“I don’t know.” She pushed her hair behind her ear. “He totally lied to me, but it takes two, right? There were signs he wasn’t being honest about his marriage. I believed what I wanted to believe. He was very charming.” She tapped her belly. “If this baby is as persuasive as her father, then I’m in trouble.”
“But what about everything he did here in Toronto? The goading and trying to make you jealous by flirting with me.”
Jana nodded. “He’s not forgiven for that. He’s been groveling, but it’s not enough. Part of me wants to have nothing to do with Anil. But…” She looked off into the distance. “I’m having this baby. I think she deserves two parents, and a mother with a good job.”
“Sounds like you’ve already decided.”
“I haven’t. But I’m going to think seriously about it.”
“Be careful, though. He’s only known he’s going to be a father for what—three days? I hope he doesn’t burn out from all this groveling.”
Jana gave her smug shrug. “What about Rohan? How was his grovel?”
Kamila exhaled deeply. “He said all the right things. He apologized profusely. I’m still in shock over what he offered me, though.”
“What did he offer you?”
“One-third of HNS.”
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah.” Kamila nodded. “That was my reaction. I probably would have forgiven him if he had given me a puppy, but instead he offered me partnership in a multimillion-dollar company.”
Jana snorted. “Rohan has always been a bit extra, don’t you think?”
Kamila nodded and explained the details of Rohan’s offer.
“What about…you know…I was under the impression you developed feelings for him?” Jana asked.
“I’m in love with him.”
Jana chuckled. “Yeah, that. Maybe he feels the same way and he’s doing this to be closer to you.”
Kamila picked at her agedashi tofu, watching the bonito flakes sway in the steam. “Actually, it’s the opposite. I don’t know if you remember, but Lisa, his ex-wife, was a lawyer in the same firm as him. He told me he’d never want a relationship with someone he worked with again. It’s too much stress on the relationship and on the business. He doesn’t mix business and pleasure…and he asked me to be a business partner.”
“Damn.”
Jana said nothing for a while, and Kamila silently ate her tofu. Damn was right.
Jana looked up from her food. “So, you’re giving up on him, then?”
“I mean, there is nothing to give up. I’m hoping my feelings will die out. But I can’t do this to myself. Work at HNS? It would be torture.”
“How can you not, though? This is HNS, Kamila! The company our fathers built. Zayan and Rohan are doing great with it, but can you imagine if a woman was a partner, too? You’d get your own division. Here’s your chance to put your stamp on it.”
Kamila wasn’t convinced. It sounded like a whole lot of heartache to work with Rohan and a headache dealing with people who she didn’t see eye to eye with. “You don’t actually think I could do this, though, do you? This is high-powered finance stuff—not hairstyling and Bollywood gossip.”
Jana looked at Kamila for a few seconds, blinking. Then she looked down at her bowl of noodles. “You think I’m a bitch,” she said.
Kamila didn’t think that. At least not since…Thursday. But the fact was, this wasJana. It was all good to be buddy-buddy now, but there was too much history between them to take this advice at face value. “Like I said before, I’m not sure I would have gotten through tonight without you…or that night at the hospital. But I can’t exactly forget everything else.” Even if Kamila were to let ancient history, and the whole Bronx Bennet thing, go, Jana had been pretty nasty in the last few weeks, too. Also? Now that Asha had reminded her of how ridiculous it was, Kamila chuckled to herself whenever she thought of the name Bronx Bennet.
Jana twirled her noodles with her chopsticks. “I’m thinking an apology isn’t going to mean much to you, but…I am sorry. You always brought out the worst in me. I mean, it’s no wonder—after so many years of everyone telling me I should be more like you.”
Kamila was very glad she wasn’t drinking her yuzu-lychee fizz at that moment, because she would have spit it all over Jana’s face and possibly ruined that perfect red lipstick (she made a mental note to ask Jana the shade when they weren’t in the midst of repairing a twenty-seven-year-old relationship). “You’re kidding,” Kamila said. “Why would anyone tellyouto be more like me? You are the very definition of a perfect Indian daughter.”
“Did you forget about the unwed-mother part, Kamila?”
“Okay, but that’s a new development. For my entire life people asked me why I couldn’t be smart and respectable like Jana Suleiman.”
