Accidentally Engaged(75)
Evil, evil big brother.
“I wish you were here, Khizar. When are you coming home next?”
He snorted. “Nafissa can’t sit for more than forty minutes without looking for a bathroom, so it’ll be after the babies are born. But you’re still coming for the birth, right? It’s only four months away.”
“Of course I am. You’re going to be a daddy.” She smiled. He was going to be an amazing father.
He laughed. “I know. It’s surreal. Things are changing, Reena. We want you and Saira to be in their lives as much as we can swing it. Those girls are insanely lucky to have such kick-ass aunties.”
Reena bit her lip. “Yeah, they are. I’ll call you tomorrow, Khizar. Give Nafissa a hug from me.”
“Okay, Reena. Take care, and call me anytime.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
After getting off the phone, Reena showered, changed into yoga pants and a sweatshirt, and planted herself at her computer to do something she should have done weeks ago. She googled Nadim Remtulla.
She didn’t find much. Some mention of him on a football team (his type) in London a few years ago, plus a Twitter handle that he only used three years ago for entering contests. His Facebook account also looked rarely updated. There was a newspaper article from Dar es Salaam mentioning him as one of many volunteers in a girls’ education charity, and a few pictures shared by other people from several years ago—pictures with Nadim smiling, at parties and at restaurants. A genuine smile on his bearded face and no popped collar to be seen. No evidence of Jasmine either.
She googled his father, Shiroz Remtulla, and found mentions of him as a partner in a major law firm with several offices in East Africa, and one in London, and many mentions of his generous charity donations.
Finally, Reena googled Salim Shah and Shah Enterprises. She skimmed the information, confirming what she already knew about the man. A real estate developer like her father, he built buildings and hotels before selling them off at a profit, mostly in the UK. Skimming headlines, she found a mention of the failed project on a small business trends news site from London.
The project was a boutique hotel and spa. It had failed for several reasons—first of which was that the high-end facility was completely wrong for a neighborhood that hadn’t begun gentrifying yet. There were also some issues of overspending on fixtures and tradesmen. And some speculation about underhanded deals. Bottom line was that the project was unlike all of Shah’s other properties—it was over budget, and it didn’t sell. If Nadim was responsible for this mess (as much as only one person could be responsible for such a big project), she could see why Dad wouldn’t want the man working on the Diamond project.
But nothing here mentioned Nadim or Jasmine. After googling her specifically, she found some hits from D-list socialite gossip sites. Jasmine Shah apparently had some famous friends. Reena kept googling. Finally, she found a short article on some fashion blog. The picture attached was a heavily filtered, full-length shot of Jasmine standing in one of those ubiquitous London city plazas, wearing a floppy suede sun hat and mirrored glasses, and the attached interview with Jasmine was primarily about her influence as an Instagram model on @JazStyle.
Instagram model?
Reena searched for it, but the account no longer existed. She flipped back to the article. Most of it was fluffy praise for her fashion sense and her eye for composition in photos. Finally, she found a paragraph that made her stomach churn. Answering a question about her future, Jasmine waxed poetic about her fiancé.
Oh, I absolutely have a plan for the future! My fiancé and I are in the final stages of construction of a new boutique hotel in London. It’s just the beginning of our plans for an international brand synonymous with luxury and style and with real substance behind it. Nadim, that’s my fiancé, comes from Africa, and is passionate about increasing access to hidden oases in the far reaches of the world. We’re looking at properties in Egypt soon!
Luxury and style with real substance? Reena nearly threw up. Well, this was the confirmation that Nadim was not only involved with this London boutique hotel kerfuffle, but also indeed was engaged to Jasmine.
But wait…Reena remembered something. Egypt. That day Saira came over with her bone soup, she had some gossip that Jasmine Shah had been abandoned by her fiancé in Egypt. Had that been Nadim? She checked the date on this article. It was almost a year old. She grabbed her phone and called her sister.
“Remember when you told me that Jasmine Shah’s fiancé left her in Egypt?”
“Yeahhhhh…” Saira paused. “Oh, that could have been Nadim! Did you ask him?”
“No.”
“Shouldn’t you?”
“I’ve decided to ignore his messages.”
“Reena, you’re impossible. I’ll call Rish. She can probably find out.”
Reena walked around her apartment for a while, waiting for her sister to call. Eventually she sat back on the couch and lowered her head in her hands. She couldn’t believe she had resorted to fishing for gossip again. Why couldn’t she just ask him? What was she so afraid of?
It was an hour later when a knock sounded at the door. She peeked in the peephole to make sure it wasn’t Nadim. It was Saira.
When she opened the door, she saw that her sister was holding a carton of low-sugar frozen yogurt and a selection of organic juices in lurid colors.