by Sara Desai
“I’m liking this plan less already,” Liam grumbled. “Write that down, too.”
“How long do we have before your birthday?”
“Six weeks. June twenty-fifth, to be exact. I’m surprised you don’t remember.” He’d looked forward to his birthday every year because the Patels had always made it into a big celebration. He hadn’t needed the decorations, treats, or gifts, although he appreciated their thoughtfulness. It was the fact that they had cared enough to make the day special for him—something his family never did because his father wouldn’t allow it.
Her gaze dropped and she turned back to the whiteboard. “Tyler’s waiting, so I’ll fill in the details tonight and send you the spreadsheet. Basically we have time for six mini dates, two big family get-togethers, and then we’ll elope and get married at city hall the day before your birthday. Afterward, we’ll rent a two-bedroom apartment, live our separate lives, and one year later we’ll get a divorce. I’ll be ruined. You’ll have the distillery. We’ll be set.” She put down her marker. “I’ll need a list of close relatives from you and places we could possibly meet them. Our first date will have to be at Layla’s aunt’s clothing store to shop for your wedding outfit. She is practically family, and it’s usually the first thing people do when they get engaged because of the length of time it takes to get the clothing made.”
Stunned, Liam just stared. “You came up with all that in five minutes?”
“It’s just the bare bones of a plan, Liam. The only problem is: Who do we tell outside of the family?”
“I’ll have to tell Tyler that we’re engaged,” he said. “There may be conflict of interest issues. And if I do send the pitch to my partners, I’ll have to tell them, too. As far as business goes, it will be a real engagement. A stable relationship can only help my chances of partnership. I can’t think of anyone else who needs to know the truth.”
“Same here, except for Layla. I can’t lie to her.”
“What about your dad?” he asked. “I know you two are close.”
Her face crumpled, and for a moment he thought it was the end of their arrangement.
“I’ve never lied to him about anything important before.” She twisted her hands together. “But he’s the one spearheading this matchmaking frenzy. Just this morning he guilted me into meeting some guy he picked from a matchmaking site. He just can’t accept that I’m not interested in having a serious relationship, so it will be easier if he believes our engagement is real. The bigger problem is that it’s you. Somehow we’ll have to convince him you’re not the guy you used to be.”
There was an easy way to solve the problem. He could tell the truth about that night. But that would mean letting Daisy’s father know that his own son wasn’t who he thought he was. Even if he had to lose the distillery, Liam wasn’t prepared to betray his best friend.
“So you plan to be alone forever?” Liam asked. “No sex?” He immediately regretted his words when her expression tightened.
“Just because I’m not interested in having a long-term relationship doesn’t mean I plan to be a nun.”
“What about when we’re married?” He looked away, as if not seeing her would change her answer.
“Fake married. And yes, I plan to have sex then, too. I’m a single woman with a healthy sex drive. A year is too long to wait.”
Liam’s pulse kicked up a notch at the thought of Daisy sleeping with other men. “How many?”
Affronted, she sniffed. “I beg your pardon?”
“How many guys are you planning to sleep with while you’re married to me?” he asked.
Daisy folded her arms across her chest. “It’s none of your business.”
His eyes narrowed and he pulled out the ring box and tossed it to her. “I’ll be your husband.”
“Fake husband.” She tossed it back. “And the day I accept a ring is the day I start believing in love.”
“Well, I’ll be sleeping with people, too,” he said with an unexpected surge of jealousy. “Lots of them. When we’re living together, you might want to find a place to spend the night if the noise bothers you.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“That’s not what the ladies say.” He had no idea why he was being such an ass, except that he was still struggling to get his mind around the fact that Daisy was a woman now—a woman other men wanted.
Daisy closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. “I think we need to be clear about one thing.” She underlined the words she’d written on the board. “No physical contact means no sex.”
“Ever?” Liam didn’t like ultimatums. “What if you beg for it?”
“I have never begged for sex in my life.”
A slow, sensual smile spread across his face. “You’ve never been with me.”
“I’m not sleeping with you, Liam,” she said firmly. “And no developing feelings, either. This is solely a business arrangement. I’ll include my terms and conditions when I send you the final plan.” She took a picture of the whiteboard and then wiped it clean. “I’ll go get Tyler.”
“Daisy?”
She looked back over her shoulder as she reached for the door. “Yes?”
“What if I beg?”
“I’ll throw you a bone.”
• 11 •
Wednesday, 5:48 A.M.
DAISY: Confirming Date #1. Wed. 5:30 p.m. Krishna Fashions, El Camino Real. Objectives: discuss dating plan, shop for wedding outfit, meet Layla and her relatives.
LIAM: Shh. I’m sleeping.
DAISY: Obviously not.
LIAM: This is an autoresponder. I use it for people who wake up at ungodly hours and send messages about dates they already scheduled in my calendar.
DAISY: Clearly not an autoresponder, since your responses suggest sentience.
LIAM: Definitely not sentient. Why aren’t you asleep?
DAISY: I get up every morning at 5:45 a.m. to work out.
LIAM: I don’t get up at 5:45 a.m. to sleep as long as possible.
DAISY: That’s why we would never work in real life. We’re too different.
LIAM: I could turn you to the dark side. Come and sleep with me.
DAISY: Read the dating plan I sent you. No sex.
LIAM: ZZZZZZZZZZZ
* * *
• • •
“ARE you crazy?” Layla turned from the mirror in the changing room of her aunt’s clothing store. She had taken the afternoon off to check out the latest shipment of bridal lehenga and to give Daisy moral support for her first fake date with Liam. Layla ran her own recruitment firm and enjoyed the flexibility that came with being her own boss.
“Yes, but you’ve always known that about me. I like plans and quantifiable results, but the rest of my life is a disaster.” Daisy adjusted the bright green silk dupatta on Layla’s shoulders. With her radiant complexion and rich brown hair, Layla could wear almost any color and look amazing. By contrast, Daisy avoided autumn colors after a makeover from one of her work colleagues at an online fashion start-up showed that those colors made her look sallow and pale.
“You can’t marry Liam after what he did to you,” Layla spat out. “We hate him. Also, he thought we were brats.”
“We were brats. How much time did we spend spying on him and Sanjay? How many ‘secret’ valentines did I put in his school bags over the years? It makes me cringe to think about how I used to follow him around and giggle every time he looked at me.”
Layla frowned. “Why are you defending him? He utterly broke your heart. I’ll never forgive him for that.”
Born within two weeks of each other, Layla and Daisy had always been close. Their fathers were brothers and had immigrated to the U.S. together, Daisy’s dad to study accounting at Berkeley and Layla’s dad to study engineering. They had both had arranged marriages, but where Layla’s
parents had fallen in love and stuck by each other through decades of marriage, Daisy’s mother had left her family to chase her dreams and her heart in New York.
Daisy fisted her fifties-style black pleated skirt. She’d been in a pinup mood when she’d planned her outfit the night before, color coordinating the pink edging on the skirt with a fuzzy pink sweater and bright pink streaks in her hair. However, the feet-pinching three-inch Mary Janes with pink bows had put a damper on her enthusiasm for the quirky retro outfit.
“This marriage means the aunties will leave me alone. My dad will stop wasting time trying to find me a husband. I’ll be ruined, and I’ll be able to save Organicare. Everything will go back to the way it used to be.”
“You barely know the people you work with,” Layla protested. “And I thought you were thinking of moving on because you can’t get into the flow with all the noise.” She turned back to the mirror and ran a hand over the intricate gold embroidery on her skirt. They’d been close for so long that Daisy could tell she didn’t like it just from the set of her mouth.
“Organicare is a good company. I like their commitment to seeking sustainability and celebrating diversity, and their outreach is—”
“Since when did you become Organicare’s spokesperson?” Layla frowned at herself in the mirror, and Daisy slid the dupatta off her cousin’s shoulders. This clearly wasn’t her style.
“Why don’t you try the red one?”
“Yeah, you’re right. This one is a bit too much.” Layla squeezed into the changing room. Nira Chopra, owner of the clothing store and Layla’s maternal aunt, had left no hook unfilled in her quest to find Layla the perfect dress.
“I’ve gotten to know some of the Organicare employees over the last few days,” Daisy said through the curtain. “We’re all squished onto one floor, so I’m never alone. Zoe is a single mom with a little girl at home and she lives from check to check because her ex doesn’t make his support payments. Tyler lets her bring her daughter to work when her childcare falls through. And Mia’s mom is an alcoholic who spends a lot of time in the hospital. Tyler got her on Mia’s medical insurance to help pay the bills. And then there’s Josh, whose dad kicked him out after finding out he was bisexual. Tyler gave him an advance to—”
Layla poked her head around the curtain. “What happened to not getting too involved with your work colleagues?”
“It’s hard not to get to know them when they are all around me. I knew Tyler was passionate about the company and that he was a good guy, but I didn’t know all the things he’s been doing to help his employees. And I didn’t know about all their difficulties.”
“I hear these kinds of stories every day.” Layla disappeared behind the curtain again. “It’s hard times all around. If things don’t work out, send them to me. I’ll do my best to get them placed quickly.”
“But that’s just it. They love the company and don’t want to leave.”
Layla pushed back the curtain, a wide smile on her face. “What do you think about this?”
No thinking was involved. The red and gold embroidered skirt and matching top were perfect, and from the smile on her face, her cousin knew it.
“You look beautiful.”
“I feel beautiful.” Layla spun around, checking herself out in the large three-way mirror. “This is it, isn’t it?”
Daisy gave her a wistful smile. She had agreed to Liam’s crazy proposal in part to avoid putting herself in this very situation, but seeing Layla’s joy, she couldn’t help but imagine herself in a wedding outfit, twirling around the changing room. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so exquisite.”
Layla hugged her in delight. “I can hardly wait to negotiate the price with Nira Auntie.”
Better Layla than her. Daisy hated bartering. Why not just put a fair price on something and the customer could decide whether they were willing to pay it or not? But bartering was a big part of shopping on El Camino Real and some storeowners were insulted if you didn’t even try to negotiate the price, which was why Daisy never shopped without Layla.
“I’ll hide behind one of the racks.”
Layla laughed. “You should stay and learn a few tricks. My mom taught me everything I know.”
Skills a mother taught her daughter if she wasn’t busy living her dreams on the other side of the country—dreams that didn’t include her children.
After Nira Auntie had pinned the outfit for alterations, and Layla had bargained her down to the point of being disowned from the family, they searched the racks for something for Daisy to wear, both to Layla’s wedding and her own fake ceremony.
“No saris,” Daisy said. “I need to be able to run after you when you come to your senses and see Sam for who he really is.”
Layla chuckled. “I think you guys are too much alike. He’s very logical and practical like you.”
“I wish I wasn’t so logical. Then I could just make up a history with Liam instead of having to go out on pretend dates. I sent him a spreadsheet this morning and told him we’d be discussing the dating plan. I hope he doesn’t want to change anything.”
“You’ve scheduled a date to go over the dating plan.” Layla laughed. “I think you’re marrying the wrong guy. This is Liam we’re talking about. Every time I saw him at school he was in the principal’s office. He spray-painted ‘Anarchy’ on the street. He lounged around your house in ripped jeans, heavy metal T-shirts, and leather jackets, and hung out with a dangerous crowd. I think at one point his hair was longer than mine. He is not a schedule kind of guy. That’s what you liked most about him. He was your opposite when it came to managing life, but you both had that little bit of rebel inside.”
“Or maybe we were just both messed up,” She flipped through a rack of brightly colored salwar suits. “But he has a good job now, and he was even wearing a suit and tie. He wouldn’t have gotten as far as he has if he couldn’t make it to meetings on time.”
“He showed up at your office unannounced and smooth-talked you into a fake marriage.” Layla’s voice rose in exasperation. “That tells me he hasn’t changed, and the part of you that was attracted to his Rebel-Without-a-Cause self is attracted to him now. You didn’t even call me when he proposed.” She whirled around, dropping her hands to her hips. “Since when do you make spur-of-the-moment decisions? It takes you twenty minutes to decide what kind of coffee you want to drink, and yet you decided to marry him in less than ten minutes.”
“Twenty-two minutes, fifty-three seconds.” Daisy pulled out the lone salwar kameez on the rack, an offensively florescent orange number with green and brown embroidery. “And I didn’t call you because it wasn’t real. Besides, it’s only for a year. The company will be saved. I’ll have my space back. My friends will have their jobs. Dad and the aunties will think I’m a lost cause, and they’ll leave me to a peaceful single life.”
“Life isn’t that neat and tidy,” Layla warned. “You have to be prepared for curveballs. Look what happened to me. I came home from New York thinking I’d be single forever and instead I married the man who irritated me most in the world.”
“I have control over this situation,” Daisy said. “You didn’t. Nothing unexpected is going to happen.”
“Ladies.” A deep, loud, familiar voice boomed through the store and Daisy turned to see Liam walking toward her clad in head-to-toe black leather, the only white face in a sea of brown.
“As I was saying . . .” Layla smirked. “You get involved with Liam, you need to be prepared for curveballs.”
“Layla.” Liam inclined his head. “Nice to see you again. It’s been a long time. You look just as pissed at me as I expected you would be, but no less beautiful.”
“That’s exactly how I feel,” she retorted. “It’s funny how, after ten years, my loathing for you has not faded in the least, so you can turn off the charm.”
“This is all
me, sweetheart.” He held his arms wide, a motorcycle helmet in one hand. “The charm doesn’t get turned on. It’s just there.” He winked as two young women passed by, sending them into a fit of giggles.
Daisy finally found her tongue. “What are you doing here? You’re twenty-three minutes early.”
Liam pulled out his phone and turned it around to show her the spreadsheet she’d sent him. “I received your draft dating plan and I was so overwhelmed with excitement at the prospect of discussing it with you, I just couldn’t wait. I swung by your office and asked Rochelle if she knew where I could find you.”
“Of course you did,” Daisy muttered under her breath making a mental note to find out how Rochelle knew where she was when she wasn’t at work.
“She’s a very accommodating woman.” He shrugged off his jacket.
Daisy recoiled in horror. “Did you sleep with her?”
“Of course not. I don’t fish in the company pond.” A slow, sensual smile spread across his face. “Not unless the fish bite.”
“How delightfully crass.” Layla slung a few outfits over her arm. “You picked a real winner, Daisy. Congratulations.”
Daisy bristled. “It’s not real.”
“Thank God for that.”
Her muscles tensed, and she bounced a curved knuckle against her mouth. “Is there a problem with the dating plan?”
Liam scrolled through his phone. “Date #1: Buy wedding outfits. Not my favorite thing, but okay. Date #2: The Dosa Palace restaurant. Not a problem. I like to eat and I like Indian food. But Date #3 . . .”
Daisy let out the breath she hadn’t known she was holding. “What about Date #3?”
“Dinner at Puke. That’s a big no.”
“It’s pronounced the way it’s spelled,” Daisy said coldly. “Pewque. And what’s wrong with it?”
“I checked out the menu,” Liam said. “I can’t get excited about a faux-rustic meal of fromage-frisée, bone-gel bream, and liver-sauced jowl.”