Accidentally Engaged

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Accidentally Engaged Page 25

by Farah Heron


  “We’re seeing Mum tomorrow?” The last thing she wanted was a second parent interrogation. Even if she was the one doing the interrogating.

  “Reena! We’re going shopping, remember? For bridal clothes? We planned it last Sunday! You’re still coming, right?”

  Of course. With her life falling apart and all, she’d forgotten about the sari-shopping date with Mum. Ugh. Maybe she should try to get out of it?

  She looked at her sister’s hopeful face. No. it was time for Reena to move past her own self-absorption and be there for her sister. Her sister, who had been there for Reena every day since she’d found out about Nadim’s secret maybe-fiancée.

  “Of course I’m coming, Saira.”

  “Great. We’ll pick you up in the morning. I’ll text you before I leave.”

  “Okay. Thanks for taking me today.”

  “You’re going to talk to Nadim, right?” Saira asked.

  Reena exhaled. “Yes. I’m going to talk to him.”

  “Good. See you tomorrow.”

  Reena got out of the car, and Saira drove away.

  As she walked up the sidewalk, nerves fluttering her stomach, she resigned herself to a truth that she probably always knew—deflect and distract didn’t work. She’d been sweeping things under the rug for so long, but it only left her with a lumpy and treacherous floor. She was going to talk to Nadim, now. They may not have a future, but she needed closure.

  Reena looked at the lot next to the building. Nadim’s car wasn’t there. She took a breath.

  She’d talk to him later. This wasn’t deflecting, just…postponing. She didn’t want to be alone, though, so instead of going to her apartment, she walked to the Sparrow.

  She didn’t drink. She had two bowls of lentil soup, several ginger ales, and played three rounds of darts with bar regulars. She had a long, almost existential chat with Steve over their shared love of smoked peppers, and she sat in on a hilarious new card game about sushi. No drama, no self-pity.

  At a quiet moment, while she was riding the high of trouncing a man bun at darts, she sat at the bar and waited for Steve to refill her glass with more ginger ale and tried to figure out why she felt so…fine.

  It had been less than a week since her so-called life fell apart, and during that time she had also lost a job she really wanted. And yeah, she did feel pretty shitty about it all. But along with the moments of abject misery (like when she faced Nadim yesterday), she also had moments of joy. A few laughs with her sister, tea on the back deck with Marley and Shayne, and tonight, a great night at the Sparrow, by herself. She was dealing. Not incapacitated by…misery or lethargy. This was nothing like the last time life threw her in a ditch.

  Was it because she had more support? Was it because she hadn’t been drinking? Or was it because she was being honest with herself about her problems for the first time in a very long time?

  And there was a big question. One that she needed to know the answer to, considering that no matter how not terrible she felt at this moment, there was nothing on the horizon that said her life was going to get any better. How could she ensure that these brand-spanking-new coping skills stuck around?

  She remembered her sister’s suggestion of seeing a therapist. Before she could second-guess herself, she called her doctor and left a message that she needed an appointment soon. It was time for Reena to stop deflecting and distracting, and face this part of her life, too.

  She finally left the Sparrow long after the sun set, after excusing herself from another hearty discussion with Steve about the merits of homemade hot sauces. She was exhausted. It had been a long day, and tomorrow might be even longer. She wasn’t entirely sure she had the strength to get through a day of sari shopping with her mother and sister, but she was determined to stop avoiding things that she didn’t want to do. That included talking to Nadim. His car was in his parking space now. She pulled out her phone and texted him.

  Reena: We need to talk. Breakfast tomorrow? My place?

  She bit her lip as she saw the three dots flash on her screen telling her he was responding. Finally, the text came through.

  Nadim: Okay. Message me when you want me to come over.

  Good. That was done. And at least she’d get a night’s sleep before she would see him.

  Or…not. Because when she went to open her door, she realized she didn’t have her keys. Ugh. She’d had a spare made for Nadim last week—it had seemed like such a huge step in their nonrelationship at the time. And she knew Nadim was home, and awake.

  Heart pounding heavily in her chest, she summoned some hidden bravery and knocked before she could change her mind.

  No answer. No sounds from within. She knocked again. Nothing.

  Her shoulders fell.

  But then she heard the doorknob. The chain-latch lock was still fastened, restricting the door from opening more than about four inches. And his deep voice spoke with an accent fainter than the day they met, and a weary reluctance that was also new.

  “Breakfast is eaten in the morning, Reena.”

  “I know. I…just need my key. I’m locked out.”

  “I’ll get your spare.” Footsteps trailed away from the door.

  Her knees weakening, Reena lowered herself to sit on the old tile floor and closed her eyes. That optimism, the feeling of being okay, was gone. All she wanted was her key so she could lock herself in her apartment and cry until he left the country. Her bravery strolled right out of there the moment she heard that sexy, weary voice.

  “I can’t seem to find it,” he suddenly said. “I may have put it in a box by mistake. I’m packing.”

  Reena nodded shakily, pressing her hands against the floor, ready to get up. “It’s fine. I’ll get Marley’s.”

  When she was halfway to her feet, he spoke again. “Reena, wait.”

  Her butt fell back to the floor.

  “Are you sitting on the floor?”

  “Yes.”

  She heard some movement from within his unit, a shuffling of fabric, then a hollow thump on the wall behind her.

  “Sit against the door,” he said.

  She shifted so her back was leaning against his door, which was being held from opening fully by the chain. She looked into his apartment and saw Nadim, his expression concerned and sad. He was also sitting on his floor, back leaning against the wall near the door.

  They were inches apart now, but with a door chained closed between them, the opening just enough to see most of his face. Hair a little longer, though still firmly in the crew-cut category. Still clean-shaven; he’d given up on that douche-beard, thankfully. Without the beard, his one dimple lit her up every time he smiled. No smile now, though. Intense eyes searched hers, almost asking a question.

  She took a deep breath, trying to call back the courage that had deserted her. “Maybe we should just talk now,” she said quietly.

  “Do you want to come in?”

  She looked around the tiny, empty hallway, and then back at the gap into his apartment. This would be easier with the door between them. She didn’t want to see his whole face, or his apartment…all packed up into boxes. This was her same old avoidance, but she allowed herself this one. “No. Let’s do it here.”

  She wanted this to end on neutral grounds. Nothing was more neutral than the empty hallway between their apartments.

  He shifted a bit. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s talk, Reena.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  I’ll go first,” he said, his voice reverberating through the wall. “Jasmine and I are not engaged. We broke up a long time ago.”

  She bit her lip. She was pretty sure she believed him. “In Egypt, right?”

  “Yes. I’m really sorry, Reena. I should have told you about her. My father insisted I couldn’t disclose my past with Jasmine to you or your father. I never wanted you to get hurt.”

  “What I don’t get is why after working for Salim Shah while engaged to his daughter, you immediately started working for his arch
enemy and agreed to marry his daughter? Were you some sort of corporate spy?”

  “No, of course not. Honestly, until the shit hit the fan on Sunday I didn’t know your father even knew the Shahs. My father made me swear never to tell anyone I had worked with Salim because of all the negative attention the Shah hotel project was getting.”

  “Nadim, tell me your side of the story. From the beginning.”

  So, he told her the story. As she sat in the tiny hallway on the first floor of her father’s building, Nadim told her how hard he worked to please his father and how he usually fell short. He finally moved to London to distance himself and quickly got involved with Jasmine, the free-spirited woman whose purpose, he thought, was to teach him that life could be more than his father’s narrow definition.

  “I got caught up in a world that didn’t really fit. And I knew it didn’t fit, but things just kind of got out of hand. Jasmine had these grandiose plans of being an influencer. The London hotel was her idea.”

  “And the mismanagement?”

  “I can’t pretend to be innocent there. I wasn’t really…invested. I didn’t care. I was partying, taking shortcuts, and just coasting.”

  “I saw pictures of you on a yacht.”

  “There were many yachts. Jasmine wanted the best of everything. In the business, too. High-end fixtures, materials. She was inexperienced, and it was a disaster. I have so many regrets for how I handled things with that hotel.”

  “Didn’t Jasmine care about her father’s company?”

  He shrugged. “I know what you’re thinking. That she’s just a superficial, spoiled snob. But…Jasmine is a complicated person. You think you and I have difficult parents? Salim is a good businessman, but an awful father. Not just neglectful, but downright abusive. She honestly tried. She wanted to succeed—she cared about it more than I did. But she didn’t see the big picture and focused on insignificant details. I shouldn’t have let any of it, the business or the relationship, go so far.”

  “And then you abandoned her in Egypt?”

  He huffed a laugh. “No. She abandoned me. We were there on holiday and she decided we should open a hotel there, too. I knew we were in over our heads with the London one, and when I tried to dissuade her, we had a huge fight. I put my foot down and quit my position with Shah Enterprises on the spot, and she took off, leaving me alone in Cairo. She took my passport. Dad had to have an emergency one couriered to me so I could get back to Tanzania.”

  “That sounds awfully dramatic.” Like a Bollywood revenge story.

  He snorted. “Yeah. We brought out the worst in each other. That’s why you scared me.”

  “What? What’s scary about me?”

  “Really?” he scoffed, smiling, and for a fleeting moment, the dimple appeared. “You’re terrifying, Reena Manji, because you did the opposite. You brought out the best in me right from the beginning.”

  She turned and their eyes met. This was a lot to take in. She needed more answers before getting sucked into his gaze.

  “Why didn’t you call me this week?” she asked. “If you’re not engaged why did you let me think you were?” True, he had texted her, and she’d ignored him, but he could have phoned if he really cared.

  “You didn’t respond to my texts, so I figured you wanted to be left alone. Plus, my phone service went dead, and they haven’t been able to figure out why.”

  Reena smiled. Ashraf. Her family had her back.

  “I took it as a sign from above not to call you,” Nadim said. “I should have come by, though. I’m sorry. Avoiding you after everything that happened wasn’t fair to either of us. Actually, nothing I’ve done has been fair to you.”

  “You regret this? Us?”

  “No,” he whispered. “Never. But we should have been honest to our families. And to each other.”

  That only sounded like regret with a coat of paint. Reena looked away, blinking.

  It seemed old Nadim was the same as old Reena. Adapting to whatever others were doing, not taking what he really wanted seriously, and avoiding confrontation until he just couldn’t do it anymore. This was so different from the Nadim she knew now, the Nadim in the contest videos—caring, sentimental, and passionate about his interests. She’d thought it was an act, but maybe neither iteration of the man was fake. He’d just left that old him behind, come here, and found a home. And the new home brought out the absolute best in him.

  “So, you really did want to move here? You weren’t forced?”

  “I did. I conceded that I have terrible judgment both in business and in women, and my father agreed to help me start over.”

  “A new job, a new country, and a new wife.”

  “Yup. Facilitated marriage has worked well for many. If I didn’t like who he picked, I would deal with that, but I wanted to give this option a chance.” He smiled warmly. “Of course, I ended up liking who he picked a little too much.”

  Reena couldn’t help but snort-laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  “It was supposed to be Saira.”

  “What?”

  “Saira. My father offered my sister to your father, not me. It happened right after she caught her fiancé banging his Dutch cousin in their condo, so she needed to clean up her image. I was juggling two guys from Tinder back then, so I wasn’t the good, pure woman for you, either.”

  “Um…”

  May as well go for broke and tell him the whole story, so she told him about the swindling architect and Mum’s gambling habit. “To think, we owe our introduction to an incestuous Dutchman and my mother’s stellar poker face,” she concluded.

  The wall beside her shook with Nadim’s attempts not to laugh. “God, I feel like there’s a lot I don’t know about your family.”

  “What you don’t know about the Manjis could fill a crater on Mars. Dad definitely oversold us as a good family. I’m not even going to mention my sister’s threesomes.” She paused a second, thinking. “Too bad you haven’t met Khizar. All the goodness in our family ended up in him.”

  He finally turned to look at her, laughing openly now. “God, I’ll miss you. Whoever they promised, I’m glad I got you.” He turned back around, but with that grin still plastered on his face, Reena was gifted with a perfectly framed dimple through the gap. She hated that she couldn’t kiss it.

  “I still can’t figure out why Salim Shah would lie about you being engaged to his daughter,” Reena said.

  He shrugged. “Maybe he was trying to one-up your dad? That’s all those men do.”

  She opened the screenshot of Salim’s post on her phone. Looking at it again told her nothing. Just the picture and some sentimental tripe about welcoming Nadim to their family.

  “Let me see,” he asked. She handed him her phone.

  After a few seconds Nadim gasped. “He was trying to sabotage your father’s daughter’s wedding!”

  Reena frowned. “Saira’s?”

  “No. Yours. Did you read the post? He says ‘It wasn’t easy to convince him to leave his beloved Africa, but home can be a moving target. We are so proud to welcome him to ours.’ It’s practically word-for-word of what I said in the farm-to-table video!”

  “Holy shit. Salim Shah watches FoodTV Canada online.”

  Nadim laughed. “He thought you and I were getting married and decided to stir up a little trouble in paradise for his rival’s family.”

  Reena didn’t find it very funny. This stupid rivalry between her father and a man she’d never met effectively had cost her the best relationship she’d ever had.

  “So, if that’s why Salim lied on Facebook, why was Jasmine lying—claiming to be engaged—on Instagram? Was that her father’s doing, too?”

  He shook his head. “No, that was me. I told her she could.”

  “What?” He knew she was going around saying they were still together?

  “She started the Instagram when we were together, and she had all these wedding-type sponsorships lined up. After I fina
lly got out of Egypt, she asked me if she could still say we were engaged, but only on Instagram, and never mention me by name, or show my picture, so she wouldn’t lose her sponsorships. I felt bad for her. She was having a rough time—trying to distance herself from her family and all. And my father isn’t exactly tuned in to the Instagram influencer scene, so I didn’t think he’d find it.”

  Reena kind of sympathized with her. Actually, Reena was sympathizing with Jasmine Shah a lot right now, more than she thought was possible.

  But then a thought made her giggle. “Nadim, are you telling me that I am not your first fake fiancée?”

  He laughed. “No, I guess not.”

  “So why did she delete the Instagram?”

  “That was my father…somehow, he found out about it. Someone on WhatsApp posted screenshots and he was furious. He insisted she delete it or he was going to ruin her or something. I was so pissed…Dad even threatened that he would back out of the investment here and make me leave Toronto if she didn’t delete it.”

  “OMG…Rish’s cousin!”

  “What?”

  She looked at him, trying hard not to laugh. “My sister’s future sister-in-law’s cousin was obsessed with your fiancée and posted screenshots of her Insta all over WhatsApp. Your father must have seen them.”

  “Seriously?” He laughed.

  Reena nodded. “Seriously. You know, the moral of this whole story is that our parents really need to stay off social media.”

  He laughed. “Oh, man. This is actually hilarious. But…”

  “But what?”

  “The day Dad found Jasmine’s Instagram and gave me that ultimatum—that was the day you found me at the Sparrow. I was in a terrible mood. I was so ready to run off to New Zealand and let Dad cut me off, but you were there. You were so cute and cranky and I had so much fun. That’s when I decided I was better off staying as close to you as possible.”

  They were both silent for a while. She wiped her eyes. This was torture. She wanted to see his face. The whole thing at once.

  “And now he’s barking orders again. Can’t you just tell your dad Salim is lying?”

 

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