“How old are you?” Ruby asked. He raised a brow at her. Maybe she shouldn’t have asked so directly. “I mean, you don’t have to say. I’m curious. You know how old I am, because—”
“Because we met on your thirty-third birthday. I guess it’s only fair. I’m thirty-seven.”
She giggled, shaking her head. “I seriously thought you were adecadeyounger when we met. Maybe I should have listened to your skin care rant—you clearly know what you’re doing.”
He laughed at that. He especially looked younger than thirty-seven when he was laughing.
“Why do you hate skin care, anyway?”
He shook his head. “I hateoverpricedskin care filled with unproven additives. Like, people are slathering their face withsnail mucus now—and spending a fortune on it, too. It’s not only nasty, but there is no evidence it does anything. I’m not a cosmetic dermatologist, but I know that skin care is mostly water and that actual,provenadditives are incredibly cheap—like vitamin C and retinol. But these companies gaslight you into thinking that you can only have good skin if you spend a fortune.”
Ruby frowned. Snail mucus didn’t work? “If you’re not a cosmetic dermatologist, what is your specialty?”
“I focus on clinical dermatology. Basically, I treat medical issues with the skin, like hereditary skin diseases and autoimmune disorders.”
“Do you hate it when people call you Dr. Rash?”
He blinked, staring for several seconds. Then barked a loud laugh. “Honestly, no one’s ever called me that.”
“No one has called you thatto your face,” she said. “I guarantee they thought it. I mean, your name, Dr. Rash, is right there. Were you surprised your sister wanted to follow in your footsteps?”
“A little, yeah. She was in med school in Calgary while I was interning, so she saw how fascinated I was in derm. I did some work at a burn clinic, and it’s so rewarding toseethe difference you can make. That’s the thing with skin—it’s the most visible organ. A heart specialist can’t easily know that treatments are working or not working. With skin, we can catch problems quicker, and we can see that we are making a difference. Skin cancer is one of the easiest cancers to find, and that’s why it has such a high survival rate.”
Ruby took a long sip from her martini glass. She neededthis conversation topic to change. Now. This… this was why she hadn’t wanted to date a doctor. “I wish I had siblings,” Ruby said. “You’re so close to your sisters. Jasmine even followed you to Canada.”
“Yeah, they’re great. We’re all in different places now, but we talk all the time. My whole family is close.”
Ruby felt a pang of jealousy. “The only family I still talk to is my cousin Marley. She and I are only children, so we grew up like sisters.”
“You grew up here in Toronto, right?”
Ruby nodded. “I left when I was twenty. I’ve only been back for a year and a bit.”
“And you’re leaving again. You said you move a lot?”
She nodded, then started counting cities on her fingers. “I went to university in Montreal, then moved to Ottawa, then Halifax, then I was daring and moved to Vancouver, then Kelowna for a few years, but I realized I’m not crunchy enough for the west coast, so moved back to my first love, Montreal. Then came here just over a year ago.”
“And now you want to move to England.”
“Notwant to… Iammoving to England. I already have my ticket. The visa is sorted.”
He didn’t say anything to that. Ruby was surprised at how pleasant this dinner had been so far—once they stopped the medical conversation. Maybe Rashid wasn’t a complete grump after all. In fact, maybe she didn’t need Jasmine to introduce her to Hakim M. Hakim. Maybe Rashid could, instead?
“Hey, before your sister left, I was telling her that my eventual goal in the UK is to work in the hotel industry. My motherand I always dreamed of running an inn there, and the reason I’m going now is to see how feasible it is.”
“Yes, I heard you.”
“And I know your father owns hotels and inns in England. I was kind of hoping she’d connect me to him? Like even just to talk to him after I get there. Or… if he has any vacancies at any of his properties—”
“No,” Rashid said. Just the one word.No.
Ruby frowned. So much for civility. “You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”
“You just asked it. You want me to tell my father all about this amazing woman I met in Toronto who fetishizes everything about the UK so much that she’s dropping everything to move there on a whim. I’m sorry, Ruby, but why would I tell my father to hire someone who admits she doesn’t stay in one place longer than a few years? He has enough trouble findingseriousemployees, he doesn’t need someone like–”
Ruby rolled her eyes.Here we go again, she thought. “Someone like what? Someone who buys expensive skin care and is a self-proclaimed girly-girl? Someone who loves all the things you hate? Christmas, fruity drinks, and joy? And I’ll have you know I don’t fetishizeeverythingabout the UK. I mean, I’m not a fan of colonialism. Or the royal family. Except Harry—he’s a cutie. But the rest of them can go.”
Rashid huffed a laugh at that. Ruby wasn’t sure if he was laughingather or with her. She took a breath. Despite them getting along for most of this dinner, one thing was very clear: Rashid Hakim and Ruby Dhanji could never be friends. They were way too different. They may be able to manage a fewminutes of nice, nonaggressive conversation, but eventually one of them would say something that annoyed the other and all this would start again. Maybe there was no point. She didn’t need the Hakim family to get a job in England.
