“Do I have a choice?” Alfred sniggered.

Harry sat down at the table and scanned the paper quickly. He then put it away and began digging into the first course of chilled mung bean soup.

“Now Astrid, I heard you were just in Paris. Was it as lovely as always?” Lillian May Tan asked.

“It was wonderful. The biggest surprise was running into Nicky.”

“Nicky! Really? I haven’t seen him in ages!”

Astrid glanced a few paces down to make sure her grandmother was safely out of earshot. “Yes, he was there with Rachel, and we had a rather exciting evening together.”

“Tell me, what’s his new wife like?” Lillian May asked in a lowered voice.

“You know, I really like Rachel. Even if she wasn’t married to Nicky, she’s the sort of person I would definitely be friends with. She’s quite—”

Just then, Astrid felt a gentle nudge on her shoulder. It was one of Su Yi’s lady’s maids, who whispered, “Your grandmother wants you to stop talking about Nicholas right now or leave her table.”

• • •

After the luncheon, as everyone made their way back to the cars, Harry walked alongside Astrid and asked, “Do you keep up with that Charlie Wu?”

“I do from time to time—why?”

“Uncle Alfred just supplied me with the most intriguing tidbit. You know how you asked the other day if I acquired Michael’s first company? I decided to dig deeper, since it did always strike me as odd how he was able to sell that company for so much money.”

“Oh, did Charlie lend you a hand?”

“No, Astrid—Charlie was the one who bought the company.”

Astrid stopped dead in her tracks. “You’re joking, right?”

“Not at all. The real joke is Charlie Wu secretly paying three hundred million dollars for a tiny tech start-up.”

“Dad, are you absolutely sure about this?”

Harry took out the piece of paper and showed it to Astrid. “Listen, this was really tough info to come by. Even our top finance guys turned up nothing but dead ends, so I had to ask Uncle Alfred to help, and you know he is never wrong. Charlie obviously went to great lengths to hide his ownership in a complex web of shell corporations, but you can see the proof in this document as clear as day. Now, what is he plotting at? That’s what I want to know.”

Astrid stared at the paper in disbelief. “Dad, do me a favor—please don’t mention a word of this to Michael or anyone else until I find out more.”

After everyone had departed, Astrid remained at the cemetery. She sat in her car with the air-conditioning on full blast for a few minutes, preparing to leave, but then she turned off the engine and got out. She needed to walk a bit. Her head was spinning, and she desperately needed to make sense of the startling news she had just learned. Why in the world had Charlie bought her husband’s company? And why had he never told her? Did Charlie and Michael have some secret agreement all along? Or was there a darker scheme that she couldn’t even begin to fathom? She didn’t know what to think, but she couldn’t help feeling strangely betrayed by Charlie. She had poured out her heart and soul to him, and he had deceived her. Could she ever trust him again?