Kitty lowered her eyes. Stung with hurt, she wasn’t quite sure how to react. Why was she being called an imposter? None of this was her doing—Corinna was the one who had told Fiona she was related to this Stephen person. She turned to Corinna, hoping she would come to her defense, but the woman just stood there.

Helen Mok-Asprey glared at Kitty and said in a sharp voice, “You’re that Kitty Pong? Carol Tai is a good friend of mine. What have you done with her son? And why won’t you let Carol see her own granddaughter? Gum hak sum!”^*2

*1 Cantonese for “Long time no see.”

*2 Cantonese for “so black-hearted.”

12

ASTRID

SINGAPORE

“Are you going for a run now?” Astrid asked Michael as he came downstairs in nothing but a pair of black Puma running shorts.

“Yeah, I need to blow off some steam.”

“Don’t forget we have Friday-night dinner in an hour.”

“I’ll join you later.”

“We can’t be late tonight. My Thai cousins Adam and Piya are visiting, and the Thai ambassador has arranged a special perform—”

“I don’t give a fuck about your Thai cousins!” Michael snapped as he ran out the door.

He’s still upset. Astrid got up from the sofa and headed upstairs to her study. She logged on to Gmail and saw Charlie’s name lit up. Thank God. She immediately pinged him:

ASTRID LEONG TEO: Still at work?

CHARLIE WU: Yup. Never leave my office these days, except for juice breaks.

ALT: Question for you…when you are in the midst of negotiating major deals with potential clients, do you also entertain them?

CW: What do you mean by “entertain”?

ALT: Do you take them out to business dinners?

CW: LOL! I thought you meant get them laid! Yes, there are always business dinners…more lunches actually. We sometimes do a celebratory dinner when a deal closes. Why?

ALT: I’m just trying to educate myself. It’s funny—I’ve had to deal with all kinds of social events with intricate protocols my whole life, but when it comes to the corporate dinner, I’m totally ignorant.

CW: Well, you’ve never had to be a corporate wife.

ALT: Does Isabel usually come to your work dinners?

CW: Isabel at a client dinner? Ha! Hell would freeze over. Client entertaining rarely involves spouses.

ALT: Even for international clients who are visiting Asia?

CW: When international clients come to Asia, they generally don’t bring their wives. Back in my dad’s time in the 1980s and ’90s, yes, maybe some wives wanted to come to Hong Kong or Singapore to shop. But not so much anymore. On the rare occasions that they do, we really try to roll out the red carpet, so that clients can concentrate on work and not worry that their wives are getting ripped off at Stanley Market.

ALT: So you don’t feel that a crucial component of deal-making involves a “dinner with the wives.”

CW: Not at all! These days, most of my clients are single twenty-two-year-old monosyllabic Zuckerbergs. And many of them are women! What’s up? I’m assuming Michael is trying to enlist your help with some clients?

ALT: It already happened.

CW: So why are you asking?

ALT: Well, it was a total disaster, the deal fell through, and guess who got the blame?

CW: Huh? Why would you get the blame for a botched deal? Last time I checked, you weren’t his employee. Did you spill scalding hot bak kut teh^*1 onto the client’s lap or something?

ALT: It’s a long story. Pretty funny, actually. I’ll tell you about it when I see you in Hong Kong next month.

CW: C’mon, you can’t leave me hanging like this!