My Best Friend's Brother (A Bashir Family Romance Book 1) (3 page)

I
fit in seamlessly with the Bashirs and sometimes daydreamed I was really a part of their family and not just a houseguest. My dad was doing well in Nevada; h called me every night to check in, and sometimes he would send a check for spending money which I was grateful to have.

With junior year finished, Annika and I looked forward to a summer of fun and relaxation. I imagined we would spend our days sipping mango lassis by the mammoth pool in the backyard.

Apparently, Mrs. Bashir had a different idea.

“Do you have a job lined up this summer, Scarlett?” Mrs. Bashir asked as she ladled a fragrant goat curry onto my plate. I hoped no one could hear my stomach growling as I piled my plate high with basmati rice.

“Oh, well, I hadn’t thought about it,” I stammered. “I have my internship once a week with Texas Monthly…but it doesn’t pay anything.”

I balanced my heaping plate carefully as I took a seat with the rest of the family at the dining room table under an ornate chandelier hanging from a 20-foot ceiling. The house was stately and massive, decorated expertly by Mrs. Bashir who had a keen eye and a slight obsessive compulsion that nothing should be out of place.

She liked to be in control of her surroundings.

We were only missing Dev at the table, but he was at college and hadn’t been home for months. I was grateful for his absence. Something about his dark, brooding eyes and his always-serious gaze unnerved me. I knew he didn’t like me -- or
anyone
for that matter.

“You can work at the hotel. Front desk. Okay?” Mrs. Bashir informed me, as if it had been settled already behind closed doors and this was merely a formality. She looked at Mr. Bashir for confirmation
and he nodded in agreement, his mouth full of goat.

Annika groaned. “Mom, Scarlett and I had plans this summer! Don’t make her work at the hotel!”

Mrs. Bashir put on her stern face. Even Stalin wouldn’t dare to argue with her when she made that face. “Annika, you’re working at the hotel too. We need help. It’s good for you to work.”

I could see Annika try to steady herself and slow her breathing. She was beyond mad but she wisely knew her place. She put her napkin on the table and stood up.

“May I be excused? I’m not very hungry anymore,” she asked, each word poorly veiling her utter disappointment. Annika looked at me expecting me to follow. What she didn’t realize is that I wasn’t a spoiled child of privilege. I was already thinking of what I would do with the extra cash from working at the hotel. Besides, nothing was going to stand between me and that luscious goat curry. I gave her a weak smile.

“I’ll be up in a minute,” I assured her, chewing on a mouthful of rice.

Mrs. Bashir sat down with her plate. She smiled warmly at me.

“It’s a good thing you are here, Scarlett. We are less tempted to spoil our daughter. And your good grades are making her work harder, too.”

I beamed. It was nice to feel appreciated, especially by this family who had given me so much.

The first week of summer vacation, I learned how to check in guests, ask for extra towels from the cleaning service in Spanish, and tell people how to find the best pizza take-out in Fairview. The long hours during slow week days were perfect for researching and writing my articles for Texas Weekly. I got paid a little more than minimum wage, but the extra money went straight into my savings account. In the back of my mind I was hopeful I wouldn’t have to take out very much in student loans when it came time for college. I had already applied for every scholarship under the sun, so maybe if the stars aligned, I wouldn’t go into debt trying to become a writer.

The guests were pretty nice to me, although there was always the odd one who could never be satisfied. Overall, it was pretty good gig and I was grateful for it.

Until
he
walked in.

“
Oh, hi, Dev,” I said shyly, surprised to see Annika’s older brother march into the hotel lobby like he was on a mission for the Navy Seals. I hadn’t said his name out loud in years—not since that day I forbid him to speak to me—and it felt weird on my tongue, like saying a word in Chinese for the first time. No doubt, we were strangers to each other more now than ever. He was definitely grown up and I was just an immature high-schooler cowering in his tall, domineering shadow.

“Where can I find the receipts from last night?” He didn’t even make eye contact or say hello.

Jerk
.

I handed him a folder. “In there.” I waited for his “thank you” but it never came, so I attempted to fill in the awkward void. “I thought you were interning this summer…in New York?”

Translation: Why the hell are you here ruining my day?

He thumbed through the file, brows furrowed.

“I finished. Going to work here for the next few weeks before fall semester.” He looked around the lobby with disapproval. “And get this place in shape.”

I unconsciously straightened out my pink buttoned-down blouse, well-used but still fashionable. Did he think I was some slob or something?

“Oh? What’s so out of shape?” I asked, a defensive edge to my voice.

He finally looked me in the eye and offered a smug, dismissive smile. “It’s nothing that concerns you, Scarlett.”

And with that, he walked away into the adjoining office.

I glanced at the clock on the wall. Two more hours. Two more
long-ass
hours. With
him
sitting there, judging me. And it was a Wednesday, one of the slowest days at the hotel unless a convention was in town, so there was no chance of distracting myself with happy, chatty guests.

I sat down and picked up my notebook where I had planned to outline my writing assignment from Texas Monthly, a short piece on the best children’s museums. A boring topic, but if they liked it, I might have a shot at writing something more substantial.

But instead of writing, I glanced through the glass partition where Dev sat manically crunching numbers on a spreadsheet. I hadn’t recently given him a good look-over as I was usually scurrying away with Annika whenever he entered a room. Now, I had ample time and a discrete angle from which to study him and for some reason, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

He was tall, maybe six-two, and his shoulders were broad and full. His skin was tan and clear, at least from what I could see outside of his neatly pressed charcoal slacks and crisp, white dress shirt. I always found it odd that his complexion was lighter than anyone else in his family, though he still maintained an exotic aura about him. If you had to guess his ethnicity, you might say Italian or Persian—or even Latin.

He kept his dark brown hair short on the sides and longer on top, always combed back, but sometimes a careless tendril would reveal a slight curl. His face was freshly shaven, but he couldn’t hide the ongoing threat of a thick 5 o’clock shadow if he got lazy, which he rarely did. I had caught a whiff of his expensive cologne when he walked by me earlier; it was a clean scent and made me think of the ocean.

His face was classically handsome—a clear resemblance to Mrs. Bashir—with a strong, straight nose, wide, full lips and eyes that would suit either a man or woman. They were large and dark, with heavy lids and full lashes.

Yes, I would admit, he was the epitome of tall, dark and handsome, and something about him commanded my gaze. But I knew he was poison, like a beautifully crafted chocolate filled with arsenic.

And what he would do later only proved my theory correct.

That night I cooked dinner for the whole family. I sincerely loved Indian food and learning how to create it from Mrs. Bashir—who learned from her mother, who learned from her mother before her—was an education I could not get from any cooking show or mass-produced cookbook from Barnes and Noble. These were ancient techniques and secrets handed down through the years. Even though Annika balked at learning how to pulse fresh ginger and garlic into the finest paste or how to pinch together a samosa so it would withstand the high temperatures of the frying pan,
I
wasn’t going to pass up this opportunity. Her mother wasn’t going to be around forever.

“Scarlett, this is
almost
better than mom’s, right Rasheed?” Annika winked at me. Rasheed, a lover to all edible delights, gave me a thumbs-up. He shoveled another massive bite of chicken tikka into his mouth.

Dev walked into the dining room, having just arrived home from his marathon of number crunching at the hotel. He sat down without a word as Annika passed him a platter.

              “Dev, tell us how you like dinner. Scarlett made it.” He ignored her. He turned his attention to Mr. Bashir while piling rice onto his plate. I pretended to ignore him back, but his slight bothered me more than I would admit.

What would it take to win this guy’s good graces? And why do I care?

“Dad, I’d like to talk to our accountant about last year’s numbers. I found some discrepancies today that are a little concerning. There were some injections of capital last year that I can’t account for. It’s like they came out of nowhere.”

Mr. Bashir seemed slightly unnerved. He took a long drink of water and then cleared his voice.

“Bill is in Austria on holiday with his family. Surely you can wait until he comes back.” As if to change the subject, Mr. Bashir smiled at me. “This is very delicious, Scarlett…” He leaned across the table and lowered his voice. “The best I’ve tasted.”

But Dev wasn’t deterred. “I’ll call him tomorrow. He can take five minutes out from sightseeing or whatever they’re doing.”

Mr. Bashir said nothing, but I could tell the he was trying hard—
too hard
—to act casual about the question. It was a strange moment I had never witnessed between them.

That night I said very little. Years past when ate at their table, Dev would eat quickly and leave, his quiet presence hardly noticeable. But now his overbearing energy seemed to fill the room, like he was running a corporate meeting. He talked to everyone but me. He asked his siblings about school, discussed the future of the hotel with his parents, and mentioned that he was invited to interview in New York for a job after graduation by an old family friend.

His father seemed oddly disturbed by this and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t hide it.

“New York? Why not stay and manage the hotels?” his father asked, a slight frantic undertone to his voice.

Dev gave him a cold stare. “You know I don’t belong here,” he replied. A steely moment passed between father and son, subtext hanging in the air. Mr. Bashir went eerily silent.

Dev, trying to sound normal like his father had tried and failed at moments earlier, now turned his attention to his brother and sister. “Living in a real city is amazing. The people in New York are intelligent, diverse and…” He quickly glanced my way with disapproving coolness.

“…
sophisticated
.”

I cursed him silently and then made an attempt to smooth out my wild and
unsophisticated
curls which seemed to have a mind of their own.

He continued. “Did you know that the gross product for just the city alone last year was 1.5 billion?”

I couldn’t help myself.

“I guess that explains why New York attracts an inordinate number of greedy people from all over the world.”

I took a quick sip of water and instantly regretted my words. Dev looked at me like he had just realized I was a human being and capable of speech.

“I suppose you think there’s something wrong with the pursuit of money?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “No, just the love of it above all other things. Including people.”

He didn’t say anything, so I continued, fool that I was. “It doesn’t make sense to me, why there are so many people without basic necessities—like clean drinking water—and the super wealthy can largely ignore their plight…and even take advantage of their desperation.”

He laughed at me as if I were a naïve child who still believed in Santa Claus.

“Oh?
Take advantage
by creating large, successful companies that, in turn, create thousands of jobs that will,
in turn
, bring those very same people you care about out of poverty?”

I looked at him sternly and decided to cut to the chase.

“I’m just not impressed with people who want more money for the sake of more money and at the expense of everyone else.”

He dark, dismissive gaze shot through me like sharpened, poisoned arrows.

“Well, in that case, you’ll be happy to know that you’re the last person I’m looking to impress, Scarlett.”

I could feel my face turn red.
Why did I care so much how he felt about me?

I abruptly got up and started to clear the table. Mrs. Bashir gave a stern look to Annika. She rolled her eyes and then stood up reluctantly.

“Let me help, Scarlett,” she offered.

Oddly, Dev stopped her.

“Actually, Annika, I wanted to talk to you for a moment.”

She shrugged. “Sure, I guess.”

They left the room while I continued cleaning up. I sighed.
Typical Annika. Funny how she always finds a way to get out of dish duty.

A few minutes later, I walked down the long hall off the kitchen to use the bathroom. While I washed my hands, I studied myself in the mirror. Everyone told me that I was pretty, but it didn’t seem to matter to me like it did other girls my age. I knew I got my looks from my mother: her same heart-shaped face, high cheek bones, porcelain skin that would always burn in the relentless Texas sun. From old pictures, I could tell that I had her same green-blue eyes; but I didn’t want to look like her, so I pretended I was plain. That didn’t stop guys from hitting on me, but there wasn’t anyone at school who made me feel that certain “something” I was sure I was supposed to feel with a boy. The boys at school were such immature jackasses, and the only feeling I had for them was aversion.

As I dried my hands, I heard Dev’s deep voice through the vent at the floor. He was in the study next door, and I couldn’t resist eavesdropping.
What did he want to tell Annika? He never talks to her.
Part of me wondered if I had something to do with it. I knelt down to the vent and smashed my cheek up against it.

I was right.

Dev’s voice was irate. “Why is
she
here?”

“She’s my best friend and I didn’t want her to go to Nevada. You don’t understand that because you don’t have friends.”

“You have nothing in common. What does her father do? Fix cars? She’s just…
white trash
. Remember, you
become
your friends,” Dev warned, as if “white-trash” were an infectious disease Annika could catch from me.

White trash.

Of all the names I had been called throughout my life, this one stung the most. It was the identity I was so desperately trying to escape, but couldn’t, and through no fault of my own.

I leaned back against the bathroom wall, my heart heavy. I wished I hadn’t heard it even if I knew he thought it. Hearing it out loud confirmed my deepest, darkest fear: that I was just like my parents, never going to amount to anything but a cheap, rusted out trailer, a high school diploma and a minimum wage job.

As hard as I fought them, the tears came.

I was alone in the world and the one place I sought refuge now felt hostile. The pressure was too much.

I rushed out of the bathroom half-blinded by the tears in my eyes. Naturally, of all the things that could happen next, I ran into someone.

Into Dev.

He was walking quickly down the hallway from the study when blasted into his side. I tripped over his foot and nearly fell, but he caught me in the nick of time, in an awkward embrace.

For a moment, I forgot that he was my enemy. His touch was…electric. But the moment passed and I remembered who he really was. I turned my face to prevent him from seeing my tears, but I couldn’t be sure if I was successful.

“Sorry,” I uttered, before rushing off. I caught a glimpse of his stunned expression, like I was the last person he thought he would see at that moment. I thought maybe there was guilt in his eyes, or regret, but then he would be a normal person with a heart.

And I had already decided that he didn’t have one.