The Marriage Game

by Sara Desai

  “Don’t act so surprised,” Royce said. “Your dad told Sam they were struggling financially. What did you expect would happen? That the landlords would float them forever? I thought you were a businessperson. This is how it goes. Wake up and smell the balance sheet.”

  “That’s crazy.” She curled her fingers around the tray. “The owners of the building are friends of my late brother. They would never evict my parents. Never.”

  Royce munched on his caviar cracker. “But I would, and I own the building. Well, technically, it belongs to Bentley Mehta World Corporation, but . . .”

  “Sam!” This time she shouted his name loud enough to be heard over the music.

  Moments later, the door to the boardroom opened and Sam staggered out, a tall, curvy brunette under his arm and a half-empty bottle of whiskey in his hand. His hair was mussed, shirt open at the neck, tie gone, sleeves pushed up to reveal the forearms that had once been the object of her fantasies. She’d never seen him so disheveled or so utterly destroyed.

  His gaze flicked from Layla to John and back to Layla. His face smoothed to an expressionless mask.

  “What’s going on?” Layla asked, her voice wavering. “Who is that woman?”

  “This is Amber.” He whispered something in Amber’s ear and she pressed a kiss to his cheek before making her way over to the pole.

  “We’re having a party.” He held up the bottle, his voice flat. “For Alpha Health Care. We’re on the short list and we’re showing them a good time.”

  She drew in a ragged breath, trying to contain her shock and horror. “Royce says your company bought the building and you’re evicting my parents.”

  “I know.”

  “You know?” Her voice rose in pitch as dismay turned to anger. “That’s all you have to say? Why didn’t you tell me? Why don’t you do something? The restaurant is all they have. It’s all we have left of Dev.”

  Sam took a long pull from the bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I can’t.”

  “You can’t or you won’t?” Her body vibrated with fury. “This is your company, too. Or were you planning to kick them out all along? And our game? What was that all about? Were you just amusing yourself at my expense while you put your plan in motion? Royce said my dad told you they were struggling financially. Did you use that information to hurt them?”

  “You don’t understand . . .” He shuddered. “I told Royce to do what it took to get the contract, and what it took was space.”

  “Where did you think the space would come from?” she snapped. “You know Royce. You work with him every day. Look at what he did to my designs. He’s got no empathy, no concern for anyone or anything except the bottom line. You should have seen this coming. But it’s clear all you cared about was getting your stupid contract.”

  Sam’s mouth opened as if to speak, but she wasn’t interested in what he had to say. With her blood pounding through her veins so hard she could barely think, she raised her voice above the music, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. “Did you tell your clients why you really want the contract? Did you tell them your plan to access the hospital database and read the personnel files to search for evidence of a cover-up and the truth about what happened to your sister? Maybe they should know what kind of person you really are.” She regretted the words as soon as they dropped from her lips, but it was too late. Beneath the heavy beat of the music, an uncomfortable silence filled the room.

  Shock then alarm flickered across Sam’s face. She’d gone too far, but this was so much worse than walking in on Jonas. She hadn’t loved Jonas. She hadn’t opened herself up for the first time since Dev’s death, only to be destroyed all over again. And Jonas hadn’t hurt anyone but her.

  One of the men in blue suits frowned. “Sam, is that true?”

  “Don’t listen to her, Peter.” Royce handed him a glass of champagne. “She’s crazy. She moved into our office and tried to start a company called ‘Excellent Recruitment Solutions.’ That was the name. Excellent. Can you imagine? And her logo looked like a raccoon on drugs. It was a joke.”

  “I don’t know . . .” Peter scratched his head.

  “Have you seen Tiffany dance?” Royce dragged him across the room. “Have a seat on that desk and she’ll give you a personal show.” He waved frantically at a woman in a silver dress as Peter stumbled forward. Unsteady on his feet, Peter tripped over a bottle and fell heavily against Layla’s desk. The fishbowl wobbled, then fell to the ground, shattering into tiny pieces.

  Layla’s hand flew to her mouth. “My fish!”

  “Don’t worry,” Royce shouted. “They were already dead. They had too much champagne.”

  “I hope you’re happy now,” Layla said bitterly, her gaze locked on Sam’s impassive face. “I hope it was worth it. You got everything you wanted—the contract, the office, the building . . .”

  “I want you.”

  “You never wanted me.” She drew in a ragged breath. “You’re just like every other guy I’ve ever been with. I thought I’d managed to turn my life around, but it’s just more of the same. I’ve lost everything again, but this time I didn’t hit rock bottom alone. I brought my family down with me.”

  “It’s for the best,” Sam said, his voice plaintive. “This isn’t a good location for a restaurant. They need to move somewhere smaller, closer to their core customer base . . .”

  “Don’t throw your stupid motivational speech at me,” she shouted. “The restaurant was Dev’s dream. He bought this building for them. He planned the whole renovation. They put all their money into fixing it up. And then he died and this is all they had left. They can’t just move on. It’s not that easy.”

  “Nisha needs this,” he pleaded.

  “I don’t think Nisha needs it at all.” Her voice wavered. “What I saw was a woman who has been so overprotected she’s afraid to be independent. She was a different person when you weren’t around. She was funny and outgoing and fully capable of looking after herself. She wanted to go shopping and do all the things women her age do, but what she needed was an emotional push, not a physical one. She needed support and encouragement, not protection. Your guilt is stifling her.”

  She drew in a deep breath, her hands shaking so violently under the tray that two of the little pots of dip had overturned. “This isn’t about Nisha. It’s about you. You want justice so you don’t feel guilty anymore, but it doesn’t work that way, Sam. Even if the police lock Ranjeet away for life, nothing will change. Nisha will still need to use a wheelchair, and you will still be the brother who thinks he failed her.”

  “You don’t know anything about my family.”

  “And you clearly don’t understand anything about my family,” she retorted. “This is all we have left of Dev. We aren’t going to let it go.”

  “I’m sorry, Layla.” He swallowed hard. “It’s already gone.”

  “Let’s get out of here.” John squeezed her shoulder. “This isn’t my kind of party, either.”

  Layla’s hands curled around the tray. The dosas had withered slightly now that they were cold, and only the green chutney had survived intact. “I made masala dosas for you,” she said to Sam. “It was my first time. I used almost all my mother’s batter to get them right. I made the chutneys, too, and the sambar. It took hours. My dad sat beside me the whole time like he used to do when I was little, because he knew how important it was to me that they be perfect.”

  “Layla . . .” A pained expression crossed his face, and she trembled. The urge to fling the tray at him was so strong she had to fight it away.

  “You weren’t worth the effort,” she said finally. “You aren’t worth the waste if I throw them at you now, and you aren’t worth the loss of my self-respect.” She fixed him with a glare as John pulled open the office door. “And you certainly aren’t worthy of me.”

  • 22 •


  “I thought you’d be too ashamed to show your face at the gym.” John drumrolled the speed bag, his mouth pressed into a tight line. “Are you here to evict my law firm, too, because I’ll tell you right now my partners and I have been through that lease and there is no way you’re getting us out.”

  “I came to spar with Evan. I didn’t know if you’d be here or not.” With a sigh, Sam sat on a nearby weight bench. He had been avoiding the gym for the simple fact that John would be here, but after a weekend with no way to relieve his stress, he’d finally given in.

  “I almost wish I hadn’t come,” John spat out.

  Sam ran a hand through his hair. “I didn’t know that Royce had bought the building or that he planned to evict the Patels.”

  John slowed the bag. “But you didn’t withdraw the eviction proceedings, did you? Or even put a stop to the whole sorry situation, which, legally, you can do.”

  “Royce put us in a difficult situation.” He twisted his hands between his spread legs. “We got the contract because of our location and because he told them we had the space to hire staff to meet their needs.”

  “No.” John fixed him with a firm stare. “Don’t blame Royce. This is all on you.”

  “Jesus Christ. Chill, dude,” Evan said, coming up beside them. “Give Sam a break. This was a business decision. If the Patels had paid their rent, they wouldn’t have been in this position. Sam did what he had to do. We should be congratulating him on landing a big contract and finding a way to take down the bastard who hurt his sister.”

  “Still no.” John turned back to the bag and started the drumroll again. “I don’t condone hurting innocent people in the pursuit of a personal goal, and I don’t buy that business BS. You could have worked around the location. You just didn’t want to.”

  “It’s not personal.” Sam said grimly. “It’s for Nisha.”

  “Are you sure about that? Did you ever ask her what she thought?” John lost the beat of his bag and jerked back when it hit his chin. “Did you ask Layla?”

  “Layla’s not innocent,” Evan said. His support meant Sam had definitely crossed the line. He was as morally bankrupt as Royce. Maybe even more. “She almost tanked the deal by spilling Sam’s secrets in front of the Alpha Health Care dudes. That wasn’t on.”

  “Do you blame her?” John slammed his fists into the bag again, his gaze focused on Sam. “She spent all afternoon making your favorite dish, her family was waiting downstairs to meet you, her father was just out of the hospital, and not only did she come upstairs to find the frat party of the century going on in her office, her boyfriend drunk and partying with strippers, she also found out you were evicting her and her family. If it had been me, I would have thrown the food in your face, called the cops, and burned the fucking office to the ground. I thought she was remarkably restrained.”

  Sam had never seen John so angry. His actions hadn’t just cost him Layla; he had clearly also lost a friend.

  “This is getting boring.” Evan climbed into the ring. “Come on. I don’t have all day.”

  “Knock some sense into him,” John shouted. “He’s destroying his life and taking down everyone he cares about with him because he can’t accept that he’s not responsible for all the bad things that happen in the world.”

  Evan laughed. “I’ll be responsible for the bad things that happen to him once he gets his sorry ass in the ring.”

  Sam grabbed his gloves and pulled one on. “I’m sorry they got hurt, but it’s worth it. Ranjeet is getting married again. If I find out he did push Nisha down the stairs and the hospital covered it up, I can save another woman from her fate.”

  “You’re still trying to absolve yourself of a guilt that isn’t yours,” John said as he helped Sam tighten his gloves. “Instead of dealing with the guilt that is. You need to make things right with Layla and the Patels.” He helped Sam on with his other glove and pushed him into the ring.

  “She needs to make things right with me,” Sam retorted. “We almost lost the contract because of her. And as for Nasir, what would I say? They were in breach of the lease for over a year, and we had a legal right to evict them.”

  “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but just because it’s legal doesn’t make it right,” John spat out. “You’ve been chasing a monster for so long, you’ve become one yourself.” He held open the ropes so Sam could climb through and then climbed in after him.

  “What’s going on?” Evan looked from John to Sam and back to John.

  “I feel like beating on Sam today so I’m going to ask you to step aside.” John held out his hand for Evan’s gloves.

  Sam tipped his neck from side to side as Evan helped John tie on the gloves. “Don’t do this. You’ve never won a fight against me. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “You’ve hurt everyone else.” John dropped into a fight stance. “I think it’s time you feel what it’s like.”

  Sam had only a second of warning before John’s fist hit his nose, and he went down in a shower of stars.

  * * *

  • • •

  “GET me another one.” Layla waved Danny over after he’d locked the restaurant door. With her father still recovering and her business now without an office, she’d been putting all her energy into the restaurant, working from morning to night by her mother’s side. They didn’t have the money to pay the rent in arrears and stop the eviction, but she would do her best to make sure they went out as successful as they had come in.

  “I think you’ve had enough.” He joined her at the bar. “You’ve spent the last few days eating alone in the restaurant after hours. Don’t you think it’s time to try a different way of drowning your sorrows?”

  “What else am I supposed to do?” Her eyes filled with tears. “I thought I’d hit rock bottom in New York, but I wasn’t even close. Now besides having no job, no office, no apartment, no boyfriend, and no husband, I opened myself to love and got hurt all over again, and my parents are being evicted. I’m in an even worse situation than I was when I first came home, except I didn’t just get out of jail.”

  Danny sucked in a sharp breath. “You did time?”

  “Two hours of hard time on the police station bench in the local precinct.” She shuddered at the memory. “In handcuffs. It was awful. The only reason I didn’t go into lockup was because I’d found a job for the building manager’s brother, Louie ‘the Ax’ Moretti, who had decided to get out of the Mafia business. He was married to my father’s cousin’s wife’s sister’s husband’s niece. He pulled a few strings with his police friends and they let me go. It’s a good thing Jonas cheated on me on a Saturday night because Louie was dead by Sunday, and I couldn’t come home right away because I had to go to the funeral.” She drew a finger across her throat. “Italian necktie.”

  “That is so fucking hot.” He licked his lips. “You’re an ex-con.”

  She handed him her bowl. “Fill it up. And add extra cayenne. I don’t want to be able to feel my tongue.”

  “There is such a thing as eating too much dal.” Danny took her bowl away. “Why don’t you have a few drinks? I can make you a gin and tonic. That’s what most people turn to when they’re down.”

  “Not good desi girls. We want our comfort food. I checked the pot on my way in. There’s still lots left.”

  “You’ve had four bowls already, and an entire stack of roti . . .”

  “Bring more roti, too. Make sure they’re hot enough to burn my fingers. I need the pain to remind me that I’m still alive. I think my heart has been broken one too many times.”

  Danny untied his apron and sat on the seat beside her. “A little melodramatic, don’t you think?”

  “You should be eating dal, too.” She leaned against his shoulder, too distraught to worry about propriety. “The restaurant is closing. You’re going to lose your job.”

  W
ith a sigh, Danny put an arm around her shoulders. “Your mother told me not to worry, so, I’m not worrying. I’m just doing my job, cooking and helping out and supporting people in emotional distress.”

  Layla looked up, sniffing after her hour-long sobfest. “I am in emotional distress.”

  “I can see that,” he said softly.

  “Why do the people I love always betray me? Morgan said he loved me, but it turned out he just wanted someone to share the rent with him and his buddies so they didn’t lose their apartment in Greenpoint. And then there was Adam, who hired an actor to play himself, and when I fell for him and asked him to move in with me, this deranged fortysomething bald dude showed up on my doorstep with two suitcases, three cats, and his grandmother’s ukulele.”

  “Have some more dal.” Danny handed her the spoon and she scraped the bottom of the bowl.

  “And then there was Quentin . . .”

  “I don’t like him already,” Danny said. “What kind of dude is named Quentin?”

  “A philosophy professor who broke up with me after three months by writing me a letter. He said in philosophical terms we were fundamentally incompatible. He said he was Sartre, who believed in contingent love affairs, and I was Kierkegaard, who believed in committed relationships.”

  “He cheated on you.”

  “Philosophically speaking.” She shoved the last spoon of dal into her mouth. Her stomach gurgled in protest. “Then there was Chris.” She sighed. “He broke up with me but he couldn’t say why because he was crying so much. Then every few months he would show up and ask me to—”

  “They don’t sound like good dudes,” Danny interrupted. “Did you really love them?”

  “I thought I did.” She hesitated. “I wanted to. But now that I know how real love feels, no, I didn’t love them at all.”

  “I think love is overrated.” He put his arm around her and gave her a friendly hug. She hadn’t noticed before how good he smelled, like burned roti and mango pickle.