“It was never my intention to do that,” Kitty shot back.

“Be honest with yourself, Kitty. Of course it was. You wanted all the attention on yourself, just like you did when you bought The Palace of Eighteen Perfections. But while the crowd at Christie’s might appreciate a good floor show, Hong Kong society does not. Your actions over the past few months are seen as nothing but blatant attempts to buy your way into the right crowd. Now, many people have done just that, but there’s a right way to do it, and there’s a wrong way.”

Kitty was indignant. “Ms. Ko-Tung, I know exactly what I’m doing. Just do a Baidu search under my name. Look at all the magazines and newspapers. The bloggers and gossip columnists can’t stop writing about me. My pictures are in all the magazines every month. I’ve totally changed my style over the past year, and in last week’s Orange Daily, they ran three pages on my red-carpet looks.”

Corinna shook her head dismissively. “Don’t you see that those magazines are just exploiting you? Sure, the average reader of Orange Daily living in Yau Ma Tei must think your life is a dream come true, but at a certain level of Hong Kong society, it doesn’t matter if you wear the finest couture and millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds. At this level, anyone can do that. Everyone is rich. Anyone can make a twenty-million-dollar donation if they really want to. To these people, having your picture in the party pages all the time actually does more damage than good—it is seen as desperate. Trust me, being in Tattle is not going to help your image. It won’t get you a membership at the Locke Club, or an invitation to Mrs. Ladoorie’s annual garden party at her villa in Repulse Bay.”

Kitty didn’t know whether or not to believe her. How could this woman who looked like her hair had been cut by some cheap hairdresser in Mong Kok dare to give her advice on her image?

“Mrs. Tai, let me tell you a bit about what I do. I advise people who want to secure a place among Asia’s elite, among the real people of influence.”

“With all due respect, I’m married to Bernard Tai. My husband is one of the richest men in the world. He’s already influential.”

“Oh really? Well where is Bernard these days, then? Why is he not at all the functions I go to? Why wasn’t he at the Chief Executive’s^*5 lunch honoring the Fifty Most Influential Leaders in Asia last Thursday? Or at the party that my mother threw for the Duchess of Oxbridge last night? Why weren’t you there?”

Kitty didn’t know how to respond. She felt a wave of humiliation sweep over her.

“Mrs. Tai, if I may be very frank, the Tais have never had the best reputation. Dato’ Tai Toh Lui was a corporate raider from some Malay backwater. The other tycoons despised him. And now his son is seen as a ne’er-do-well party boy who inherited a fortune but hasn’t worked a day in his life. Everyone knows Carol Tai still controls the purse strings. No one takes Bernard seriously, especially after he married a former porn star turned soap-opera actress from Mainland China.”