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CHAPTER 2
Day 1
Reeva stared insilence at the blank screen on her phone. This was bad. Really, really bad. Her mum was no stranger to dramatic life-changing announcements: “I’ve got a job as a playback singer in Bollywood!” “I’ve bought a house in Mumbai!” “You’ll love boarding school!” And most recently, “Come over and meet your new stepdad!” But this was next level, even for her.
All Reeva’s life, she’d known her dad was dead. It was what she’d been told by her mum, and it was what she’d read on Wikipedia. She practically knew the entry by heart.
Her mum, Saraswati Acharya (known to her fans simply as “Saraswati”), had been born in Mumbai to a wealthy family in the music business and had impressed them all with her acclaimed voice. She’d been expected to go on to have a successful classical singing career, but at the age of nineteen she’d ruined everything by running off to have a love marriage with a Gujarati man studying in London. She’d gone on to have three daughters with Hemant Mehta, but when they were just five, three, and two years old, he’d tragically died.
Following a few years as a single mum in London, Saraswati had decided to make peace with her family, which resulted in reverting to her maiden name and her parents helping her launch a career singing in Bollywood films. Fast-track a few years and Saraswati had become a household name in India, while her daughters had become accustomed to spending all their time at boarding school. Saraswati’s voice had featured in dozens of box-office hits and she was now so famous she’d occasionally been asked to actually appear in the films as an actress. Four years ago, Saraswati had remarried, and her wedding to film star MJ Shah had been so major that it had made British headlines as well as Indian ones. The happy couple now lived between Mumbai and London, where Saraswati’s three daughters—Reevanshi Mehta, thirty-four; Sita Parmar, thirty-two, wife of entrepreneur Nitin Parmar and mother to twin daughters; and Jaya Mehta, thirty-one, lifestyle influencer—were still based.
This was the family history that Reeva had been brought up with and occasionally tried to amend online so it included her job title and omitted the nine-letter horror she’d been burdened with at birth (one that had been discarded when her kindergarten teacher had decided it was too complicated to pronounce). It was everything she knew; it was her life as much as it was her mother’s. She was the five-year-old in the story, the teenager who’d been chucked into Wycombe Abbey, and the thirty-year-old who’d taken a week off work to awkwardly hover in a sari at her mum’s five-day celeb wedding. A wedding that had subsequently ruined Reeva’s life and destroyed her relationship with her sisters forever.
But Reeva couldn’t think about that now. She was too busy trying to process the fact that everything she’d been told up until now was a lie. Her mum hadn’t been tragically widowed atthirty-two; she’d had a husband all along. And he’d been working as anoptometristof all things, just two hours away from London inLeicester—a city Reeva had barely heard of. Had they divorced? Was her mum’s new marriage even legal? And why had her mum kept her dad’s existence a secret from them for all these years? Had her dad played a part in it too—or had it all been a cruel trick of her mother’s?
There were so many questions Reeva needed to find the answers to. Only she had absolutely no idea where to start. There was no way she was calling her sisters, not after everything that had happened. No. She’d let her mum—or, more likely, her mum’s lawyers—handle that. She’d just have to do what she always did and figure things out on her own. Reeva looked into the panicked deep brown eyes of her reflection and reminded herself she could handle this. She’d broken British legal history by getting a wronged billionaire’s wife more than half his worth. And last month she’d managed to get full custody for a man whose wife had tried to kidnap their kids and take them to Utah to become Mormons. She could handle a dead dad.
All she had to do was think of her family situation as though it were a case at work. There was no way she’d have to actuallydowhat her mum wanted and spend thirteen days with her sisters, grieving a man she’d never known. No. She’d simply call the lawyers to find out everything, then use her brains to get herself out of this ridiculous will stipulation in the same way she would for any of her clients: with minimal stress. Even if it meant defying her dead dad’s last wishes.
—
“Guess you’re goingto Leicester!” Lakshmi gave her an apologetic smile as Reeva groaned, theatrically dropping her head intoher hands. “Oh, come on, it might not be that bad. At least you get two weeks away from all the fucked-up drama of this place.”
Reeva slumped into the brown armchair in Lakshmi’s office and looked down at the brown carpet and brown furniture. They’d been asking Lee to update the decor for years, but he refused. Apparently the color brown projected an image of trustworthiness. “Are you kidding? I’m going to besurroundedby fucked-up drama. And I won’t be getting paid for any of it. Surely there’s got to be a way out?”
Lakshmi scrolled again through the document on Reeva’s computer that Saraswati’s lawyers had sent over and shook her head. “Sorry. It’s airtight, Reevs. If you—or your sisters—want to get his inheritance, you’veallgot to go. Like, tomorrow, latest. You should probably be there right now.”
“But it doesn’t make any sense! He didn’t even know us. Why would he want us to do his prayers for him?”
“Maybe he was religious?”
“No. None of it makes any sense. If we can’t legally get out of it, then I think I should just leave it and turn down the inheritance.”
“Oh, come on, you heard what the lawyers were hinting! He’d paid off his whole mortgage. You get a third of everything; you can’t turn down money like that. At least give your share to charity.” Lakshmi waved her pen in the air. “And it’s not just about you, remember? You’ve got to be there so your sisters can get their share.”
“I don’t think they need the money either. Sita definitely doesn’t—her house is amazing. And judging from what I’ve seen on Insta, neither does Jaya.”
“You still follow her?” Lakshmi raised an eyebrow. “Is that healthy?”
“Isanyof this healthy? How can this be happening, Lux? I don’t understand why Mum told us Dad was dead when he was alive all this time. And why didn’t she tell usbeforehe died so we could actually speak to him?”
“I have no idea, but I cannot wait to find out,” said Lakshmi. “You’re going to have to go to his house to get answers.”
“Uh, I’m not spending thirteen days with them hunting for clues. We’re not the Hardy Boys.”
“Yeah, they actually liked each other. And I’m pretty sure none of them slept with any of the others’ fiancés.”
Reeva shuddered. “Don’t. I can’t bear to think about it. I just... I’ve finally moved on. Things with Nick are going well. He likes me. I like him. It’s the miracle I’ve been waiting for. And I hardly ever think about...” She took a deep breath. “Rakesh. Or Jaya. They’re dead to me.”
“Apart from when they pop up on your Insta feed.”
“They’re muted. Mainly. I just don’t want to go and lock myself up in a house with them in the middle of Leicester. It’s going to bring it all back up. I want to leave it in the past where it belongs.”
Lakshmi nodded sympathetically and took a swig of her prosecco. “I know. But, Reevs, you can do this.”
Reeva went quiet. “I’m scared,” she said eventually. “To face them again. It’s all so humiliating.”
“Hey!” Lakshmi walked over to Reeva and grabbed her shoulders, crouching down in front of her. “You’ve got nothing to feel bad about. It’s Jaya who should feel awful. She’s the boyfriend-stealing slut; not you.”
