“Just as well you didn’t listen to him then, right?” Dhananjay Singh sat at his place and spooned a healthy portion of food onto his plate. “Allison, when are you going to come and live with us and save me from this henpecking gaggle of women?” His warm brown eyes smiled at her. “I promise to provide you with ten bolts of the finest cotton cloth and a new pair of shoes every year.”
Allison smiled, nodding in every evidence of deep thought. “It is a generous offer, Lord Singh. But I know,” she said, eyes lowered in apparent modestly, “that your first wife will always be foremost in your heart. How can I compete with Maryam? And I swore to my own God that I will be no man’s concubine.”
“You are a menace and I feel pity for your fiancé.”
“That’s all right,” Allison said cheerfully. “I make up for it in other ways.” She stretched and got up. “Supper was wonderful,” she said. “But I have to get home. I have to figure out how to make one hundred seats at the reception hall fit the one hundred and thirty-seven people on the guest list. Call me tomorrow, Shannie, okay?”
She got up, walking her best friend to the door and giving her a hug. “I’ll have the necklace to you in a day or two, all right?”
“That’s fine.” The hug was returned fiercely. “Thank you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
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