Chapter Three Imani
‘So, you’re engaged now?’
‘Hello to you, too,’ I say over the rim of my glass as I watch my best friend slide into our booth. She’s twenty minutes late which, to be honest, is actually pretty good for her.
Sloane gives me a sheepish grin, tossing her long, black wavy curls over her shoulder as she settles in front of me.
I know for a fact that she only woke up an hour ago, but she looks immaculate.
Such is the life of a top model. Always got to be ready.
Sloane, unfortunately, is no stranger to weirdos trying to snap a sneaky, off-guard photo of her to plaster all over social media.
As Malcolm Davies’ daughter, I get my fair share of public interest and headlines, but for Sloane it’s on another level.
Top model, daughter of A-list actors Kiran and Margot Chavan, and granddaughter to British Indo-Caribbean theatre icon, Veera Chavan, Sloane has had the glare of the camera flash in her eye from the moment she was born.
Luckily, she’s gorgeous and I can count the number of ‘bad photos’ I’ve seen of her on one hand and still have a finger or two left over.
But still, it must get annoying always having to be primped and preened the way she does.
Not that I’ve ever heard her complain. She leans into the chaos and makes it part of her persona – the two-time nepo baby everyone wants to hate but can’t because, well, just look at the material.
‘Sorry,’ she drawls. ‘Late night last night, and I wasn’t expecting to hear from you for a while. Shouldn’t you be somewhere over the Mediterranean Sea by now?’
‘I should be three hours away from paradise right about now,’ I whimper dramatically as a waiter approaches and wordlessly fills up Sloane’s glass before disappearing back into the shadows. ‘But I’m officially grounded.’
Sloane arches a thick, perfectly fluffed brow and snorts. ‘Grounded? Are you sixteen?’
‘Unfortunately, I mean in the literal sense. No flights for me for the foreseeable future. He’s done everything but cut up my passport.’
On my ride home – solo – from the Vouvalis building, I logged into my Peregrine Airways account and discovered, thanks to the bright red alert running across the homepage, that a hold has been placed on my previously limitless account.
Indefinitely.
Sloane clutches at her literal pearls. ‘No.’
‘Yes,’ I say glumly, and take another sip of wine.
She reaches across the table and gives my hand a sympathetic squeeze. ‘What did you do?’
‘Nothing!’ I squawk indignantly. ‘It’s what I didn’t do.’
Sloane frowns then seems to remember the flood of increasingly incoherent messages I sent her this morning. ‘Right. This engagement thing?’
Just hearing the word engagement makes me want to heave.
I still haven’t quite accepted that this is really happening.
That my father would so easily hand me over as a means to get a step ahead in business.
A knot starts to form in my throat but I force it away by swallowing down another gulp of wine. Now is not the time for tears.
Now is the time for strategising.
Asher and I have agreed to meet up later this week to firm up my admittedly sketchy plan, so I’ve got just under seventy-two hours to work out the kinks here. And there are a lot of kinks. First and foremost: the plan is insane, a fact Sloane helpfully reminds me of as soon as I share it with her.
‘You’ve been watching too many romcoms,’ she says. ‘Or, you haven’t watched enough. It’s meant to be fake dating, not fake exes. And even the former is patently ridiculous.’
I wave a dismissive hand in front of her. ‘I’ve thought this through.’
Sloane snorts. ‘No, you most definitely have not. You’ve thought a thought. One single, deranged thought. Which was “What if I pretend to be heartbroken over a fake ex so I can get out of marrying a real fiancé I never asked for?” ’
‘Exactly! You get it.’
‘No,’ she says flatly. ‘I don’t. I really don’t.’
I sigh and slump back against the booth. She’s right. The plan is unhinged. But these are desperate times. ‘I don’t see you coming up with any bright ideas.’
Sloane opens her mouth, then closes it and bites her lip and looks at me guiltily.
‘What?’ I ask, narrowing my eyes. ‘Just say it. Spit it out.’
‘Why don’t you just say no? Walk away?’
Ah. I see where the guilt is coming from now. In our almost decade of friendship, Sloane and I have spoken about this more times than I can count.
Why don’t I just say no to my father’s demands?
It’s not like I haven’t thought about it. I have. Over and over and over again. But it’s not that simple. Sloane is someone, even without her family name propping her up. I’m just… Imani. Spoiled heiress with no talents or skills or dreams of her own.
At least, that’s what the world seems to think.
I remember just after I graduated, I did an internship at Peregrine Airways, hoping to understand more about the business that’d loomed over my life from the day I was born, and maybe find my own niche among it all.
The other interns didn’t like me. Don’t get me wrong; they were polite and smiled back at me, but it only took me about two weeks to realise that I was never invited to lunch, or drinks after work, or even that they had a separate group chat that was much more active than the one I was officially included in.
At the end of the three-month internship, when we were all vying for one of the coveted job spots on offer, they slipped up.
Someone messaged the wrong group chat – the one with me in it:
Ugh. What was the point of all this anyway? They’re just going to give it to Daddy’s Little Princess. Knew I should’ve accepted the role at BA.
A slew of laughing and exclamation emojis followed before I assume someone realised the mistake and they all silently left the group without another word. None of them would even make eye contact with me for the last week of the internship.
It didn’t matter that I’d pulled my weight just as much as the rest of them throughout the three months, that I’d stayed late and showed up early, that my project proposal – an idea to launch a scheme in the countries where Peregrine Airways flies to get the local, and often underprivileged, youth interested in all aspects of aviation – was just as innovative as theirs, and delivered just as high-quality work as the rest of them.
To them, I was nothing but a puppet with a name that got me the right connections.
I ended up declining the job offer when it came through, and my proposal, as thoroughly researched and as dear to my heart as it was, never came to fruition.
‘Earth to Imani,’ Sloane says, snapping her fingers in front of my face. ‘You disappeared for a second there.’
I blink and shake my head slightly, grounding myself back in the present. My wine glass is empty, and Sloane’s eyeing me like I’ve just grown a second head.
‘Sorry,’ I mumble. ‘Just remembering something dumb.’
Sloane gives me a look. It’s one of those rare, soft ones that occasionally slips through her sardonic, glamorous diva persona. ‘It wasn’t dumb,’ she says softly.
I shrug because I really don’t want to get it into it.
Not now. Not when I’m already teetering on the edge like this.
I clear my throat and try to get us back on track.
‘I can’t say no to him. You know that. He’s already promised to freeze me out.
No more trust fund, no more company access, no more…
anything. I’ll be completely cut off.’ I pause.
That bloody lump is back in my throat again. ‘And I’m not ready for that.’
Sloane gives me a long, considered look. It’s the kind of look that says she wants to smack some sense into me and pull me into a bear hug at the same time. ‘You shouldn’t still have to play these games.’
I shrug again. ‘But I do.’
For a moment, neither of us says anything. Then, Sloane straightens in her seat and flashes me a determined grin.
‘Fine. But if we’re doing this, we’re doing it right. We need spreadsheets, we need dates, we need photo evidence of this whirlwind relationship. And I want the kind of heartbreak story that’ll make Taylor Swift weep.’
A startled laugh slips out of me. ‘You’re in? You’ll help me?’
She nods, her own smile widening. ‘Let’s fake you a break-up so toxic, your dad won’t know what hit him.’
‘Your guy is irritatingly elusive.’
Sloane is draped across my kitchen island, brows furrowed as she scrolls through her phone with all the intensity of an MI5 agent doing reconnaissance on their next target.
‘First of all, he’s not my guy,’ I grumble before leaning over her shoulder to catch a glimpse of the screen. ‘And secondly, yeah, I feel like he dropped off the face of the earth after we left uni.’
Though, to be fair, it’s not like he was ever really part of my orbit while we were studying in the first place.
Sloane hums and opens up yet another article about Vouvalis Resorts.
This one is about the company breaking ground at their soon-to-be newest hotel location in Turks and Caicos.
The main image for the article is one of Georgios Vouvalis shaking hands with who I assume is someone important on the island – maybe the mayor?
Stood next to them both is a tall, grinning, incredibly handsome man.
‘Ugh.’ Sloane rolls her eyes and clicks off the article. ‘Andreas, again.’
Asher’s oldest brother, Andreas, seems to be following very closely in his father’s footsteps when it comes to the family business.
From our thirty minutes of recon work since we got back to my apartment, we’ve discovered that Andreas has been steadily amassing a healthy portfolio of Forbes, Fortune and Bloomberg profiles in his own right, and has handled several of the latest Vouvalis Resorts deals himself over the last few years.
‘You can tell who Daddy’s favourite is to take over once he kicks the bucket,’ Sloane snorts, swiping away yet another article about Andreas and the family business. ‘Ah! And here’s Teddy.’
Theodore Vouvalis – the middle child.