by Sara Desai
“Tell him to take a hike.”
She sipped her coffee, her brow creased in consternation. “I was going to contact them all last night, but then I started thinking about all the work my dad did to find them. He wrote that lovely profile, reviewed hundreds of résumés, talked to these guys on the phone, and arranged the meetings . . . And all the time he was thinking about me and what kind of person I was and who would make me happy.”
“You couldn’t figure this out for yourself?” He cringed inwardly at his harsh words. Who was he to criticize? He’d given up the pursuit of happiness long ago.
Far from being offended, Layla just shrugged. “I’ve gone from one disastrous relationship to the next. My last one ended when I found my boyfriend, Jonas, snorting coke off two naked models in our bed. The worst part was, he asked me to join them, like I was his pal instead of his girlfriend. And that wasn’t the first time . . .”
Sam’s eyes widened. This woman was full of surprises. “You’ve found other boyfriends in bed with models?”
“No.” She sipped her coffee, her slender throat tightening as she swallowed. “But after my brother, Dev, died, I became very depressed and I made a lot of bad choices, especially with men. I missed him so much. He used to look after me when my parents were busy with the restaurant. He was a great big brother, always there to solve my problems . . .”
“I didn’t know you lost your brother.” He dropped the legal opinion on his desk. “If I said anything inappropriate . . .”
“No. It’s fine.” She lifted a dismissive hand. “It was five years ago. I’m over it.”
Sam wasn’t so sure. She was staring at her keyboard, coffee cup frozen in midair. Despite their antagonism, he had a curious urge to make her smile again. “Your old boyfriend sounds like an idiot,” he offered. “You’re hardly plain.”
Her head jerked up, eyes flashing with annoyance. “I’ll write that one down and stick it on my screen. When I’m having a bad day, I’ll read ‘You’re hardly plain,’ and it will make me feel so much better.”
“Are you fishing for compliments?” He straightened the papers, arranging them in neat rows. “Doesn’t seem to be your style.”
“You’re right.” She placed her cup on her desk. “My style is jeans and T-shirts, and occasionally I’ll go crazy with a kick-ass pair of boots.”
“Those were good boots.”
“Rein it in, tiger, we’re talking husbands, not boots.” She twirled back and forth in her chair.
“Right,” he grumbled. “I forgot you were foolishly considering playing the marriage game.”
“You don’t approve?”
“Of arranged marriages? No. You can’t possibly know everything you need to know about someone after reading their résumé and meeting them once or twice with your entire family present. It’s a backward, antiquated tradition that needs to be legislated out of existence. A guy shows up with a bunch of degrees and a sizable bank account, wins the family over with false declarations and fake charm, and the next thing you know, your sister is in the hands of a monster.” He didn’t realize he had raised his voice until his words echoed around the room.
Silence.
“Are we talking about someone you know or people generally?” She studied him so intently he wondered if she could see into his soul.
“I’ve seen how it can go horribly wrong.” There was no way he would let a woman as vibrant and vivacious as Layla suffer the same fate as Nisha.
“And I’ve seen how it can go right.” She crossed the floor to his desk, stepping over boxes, hangers, and a curious stuffed sheep to reach him. “I’m not talking about forced marriages. I’m talking about an arranged introduction. That’s how it was with my brother and his wife. Dev was busy with his career so he asked my parents to help him find a partner. They posted his profile. Rhea’s family responded because she also had a busy career and no time to date. Our families met. Dev and Rhea clicked. They went out on a few dates. Three months later they were married. If it hadn’t worked out, either of them could have walked away.”
“So you want to be just like him? Is that it?” Sam asked bitterly. “Your parents found your brother a spouse and you want one, too?”
“Sam.” She slammed her hands on her desk, her nostrils flaring. “Be serious, if that’s even possible for you. I’ve never even thought about an arranged marriage until now. I always believed in true love, just like in The Princess Bride. I always thought my Westley was out there. I just had to find him.”
Be serious? He couldn’t remember a day since the accident when he’d been anything but serious. The burden of Nisha’s pain weighed heavy on his soul, painting his world in shadows. How could Layla possibly mistake his caustic comments for humor?
“So, what’s the problem? Just sit back and wait for this Westley person to show up at your door.”
“This Westley person?” She gave him an incredulous look. “Have you not seen The Princess Bride? It’s the greatest movie of all time. Westley was the perfect man. He was a poor farm boy who would do anything Princess Buttercup asked of him because he loved her.”
“Sounds like an idiot to me,” Sam said. “What kind of man lets a woman boss him around? Did he have no self-respect?”
“He had true love. And it never died, not when he had to leave her, nor when he came back years later and discovered an evil prince was trying to force her into a marriage she didn’t want.”
“So that’s a no to the self-respect.” Sam lined his pens up beside his pencils. “If he truly loved her, he wouldn’t have left in the first place, especially if there were evil princes sniffing around his woman.”
“He had nothing to give her so he went to seek his fortune. He wanted to be worthy.”
Sam didn’t watch many movies, especially not ones with princesses and true love, but the farm boy’s quest for worthiness resonated with him. He had lost his sense of self-worth the day Nisha told him about Ranjeet’s drinking and violent temper and her suspicion that he had been responsible for her accident. “Did this Westley person find what he was looking for?”
“He became a pirate, made his fortune, saved her from the marriage, and they lived happily ever after.”
“There are no happily ever afters.” Would that he had become a pirate and saved Nisha so she, too, could have had a happy life.
“I don’t know, Sam.” She sat on his desk, legs casually swinging over the edge like they’d crossed the stage in their relationship where the intrusion into his personal space was in any way acceptable.
Sam flipped over the legal opinion and held it on his lap because the alluring scent of her perfume and the soft curves only inches away were creating problems down below.
“What if my dad doesn’t make it?” Her voice trembled. “What if this is the last thing he does for me? I’m tired of bad boyfriends. I want to come home every day and share my life with someone who’s committed to the relationship in the same way as me. I came home to fix things, reinvent myself. New life. New job. New outlook. So why not extend that to relationships, too? Why not meet the men my father chose? They can’t be worse than the guys I picked myself. They posted their profiles online because they want to get married. They aren’t going to string me along and break my heart. Love is out of the equation.”
“There are other options,” he said brusquely. “You don’t leave a decision that can affect the rest of your life to your parents. You’re beautiful, smart, and ambitious. You don’t need any help finding a date . . .” His voice trailed off when he registered the shock on her face. “What’s wrong?”
“I thought you hated me.”
“I hate that you won’t get out of my office,” he said quickly, trying to cover his mistake. “I don’t know you well enough to hate you, although if you put a laxative in the coffee I can see things going downhill very quickly.”
He
r soft laugh warmed his heart. “I know you’re against arranged marriages, but you’ve actually convinced me to give it a try. How different is it from Tinder except my dad did the picking and he clicked yes instead of swiping right? I won’t have to deal with six-foot toned bodybuilders who turn out to be five-foot-five nerds who live in their mother’s basement.”
He found his indifference vanishing with disconcerting speed at the thought of Layla with toned bodybuilders and desilovematch.com strangers. “How are you going to run a business when you’re constantly running out on dates?” he protested. “There are ten names on that list. It’s crazy.”
“I’ll meet them in the boardroom,” she said. “You won’t even know we’re here.”
But he would know. He would look at them and wonder if there was a monster hiding beneath the mask just waiting to get her alone and away from her family so he could abuse her. And he would worry, just as he’d worried when she’d led Hassan into the boardroom and closed the door.
He glanced over at the purple brocade couch with its gold braiding and intricately carved rosewood frame, considering another tactic. “If they responded to the profile your father posted, they’re likely to be very traditional. They’ll get the wrong idea if you don’t have a male relative present.” He almost couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth. Since when did he care about tradition or propriety? Or about this woman who was hell-bent on stealing his office?
“I don’t need a man to find a man,” she retorted. “Also, I can’t let anyone in my family know. If they thought I was in the marriage market, they’d go crazy.”
“Hassan was checking out your ass when I walked in. What would have happened if I wasn’t there?”
“I would have kicked him between the legs and broken his nose if he’d tried anything.” She punched the air, her fist whistling past his ear sending a rush of adrenaline through his veins. “I took Krav Maga in New York because my parents were convinced the city was full of criminals just waiting to pounce.”
“So the office is going to become both a fight club and a brothel.” His hand clenched beneath the desk in frustration. “I’ll be sure to tell my clients to bring cash when they come for meetings.”
“Fine. I’ll meet them somewhere else.” She tipped her head to the side, giving him a sultry, smoldering look that made him hold the papers in his lap an inch higher. “Unless . . .”
“Unless what?” The skin on the back of his neck prickled in warning.
“Unless you act as my chaperone.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he spluttered. “I’m not a babysitter. And besides, you couldn’t afford me.”
“Maybe I could pay you another way . . .”
His heart skipped a beat, and for a moment he thought his fantasy of her in those boots on his desk just might come true. “I’m all ears, sweetheart. And a whole lot of something else.”
“Not that.” She groaned. “If you act as my token male relative for the interviews, I won’t kick you out of the office. We can share.”
“It’s my office.”
“That’s up for debate.”
Not anymore. He stared at the papers in his lap. Did he really want her gone? Especially now that he knew she was planning to meet prospective suitors on her own and throw herself into an arranged marriage with a virtual stranger? Images of Nisha flickered through his mind. Warning bells he hadn’t heard. Signs he had missed. How could he let another woman suffer his sister’s fate? What if one of the men on Layla’s list turned out to be like Ranjeet?
Sam sniffed. “Are you asking me to be your pimp? How will I get my forty percent cut?”
“I’m asking you to use your formidable skills of selecting candidates for redundancy to weed out the duds on my dad’s list while protecting my honor in return for peaceful cohabitation of the office.” She grabbed a party horn from the nearest box and blew it loudly, making his ears ring.
“What the hell?”
“Christmas party, 2017. I have a whole box of them.”
There was nothing peaceful about the office in its current state. Nor had there been any peace when Daisy and her dog had come to visit. Layla attracted chaos and he had spent the years since Nisha’s accident trying to get everything in his life under control. The last thing he needed was the burden of helping a strange and obstreperous woman find a husband.
And yet he hadn’t felt as alive in the last four years as he had in the last three days.
“I’ll vet your johns,” he said, thinking quickly. “But in return, when the blind dates are done, you walk away. The office will be mine, free and clear.”
Silence.
Say yes. His heart thudded in his chest. For the first time in forever, he felt desire.
“You can’t refer to them as johns,” she said finally.
Sam breathed a sigh of relief. “They want sex. Safe, regular, readily available sex. That’s why they signed up.”
“You have a very cynical view of marriage.”
“I prefer to think of it as realistic.” He licked his lips in anticipation. “Do you agree to my terms?”
Layla nibbled on her thumbnail. “I have a condition of my own. If I don’t find a husband, then you have to leave.”
Sam’s pulse kicked up a notch. He’d missed this. A fast-paced negotiation. A worthy opponent. A worthwhile prize. And the fact that his adversary was a beautiful woman he wanted to bed just made it more interesting.
“You have all the control. You could turn them all down just to win.”
“I win either way.” She picked up one of his pencils and twirled it over her fingers, a party trick he had never been able to master. “I get the office or I find a husband. But I’m willing to walk away if my father has found a suitable match. The office is your incentive, not mine.”
Did he trust her? Yes, she was as genuine as they came, and her integrity made him even more aware of his failings in that regard. He’d been so blinded by the opportunities Ranjeet threw his way that he had missed all the clues that pointed to the fact his brother-in-law had a dark secret.
This was a chance to make up for past wrongs, to be the man he wanted to be while at the same time securing the office that would bring him one step closer to the truth.
“Agreed.”
“And we hire Daisy as a receptionist slash office manager,” Layla added. “We’re going to have your clients, my clients, and ten suitors to deal with. She’s a software engineer, but she’s between jobs right now. She is incredible with numbers and getting things organized. I know she comes across as a little quirky, but—”
“Not Crazy Daisy. Pick someone else.”
Layla twisted her lips to the side and looked around the office, considering. “You can have the rosewood desk.”
“Let the marriage game begin!”
Her smile lit up her face. “And may the best woman win.”
• 7 •
“HIRED, fired, or desired?” Daisy’s voice carried through the office, drawing Layla’s attention to the man at the reception desk.
“I . . .” He ran his hand through his thick, dark hair. “I’m not sure.”
Daisy sighed. “Are you looking for a job, planning to fire all your employees like a cold, ruthless capitalist bastard, or seeking a wife?”
“Daisy!” Layla hurried to the reception desk. She regretted telling Daisy about the game, especially since her cousin was less than supportive, but if Daisy was going to handle their visitors, she needed to know all the facts. “I told you before. No swearing.”
The courier held out his tablet. “I have a package for Sam Mehta. I need a signature.”
“How disappointing.” Daisy scrawled her name on the electronic pad. “Are you sure you aren’t looking for a wife? We have a single, slightly desperate twenty-six-year-old recruitment consultant available. She is smart,
ambitious, pleasing to the eye, and she makes a mean rogan josh.”
“Daisy!”
“Do you not make a mean rogan josh?” She feigned an innocent look as the courier hustled away. “Because the last time I visited you in New York, my taste buds exploded with pleasure.”
“Where is Sam?” Layla checked her phone. “He’s supposed to be here at twelve o’clock.”
“He had client meetings this morning. Don’t worry. He’ll be here on time to meet Bachelor #2.” Daisy fluffed her white cherry-print ’50s-style skirt and settled in her chair.
Layla groaned. “You can’t refer to them like that.”
“Why not? They’re all bachelors. He’s number two on the list. You said you’re playing a game. It’s a perfect way to identify them. Contestant didn’t seem right because that would suggest you’re a prize, and although you are in a metaphorical sense, I wouldn’t want to objectify you in any way.”
Layla drummed her fingers on Daisy’s desk. “What time is it now? We’re meeting the guy for lunch and we have to leave enough time to get there.”
“Relax.” Daisy covered Layla’s hand, holding it still. “In the week we’ve worked together, Sam has never been late for anything. It’s unnatural. I think he might be an android. He certainly acts less than human.”
“He’s just a control freak.” Layla took a deep breath to calm herself down. “I think it’s kinda cute.” Sam had been in and out of the office all week, but they’d had a few civil—and a few not-so-civil—conversations. Layla had also entertained herself by getting in early to mess up his papers and misalign his pens. One morning, she’d even turned his desk an extra five degrees to see if he’d notice—he did.
“You’re siding with him?” Daisy’s raised voice frightened poor Max, and he barked just as Sam walked in the door.
“Pardon me.” Sam’s voice dripped ice. “I thought this was a business, not an animal shelter.”
