“You don’t think the failure of the Shah project was really his fault?”

“Nadim is not the man his father told me he was. I was under the impression I would have to keep a very close eye on him and help him improve irresponsible work habits. Nadim is very sharp. No babysitting necessary.”

“But then, Dad,” Saira asked, “if you thought he’d be a deadbeat, why did you try to force Reena to marry him?”

“There was no forcing. The marriage was his father’s idea—to clean up his image. He thinks Jasmine is below his son—apparently she is an Instant model.”

“Instagram,” Reena corrected.

He waved his hand. “Yes, yes. Anyway. Your mother wasn’t happy that I made this deal with Nadim’s father, or that I agreed to encourage you to marry him. It happened while she was away at her card tournament in Nevada, or I am sure she would have stopped it all.”

Would Mum have stopped it? She’d been the lynchpin behind this matchmaking from the beginning, or so Reena thought. And shady past or not, Nadim looked pretty good on paper as son-in-law material.

Looked pretty good on high-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets, too.

Hold up … Card tournament in Nevada? Dad knew about Mum’s poker? “She told you why she went to Vegas?” Reena asked.

He chuckled. “I shouldn’t have said that. She doesn’t know I know about her card friends. She’s not hurting anyone and has raised so much money for charity. Let her have her secret fun.”

Reena turned to Saira. “This family is utterly ridiculous.”

Saira shrugged. “You’re just figuring that out now?”

Reena tried to keep it all straight in her head. While Mum was in Vegas with Leon Bergeron, Mrs. Pelozzi, and the rest of the gambling grannies, Dad and Nadim’s father were making a business deal with a bonus marriage tacked on as an appendix. Dad’s motivation was to make up the money he lost when he hired a bogus architect so his wife wouldn’t find out, even though his wife already knew. Nadim’s dad was trying to cover up Nadim’s apparent mismanagement of Salim Shah’s boutique hotel project and end his engagement to a leggy Instagram model.

All seemed perfectly normal things for parents to do.

Reena remembered Mum’s trip, actually. At the time, she had recently split with Jamil and had been experimenting with online dating apps. She had two regular hookups from Tinder then, if she recalled correctly.

Reena frowned. “This isn’t the right family for Shiroz to search for a virgin daughter to make his son look good.”

Dad said nothing. Which was fine, because that only gave Reena more time to think. “Wait. Dad. Mum’s trip was in February.”

She remembered things. Nadim not seeing her picture until he moved to Toronto and being surprised she didn’t live at home with her parents.

She stilled, briefly looking at her sister. “It wasn’t me, was it? February was a month after Saira caught Joran in his love nest with his cousin. You sold Saira, not me.”