“I did see a picture in your dad’s office. But it didn’t really look like you. You were wearing this purple salwar kameez and standing with your parents. And your hair was straight. I could tell you were cute, but—”

“I know that picture. From my brother’s wedding. Mum’s makeup artist totally overdid it.” She chuckled, remembering the ridiculous high heels she’d been forced to wear. No wonder he didn’t recognize her. She’d felt like an illusion that day. In fact, the whole day had been a charade. Despite Khizar and Nafissa being so madly in love, both their parents’ interference on the wedding day ruined any chance of them enjoying any of it. Mum even hired that makeup artist, despite Nafissa being a makeup artist and wanting to hire one of her friends. Reena decided then not to have the big Indian wedding her parents would insist on, and to never even consider one of the arranged introductions they forced on her.

And now she’d slept with one of them.

She pushed away the feeling of impending doom and squeezed him playfully. “And now that you know I’m not what they sold you, you don’t want to marry me anymore?”

His other arm snaked around her and pulled her on top of him again. “No. I don’t.” He buried his head in her neck and inhaled. “I’ve been restless for a long time,” he said. “Actually, restless is the wrong word. I was too busy to realize how bored I was. Too many people around to realize how lonely I felt. But then you came along and turned everything upside down.” He smiled. “I’m not sure about the future. But I am sure about the present.” He pulled her head up and kissed her gently. “And all I want right now is to make you happy.” He kissed her again, deeper this time. Reena lost herself in the perfect embrace. He pulled back again. “You’re unexpected, Reena Manji. Never unmemorable.” He kissed her again, before murmuring against her lips. “Twelve boyfriends?” he asked, smiling. “Is it too unlucky to try for a thirteenth? Am I doomed to fail?”

She shook her head. “Thirteen is a baker’s dozen. The extra one always tastes the sweetest.” She kissed him again.

“We still can’t tell our families,” she said as they broke apart again. Not when Mum wanted to start wedding planning and Dad wanted her to report back everything she learned about his new mentee. They wouldn’t understand simply dating Nadim with no plans for a future. There was a reason why Reena stopped telling them about her dating life by the time she was twenty-seven—that was the arbitrary age when every conversation about men turned into interrogations about his marriage prospects. Reena couldn’t see where this would go naturally without keeping her families out of it.

“We’ll create a bubble in this place, just you and me,” he said.

She kissed him again, letting herself sink into a replay of their earlier entertainments, but a thought invaded her mind at the same time. As a bread baker, she knew a thing or two about bubbles. The glorious pockets of air captured in bread dough that made it rise were not as delicate as they looked, so long as the dough had a well-developed gluten foundation. Without the foundation, the bubbles would deflate when exposed to the heat of an oven.