Michael stood at the top of the staircase and fingered the carved woodwork on the banister. Its art deco sunrays reminded him of the Chrysler building. “C. K. Wong had four children, right? I’ll offer seventy-four. This way every sibling gets an extra million for their trouble.”

“Let me just call my cousin Geik Choo,” Carmen said, reaching into her Saint Laurent handbag for her phone and walking discreetly out of the living room.

A few minutes later, she returned. “My cousin thanks you for the offer. But factoring in stamp duties and my commission, the family is going to need more. At eighty million, you have a deal.”

“I knew you were going to say that,” Michael said with a laugh. He looked over at Astrid and said, “Honey, how badly do you want this?”

Wait a minute—it’s you who wants to move, Astrid thought. Instead, she said, “I will be very happy in this house if you are.”

“Okay then, eighty it is.”

Carmen smiled. This was so much easier than she had imagined. She disappeared into a bedroom down the hallway again to call her cousin back.

“How much do you think it’s going to take to decorate this place?” Michael asked Astrid.

“Really depends on what we want to do. It reminds me of the sort of country houses you see in the Cotswolds, so I could picture some simple English pieces mixed with Geoffrey Bennison fabrics perhaps. I think it would go well with your historic artifacts and some of my Chinese antiques. And downstairs, maybe we can—”

“The entire downstairs is going to be converted into a state-of-the-art car museum for my collection,” Michael interrupted.

“All of it?”

“Of course. That’s the first thing I pictured when I walked in the front door. I was like, let’s tear all these reception rooms down and make it one vast hall. Then I could put car turntables into the floor. It will be so cool to see my cars revolving around between all those columns.”

Astrid looked at him, waiting for him to say, Just kidding, but then she realized he was dead serious. “If that’s what you want,” she finally managed to squeak out.

“Now, what is taking that friend of yours so long? Don’t tell me those Wongs are getting greedy and want to take me for another ride.”

Just then, Carmen reentered the room, looking rather flushed in the face. “I’m sorry—I hope I wasn’t shouting too loudly?”

“No. What happened?” Astrid asked.

“Er, I don’t quite know how to say this, but I’m afraid the house has been sold to someone else.”

“WHAAAT? I thought we had an exclusive first bid,” Michael said.

“I’m very sorry. I thought you did too. But my asshole cousin Quentin played me out. He used your offer to bid up another one that was already in the works.”

“I’ll top whatever offer your cousin got,” Michael said defiantly.

“I already suggested that, but it’s apparently a done deal. The buyer doubled your price to take the house off the market completely. It sold for $160 million.”