My Best Friend Brother

Chapter Eight

Scarlett POV

“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 year—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. But I was mature enough

to act like an adult and put our past behind us. Or at least pretend to.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 happy situation? “

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 discreet angle from which to study him, and for some reason, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

He was tall, a few inches over six feet, 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 master 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 of 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 then 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 eating pastries given what we pay him.” 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 I ate at their table, Dev would eat quickly and then leave, his quiet presence hardly noticeable. Now his overbearing energy

seemed to fill the room, like he was running a corporate meeting and we were all his employees.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. Franklin something or another.

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 in the way 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 golden 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 had sat silent for too long. “I guess that explains why New York attracts an

inordinate number of greedy people from all over the world,” I offered with a syrupy smile. 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?” he asked,

meeting my eyes. I shrugged my shoulders much the way he had done to me at the pool years before. “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 underpaying them in sweat shops, and

we should applaud it and praise it, like greed is the highest of all virtues.”

He laughed at me as if I were a naïve child

who just said she still believed in Santa Claus. “Oh? Take advantage by creating large, successful companies that, in

turn, create thousands of jobs that will, in turn, lift those very same people you care about out of poverty?