Accidentally Engaged(12)
Nadim’s eyes were wide when her nose calmed. “Bless you. You have an adorable sneeze.”
Yes, yes, tiny girl with the bouncy curls and the high-pitched sneeze. She was a damn pixie. She’d heard it so many times and it never failed to piss her off. She usually smiled and said thank you, but with this guy, she said what she usually only thought when someone called her sneeze cute. “Fuck adorable. I feel like shit.”
He chuckled. “You’re nothing like the Reena your father described.”
She snorted. “I thought we were going to pretend we don’t know my parents?”
He winked, smiling. Still a flirt. She needed to figure out how to snuff that out before her inconvenient attraction got out of hand. “Fine,” he said. “You’re a tragic orphan with overbearing parents. A millennial Oliver Twist. But seriously, I owe you for not telling him. Massively. You ever need a neighborly favor, I’m your man.”
What could she possibly need from a man content to live in her father’s pocket, utterly terrified of disappointing him? She dragged the bag of bread closer. “Anyway, they’re fougasse, not baguettes,” she informed him.
“Fou what?”
“Fougasse,” she said, pulling a few of the flat crusty breads out of the bag. “They’re a flatbread originating from Provence, France.”
For a new recipe, she was pleased at how the oval breads had turned out. The lean dough had no fat in it, and deep cuts made the finished crisp, yet chewy bread loosely resembled fall leaves.
Nadim’s eyes widened. “You didn’t seriously make those, did you?”
“Yes. I told you, bread baking is my hobby.”
He leaned a little closer to her, eyes still on the olive fougasse in Reena’s hand. “Are those black olives?”
“Yes. This one is olive and Stilton.” Specifically, tiny black Ni?oise olives that she painstakingly pitted before gently folding into the dough so they would stay whole.
“And the other…” He peeked into the bag.
“Roasted red pepper and Ementaal.”
He frowned. “And they’re seriously not for me?”
She couldn’t help but smile at his hungry eyes as he ogled the bread. She really did have way too much fougasse. What harm could come from sharing bread with a neighbor?
“Help yourself. I made a lot. I was on my way up to Marley’s for wine, but something came up and she left.”
“I don’t have wine but there’s a full case of this special bitter. Is beer and bread appropriate?”
“Why not? The olives will pair well with the bitter brew.”
He smiled widely, a small dribble of beer leaking from his mouth. As he wiped it with his left forearm, Reena noticed a small tattoo just past his wrist. Looked like an African baobab tree.
He stood and went to the fridge. “I’ve got some beef sausages and a block of cheese. And a couple of apples—oh, and I forgot. My boss’s wife, who you definitely don’t know, sent some dhokla for me. It’s a strange dinner, but shall we feast?”
Reena smirked as she curled one leg under her. She had nowhere else to go, so why shouldn’t she get to know Nadim? She did have to live across the hall from him. They could be friends. She could pretend he didn’t work for her father.
And she damn well didn’t have to marry the man.
But eating fougasse and cheese of questionable origin with a new neighbor while enjoying some of his delightful microbrew couldn’t hurt. And looking at those arms while listening to that voice certainly wasn’t torture either. And if she found herself growing too attracted to the mystery English/East African man, she could just eat a bite of her mother’s dhokla as a reminder that any involvement with this man would always include her parents. Whether she wanted it to or not.
CHAPTER FIVE
Reena woke Wednesday morning with a serious case of the sniffles and a massive sinus headache. Figured. All that sneezing yesterday had blossomed to a full-on head cold. She had reports due by the end of the workday, so she didn’t want to call in sick. She phoned her boss, Tina, to ask if she could work from home.
“There’s an important meeting I need you for this afternoon.” Tina sounded annoyed.
“I can videoconference in—I don’t want to get anyone sick.” She would have thought Tina would be more enthusiastic about Reena putting the health of the team first while still getting the reports in.
“Okay,” Tina said. “I’ll email you the link.”
After taking two twelve-hour sinus pills, Reena booted up her laptop.
The pills worked their magic, and she was chin deep in numbers all morning, making progress on the sales reports. It was almost the end of the day when she logged into Tina’s “important” meeting, and Reena knew the moment the camera turned on that something was amiss at Railside Clothing Inc.
The meeting was strangely in the executive boardroom. Tina was there, looking exhausted and maybe…sad? Next to her was the normally stoic HR rep, except her smile was unnaturally chipper and most definitely fake. There were two strangers there, too, both wearing the easy-wear, yet formal clothing of a consultant. And a large stack of cardboard file boxes in the corner—the kind they give you to clean out your cubicle. Those were presumably for the unlucky sods who had to attend these meetings in person.