I hurried around him so he’d have to face me. “Maybe you’re going along with all this because you’re having a really hard time finding a girlfriend and need Mommy and Daddy to do it for you. Why would you need to marry me, someone you supposedly can’t stand—though maybe you’re lying about that, too—if you could get anyone else? Maybe you’re all talk and no game. If someone as ‘inexperienced’ as me doesn’t even want you, maybe no one else does either. Maybe you talk about all your ‘exploits’ to cover up that you’ve had none.” Then I used his own prejudices against him: “Maybe you’re still a virgin.”

“I am not a virgin,” he said with a laugh.

I shrugged. “That’s what you say. You brag about Prime Strip and supersperm because you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Throughout my volleys, he had slowly been steaming, a kettle about to boil, and with that last comment he exploded. “I’ve had so much sex it would blow your shriveled mind!” Hongbo yelled at me. “And I do have supersperm! I got someone pregnant! She’s due on New Year’s!”

My mouth dropped open. So did Andrew’s. And Hongbo’s.

“That’s not true,” he backtracked. But he knew it was too late. “You can’t tell anyone. No one would believe you. I’ll—I’ll hunt you both down if this gets out. I know people!”

I was still processing. “Your parents wanted me to be with you to, what, fix your reputation with mine? As proof that you’ve changed? To distract people with engagement news so they don’t notice the baby news?” He didn’t answer. “And that’s why you were cut off, as punishment,” I realized. “So this is about the money for you.”

A hopeful look crossed Hongbo’s face. “Well, now that you know, maybe you can help an old friend out?”

I gave him my own pfft—a spit-spraying one.

Andrew spoke to just me. “You should tell your parents about this. Then it’ll be over; they’ll stop pressuring you.”

Hongbo scoffed. “What makes you think they don’t already know?”

My vision blurred. He was lying. He had to be. He was trying to get back at me. Trying to make me angry.

But then his next words rang in my ears. “Your mom told us they’d be honored to help. ‘Jing-Jing is the purest of them all!’ ” he finished, mimicking my mother’s voice saying the catchphrase she only used with me in private—well, I guess, not anymore.

Bloodred shame and red-hot anger exploded into existence simultaneously. The lava coursing through my veins was so overwhelming that my mind blanked for a moment. But when I came to, I knew exactly who to take everything out on.

Chloe CHAPTER 32 SHATTERED