“Now, there’s no need for all this ‘sir’ business,” my father interrupted him.

“Sorry. I—” Spencer blinked back tears. “That’s why I never told you about my parents. Because I was scared that you would never accept me if you knew the truth. That you would judge me by the actions of the people who never even knew me, let alone cared for me. And now I’ve gone and messed everything up. I’m so sorry. I’ll leave the apartment and check into a hotel. I’m happy to pay for any deposits you might have to forego and—”

“Spencer”—my dad rose to his feet also—“enough with this talk. We are not asking you to end this engagement.”

He’s not?

“We just wanted to get to the bottom of things. If we are going to be family, we aren’t to keep secrets from one another, you hear?”

Spencer let a single tear roll down his cheek. What a fucking performance. He’d lied to me about his parents just yesterday.

“Yes, sir, I mean—yes, Thaththa.”

“I don’t tell many people this, but my father”—he gestured behind him at Seeya’s picture—“was a terrible drinker. Heart of gold, but that was his one weakness. Could never give up the bottle. And when he drank, my god, he turned into something, well, something quite terrible.”

What? Seeya? I guess Spencer wasn’t the only one good at keeping secrets around here.

“We never talk about it, of course. But I vowed, the moment that Kaavi was born, that she was never to feel the way I did. We are not our parents, Spencer, and I respect a man who has made his own way in the world. We would be lucky to have you in our family.”

He reached out and gave Spencer a big hug, thumping him on the back the same way my heart was thumping in my chest.

I glanced over at my mother, and she looked absolutely livid. But I knew she’d never go against him. Not about something like this. She glared at Spencer, my dad, and most of all me.

I knew what she was thinking—that I should have known better. My mind went back to everything Spencer told me last night. About his parents dying and leaving him money. About why he couldn’t tell me about his bankrupt business. About why he wanted to get married in the first place. About how he would never lie to me.

Fuck, I hate it when this happens, but my mother was right. I should have known better.

27

KAAVI

Three Days before the Wedding

I stood through my dad’s bullshit speech, all heart and gusto, put on for the benefit of our nosy houseguests. I held Spencer’s hand. I went along with everything. I didn’t know what the fuck else to do. Maybe I could talk to my dad later on today. Maybe I could convince him that this whole thing was a con. That Spencer was a con artist. A broke, lying con artist who got caught in his act and still managed to weave his way out of it. I can’t believe I fell for his bullshit in the first place.