The Dating Plan Read online

  PRAISE FOR

  The Marriage Game

  “This novel has all the funny banter and sexy feels you could want in a romantic comedy—and, of course, a terrific grand gesture before the happy ending.”

  —NPR.org

  “[An] enticing debut.”

  —She Reads

  “The Marriage Game is a hilarious blend of humor, romance, and family.”

  —The Nerd Daily

  “Desai has done a wonderful job showcasing Indian culture—it informs every aspect of the book and makes for a complex and entertaining story. The humor and banter in this book are superb—they had me in stitches in parts.”

  —Frolic Media

  “Desai’s delightful debut is a playful take on enemies-to-lovers and arranged marriage tropes starring two headstrong Desi American protagonists. Rom-com fans should take note of this fresh, fun offering.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “This witty and delightful story about family, forgiveness, and letting go is utterly satisfying. Desai’s first book will be a hit with fans of Sonya Lalli’s The Matchmaker’s List.”

  —Library Journal

  “The Marriage Game is the most delicious read! From the humor to the heartwarming family bonds to the off-the-charts chemistry, it’s impossible for me to love this book any more. I can’t wait for more from Sara Desai!”

  —Alexa Martin, author of Intercepted

  “I fell hard for The Marriage Game from the moment I read Layla and Sam’s dynamite meet-cute. It’s a hilarious, heartfelt, and steamy enemies-to-lovers romance.”

  —Sarah Smith, author of Faker

  Titles by Sara Desai

  THE MARRIAGE GAME

  THE DATING PLAN

  A JOVE BOOK

  Published by Berkley

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  penguinrandomhouse.com

  Copyright © 2021 by Sara Desai

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  A JOVE BOOK, BERKLEY, and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Desai, Sara, author.

  Title: The dating plan / Sara Desai.

  Description: First Edition. | New York: Jove, 2021.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020034224 (print) | LCCN 2020034225 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593100585 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780593100592 (ebook)

  Subjects: GSAFD: Love stories.

  Classification: LCC PR9199.4.D486 D38 2021 (print) | LCC PR9199.4.D486 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020034224

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020034225

  First Edition: March 2021

  Cover art by Marina Muun

  Cover design by Katie Anderson

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  pid_prh_5.6.1_c0_r0

  To Mum, for giving me the gift of stories.

  Contents

  Cover

  Praise for The Marriage Game

  Titles by Sara Desai

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  • 1 •

  DAISY Patel had no issues with besotted lovers hiding away in a toilet cubicle for a little covert tongue gymnastics. For the most part, technology conferences were stressful and boring, and if someone could find a little lip loving between networking, speakers, and seminars, she didn’t begrudge them their happiness.

  In this case, however, the gold medal winner of the twist ’n’ tangle in the women’s restroom at the Oakland Convention Center happened to be her ex-boyfriend, Orson Fisk.

  And the woman in his arms was her former boss, Madison Montgomery, CEO of Activize LLC.

  “Ahem.” Her attempt to draw their attention fell on deaf ears. Or maybe they didn’t care. Maybe Orson had been bespelled, and when he was finally released from Madison’s clutches, he would realize he’d made a mistake breaking up with a neurotic software engineer and her pakora-loving pup. Daisy and Max came as a package; dog haters be warned.

  Curiously numb at the sight of her ex wrapped around her old boss like the most tenacious of invasive species—she’d caught a glimpse of them in the mirror before they’d closed the stall door— Daisy slid a quarter into the disposable menstrual product dispenser.

  She’d been under no illusions when Orson had asked her out after they’d met in a Developer Week hack-a-thon in Oakland, California. Clearly he was desperate for a hookup. After all, not many men were interested in a woman who lived by plans and quantifiable results and could do one compile a day in C++ in a POSIX environment with zero errors. They wanted the prom queens, not the class valedictorians; the women who wielded fashion as a weapon, and not a shield. So she’d been thrown off her Manic Pixie Dream Girl game when Orson had called after their one-night stand and asked her out again.

  Thirty-five going on sixty-five, devoid of any body fat, and possessing a wispy goatee, Orson had introduced her to long walks, black coffee, art house films, slow jazz, gourmet cooking, and the benefits of intellectual over physical relationships. They worked in the same field, attended the same conferences, and shared the same interests in the online world. It should have been perfect. And yet she’d never once, in the four weeks they’d been seeing each other—making it the longest relationship in her life—thought of introducing him to her family. Serious relationships were not in a life plan that involved working hard, looking after her dad, and growing old alone in the house where she’d been born.

  Orson tugged on Madison’s blouse, tearing the top button to reveal the secret treasures of a woman seriously lacking in discretion. There was nothing intellectual about his frenzied pawing. If Daisy had known tearing off clothes was one of Orson’s skills, she might have put a ring on it right away. But she’d been plagued with doubt. Why didn’t she feel the flutters in her chest that were supposedly indicative of love? Where were the birds th
at were supposed to be tweeting around her head? Did she have some kind of chemical imbalance, or was something else wrong? Only when she caught Orson and Madison doing the nasty in Madison’s office late one evening did she finally feel something.

  Relief.

  As she had always suspected, she was meant to be alone.

  Turning the crank as slowly as possible to minimize the decibel level of menstrual product release, she glanced over again at Orson and Madison pawing at each other like horny teenagers. She should make a quick exit before she said something awkward that would make the situation infinitely worse. Her tendency to blurt out whatever was on her mind had gotten her into trouble too many times. She was happiest alone in her cubicle at work, fully immersed in a screen of code, her favorite dance beats playing over her headphones. There was beauty in the simplicity of programming. If something was illogical, it simply wouldn’t work.

  Maybe there was a message here that wasn’t getting through. She assessed the situation as if it were code and came up with: <>. It was the story of her life all over again.

  The menstrual pad dropped into the dispenser with a soft thud. Her new boss, Tyler Dawes, CEO of Organicare, only needed one of the competitor’s pads for the demonstration, but what if something went wrong? If they didn’t secure more venture capital funding soon, the company would shut down and all of Organicare’s employees would be out of work.

  It didn’t help that Tyler was a terrible salesman. A professor at Caltech, with a Ph.D. in chemical engineering, he had become involved in developing sustainable, organic menstrual products after his daughter, Kristina, realized there was a gap in the market. With hard work and millions in venture capital funding, they had built a successful subscription-based, direct-to-consumer business with an app-based product for lifestyle health and wellness. And then everything had gone wrong.

  Daisy pushed another quarter into the slot and yanked on the dial. If Tyler had asked her to pitch with him when he first signed up for the conference, she wouldn’t have been in the restroom at all. Daisy didn’t go into meetings unprepared. Instead of sweating it out as she tried to dispense a pad in silence, she would have been seated in the air-conditioned conference room, sipping homemade chai from her thermos as she mentally rehearsed a demonstration she would have practiced for weeks.

  Still oblivious to her presence, Orson and Madison continued to make out in the toilet stall, shaking the metal walls as they grappled and groaned. The toilet flushed—not once or twice, but three times in quick succession. Daisy hoped it was from an excess of passion and not because they’d had the dodgy seafood at the buffet lunch. She’d told herself to avoid it, but those prawns had been so tempting . . .

  In any event, it was all very disappointing. When she and Orson had been together, he had been an efficient, no-nonsense lover, expressing the satisfactory outcome of their coupling with a whoosh of air followed by glass of Rioja and a deep dive into Aristotle’s science of logic envisioned through the syllogism. There had been no moans or panting, no bras falling on the filthy tiles (thank God!), and no automatic toilets flushing a symphony of germs into the air.

  The second pad dropped out of the machine, followed by another and another. Boxed pads shot out of the machine, hitting Daisy in the chest like bullets. She dropped to a crouch, scrambling to catch them before they touched the floor.

  “Is someone there?” Madison called out.

  Oh the huge manatee. Programmer slang for a catastrophic data failure, or in this case, a malfunctioning menstrual pad machine. Panicking, Daisy grabbed the boxes and bolted out of the restroom.

  “Daisy! I was looking for you.” Salena Auntie, her father’s sister, ambushed her only a few steps from the door.

  “What are you doing here, Auntie-ji?” Chest heaving, she looked over her shoulder to make sure she hadn’t been followed. The last thing she wanted was for Madison and Orson to think she’d been spying on them. Although she’d been devastated by their betrayal, she wasn’t the type of woman who wanted revenge, nor would she ever stoop to begging Orson to take her back. She wasn’t that pathetic. One unfortunate drunk dial had cured her of that.

  “I was having lunch with my friend Anushka and her son, Roshan, and they mentioned he was looking for a wife.” Salena Auntie gestured to the tall, handsome man behind her. “I thought you’d be perfect for each other. I called your office and they said you were here, so we thought we’d drop in.”

  Daisy bit back a groan. Her aunties had been on a mission to get her married ever since her cousin Layla had gotten engaged, approaching the task with military precision. They showed up unannounced and unexpected at her home, her gym, grocery stores, and malls, always with an innocent bachelor in tow, and always on the pretense of “just being in the neighborhood” even if the “neighborhood” was an hour away.

  “I’m so sorry.” Daisy shot what she hoped was an apologetic smile at the dark-haired stranger. “I don’t have time to chat. I’m about to go into a pitch session, and I have to get these product samples to my boss.”

  “But you haven’t even met Roshan!”

  “Another time!” She bolted away, clutching the boxes of pads as she wove in and out of the crowd, her heart pounding in her chest. When she’d woken up this morning, she would never have guessed she would be pulled away from her cozy workspace and dragged to a tech conference, only to wind up on the run from her ex, with an armload of pads and her matchmaking auntie hot on her heels.

  Maybe she hadn’t woken up. Maybe this was just a dream and any moment now she would open her eyes and . . .

  “Ooof.” She hit a slab of something rock hard and teetered back on red Mary Janes that were slightly too high for comfort but looked fabulous with her red flowered minidress. Daisy didn’t care that her feet were usually hidden away under her desk all day. Shoes made an outfit. Whether they were kitten heels with kitten faces, funky flats decorated with embroidered bananas, or even her blinged-up biker boots, her shoes were always the finishing touch to her somewhat eclectic sense of style.

  Off-balance, she dropped the pads, her hands flailing for purchase, her Marvel Universe tote bag swinging from her shoulder. Tyler was going to kill her if she didn’t die from the cerebral hemorrhage that would be inevitable once her head hit the tile floor. At least Salena Auntie was there. One text and the entire Patel family would know when and how she died, and the funeral would be arranged before the ambulance arrived to take her to the morgue.

  Time slowed and she squeezed her eyes shut as she fell, trying to remember every moment of her twenty-seven years on earth—happy family, sad family, small family, big family, heartache, heartbreak, Max . . .

  She was so preoccupied with reliving her most poignant memories that it took her a moment to realize she was no longer airborne. Strong, warm hands encircled her waist, holding her safe.

  “Are you okay?”

  Deep, warming, and as delicious as liquid caramel, the voice sent a tingle of electricity down her spine, and a jolt of recognition through her body as hard as the strong arms around her.

  She knew that voice. She had heard it almost every day for ten years. Her gaze lifted, and for a moment she forgot to breathe.

  Liam Freaking Bastard Murphy.

  Her brother’s onetime best friend. Her undying preteen crush, teen obsession, and still the object of her nightly fantasies. The man who had broken her heart and disappeared from her life never to be seen or heard from again . . .

  Her pulse kicked up a notch, as the still-functioning part of her brain cataloged his appearance. Time had worn hard lines and chiseled planes into what had once been a slightly rounded face, tipping the balance from simply handsome into breathtakingly gorgeous. A five-o’clock shadow darkened his jaw, and his lips—God, his lips—were firm and curved into the familiar smile that had once made her weak in the knees.

  “Daisy?!” His voic
e rose slightly in pitch, and her gaze snapped up to eyes as blue as the ocean she had wanted to drown herself in after Liam stood her up on the night of her senior prom and scurried off into oblivion like the lowly night-crawling scumbag he had turned out to be.

  She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. How did she express the maelstrom of emotions coursing through her veins? It had been ten years since she’d stood alone on the front steps of her house—in a bright pink prom dress, the corsage her father had bought her pinned to her shoulder—waiting for Liam to take her to the prom. Ten years since he’d disappeared, never to be seen again. How many times had she imagined this moment?

  Should she slap him or kick him between the legs?

  • 2 •

  LIAM’S arms tightened around Daisy’s waist in a grip he seemed in no hurry to break. “I can’t believe it’s you.”

  Of course he couldn’t. The Daisy he knew was young and innocent and had fully embraced her position on the high school geek squad. Her clothes had been quirky and weird, a mix of accessories, colors, patterns, and fandoms that she’d combined into a unique geek-chic style. She’d tied her long, dark hair in a ponytail so it didn’t get in the way when she was helping the freshmen with their computer programs, mixing chemicals for science fair projects, or studying for the latest math competition. Prom night was the first time she’d ever dressed up, and even then she’d had to ask her cousin Layla to help with her hair and makeup. Not that it had done much good.

  “Let me go, Liam.” How ironic that she’d spent her teen years dreaming of being in Liam’s arms, and now it was the last place on earth she wanted to be.

  “For a moment there, I thought you didn’t recognize me.” He slowly relaxed his grip and she pulled away, feeling instantly bereft.

  “I wish that were true.” She looked back over her shoulder for an escape route only to see Orson and Madison walking her way, hand in hand, hair slightly mussed, clothes askew. Behind them, Salena Auntie battered her way through the crowd with her enormous red purse, poor Roshan following in her wake.