Accidentally Engaged(35)

After leaving Brian, a bag of flour, a bottle of spring water, and her kitchen scale with Nadim, she changed and packed for the weekend. Her phone rang just as she zippered the bag. She glanced at the call display.

Her father. Her father never called her.

“Hi, Dad. What’s going on?” She sat on her bed, body tensed in preparation for bad news.

“Your mother tells me you are going north for the weekend.”

“Yes, I took the day off work so I could head to Amira’s early.”

“Can we speak before you leave? I’m at the project site all day.”

“Today?” she asked. Also, alone?

“Yes. We can go for coffee. Nadim is at an off-site meeting with a restaurant developer this morning.”

Hmm. Why did Dad bring up Nadim?

Reena took a deep breath. She should be good at keeping secrets by now but was actually terrible at it. It seemed a wonder her parents didn’t thrust her into speech therapy as a kid with how often she hesitated and said um…

She really had no choice here. “Um…okay. I can be there in about an hour.”

After Reena finished packing her hair products and makeup, she downed a quick cup of coffee before taking her bags to her car. It was a twenty-minute drive to Dad’s worksite. When she got there, she parked in the gravel lot and went looking for him.

Reena hadn’t been to the Diamond project in a while, and she couldn’t help but be impressed at the progress since then. A medium-size low-rise building, it was loosely modeled after European mixed-use structures, with space at the bottom for stores and restaurants and four levels of condos and rental units facing into a large center courtyard. The building stood on the edge of a big residential subdivision in the city of Markham, filled with cookie-cutter single-family homes. It had been a major challenge to get zoning approval, but Reena had never been prouder of her father than when he won it, and seeing the project now, in the last stages of construction, the pride swelled in her heart even more.

And to think, he’d almost lost all this thanks to that architect guy. Reena tensed a bit as she peeked into the building. She didn’t want to think about how, in a way, the success of this project was resting on her and Nadim’s shoulders.

She found her father outside the building, talking to a man who looked like a construction foreman. “Reena,” he said. “This is Igor. I’m sorry I don’t have time to show you around—I have a meeting in an hour—but after we have coffee, Igor can show you our progress. We’ll have to drive. There is nothing around here.”

She followed him to his car. Aziz Manji was an imposing man. Tall, at least tall by Indian standards, and with a full head of black hair even in his fifties. His appearance reflected his intelligence and his respectability in the community, where he was revered and admired for his philanthropy as well as for the modest empire he had grown from the bottom up. None of the Manji children had inherited his stature or dignity.

They went to a Tim Hortons doughnut shop a decent distance from the project. “There’s nothing closer,” he said. “I don’t understand why the neighborhood fought against the development. Who wants to go so far for tea?”

“You guys putting a coffee shop in the building?”

“Yes.” He pulled into the parking lot. “In the corner unit. Nadim is negotiating with developers.”

Dad bought some doughnuts, a coffee for her, and a tea for himself. “Shh,” he said with a smile. “Don’t tell Saira I’m eating doughnuts. Or maybe we’ll tell her they’re made with kelp and kale?”

Reena laughed before suddenly stilling. She couldn’t remember the last time her father cracked a joke. She blew gently on her coffee.

“I wanted to speak to you about Nadim,” Dad said.

“Okay…” she responded, raking her brain to sort through which parts of their friendship she could reveal. The contest, the shared beers, the lice…definitely not. The foot rub? Most definitely not.

“I know your mother has hopes for you and him,” Dad said, seemingly oblivious to Reena’s distraction. “An eligible man around your age with a master’s degree from LSE? It is a blessing he has come into our lives and is eager to join our family.”

Ugh. Nadim was nothing but the letters after his name. She sighed. On the surface, Dad cared a lot about “young people starting out,” as he put it. The goal of this project was to provide affordable home ownership to millennials who had been priced out of the city. But when it came to his own children, he just spewed orders and expected them to obey. Or used them as bait to lure investors.

“I understand you have had the opportunity to get to know the man?” he asked.

She bit the inside of her cheek. “Um, yes. A little.”

“What are your thoughts?”

Reena blinked. Her thoughts? What could she say? Bit of a rake, a definite flirt, and in the possession of a weirdly charming foot fetish? A man who had very, very talented hands…

She swallowed. “He seems…interesting. Well-rounded. Smart, too.”

“Have you met any of his friends?”

Friends? Did he have any? She couldn’t recall Nadim mentioning friends to Reena. Ever.

Dad’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t believe there is any value to listening to this kind of chatter, but I heard rumors about Nadim’s past. I hoped you would help me confirm they aren’t true.”