Charu Auntie balanced the basket on one hip and adjusted her glasses. “Distraction and self-care are important to prevent a craving response in the ventral tegmental area, the nucleus accumbens, and orbitofrontal/prefrontal cortex.”

“I think she’s saying, in her oddly complicated way, that she thinks you should hook up with fuckboy Danny,” Daisy said. “Too bad the sexy beast upstairs is such a piece of—”

“Shhh.” She hadn’t told her mother about Sam, for the simple reason that she knew her mother would tell her to let Sam have the office. But it wasn’t right. Her father had intended to call him. And it was just common decency to step aside when someone’s dad was in the hospital and his last wish had been for his daughter to work upstairs.

Layla squeezed the soft dough, imaging it was Sam’s head. Squeeze. Pound. Thump. Poke. Anything to wipe that smug expression off his face. She should have just kicked him out and dealt with the consequences later. She was the queen of rash decisions, after all.

“You do what it takes to make yourself happy.” Charu Auntie patted her hand.

“But no more boyfriends until after you’re married,” Selena Auntie called out.

“She’s not going to get married if she rolls roti like that.” Layla’s mother poked the dough and sighed. “Remember to roll clockwise. Perfect circles. Not too thin.”

“Listen to your mother,” Taara Auntie said. “Learn all you can otherwise your mother-in-law will curse your mother if you feed her burned chapattis.”

“You must be cursed every day,” Salena Auntie muttered.

Taara Auntie huffed. “My boys love my fusion food. Last night I combined roti and pizza. My youngest called it rotzza. Or was it rotten? So many English words sound the same.”

“They’re teenage boys,” Salena Auntie said. “They’ll eat anything you put in front of them as long as it’s not moving. And maybe even then.”

Layla looked over her shoulder. Her mother was mixing batter for the ginger chai tea cake she brought to the local seniors’ center every day. It was just one of her parents’ many acts of charity, giving back to the community that had helped two poor immigrants become Michelin-starred chefs. “Mom, would you be disappointed if I didn’t get married?”

Her mother stopped stirring and lowered her voice so only Layla could hear, although with the sound of aunties chattering and pakoras frying and the general clang of pots around them, there was little chance of anyone eavesdropping. “I want you to be happy, but it’s nice to have someone to share your life with. If you can’t find a good man, your father and I can help you like we helped Dev.”

“I don’t want an arranged marriage.”

“It’s not like how it was in my day,” her mother said. “I didn’t have a choice. I thought my world had ended when my parents arranged my marriage to a man in America who I’d never met, but now I can’t imagine life without him.” Her voice caught. “Now things are different. It is an arranged introduction. We make a marriage résumé and let people know you are interested in finding a husband. If we find someone who would be a good match for you, we introduce you and you can talk on the phone or Internet and make a decision if you want to meet him. No time wasted on men who aren’t interested in commitment. No breaking of hearts. We can be the Tinderbox everyone talks about, and if you don’t like him you swipe him away.”

Layla laughed. “It’s Tinder, Mom. And right now I’m trying to figure out how to get my life back together. The last thing I need is a man to mess things up.”

* * *

• • •

SOMETIMES Sam wondered why he had gone into business with Royce.

After two hours of listening to his business partner rave over Skype about the merits of group termination over individual meetings, the exciting prospect of firing workers online, and the wonders of replacing human workers with automation, Sam had had enough of his partner’s high-handed disregard for anything but the corporate bottom line. Instead of creating jobs, Royce destroyed them. Instead of building firms, he raided them. Royce loved nothing more than walking into a business, firing all the staff, and flipping it to the highest bidder. It took a hard, ruthless man to do the job, and no one was as good at it as Royce.

Sam forced a smile for the face on the screen. Although it was three A.M. in Hong Kong, Royce was still in his shirt and tie, his brown hair gelled into its usual two-inch pouf with sideburns that curled around his ears. “Anything else? I’ve got a meeting.”

It wasn’t a lie. Any moment Layla was going to walk through that door, and he couldn’t deny a curious sense of anticipation. He’d already moved her few possessions to the Eagerson desk and had been working for the last five hours in anticipation of the showdown that she was going to lose.

“I’ll be leaving for Beijing tomorrow,” Royce said. “If I’d known Gilder Steel wanted me to visit every location, I would have asked for more money.”

“You love traveling,” Sam reminded him. “You were going crazy stuck behind a desk. That’s why you needed me.”

“There are benefits to being trapped for twelve hours on a plane.” Royce leaned forward until his face took up the entire screen. “I sat beside Peter Richards, the CEO of Alpha Health Care on the trip to Hong Kong. They’ve just taken over five Bay Area hospitals in the failing Sons of Hope Health System and are looking to restructure. One of them is St. Vincent’s Hospital. When I told him you did your residency there, and that we’ve just relocated to a building only a few blocks from their head office, he asked us to pitch for the work.”

Sam’s heart skipped a beat. This was the opportunity he had been waiting for—a real chance for justice. If they won the contract, he would have full access to Ranjeet’s employment file. It was slightly unethical—he had a clear conflict of interest—but if a criminal was walking free, if he could save even one other woman from his sister’s fate and right the injustice done to her, then it was worth the risk. And maybe then he would find his own redemption.

“I assume you want me to prepare the pitch.”

“It involves sitting behind a desk, so yes. I’ve e-mailed you the details.”

Sam tried to rub the tension out of his forehead after Royce ended the call. Despite the personal opportunity, the restructuring meant that many of the people he had worked with at the hospital were going to lose their jobs. This was not the life he had imagined for himself. He had only ever wanted to be a healer, not the man responsible for destroying lives.

“You’re back.”

His headache disappeared at the sound of Layla’s voice, and a thrill of anticipation shot down his spine. “Of course I’m back. This is my office. I’ve been here since seven A.M. working, as serious businesspeople do, not swanning into work at noon with a box of donuts in one hand and a cook pot in the other.”