he had a past he regretted. But how exactly had he screwed up? Should she ask now?
No. Not now. Not while he looked at her with warm, concerned eyes. He put his hand over hers, which were still clutching her chopsticks. “Enough about me and my past, though. I am so sorry about your job. If you need any help at all with your search, please count on me. I can look at your CV or practice interviews. I’ll keep your secret for as long as you need. Have you found any good job leads?”
“Yeah, some. My employment counselor is optimistic. I’ll be okay.”
“Keep your chin up, yeah? Let me clean up dinner, and then maybe a cup of tea? Or something stronger?”
She sighed. “I have to wash my hair. The lice stuff.”
“Right. I’ll make tea while you’re in the shower. You can drink it while I’m combing you.”
“Okay.” She got up from the table slowly, straining not to meet his eyes. She couldn’t bear to see pity in them.
“Reena.” He held her arm as she started to walk away. “I’m glad you told me. I won’t tell your parents, you have my word.”
Later, after he helped her rub the noxious chemicals into her scalp, she sat alone on the edge of her tub, letting the bug killer do its thing. She decided then that this could very well be the absolute lowest point in her life.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I’m definitely not finding anything,” Nadim said. They were both on the couch in her living room, sitting sideways. Her wet hair was pulled into sections, which he combed through.
Hallelujah. Duncan was right. “Yay.” She deadpanned, before sipping the tea Nadim had spiked with bourbon. Good man, this one.
“Sorry again to have to put you through this,” he said.
She chuckled. “You’re coming along nicely in your Canadian assimilation. Step up your apologies a bit more, and start ordering your coffee double-double and you’re there.”
He laughed. “I’m doing my best. Eh.”
He combed silently for a while as Reena considered how to get the conversation to steer toward his past again.
“You know,” he said, doing her work for her, “years ago, I had a dream of moving to Canada. It’s a little surprising it’s actually happened.”
“Really? When?”
“As a boy. Before England. Once I got there, I figured I’d end up staying in London.”
“Then why did you come to Canada?”
He didn’t answer right away, but without being able to see his face, she couldn’t guess what he was thinking. “I told you. My father invested with your father and arranged this opportunity for me to learn from him.” He paused. “I’d admired your father’s reputation as a successful real estate developer. I’d heard he was like the Muslim Donald Tr—”
“Don’t you dare finish that sentence.”
“Okay.” He snorted. “But, like, not really, because your father’s reputation is that he’s good. That he’s ethical as well as shrewd. A good, stable man with a brilliant mind for business.”
“You said your father doesn’t usually get involved in your life?”
He exhaled. “No. Not usually.” He sighed as he ran the comb through her hair again. “My mother died when I was six, and my father never remarried. A series of housekeepers pretty much raised me until Dad sent me to boarding school. I was a problem child.”
“I’m sorry. That doesn’t sound like a fun childhood.”
“It didn’t seem terrible at the time. I mean, I had so many friends and we always had fun, but…yeah. I had these two classmates when I was kid—Joseph and Jabari. We used to prank our teachers—you know, like hot sauce in their food, switch the sugar and salt. Harmless stuff.” Nadim laughed. “One time we moved the teachers’ bicycle rack ten centimeters a day for a few weeks. They didn’t notice until the rack was two meters across the field. We were always in trouble. And my father was always punishing me. He had very high expectations for my character but left me on my own to develop that character. I stopped trying to please him a long time ago. And the older I grew, the less he seemed to care about how I was doing.” He shrugged.
“But he cares now, right? He sent you here.” Not to mention planning his son’s marriage.
“Yes, but only because I screwed up. Badly, this time. I take full ownership of my mistakes and am grateful he’s helping me find my footing.”
Typical desi parents. Always taking things to extremes—years of neglect, and then way too much interference. His father’s idea of helping him seemed to not only be planning his entire life for him, but also shipping him off again, this time to Canada instead of England. Why would Nadim even care to please this man?
“So, he sent you off to marry a good girl because you messed up?”
“Reena, I’m thirty-two. I wanted to do this. We both decided it would be a fresh start for me.”
“What was your big mistake, anyway?”
Nadim stilled.
This was it. The reason for the bailout. Maybe the truth?
“It sounds ridiculous, and I feel all of fifteen years old, but I fell in with a bad crowd. A situation snowballed, and I needed my father’s help to get out of it.”
Father’s help. Wrong crowd. He was one of those troubled daddy needs to bail me out kids. What had he done?
Nadim
knew what she was thinking. “Don’t worry, Reena, it wasn’t illegal or anything. Just a lapse in judgment. Anyway, I promised my father I’d put it behind me,” he continued. “And he helped me do that.”
Reena closed her eyes as the comb scraped behind her ear, causing her to shiver. She didn’t know what to say next. Nadim seemed to have no desire to talk about the details, and maybe for good reason. She could bet his father told him not to tell anyone, especially not her father. And why should Nadim trust Reena? After all, as Dad said, the business was a family business—and she was a Manji.
But she wouldn’t betray him. She didn’t work for her father and had no obligation to carry out his corporate espionage. Dad would judge Nadim for his past. Just like he judged Reena for every mistake she made. She couldn’t subject Nadim to that.
“I think I get it,” she said quietly. “I know I’ve made mistakes, before. Lapses in judgment.”
He silently took the hair tie out of the next segment of hair and started combing. They were both silent for a bit while he worked through her hair. As he gently tilted her head to get behind her other ear, he asked, “Reena, are you glad I moved here?”
What a question. Yesterday, she would have said maybe. Probably. But now? After hearing him tell the truth about why he was here? “Yes. I’m glad you’re here. I’m sorry things went badly for you in London, but I’m glad you’re getting a second chance.” Her voice quieted. “And I’m glad to have you for company when my life is complete shit.”
“I’m glad I’m here, too.” She heard the smile in his voice. After a few more runs of the comb, he straightened her head and ran it down the middle of her now fully loose hair. “You have such soft hair,” he murmured, letting his fingers trail down her neck and behind her ear. She shivered again.
“Thank you.”
“It’s a lot longer wet. I guess because the curls are stretched out. No more bungee jumping.” He scraped the comb through the top of her head with his right hand while his left hand dug into the back, raking his fingers through the wet strands.
