He didn’t seem to hear, or perhaps decided to ignore the implication. He covered the birdcage with a towel, turned on the TV, and watched the Chinese news.

“Still no mention of Lulu or her presumed mother,” he reported after a while. “There has been nothing from the Xinhua News Agency.”

“They must know I’ve found her. I’ve called their bluff.”

Throwing away her diet considerations, she ate. She was hungry, and every morsel of food was delicious. “Would you like green tea?” She poured some for both of them. She needed a shower and sleep, but there was too much she wanted to discuss.

Daniel turned off the TV. “Wade called me shortly after you ran off.”

Nola splattered her tea. “What? You knew about this before I called Ming-Ji?”

“There’s a Chinese saying, ‘The go-between needs a hundred pairs of sandals.’ Wade asked me to negotiate a truce. Shall I put on my first pair of sandals?”

Her jaws clenched at Wade's assumption that she had run to Daniel. “I wouldn’t be talking to you now if it weren’t for Ming-Ji. What made you so cocksure that you would say ‘yes’ to Wade?”

“I hoped you’d call me. I’m sorry that you didn’t trust me.”

“It’s that article. It has changed things.” Her finger traced the smooth edges of the ceramic tea mug. Under the towel covering his cage, Harry Wu flapped his wings to adjust his position. Neither she nor Daniel spoke until she finally said, “I don’t see how I’ll get Lulu out of China and into the U.S. over both governments’ objections. Wade is the master of making the impossible possible. He could have made it happen. Instead, he sold her out.” She sipped her tea to wash away the taste of bile. The disgust she felt toward Wade’s ruthlessness had a kinetic power that bored its way down from her skull to her bowels. “Our marriage is over.”

“You may consider retaining the business partnership.” Daniel raised his hand. “You don’t need to make that decision now. Or share it with me.”

“Our personal and professional lives were okay until I allowed it to get all twisted up in a knot. Marrying him ruined everything.”

“Isn’t it interesting how both the strengths and weaknesses in a relationship spring from the same fountain?”

“You sound like a fortune cookie.” She looked at her fingers. “What I discovered today absolves me from a lifetime of debt.” Her voice dropped. “But it’s so sad.”

“Endings always are,” Daniel said.

“Had he not cultivated my career, I might have been a cabaret singer, with only dreams of international stardom.” She wanted to cry, but didn’t know exactly why. “I’ve met talented performers—I’ve lost competitions to better singers—who had mediocre managers and unmemorable songs, who fumbled around and amounted to nothing.”