The Dating Plan(85)

Daisy sighed. “No. It didn’t work out. My dad didn’t approve.”

“When it comes to marriage, family knows best.”

Daisy didn’t know if family always knew best, but a few days in the office with hardly anyone around had made her realize she didn’t truly want to be alone. She missed the chatter around her, the chance to use her family connections to help people out, and the support that she got from her friends. There was no way she could go back to a job where she congratulated herself every day for the number of hours she’d gone without human interaction. She needed people. And she liked being needed in return.

“Why don’t you help yourself to some food?” she suggested. “I’m just going to find my dad and see what’s going on. This was supposed to be a quiet family dinner.” She left Roshan with Layla and pushed her way through the crowd until she found her dad stirring dal in the kitchen with Priya.

“Beta! We were waiting for you and Layla to get back. Now, everyone is here and the announcement can begin!”

“Why is Roshan here?” she asked bluntly, agitated past being polite. If he planned to announce her engagement to a man she barely knew . . .

“The family talked it over. We thought, since you are clearly interested in a relationship, you should meet Roshan properly, and since we organized this party to announce our engagement, it was the perfect time.”

“Wait . . . what?” Her eyes widened. “You and Priya are getting married?”

“I just popped the question,” her father said, grinning. “All this talk of marriage made me realize there was no time to waste. I was going to propose either on a sailing holiday from Florida to the Azores, or during a deserted island survival adventure in Panama, but then this morning, I was eating leftover samosas for breakfast, and I had the idea.”

“What idea?”

He grinned. “The proposal idea.”

“Day-old samosas in the kitchen are better than proposing in the middle of the ocean?” Daisy stared at him, incredulous. “Or on a tropical island full of white sandy beaches and coral reefs?”

“Priya doesn’t need those things,” he said. “She’s a modern woman and I’m a traditional man. I wanted something that would bring the two together.”

Priya gave him a dreamy smile and kissed him on the cheek. “He’s so romantic.”

Daisy liked samosas, but had never thought of them in a romantic way. Maybe she’d been missing out. “So, what happened?”

“I bit into the samosa,” her father continued. “And I knew. It was a sign.”

“A sign that you were hungry?”

He laughed. “No, beta. A sign that this was it—the idea I’d been waiting for. So I shoved the ring into the samosa and I called Priya downstairs and I said . . .” He trailed off and turned to Priya. “Tell her what I said.”

“He said, ‘Taste this samosa.’”

“Those are exactly the words I used.” Her father grinned. “She remembers them.” He put his free arm around Priya and gave her a squeeze. “Tell her what I did next.”

“He sat down,” Priya said.

Daisy frowned. “Were you not feeling well?”

Her father grimaced. “I wanted to get on one knee but I twisted it when we were cave tubing down the Caves River in Belize.”

“You twisted it when we were on the ATV jungle tour and you went too fast around the corner and the ATV fell on you,” Priya said gently. “You knocked yourself out when we were cave tubing because you took off your helmet after they told you not to.”

“I had to take it off,” he protested. “I felt a sting. I thought it was a scorpion.”

“Did you scream?” Daisy asked.

“No.”

“Collapse? Have a seizure? Swelling? Did the guide give you antivenom?”

“No. I just had a small itch right here.” He tapped his right temple.

“Then it wasn’t a scorpion,” Daisy said dryly. “And also, you are banned from any more extreme holidays. Next year you’re going to sit on a beach in Maui.”

“Actually, we just signed up for a training camp because we’re going to tackle Mount Everest,” Priya said. “It’s for our honeymoon.”

“You two are made for each other.” Daisy shook her head. “But please don’t encourage him. He gets into enough trouble as it is.” Daisy looked from Priya to her father and back to Priya. “Or . . . did you guys maybe bring something back that you weren’t supposed to? Something you might have been smoking this morning?”

“She thinks we’re high,” her father said to Priya. “And we are. High on life. Tell her the rest of what I did when I proposed.”

“He told me to take a big bite of the samosa,” Priya said. “But I guess the bite was too big, because I swallowed the ring and almost choked to death.”

“I Heimliched her,” Daisy’s father said. “Grabbed her around the waist and almost broke her ribs, but we saved the ring. She coughed it up on the floor. And the samosa, too.”

Priya sighed. “Such a waste of a good samosa.”

Daisy’s father’s eyes misted. “Then I brushed off the peas and the potato filling and—”