“Wo de tian ah!* You’ll be thirty-three. What will happen to your eggs? Your eggs will get old and your babies might be born retarded or deformed!” Mrs. Bing screeched.

“Mother, stop being so ridiculous! With all the damn doctors you see every day, you should know that such things don’t happen anymore. They have special genetic tests now, and women are having babies well into their forties!”

“Listen to her!” Mrs. Bing said incredulously to her husband.

Jack leaned forward in his chair and remarked wryly, “I don’t think this has anything to do with age, actually. I think our daughter is in love with Carlton Bao.”

“Even if I was, I wouldn’t want to get married to him right now,” Colette shot back.

“And what makes you think I would ever approve of your marrying him?”

Colette looked at her father in exasperation. “Why is Richie so much more special than Carlton? They both have degrees from top universities, and both come from respectable families. Why, I’d even say that Carlton comes from a higher-status family than Richie.”

Mrs. Bing harrumphed. “I don’t like that Bao Shaoyen. Always acting so uppity, like she’s so much better and smarter than me!”

“That’s because she IS smarter than you, Mother. She has a PhD in biochemistry and runs a multibillion-dollar company.”

“How dare you say that to me! Don’t you think I’m partly responsible for your father’s success? I was the one who spent all those years—”

Raising his voice to be heard over his arguing wife and daughter, Jack interjected, “CARLTON BAO’S family has two billion dollars at most. The Yangs are on a whole other level. Our level. Don’t you see that this is the perfect dynastic match? The two of you together would make our families the most powerful and influential in China. Do you not see the unique position that you are in to be part of history?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that I was a chess piece in your plan for world domination,” Colette shot back sarcastically.

Jack banged his fist on the desk and stood up from his chair, pointing at her angrily. “You are not my chess piece! You are my prized possession. And I want to see that you are treated like a queen and married off to the best possible man in the whole world!”

“But the fact that I don’t agree with your idea of the best man means nothing to you!”

“Well if Carlton Bao is the best man for you, then why hasn’t he proposed to you?” Jack challenged her.

“Oh, he’ll propose whenever I want him to. Don’t you understand? I keep telling you, I’m just not ready! WHEN I want to get married and IF I choose Carlton, you can be sure he will exceed your expectations. The Baos might have more money than the Yangs by then. You have no idea how smart Carlton is! Once he really devotes his attention to his family’s business, there’s no telling how well he can do.”