Page 105 of Fixation

“Yes.”

She turned it on, and a few more messages popped up on the screen. She read the ones from Su Min first, including the ones from last night.

“Reina, I do need to talk to you.”

“I’m in town. I’ve come specially to meet you.”

“Meet me tomorrow, please.”

“Please reply, Reina. This is important.”

And then she read the ones Laila had sent her.

“Hey Reina, I’m in town for a few days. Yay!”

“Are you free to meet me tomorrow?”

“I would love to catch up with you and get some recommendations about places to go to and to eat at.”

“What do you think? Would dinner work?”

When she was done reading, she looked up at all of them.

“Two very different tones of messages,” Mihir commented. “One sounds very desperate and the other too friendly.”

“Laila’s messages sound too damn convenient,” Vedant said. “Reina and she never got along.”

“That’s true,” Reina nodded.

“At this point, I don’t trust either of them,” Armaan said. “But I’d be very concerned about Su Min. Ivan could have drawn her to his side because we got rid of Vasily. This… us… all of it is personal to her.”

“Agreed,” Vedant accepted. “But I don’t like Laila’s sudden arrival.”

“Maybe Laila wants to ask me aboutyou,” Reina muttered, feeling irritated. “Let’s not forget she had a crush on you.”

Vedant chuckled. “How is that helping now, beautiful?”

Now, she was even more mad at him.

“Fuck,” Mihir scowled at Vedant.

Vedant threw his hands in the air. “Hey, why are you getting annoyed with me? I never encouraged that woman, ever.”

“No, you were just nasty to me in front of her,” Reina shot back.

“And I explained that I did it so if ever Ivan tried to dig for information aboutmethrough her, then she’d never speak aboutyou.”

Reina rolled her eyes.

Vedant clucked his tongue. “Reina?—”

“—okay, enough, both of you,” Armaan said. He addressed Reina. “Why would she want to ask you about Vedant? I thought everyone in London only knew you as Dr. Singh. Also, if, as Vedant says, he ensured that Laila believed there was nothing between you and him, then this seems very far-fetched.”

“Agreed. However, Su Min knows Reina’s my sister,” Navya replied to Armaan. “And since yesterday, every newspaper is carrying at least one article on us. I met Su Min for your New Year’s Eve party, remember?”

“Oh yes, of course,” Reina accepted. “She’s the one who got us the invites.”

“Fuck,” Vedant looked at Reina, “You know, in all this, I completely forgot that you were there in my house on New Year’sEve. Imagine if we had met that night. Perhaps everything would have panned out differently.”

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