“I did a series about six months ago about mom-and-pop restaurants in different parts of L.A. It took off pretty nicely, though I’m not exactly a food blogger. This was one of the restaurants I went to and they got a nice little lift in business.” She wrinkled her nose. “He tried to repay me in free food, but I don’t feel comfortable being one of those kinds of influencers. I’m willing to accept his gratitude in this manner, though.” She gestured to the almost completely private dining.
“It’s not bad. I used to pay top dollar for this kind of privacy in Mumbai.”
“I imagine it was hard to get around at all there.”
“Yes. Here I have some level of privacy. The public in Mumbai felt like my grandparents were theirs. By extension so were we. My brother and cousin—” He cut himself off.
Jia tried to control the automatic lurch in her stomach. “It’s okay, you can mention them.” Since Dev hadn’t said anything more about his relatives, she assumed he’d been unlucky in getting ahold of his cousin to wring more information out.
She was okay not knowing anything more, to be honest. Especially if she had to hear more about how she was collateral damage in some family feud.
She was the star, damn it! Not a side character.
“It’s just that they simply didn’t mind as much as I did.” He pulled out his phone and scanned the bar code on the table, waiting for the menu to pop up on his screen.
The waiter materialized and poured them water. “Can I get you two anything else to drink?”
“Iced tea?” Dev asked her, and she nodded. He ordered for them, getting himself a glass of red wine. “You don’t mind if I drink around you, do you?” he asked after the waiter left.
“Nope.” She perused the menu. “It’s a personal choice for me, I’m not judgy about others. One of my sisters is actually a bartender.”
“Not the twin.”
“Nope. There’re five of us. Noor, Zara, Sadia, Ayesha, me,” she said with the practice of someone who had listed the names in descending order for a while.
“What do they do?”
“The bartender, of course, bartends. Otherwise they’re doctors.”
He raised an eyebrow. “All of them?”
“Noor and Zara are, and Ayesha is in her residency. I would have been, too, but I escaped med school.”
“You went to medical school?”
She took a sip of her water. “I know, I don’t come off as smart enough for that. But yeah, I went for a couple years before I decided to go full-time on the beauty stuff.”
“Who said you’re not smart? I think you’re quite clever.”
“You do?”
“Yes. You’d have to be to come up with fresh content as often as you do. You’re not only an actress. You’re a writer, director, and producer as well. Requires quite a few brain cells.”
She stared at him, and a slow smile split over her face. “You’ve watched my videos?”
Was it her imagination, or were his cheeks dark red? “A few. Here and there.”
“Thank you.” She winked. “Hope you let the ads play.”
“So you’re the proper youngest then.”
Dev was changing the subject, but she’d allow it. She didn’t want to tell him how many episodes of his soap she’d watched when she became infatuated with him. Not that he was infatuated with her, of course.
Yeesh. Now she was going to blush. “I am.” Jia smiled fondly and put down her phone. “Sometimes I feel like Ayesha and I have two extra moms and a cool aunt.”
“Speaking as a responsible oldest child, I can assure you they probably mean well.”
“I tell myself that a lot.” She paused. “I’m sorry about your brother, by the way.” It felt weird that she’d talked to Rohan shortly before he died. She was glad they’d only conversed a little before it had petered out.
“Thank you.”
“And your grandfather as well.”
He nodded. Their drinks arrived. “Are you ready to order?” their waiter asked.
“Yes, I’ll have the crab cakes,” she said.
Dev ordered a pasta dish, using flawless Italian pronunciation. Jia sipped on her iced tea when the waiter left. “Your Italian’s good.”
“I spent a few months there a couple years ago. Languages are a family skill. My niece is more facile than I am.”
“Can you tell me about your niece?” For fake dating scam purposes, not because she was interested. Like she’d brought him to a romantic Italian restaurant for the scam.
Dev’s shoulders relaxed, and a warm smile crossed his face, transforming it. He tapped on his phone, spinning it around to show her. “That’s her. Luna. I’ve had custody of her since my brother passed.”
The photo had been taken on the Santa Monica pier, so it must be recent. The girl in the photo wore a pair of black jeans and a dark gray tank top. She was lanky and pretty, her hair curling cutely around her round face. “I didn’t know your brother had a child.” She hadn’t done a deep dive on Dev’s family, but she had cursory knowledge.
“He kept her well shielded from the press.”
“That’s thoughtful.”
“Yes.” He sounded mildly bemused and shook his head when she glanced up. “My brother wasn’t the most thoughtful man in the world. But he had her young, and her mother disappeared, so I give him some credit for not just shipping her off to some boarding school. Or ignoring her altogether.”
“She looks sweet. How is she adjusting to America?”
Dev tucked the phone back into his pocket. “Very well. She had her first day of school today. I was worried, but she seems to be pretty excited about it.”
“Why were you worried?”
“She’s never been to a real school before. Only tutors.”
“I hated school. But it’s probably good for her to have the experience, at least.”
He nodded. “That’s what she said.”
Jia softened. It sounded like Dev was an especially attentive guardian. “Does she know . . . what we’re doing?”
“No. She’s had so much upheaval in her life, I thought . . .” He shrugged.
“Totally right call. It would be pretty difficult to explain anyway.” Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a flash of light, and jumped, but there was nothing there.
He brought her attention right back to him by lightly resting his hand close to hers, close enough that his pinky brushed against her thumb. “Are you okay?”
She looked down at his hand. It was long and elegant, the knuckles prominent. He had artist’s hands. She wanted to . . .
Do nothing! She slipped her hand to the safety of her lap. “Yup. I thought I saw something, but it’s cool.”
They were quiet as their food came. He picked up his fork. “Should we get our story straight on how we met?”
She cut into her crab cake and tried not to look at the pasta he was twirling on his fork. Her food envy would always rear its head, no matter how delicious her own meal was. “I was thinking we could stick close to the truth and say we became friends online.”
“Is that a bit odd?”