by Sara Desai
“Danny!” Layla’s mother shouted across the kitchen. “I’m not paying you to socialize. The potatoes aren’t going to peel themselves.”
“Later, babe.” He blew Layla a kiss.
Daisy pretended to gag.
“He’s harmless,” Layla said. “Maybe he’s what I need to get over Jonas. Sex with utterly no emotional connection.”
“I thought that’s what you’ve had for the last five years.”
“What are you girls whispering about?” Pari Auntie called out, her arms elbow-deep in spinach. “Not men, I hope. These young people today . . .”
Charu Auntie walked past with a basket of okra. “Don’t listen to her. An unexpected breakup can cause considerable psychological distress. The social pain has been associated with a twentyfold higher risk of developing depression in the coming year. It’s important to lean on family and friends for support. You’ll find that brain activity in the craving centers will have decreased significantly after about ten weeks.”
“Actually, it’s been almost two weeks and I don’t think of him at all,” Layla offered.
“Then you weren’t truly emotionally invested in that relationship,” Charu Auntie said. “Or you’re a psychopath.”
“Definitely a psychopath.” Daisy sliced furiously, decimating the onion as tears poured down her cheeks. “She didn’t feel anything when she stole the pakoras from my lunch kit in sixth grade.”
Charu Auntie balanced the basket on one hip and adjusted her glasses. “Distraction and self-care are important to prevent a craving response in the ventral tegmental area, the nucleus accumbens, and orbitofrontal/prefrontal cortex.”
“I think she’s saying, in her oddly complicated way, that she thinks you should hook up with fuckboy Danny,” Daisy said. “Too bad the sexy beast upstairs is such a piece of—”
“Shhh.” She hadn’t told her mother about Sam, for the simple reason that she knew her mother would tell her to let Sam have the office. But it wasn’t right. Her father had intended to call him. And it was just common decency to step aside when someone’s dad was in the hospital and his last wish had been for his daughter to work upstairs.
Layla squeezed the soft dough, imaging it was Sam’s head. Squeeze. Pound. Thump. Poke. Anything to wipe that smug expression off his face. She should have just kicked him out and dealt with the consequences later. She was the queen of rash decisions, after all.
“You do what it takes to make yourself happy.” Charu Auntie patted her hand.
“But no more boyfriends until after you’re married,” Selena Auntie called out.
“She’s not going to get married if she rolls roti like that.” Layla’s mother poked the dough and sighed. “Remember to roll clockwise. Perfect circles. Not too thin.”
“Listen to your mother,” Taara Auntie said. “Learn all you can otherwise your mother-in-law will curse your mother if you feed her burned chapattis.”
“You must be cursed every day,” Salena Auntie muttered.
Taara Auntie huffed. “My boys love my fusion food. Last night I combined roti and pizza. My youngest called it rotzza. Or was it rotten? So many English words sound the same.”
“They’re teenage boys,” Salena Auntie said. “They’ll eat anything you put in front of them as long as it’s not moving. And maybe even then.”
Layla looked over her shoulder. Her mother was mixing batter for the ginger chai tea cake she brought to the local seniors’ center every day. It was just one of her parents’ many acts of charity, giving back to the community that had helped two poor immigrants become Michelin-starred chefs. “Mom, would you be disappointed if I didn’t get married?”
Her mother stopped stirring and lowered her voice so only Layla could hear, although with the sound of aunties chattering and pakoras frying and the general clang of pots around them, there was little chance of anyone eavesdropping. “I want you to be happy, but it’s nice to have someone to share your life with. If you can’t find a good man, your father and I can help you like we helped Dev.”
“I don’t want an arranged marriage.”
“It’s not like how it was in my day,” her mother said. “I didn’t have a choice. I thought my world had ended when my parents arranged my marriage to a man in America who I’d never met, but now I can’t imagine life without him.” Her voice caught. “Now things are different. It is an arranged introduction. We make a marriage résumé and let people know you are interested in finding a husband. If we find someone who would be a good match for you, we introduce you and you can talk on the phone or Internet and make a decision if you want to meet him. No time wasted on men who aren’t interested in commitment. No breaking of hearts. We can be the Tinderbox everyone talks about, and if you don’t like him you swipe him away.”
Layla laughed. “It’s Tinder, Mom. And right now I’m trying to figure out how to get my life back together. The last thing I need is a man to mess things up.”
* * *
• • •
SOMETIMES Sam wondered why he had gone into business with Royce.
After two hours of listening to his business partner rave over Skype about the merits of group termination over individual meetings, the exciting prospect of firing workers online, and the wonders of replacing human workers with automation, Sam had had enough of his partner’s high-handed disregard for anything but the corporate bottom line. Instead of creating jobs, Royce destroyed them. Instead of building firms, he raided them. Royce loved nothing more than walking into a business, firing all the staff, and flipping it to the highest bidder. It took a hard, ruthless man to do the job, and no one was as good at it as Royce.
Sam forced a smile for the face on the screen. Although it was three A.M. in Hong Kong, Royce was still in his shirt and tie, his brown hair gelled into its usual two-inch pouf with sideburns that curled around his ears. “Anything else? I’ve got a meeting.”
It wasn’t a lie. Any moment Layla was going to walk through that door, and he couldn’t deny a curious sense of anticipation. He’d already moved her few possessions to the Eagerson desk and had been working for the last five hours in anticipation of the showdown that she was going to lose.
“I’ll be leaving for Beijing tomorrow,” Royce said. “If I’d known Gilder Steel wanted me to visit every location, I would have asked for more money.”
“You love traveling,” Sam reminded him. “You were going crazy stuck behind a desk. That’s why you needed me.”
“There are benefits to being trapped for twelve hours on a plane.” Royce leaned forward until his face took up the entire screen. “I sat beside Peter Richards, the CEO of Alpha Health Care on the trip to Hong Kong. They’ve just taken over five Bay Area hospitals in the failing Sons of Hope Health System and are looking to restructure. One of them is St. Vincent’s Hospital. When I told him you did your residency there, and that we’ve just relocated to a building only a few blocks from their head office, he asked us to pitch for the work.”
Sam’s heart skipped a beat. This was the opportunity he had been waiting for—a real chance for justice. If they won the contract, he would have full access to Ranjeet’s employment file. It was slightly unethical—he had a clear conflict of interest—but if a criminal was walking free, if he could save even one other woman from his sister’s fate and right the injustice done to her, then it was worth the risk. And maybe then he would find his own redemption.
“I assume you want me to prepare the pitch.”
“It involves sitting behind a desk, so yes. I’ve e-mailed you the details.”
Sam tried to rub the tension out of his forehead after Royce ended the call. Despite the personal opportunity, the restructuring meant that many of the people he had worked with at the hospital were going to lose their jobs. This was not the life he had imagined for himself. He had only ever wanted to be a healer, not the man responsible for destroyi
ng lives.
“You’re back.”
His headache disappeared at the sound of Layla’s voice, and a thrill of anticipation shot down his spine. “Of course I’m back. This is my office. I’ve been here since seven A.M. working, as serious businesspeople do, not swanning into work at noon with a box of donuts in one hand and a cook pot in the other.”
Layla pulled herself up with a derisory sniff. “This pot contains my mother’s dal, which is the most delicious and comforting food in the universe. I was planning to share it, but now I’ll just eat it all myself. The donuts are for dessert, which you are not welcome to have. And not that it’s any of your business, but I was at the hospital at seven A.M. visiting my father, and then I was downstairs in the kitchen helping my mother. She’s trying to keep the restaurant going on her own with the help of some inexperienced but well-meaning aunties, and it’s not easy to do.”
Sam opened his mouth and closed it again. She was being kind, caring, and helpful to her family. How irritating. There was no way he could push that line of argument and keep his self-respect.
“You’re sitting at my desk.” She put the pot on the reception desk and folded her arms.
Sam shuffled his papers, spreading them across the polished wood surface for no reason other than to keep his gaze off her distractingly perfect breasts. “I didn’t see your name on it.”
“Just look at your lease. You’ll see it written across the top, or can’t you read big words like Patel?”
“I don’t recall seeing any identification,” he countered. “For all I know, you could have just walked in off the street. You’re certainly not dressed like you’re running a business.”
Eyes blazing, she glared. “What’s wrong with how I’m dressed?”
“An apron and a pink tracksuit with Juicy written across the ass are hardly serious business attire and they certainly don’t scream swipe right on desi Tinder.”
Sam didn’t know if there was such a thing as Tinder for people of South Asian descent living abroad, but if it did exist, he and Layla would definitely not have been a match.
Layla gave a growl of frustration. “You may be surprised to hear that I don’t live my life seeking male approval. I’m just getting over a breakup so I’m a little bit fragile. Last night, I went out with Daisy and drank too much, smoked something I thought was a cigarette, danced on a speaker, and fell onto some loser named Jimbo, whose girlfriend just happened to be an MMA fighter and didn’t like to see me sprawled on top of her man. We had a minor physical altercation and I was kicked out of the bar. Then I got dumped on the street by my Uber driver because I threw up in his cab. So today, I just couldn’t manage office wear. It’s called self-care, and we all need it sometimes. Danny certainly didn’t mind.”
“Who’s Danny?” The question came out before he could stop it.
“Someone who appreciates all I’ve got going here”—she ran a hand around her generous curves—“and isn’t hung up on trivial things like clothes.” She tugged off the apron and dropped it on the reception desk.
“I’m not hung up on clothes, either,” Sam teased. “When I’m with a woman I prefer her to have no clothes at all.”
Her nose wrinkled. “You’re disgusting.”
“Go home, sweetheart.” Sam waved a dismissive hand. “Put your feet up. Watch some rom-coms. Eat a few tubs of ice cream. Have a good cry. Some of us have real work to do.”
Layla grabbed her pot and the box of donuts and marched into the small kitchen at the back of the office. Sam heard cupboards bang. Cutlery clatter. Angry mutters and a huff. A few minutes later Layla marched back out with a bowl of dal in one hand and two donuts circling her finger like rings.
Only when she sat down and proceeded to eat one of the donuts off her finger did he realize he hadn’t done any work since she walked in.
“Donuts and dal are not two foods that naturally go together,” he pointed out.
Layla took a giant bite and licked her lips. “Do you not have work to do? Or are you just going to sit there and look pretty?”
He was saved from laughing out loud when he noticed a man standing beside the empty reception desk, a bundle of papers clutched in his hand.
“Can I help you?” Sam glared at the intruder who had dared interrupt when he was about to defang the little viper in front of him with a few well-chosen words.
The visitor was shorter than Sam by a good few inches, his bronzed baby face clean-shaven, straight dark hair in need of a trim. He wore a ridiculously large sports jacket over a blue collared shirt and a pair of polyester pants two inches too short and cinched tight beneath his large belly with a worn leather belt.
“I’m looking for Layla Patel.”
“That’s me.” Layla removed her donut rings and shot Sam a smug look. “I have a client!”
She couldn’t have been more excited if this were the first client she’d ever had. Sam couldn’t imagine keeping up that level of enthusiasm over the course of a day. Certainly, it would be an asset in her field. Maybe he’d misjudged her, and she was more successful than she appeared.
“Please come in.” She motioned him forward. “What can I do for you?”
“Hassan Khan.” His lips pulled back in a smile, all gums and little teeth. “I will be your new husband.”
• 5 •
“I beg your pardon?”
Hassan walked past Layla and held out his hand to Sam. “I spoke with Mr. Nasir Patel last week. He said his daughter needed a husband right away and we had arranged a meeting for today. When I arrived at the restaurant, one of the kitchen workers told me that Mr. Nasir was in the hospital, but that Layla was upstairs and looking forward to meeting me.”
“I’m going to kill Danny,” Layla muttered under her breath.
“She definitely needs someone to get her under control,” Sam mused, stroking his upper lip. “She got into a bar fight last night, if you can believe it.” Leaning forward, he shook Hassan’s hand. He had no idea what was going on, but from the way Layla was glaring at her visitor, it was worth playing along if only to see her riled.
“My parents have given their approval subject to meeting the girl,” Hassan continued. “They’re excited to have a daughter-in-law who has had such excellent culinary training.”
“Why are you talking to him?” Layla snapped.
“He’s the man.”
Sam couldn’t help but smirk when Layla pressed her lips together, her brow creasing in a furious frown. This day was just getting better and better.
“Anything to do with me, you discuss with me,” she said firmly.
Puzzled, Hassan asked Sam, “Would Mr. Nasir approve?”
“From what I know of her, I suspect Mr. Nasir wouldn’t get much say in the matter.” He let out a heavy sigh. “She is strong willed, unconventional, and definitely not what I’d call a traditional woman.”
“This has nothing to do with you, Sam. Stay out of it.” Layla’s voice rose in pitch. “Clearly, I didn’t know my father was trying to find me a husband. It’s a bit of a shock.”
“But it’s utterly delightful,” Sam said. “All our problems can be solved at once. You run off and marry Hassan. I stay in the office and get down to business.” He was pushing it, he knew, but he couldn’t help himself. Her passionate response to his teasing set his blood on fire.
Layla grabbed one of her donuts and hurled it at Sam with the kind of speed and accuracy he had only ever seen from the Big Three pitchers who had helped his favorite baseball team, the Oakland Athletics, win three AL West Division titles during their five years together.
Sam caught the donut in midair, catcher style. What an exhilarating day! Maybe he should consider another career change. He’d look good in the Oakland A’s green and gold.
“Let’s go to the boardroom so we can talk in privacy.” Layla waved a slightly puzzled Hassan
forward.
“Have a lovely chat.” Sam bit into the donut although he usually didn’t indulge in baked treats. Sugary sweetness burst across his tongue. Delicious. He’d been missing out. Maybe tomorrow he’d buy a box of donuts, too. “I’ll get working on the wedding invitations,” he called out. “Do you prefer pink or orange?”
“We’ll be alone?” Hassan asked.
“Yes, we’ll be alone,” Layla said. “We need to talk about what’s going on without any interruptions.” She led Hassan into the boardroom and slammed the door.
Sam stared, unseeing, at his screen. Hassan seemed to be a very traditional guy with certain expectations and preconceived notions about how a woman should behave. He might even get the wrong idea about Layla’s invitation to meet with him behind closed doors. But so what if he did? Layla clearly knew how to handle herself—as the marks on his shirt from the flying office supplies could attest. And, he was right outside.
Of course he’d also been outside when Nisha had been suffering Ranjeet’s drunken abuse. Outside and far away. Unlike now.
Damn.
Sam grabbed the extra donut off the reception desk and opened the boardroom door. Steam hissed from the kettle on the credenza that had been set up for refreshments. Layla bent down to retrieve a carton of milk from the small fridge. Hassan’s gaze locked on her ass.
Sam’s protective instincts kicked into gear. He moved in front of Hassan, blocking his view.
“Why are you here?” Layla closed the fridge with a soft bang.
“I thought you might need a snack for your guest.”
“The boardroom is fully equipped with . . .” Her words faded away when her gaze fell on the donut in his hand, and for the briefest of seconds, her face softened. “You brought the donut?”
“Yes.” He was perversely pleased that she understood his gesture. “I believe it can be weaponized in the event of an emergency.”
