First Comes Like (Modern Love #3) - Alisha Rai Page 0,32

cream.

“That’s because my parents made me learn how to do it on my own when I was thirteen. They said my skin was so bad I wouldn’t get an acting gig if I couldn’t hide it.”

Jia blinked. Sometimes she wished she’d had more involved parents when it came to her career, but not if they’d be involved like that. “Oh. Um.”

A beeping noise filled the air, and Harley looked around. “What’s that?”

“Just my timer.” Jia tapped the plastic box on the table. “I get distracted by my phone, so I put it away while I’m working.”

Harley clutched her phone to her chest. “My nightmare, not having my phone.”

“It used to be mine, until I realized how hard it was to focus on work with it in my hand.”

Harley looked at her blankly, and Jia realized the younger woman wasn’t there yet, the point where content creation felt like an uphill climb because she’d used up all her best ideas. Hopefully she never experienced it. She was probably pulling in way more income than Jia had after a year of working in entertainment. “Anyway, it means I should head up for lunch.”

Harley tucked her pin-straight hair behind her ear. “I’ll be in touch!”

“Looking forward to it.”

They said their goodbyes and Jia gathered up her stuff to head to her staged apartment.

Her lunch consisted of a sandwich she’d slapped together at the crack of dawn this morning. She’d gotten up extra early so she could beat traffic. And avoid Katrina, whom she’d have to tell about Dev.

Remember how you told me I should delete him and never see him again? I had drinks with him and smelled him instead.

She chewed the PB&J and grimaced. She was doing her best to not think about him. Because it wasn’t her shame or wounded pride that was foremost when she did think about him. It was the heat, when he’d spun her around and placed his body between her and danger.

Between you and a photographer. Girl, please, he wasn’t taking a bullet for you.

She took a swig of her milk and grabbed her phone out of the kitchen drawer she kept it tucked in when she wasn’t working.

Her first clue that something was wrong was all the notifications on her lock screen. Her second was that they were all from family members. Her mother and two eldest sisters, to be exact.

Uh-oh. That wasn’t good at all.

Her phone rang before she could navigate to her texts, her mother’s sweetly smiling contact photo popping up. She answered it with some trepidation. What had she done now? “Hello?”

“Jianna.”

Well. This was already bad, if they were at the name that was on her birth certificate. “Hi, Mommy,” she tried again, though she didn’t know what she was wheedling for.

“Where have you been? I have been trying to call you for hours.”

“I was working.” The joy of her parents not viewing her work as actual work. Her mom would never assume any of her sisters would be glued to their phone at noon on a weekday.

“Video call me. I need to speak to you face-to-face.” Her mother hung up, and Jia flinched.

She steeled herself as she sat on the couch and opened her laptop. Her worry grew as she found not one, but three pairs of dark eyes looking back at her with various degrees of concern and doubt and annoyance. “Oh good,” she said, with as much enthusiasm as she could muster, which wasn’t very much. “Salam. Everyone’s here.” Or at least, her two oldest sisters and her mother. “Where’s Sadia?” Her middle sister was one of her staunchest allies. If Ayesha had to be off the grid communing with nature somewhere, Sadia would be a good stand-in advocate for her.

“We’re trying to limit what disturbs her.”

Sadia was pregnant with her second child, and she was having miserable morning sickness, so that made sense, but the sentence ratcheted her anxiety higher. “What’s going on?” Jia shoved a cushion behind her back. Best to make herself comfortable while she got yelled at for whatever she’d done—or not done—now.

What did I do or not do now?

It wasn’t easy to be the black sheep of a successful family. When she was younger, Sadia had occupied the role, for running off to elope with a boy her parents didn’t approve of. Jia had seen the example her parents made of her sister—not talking to or about her for years, until their precious first grandson was born—so Jia had tried to toe the line.