“Jesus, Michael! What have you done?” she said angrily.

“Well hello to you too, honey.”

Astrid held up the magazine. “When did you do this interview?”

“Oh—it’s out already!” Michael said excitedly.

“Damn right it’s out! I can’t believe you let this happen.”

“I didn’t let it happen, I made it happen. We did the photo shoot while you were at Nick’s wedding in California. You know, it was supposed to be Ang Peng Siong and his son on the cover, but they yanked it at the last minute in favor of me. My new publicist, Angelina Chio-Lee at SPG Strategies, engineered that. What do you think of the pictures?”

“They are absolutely ridiculous.”

“You don’t have to be such a bitch about it, just because you weren’t in them,” Michael suddenly snapped.

“Jesus, do you think that’s what I’m upset about? Have you even read the article?”

“No—how could I? It just came out. But don’t worry, I took extra care not to say anything about you or your crazy paranoid family.”

“You didn’t have to—you let the writer into our house! Into our bedroom! She found things out for herself!”

“Stop being so hysterical. Can’t you see that this is good for me? That this will be good for our family?”

“I’m not sure you’ll think that after you’ve read it. Well, you’ll have to reckon with my father when he gets wind of this, not me.”

“Your father! Everything’s always about your father,” Michael grumbled as he fiddled with the screw on the light.

“He is going to be furious when he sees this. More than you can possibly ever imagine,” Astrid said ominously.

Michael shook his head in disappointment as he came off the ladder. “And to think, this was supposed to be a present to you.”

“A present to me?” Astrid struggled to grasp the logic behind this.

“Cassian was so excited about the photo shoot, he was so looking forward to surprising you.”

“Oh believe me, I’m surprised.”

“You know what’s surprising me? You’ve been away for almost a week, but you seem to care much more about this magazine article than seeing your own son.”

Astrid stared at him incredulously. “Are you actually trying to make me the bad person here?”

“Actions speak louder than words. You’re still standing here ranting at me, while upstairs there’s a child who’s been waiting all night for his mother to come home.”

Astrid left the room without another word and headed upstairs.

3

JINXIAN LU

SHANGHAI

A couple of hours after returning to Shanghai from their Paris trip, Carlton called Rachel at the Peninsula Hotel. “All settled in?”

“Yes, but now I’m jet-lagged all over again. Nick, of course, put his head on the pillow and immediately started snoring. It’s so unfair.” Rachel sighed.

“Er…think Nick would mind if I took you out to dinner? Just the two of us?” Carlton asked timidly.

“Of course not! Even if he wasn’t dead to the world for the next ten hours, he wouldn’t mind.”