Accidentally Engaged(42)

“Did you make the pie for me?” he asked.

“Yeah, um, for us. Dessert.”

He groaned. “You’re killing me, Ree.”

She bit her lip. Few people called her Ree, and only one person did it consistently, Amira. Hearing the nickname said from his lips with that accent made her shiver up her spine. “Where’d you get that shirt?”

He grinned as he pulled two plates down from her kitchen cabinet. “From a thrift store, if you’d believe it. There was one near a meeting I had with a restaurant developer, and I had time to kill. Here.” He went to the breakfast bar and took something out of the plastic bag and handed it to her. “I found this and had to get it for you.”

It was an old ceramic crock, probably from the seventies or older. Beige with a brown lid and the word SOURDOUGH stamped across it. An old starter jar. He bought her this?

“I don’t know why I’ve never been in a thrift store before, but you have to see all the stuff I got for my apartment! It won’t be so bare anymore. And I love that the stuff has, you know, history. Personality.”

“You’re a trust fund kid. Of course you’ve never been to a thrift store.”

His expression was incredulous. “I am not a trust fund kid!”

“Did you have a trust fund?” she asked.

He frowned. “Technically…But anyway, I cleaned out the jar for you. Although now I wonder if it had decades’ old traces of sourdough in it. Personality, right?”

She smiled, letting her finger trace the letters on the crock. She wasn’t sure she’d ever received such a casually thoughtful gift.

“Thank you for this,” she said, putting the crock on the counter. “I’ve actually always wanted one of these. I still can’t see you in a thrift store, though.”

“I’ve been missing out. But new life, new Nadim. Shall we eat?”

“Yes, let’s.”

Nadim made up for her terrible mood by being especially chipper and charming. He called her “goddess” no less than three times over their khao soi and made a suggestive comment when she said she preferred tom kha gai to tom yum soup. He couldn’t have picked a worse time to be all rakish again.

“You’re quiet today,” he said, twirling egg noodles on his chopsticks. “Nervous about the video going live? It’s up in four days.”

She shrugged. She hadn’t really thought much about the video, to be honest. Unemployment and the unearthed dirt about her fake fiancé was actually a pretty good distraction from stage fright. She should tell Hollywood.

“No. Not really nervous.”

“Worried about your parents finding out what we’re up to?”

She shrugged. Their finding out about her job and the yacht would be worse. “Nah. I mean, I’m not telling them, but they’re the ones who want us engaged, so what’s the big deal if we tell a national TV station that we are?”

“Then what’s bothering you, Ree?”

“Just a rough day.”

“Did you leave work early? That pie was warm.”

Crap. Of course, he noticed the pie was fresh. Ugh…she felt like an idiot.

She considered telling him the pie came from her freezer, when she sank in her seat. She planned this whole evening to get some honesty out of him. She couldn’t start by lying. He bought her a starter jar, for god’s sake. He deserved the truth.

“If I tell you something, can I trust you not to tell my parents? Actually, not to tell anyone. At all. No one knows this, except Amira and Saira.”

“Of course. You know you can trust me. What’s wrong?”

Could trust him? The man on the gold yacht? She took a long breath. “I didn’t go to work today. I was laid off two weeks ago.”

He looked up at her, his eyes warm with concern. “Oh, shit, Reena, I’m so sorry. Did this happen that day I found you at the Sparrow?”

She nodded, not trusting her voice not to crack.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

She bit her lip. “I didn’t want you to tell my father. I don’t want my parents to know until I have another job.”

“Why? Your dad can probably help you find one. He knows so many people.”

Reena fidgeted with her chopsticks, scraping the rough wood with her fingernails. “This isn’t my first…I’ve been downsized twice. Last time Mum kept saying ‘how could you let this happen to you?’ And Dad kept saying ‘now’s the time to join the family business.’”

“And you don’t want to do that.”

“No.” She pressed her eyes closed a moment. “I’m thirty-one. I can afford to live alone only because my parents own this building and charge me a fraction of what the average Toronto rent is. It’s still hard to stay afloat. As soon as things start going well and I start to think, there, I’ve done it, I am an adult now, boom. Downsized again. Don’t get me wrong, I know it could be worse, but I wish their help didn’t come with so many damn strings. Telling me where to work. What to eat. Where to live. Who to marry.”

Nadim sat silently for a while. Reena wondered if she had said too much. Delved too deep into serious talk. Not to mention that the marriage comment didn’t shine too brightly on him.