Condley turned to see Van enter the room as if on cue, just as the colonel left it. Her knowing grin as she neared him told him immediately that she had indeed been waiting for her father to be done. Standing to greet her, he could not stop his eyes from lingering on her flowing cascade of hair and the smooth skin of her neck and the way her white spandex T-shirt hugged so closely to the contours of her body. She caught the journey of his eyes and smiled deliciously, followed by an open laugh.

“I think you like this shirt? Francois bought it for me in Paris.”

She was barely a foot away from him now, happily flirting, and despite the logic that worked against such thoughts it was all he could do to keep himself from pulling her into him. “Francois has excellent taste,” he finally managed to say.

She shrugged dismissively. “Yes, but sometimes I think he is dressing me up as if I were a doll.”

She turned slowly and took the chair in which her father had just sat. Watching him sit down, she leaned back in the chair, smiling to him again and crossing her legs, the fabric of her black designer slacks tight along her thighs and hips.

“Did you miss me, Cong Ly?”

“Not even ‘hello’?”

“Okay,” she laughed, her face lighting up. “Hello! Did you miss me?”

“Actually I heard you’ve been busy. My sources tell me you were all over Sai Gon in a limo last night.”

“I told you, that was only Francois,” she said, waving a hand into the air and then touching her new clothes as if presenting them to Condley as evidence. “He won’t drive in the Sai Gon traffic. It makes him nervous. And he won’t ride on my Honda. So he always takes a limo. And besides, he is in love with me already!”

“It was ‘only Francois’? You’re acting very French,” he said, laughing at her sudden look of indignation.

“It’s fun to go places with Francois,” she countered. “Why should I lie about such things? But I am very happy to be Vietnamese.” She gave him an open, challenging smile. “And you have been waiting only for me, Cong Ly? Is that what you’re saying?”

He could hear her parents talking softly in the other room. For a moment he concentrated, trying to understand their conversation. She watched him intuitively, not losing her smile.

“She is asking my father if we are going out,” said Van. “If we are staying she thinks she should begin making some dinner.”