Michael ran to the front door and blocked it. He grabbed a fifteenth-century Bavarian poleax from the wall and waved it threateningly at Astrid. “You can go to hell for all I care, but you are not taking my son! If you leave this house now, I am going to call the police and tell them you have kidnapped him. Cassian, get over here!”

Cassian started to cry, and Ludivine held on to him tightly, muttering under her breath, “C’est des putains de conneries!”*

“Stop it! You’re scaring him!” Astrid said angrily.

“I’m going to drag you and your entire family through the mud! You’re going to see yourself on the front page of The Straits Times! I’ll sue you for adultery and desertion—I have all the e-mails and phone recordings to prove it!” Michael snarled.

“If you’ve read all my e-mails, you should know that I haven’t written a single inappropriate thing to Charlie. Not one word! He has been nothing but a good friend to me. He’s been a better friend than you could possibly ever imagine,” Astrid said, her voice cracking with emotion.

“Yes, I know you’ve been very careful in covering your tracks. But that home-wrecker Charlie hasn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s so obvious, Astrid. The guy is so crazy in love with you it’s fucking sad. All his e-mails read like pathetic love letters.”

In a flash, it occurred to Astrid that what Michael said was true. Every casual e-mail, every text message Charlie had ever written to her was a testament to his love. He had never broken his promise. Not since the day they were at Abelard and Héloïse’s tomb in Paris. Suddenly, Astrid was flooded with a power that made her more courageous than ever. “Michael, if you don’t move away from the front door right now, I swear to God I will call the police myself!”

“Go ahead! We can both be in the fucking papers tomorrow morning!” Michael screamed.

Astrid got out her phone and dialed 999, all the while smiling calmly. “Michael, don’t you know by now that my grandmother and Uncle Alfred are the largest private shareholders of Singapore Press Holdings? We’re not going to be in the papers. We’re never going to be in the papers.”

* “This is fucking bullshit!” (Sounds so civilized in French, doesn’t it?)

16

188 TAIYUAN ROAD

SHANGHAI

“Why do I have to find out from Eleanor Young that my own daughter almost died?” Kerry Chu scolded into the phone.

“I didn’t almost die, Mom,” Rachel said, stretched out on a chaise lounge in her bedroom at the Bao residence.

“Hiyah, Eleanor said you were on your deathbed! I’m going to catch the first flight to Shanghai tomorrow!”

“You don’t need to come, Mom. I can assure you I was never in any danger, and I’m perfectly fine now.” Rachel laughed, trying to downplay it.

“Why didn’t Nick call me sooner? Why am I the last to know everything?”

“I was only in the hospital for a few days, and since I got back to normal so quickly I really didn’t see any reason to worry you. And since when have you started believing everything Eleanor tells you? Are you best buddies now?”