“I didn’t know you lost your brother.” He dropped the legal opinion on his desk. “If I said anything inappropriate . . .”

“No. It’s fine.” She lifted a dismissive hand. “It was five years ago. I’m over it.”

Sam wasn’t so sure. She was staring at her keyboard, coffee cup frozen in midair. Despite their antagonism, he had a curious urge to make her smile again. “Your old boyfriend sounds like an idiot,” he offered. “You’re hardly plain.”

Her head jerked up, eyes flashing with annoyance. “I’ll write that one down and stick it on my screen. When I’m having a bad day, I’ll read ‘You’re hardly plain,’ and it will make me feel so much better.”

“Are you fishing for compliments?” He straightened the papers, arranging them in neat rows. “Doesn’t seem to be your style.”

“You’re right.” She placed her cup on her desk. “My style is jeans and T-shirts, and occasionally I’ll go crazy with a kick-ass pair of boots.”

“Those were good boots.”

“Rein it in, tiger, we’re talking husbands, not boots.” She twirled back and forth in her chair.

“Right,” he grumbled. “I forgot you were foolishly considering playing the marriage game.”

“You don’t approve?”

“Of arranged marriages? No. You can’t possibly know everything you need to know about someone after reading their résumé and meeting them once or twice with your entire family present. It’s a backward, antiquated tradition that needs to be legislated out of existence. A guy shows up with a bunch of degrees and a sizable bank account, wins the family over with false declarations and fake charm, and the next thing you know, your sister is in the hands of a monster.” He didn’t realize he had raised his voice until his words echoed around the room.

Silence.

“Are we talking about someone you know or people generally?” She studied him so intently he wondered if she could see into his soul.

“I’ve seen how it can go horribly wrong.” There was no way he would let a woman as vibrant and vivacious as Layla suffer the same fate as Nisha.

“And I’ve seen how it can go right.” She crossed the floor to his desk, stepping over boxes, hangers, and a curious stuffed sheep to reach him. “I’m not talking about forced marriages. I’m talking about an arranged introduction. That’s how it was with my brother and his wife. Dev was busy with his career so he asked my parents to help him find a partner. They posted his profile. Rhea’s family responded because she also had a busy career and no time to date. Our families met. Dev and Rhea clicked. They went out on a few dates. Three months later they were married. If it hadn’t worked out, either of them could have walked away.”

“So you want to be just like him? Is that it?” Sam asked bitterly. “Your parents found your brother a spouse and you want one, too?”

“Sam.” She slammed her hands on her desk, her nostrils flaring. “Be serious, if that’s even possible for you. I’ve never even thought about an arranged marriage until now. I always believed in true love, just like in The Princess Bride. I always thought my Westley was out there. I just had to find him.”

Be serious? He couldn’t remember a day since the accident when he’d been anything but serious. The burden of Nisha’s pain weighed heavy on his soul, painting his world in shadows. How could Layla possibly mistake his caustic comments for humor?

“So, what’s the problem? Just sit back and wait for this Westley person to show up at your door.”

“This Westley person?” She gave him an incredulous look. “Have you not seen The Princess Bride? It’s the greatest movie of all time. Westley was the perfect man. He was a poor farm boy who would do anything Princess Buttercup asked of him because he loved her.”

“Sounds like an idiot to me,” Sam said. “What kind of man lets a woman boss him around? Did he have no self-respect?”

“He had true love. And it never died, not when he had to leave her, nor when he came back years later and discovered an evil prince was trying to force her into a marriage she didn’t want.”

“So that’s a no to the self-respect.” Sam lined his pens up beside his pencils. “If he truly loved her, he wouldn’t have left in the first place, especially if there were evil princes sniffing around his woman.”

“He had nothing to give her so he went to seek his fortune. He wanted to be worthy.”

Sam didn’t watch many movies, especially not ones with princesses and true love, but the farm boy’s quest for worthiness resonated with him. He had lost his sense of self-worth the day Nisha told him about Ranjeet’s drinking and violent temper and her suspicion that he had been responsible for her accident. “Did this Westley person find what he was looking for?”

“He became a pirate, made his fortune, saved her from the marriage, and they lived happily ever after.”

“There are no happily ever afters.” Would that he had become a pirate and saved Nisha so she, too, could have had a happy life.

“I don’t know, Sam.” She sat on his desk, legs casually swinging over the edge like they’d crossed the stage in their relationship where the intrusion into his personal space was in any way acceptable.

Sam flipped over the legal opinion and held it on his lap because the alluring scent of her perfume and the soft curves only inches away were creating problems down below.

“What if my dad doesn’t make it?” Her voice trembled. “What if this is the last thing he does for me? I’m tired of bad boyfriends. I want to come home every day and share my life with someone who’s committed to the relationship in the same way as me. I came home to fix things, reinvent myself. New life. New job. New outlook. So why not extend that to relationships, too? Why not meet the men my father chose? They can’t be worse than the guys I picked myself. They posted their profiles online because they want to get married. They aren’t going to string me along and break my heart. Love is out of the equation.”

“There are other options,” he said brusquely. “You don’t leave a decision that can affect the rest of your life to your parents. You’re beautiful, smart, and ambitious. You don’t need any help finding a date . . .” His voice trailed off when he registered the shock on her face. “What’s wrong?”

“I thought you hated me.”

“I hate that you won’t get out of my office,” he said quickly, trying to cover his mistake. “I don’t know you well enough to hate you, although if you put a laxative in the coffee I can see things going downhill very quickly.”