Page 69 of Everything She Wanted

“Is this about the email I sent this morning about getting a copy of the updated investor plan for Henrik? I didn’t expect you to get back to me today.”

“Oh, yeah. I just wanted to make sure you didn’t need it right away,” I lie.

“All good, I don’t.”

I hear a woman’s flirty laughter in the background and then a muffled, “Just one sec,” from him.

“Anything else up?”

“No,” I say too quickly as my heart instantly deflates like a punctured ballon. “I’ll let you go.”

“See you Monday.”

“Yeah, see you then,” I grumble into the phone, wishing I never called. I pull it away from my ear and stare at the black screen in my hands.

Am I really willing to give up everything with Eshaan for this? To be just another girl among the many Nick is likely dating?

No fucking way. That’s something Fantasy Nisha wouldn’t budge on either. She knows her worth, even if I’m still figuring it out.

22. Girls’ Night Out

“So, home?” I turn to look over at Anjali as I put on my seatbelt in Rachel’s car I borrowed for the night. We just finished dinner at Vij’s on Cambie after shopping at Metrotown all afternoon.

“Nish, it’s nine p.m. on a Saturday and you seriously want to call it a night?”

My stomach flips and I tighten my grip on the steering wheel.

“Let’s go out somewhere fun.”

Eshaan doesn’t like me going to clubs or bars without him since our huge fight about the photo in the restaurant a few months back, but I can’t tell her that. I know how it sounds.

“Or we could go get dessert or something?”

She gives me a glare. “Dessert? Really, Nisha? I rarely get a weekend off and you know I’m never in town for long.”

She pouts her perfect lips at me and I cave.

“Okay, yeah.”

Eshaan is out having fun at some Bhangra competition—why should I head home and twiddle my thumbs waiting for him?

“Amazing, let’s go back to yours and change.” We’d both picked out hot new dresses at the mall.

I nod and start to drive. I guess we’re doing this. A lightness spreads through my chest and my head is in a cloud of anticipation. Work’s been crazy the last couple of weeks, Rachel’s busy most weekends with her business stuff, and Eshaan just asks me to tag along to whatever he already has planned, which is rarely anything I want to do.

“My bedroom is just through there,” I say when we get back to my condo. “I’ll use Rachel’s to get ready.” I quickly change into my sparkly nude sequinned dress. It has a low-cut halter top and hits mid-thigh. It’s something Eshaan would hate me wearing. I pair it with dangling crystal earrings. I go into the bathroom to touch up my makeup, adding eyeshadow, a swipe of highlighter on each cheek and I redo my eyeliner so my eyes pop.

“Nish, you look fucking incredible,” Anjali says as she joins me in the bathroom.

I meet her eyes in the mirror.

“Anj, you look stunning yourself.”

She sashays next to me showing off her curve-hugging burgundy dress that has a cut-out under her chest that shows off her tiny waist.

“Bathroom selfie!” she says.

We do our sexiest pouts as she snaps a few photos of us and then starts clicking away on her phone. I glance at the screen over her shoulder.