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But Dina had still married him. Unless . . .

Lucky opened his eyes and stared down at her, his hands shaking. “Dina. I need to ask you a question. Something I’ve been wondering for a few days now. Will you promise to tell me the truth?”

She nodded, and he saw fear in her eyes, and something else. “I promise,” she whispered.

“Are you still married to Arshad?” he asked.

It felt like a lifetime, and a single instant, before she answered.

She shook her head. “No. I’m not married to Arshad anymore. We divorced six months ago.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Dina posed for another picture with her parents and sister, her smile frozen, cheeks aching from keeping the same expression on her face for hours.

She glanced at Lucky’s table once more, and then away. The table was empty, the family departed. She couldn’t blame them, really. Too much had happened that night. If it were at all possible for her to slip away, she would have made her own escape. Unfortunately, her sister would never have forgiven her, not with so much riding on this performance of the perfect family. Lucky, his best man duties completed, had made his excuses to Samir and disappeared without a backward glance for Dina.

She was trying not to think about that.

After Lucky’s admission that he had feelings for her in law school, Dina had thought, for a brief moment, that the path between them would be clear. Any hope of that had shattered when Lucky had asked her point-blank if she was still married to Arshad. The answer had made the color drain from his face.

As she smiled for yet another business/family/friend portrait beside Samir and Hania, she tried not to dwell on Lucky’s last words to her before he had disappeared: “I can’t do this now. I’m sorry. It’s all too much. I need time.”

How ironic, then, that at the very moment he was pulling away, her heart had cracked open to reveal the truth: She loved this man. Some part of her had always loved Lucky. It couldn’t stop even if their love proved to be impossible in the end.

“Dina, maybe you should take a break,” Hania whispered to her sister after the latest group shuffled offstage and the photographer readjusted before waving the next group forward. “Your smile is starting to scare the guests.”

She could take a hint. In the bathroom back at Crescent House, she splashed some water on her face before staring at her reflection in the mirror. Her makeup had smudged around her eyes from the heat, her lipstick faded, and she looked pale beneath all that blush and bronzer. She opened up her purse and set about repairing her face. Her family was counting on her.

When she returned to the white tent, she detoured to the bar, hoping to score one of the mocktails she had seen so many of the guests raving about, and passed Arshad, who was deep in conversation with Ambreen. The social media manager had been everywhere all night—making content of the guests, the cake, and the food, taking candids of Hania and Samir and the setup. She was taking a well-deserved break now, though Dina had no idea why she had decided to waste it talking to her ex-husband.

The sight of Arshad made her blood boil, knowing the role he had played in keeping her and Lucky apart. She wanted to march up to him, throw a mocktail in his face, and then really go to town. Another part of her knew there had been enough drama for one night; and besides, the person she really needed to speak with had already left the building.

Why had Arshad done it? It wasn’t possible that he had truly liked her that much. Had she been a prize for him to win, to show off to his friends? Whatever the case, Arshad had acted from a place of deep selfishness and cruelty, and if there was one thing she could take solace in, it was that he didn’t seem any happier because of it.

She turned away just as her phone rang. It was Lisa, and when she picked up, her friend was screaming.

“Holy shit! Dina! I can’t believe it! You were right! That slimy, backstabbing bastard had it planned from the start!”

Alarmed, she hurried to a quiet corner and ordered her friend to slow down and begin from the start.

“It’s Arshad. He’s got something planned for Haq Law, something in the works for months, maybe years,” Lisa said. “He was too smart to leave anything incriminating in his office, but not smart enough to keep it from his side chick.”

“You called Ana?” Dina asked, impressed.

“I took her out for drinks,” Lisa confirmed, sounding smug. “She was super pissed that Arshad had gone to this wedding without her. He’d been promising to take their relationship public for a while. She nearly lost her mind when I told her that you and Arshad have been divorced for six months and separated for eighteen. He told her he was still living with you and that’s why they couldn’t move in together.”

Dina would have laughed at this any other time. Of course lying to his mistress would lead to his downfall. “What did she tell you?” she asked, urgently.

“Arshad has been bragging to her that he’s got a big deal in the works. He’s planning to blackmail your father into letting him walk away with half of the clients at Haq Law, plus the new business in London and the United States,” Lisa said.

Dina inhaled sharply. “He can’t. He signed a noncompete clause. We could sue.”

“He told Ana that you all wouldn’t dare because he’s got something on your dad.” Lisa sounded grim.

“What does he have?” Dina asked.

“She didn’t know. I looked everywhere and I couldn’t find anything, either, but Ana said it had something to do with the financials of the company. Math has never been my strong suit, but I can send you the financial reports I’ve managed to scrounge up from your dad’s and Arshad’s offices. I might have broken into their computers. In my defense, your dad really shouldn’t write his password on a sticky note taped to his monitor. You wouldn’t happen to have an accountant at that wedding?”