Ruby exhaled, blinking. Her father wasn’t worth a single tear. “My fucking father issuingme for my inheritance.”
There was silence in the room. She closed her eyes. She didn’t think he would actually carry out his threat.
“What does the letter say?” Anderson asked gently.
She thought about telling them nothing, sayingDon’t worry about it, this is a party. She didn’t want to burden them all with the messy bits of her life. But she remembered what Rashid had said a few days ago—these people were her friends. They did all this for her, threw her a party instead of going out on New Year’s Eve. When shit hit the fan, Ruby wasn’t actually alone.
She handed Anderson the letter. “Read it out loud. Maybeyou all can make sense of the legalese.”
Anderson read the letter, and then Nadim, who worked in the corporate world and understood legal jargon, translated. Basically, the letter was an intent to sue. It said that her father, Arif Dhanji, would be suing Rubina Dhanji for the full amount of the trust left to her by Maryam Dhanji plus interest, as the funds in the trust were acquired illegally from Arif’s own assets.
Ruby frowned. “So, Dad’s claiming that Mom stole the money from him, and therefore he’s entitled to it all? Plus interest?” She couldn’t believe this horrendous man was her father.
“I’m pretty sure he’s not allowed to sue anymore,” Nik said. “There are statutes of limitations on inheritances.”
Nadim nodded. “Hang on, I’m looking it up.”
“We know a lawyer,” Reena added. “A good one. She handled my sister’s divorce.”
“I know one, too,” Shayne said.
Everyone in the room started talking at once, analyzing the letter, looking through all their contacts, and even reading the relevant parts of Canadian law online to determine if Ruby’s father had a case. Within half an hour, preliminary emails had been sent to three local attorneys, inquiring if they would consult with Ruby online in the next week about a threatening notice of intent to sue.
“Don’t worry about this, Rubes,” Shayne said. “Don’t let it ruin your trip. I have no doubt we’ll get this all sorted. He’s trying to scare you, but we won’t let him, right, guys?”
Ruby blinked. Rashid was right. Her friends didhaveher. The fact that they’d canceled their New Year’s Eve plans and were now trying to become experts on Canadian inheritancelaws for her was proof of that. They supported her. They accepted her. She was nowhere near as alone as she’d thought, and she suddenly felt terrible she hadn’t appreciated them more.
“You guys are the best, you know that?” she said, feeling her eyes well with tears again. “First Rashid, now this stupid letter. Not sure my nerves could have handled it without you all. I’m going to miss you all so much.”
“We’re going to miss you, too,” Anderson said. “But we’ll still see you. Now we have a reason to go to England.”
Shayne nodded. “Yes! Believe me, you’re going to see too much of us. And we’re keeping you in the chat group. It’ll be like you never left Toronto.”
She blinked. She couldn’t believe all this drama right before she was leaving. Usually Ruby’s first impulse when bad things happened was to want to get out of the city she was in. But not this time. She had all thislovehere.
She wiped her eyes. She blamed the Pimm’s Cup. “Aren’t you all curious about what actually happened with Rashid?”
Marley shrugged. “I mean, yes, but you don’t have to tell us about it if you don’t want to. I know you two were supposed to stay casual, so I figured it ran its course.”
Ruby took a bite of a sausage roll, which of course reminded her of when she and Rashid ate sausages in the Winter Market. It wasn’t fair. December was her favorite month—she wondered if it would be the month of painful memories now.
“I don’t think it was casual for Rashid,” Anderson said.
Ruby looked at him. “How could you tell?”
“The way he looked at you at the Christmas party. Plus, he kinda told me how into you he was when we were at thatholiday craft market.”
Ruby frowned. That was only their second outing. It was when he had bought her all those things so she wouldn’t be empty-handed on Christmas. Ruby took another bite of sausage roll, mostly so she wouldn’t start crying again.
“So what did happen between you?” Marley asked gently.
“Does it have anything to do with Ayesha being in town?” Nadim added. “Because Ayesha is a lot. We used to call her a chaos demon in uni.”
“Ineedto meet this woman,” Shayne said.
Ruby chuckled. Ayesha was the furthest thing from a chaos demon now, at least as far as Ruby could tell. She was a responsible executive in her family business. “Yeah, it was sort of because of Ayesha. Rashid asked her to offer me a job here in Toronto, to make me stay and not go to England. Because he’s staying.”
“Holy crap, he’sstaying?” Nadim asked, frowning.
