“Yes. I’m really sorry, Reena. I should have told you about her. My father insisted I couldn’t disclose my past with Jasmine to you or your father. I never wanted you to get hurt.”

“What I don’t get is why after working for Salim Shah while engaged to his daughter, you immediately started working for his archenemy and agreed to marry his daughter? Were you some sort of corporate spy?”

“No, of course not. Honestly, until the shit hit the fan on Sunday I didn’t know your father even knew the Shahs. My father made me swear never to tell anyone I had worked with Salim because of all the negative attention the Shah hotel project was getting.”

“Nadim, tell me your side of the story. From the beginning.”

So, he told her the story. As she sat in the tiny hallway on the first floor of her father’s building, Nadim told her how hard he worked to please his father and how he usually fell short. He finally moved to London to distance himself and quickly got involved with Jasmine, the free-spirited woman whose purpose, he thought, was to teach him that life could be more than his father’s narrow definition.

“I got caught up in a world that didn’t really fit. And I knew it didn’t fit, but things just kind of got out of hand. Jasmine had these grandiose plans of being an influencer. The London hotel was her idea.”

“And the mismanagement?”

“I can’t pretend to be innocent there. I wasn’t really … invested. I didn’t care. I was partying, taking shortcuts, and just coasting.”

“I saw pictures of you on a yacht.”

“There were many yachts. Jasmine wanted the best of everything. In the business, too. High-end fixtures, materials. She was inexperienced, and it was a disaster. I have so many regrets for how I handled things with that hotel.”

“Didn’t Jasmine care about her father’s company?”

He shrugged. “I know what you’re thinking. That she’s just a superficial, spoiled snob. But … Jasmine is a complicated person. You think you and I have difficult parents? Salim is a good businessman, but an awful father. Not just neglectful, but downright abusive. She honestly tried. She wanted to succeed—she cared about it more than I did. But she didn’t see the big picture and focused on insignificant details. I shouldn’t have let any of it, the business or the relationship, go so far.”

“And then you abandoned her in Egypt?”

He huffed a laugh. “No. She abandoned me. We were there on holiday and she decided we should open a hotel there, too. I knew we were in over our heads with the London one, and when I tried to dissuade her, we had a huge fight. I put my foot down and quit my position with Shah Enterprises on the spot, and she took off, leaving me alone in Cairo. She took my passport. Dad had to have an emergency one couriered to me so I could get back to Tanzania.”