“So what happens to Kitty’s important story?”

“Well, since Colette was on the cover this month, we felt like a little, ahem, diplomacy was in order. Of course we couldn’t put Kitty’s story in the same issue. I mean, she is her stepmother. We wouldn’t want to offend either of them. But you know I adore Kitty’s cover! Those Nigel pictures are just beyond! We’re going to save it for later in the year. It’ll actually be much better in the fall, don’t you think? Wouldn’t it be a fabulous cover for the September issue?”

Oliver went silent for a moment, trying to figure out how he was going to explain all this to Kitty.

“I hope Kitty won’t be upset about this? We will give her the star treatment, I promise. We’ll throw a cover launch party at some boutique.”

“Upset? Violet, I don’t think you have any clue what you’ve done. You’ve just started World War III.”

“Oh dear…”

“I have to go. I need to see if I can disarm the nuclear warhead now.”

Oliver hung up with Violet, took a deep breath, and called Kitty’s number. He found her eerily composed when he explained the whole situation to her. “I actually think this is going to be much better for you, Kitty. Landing a fall cover is more prestigious. Think of the September issue of Vogue. That’s always the biggest issue of the year. You’ll get so much more exposure. Far less people will see the March issue of Tattle, and to be honest, it’s a ghastly cover. Look at that mother orangutan and her saggy brown nipples.”

“Did you read the article?” Kitty said quietly.

“I did.”

“So you know that Colette is moving to Singapore with her husband. The royal couple!”

“Kitty, they aren’t royal.”

“Oh yeah? So tell me why they were getting the royal treatment at your great-aunt’s funeral? Don’t try to deny it, I saw the pictures of Colette with the Dowager Sultana of Perawak on the official royal Instagram! You lied to me! You promised me she wouldn’t be there!”

“Kitty, I had no clue that her husband’s family knew my great-uncle Alfred’s family. This isn’t some conspiracy.”

“It’s not? Then why does it feel like she’s doing everything she can to outshine me? She gets invited to the funeral of the century, she steals my Tattle cover, and now she’s throwing this big charity ball in Singapore to raise money for her damn monkeys!”

“Those orangutans need all the help they can get, Kitty.”

“That’s not the point. Colette is hosting this huge ball so that all of Singapore society can come out and curtsy at her feet, like she’s the Queen of fucking Sheba! You know she’s doing all this as revenge, don’t you? She’s just trying to insult me over and over again!”

Oliver sighed in exasperation. “Kitty, don’t you think you’re blowing this out of proportion? You haven’t even met Colette. You have no idea what’s going through her mind! I really don’t think this girl has any interest in insulting you.”

“Of course she’s insulted me, and she’s insulted my husband. Did you notice that she didn’t mention Jack once? Who do you think is funding all her monkey business?”

“Kitty, you’re just building all this up in your head and sending yourself into a tailspin.”

“No, I’m sending you into a tailspin. I want you to get me a title. I want a proper royal title that’s higher-ranking than Colette’s.”

Oliver sighed. “Kitty, getting you any sort of title is going to take time. Living in Singapore, you could aim for an honorific from one of the Malay royal families. But you’d have to do an obscene amount of sucking up. Best-case scenario if you play your cards right, you may be able to receive a title within a few years.”

“No, I’m not waiting that long. I don’t care what you have to do, how much you have to spend. I want a title and I want it before Colette’s stupid monkey ball.”

“That’s just not realistic, Kitty. I mean, I do know a few bisexual Italian princes that might be willing—in exchange for certain financial incentives—to marry you, but you’ll have to divorce Jack.”

Kitty scoffed. “What are you talking about? I’m not divorcing my husband!”

“Then I’m afraid there’s really no way to get you a royal title within a month.”

“Well then, you’re out of a job! I’m not going to pay your retainer anymore. In fact, I’m stopping payment on everything right now. The Nigel Barker photo-shoot fees, all the money you’ve spent decorating my house, everything.”

“Kitty, stop being unreasonable. That’s close to a hundred million dollars. You know I’ll be on the hook for all those bills if you don’t pay them,” Oliver sputtered in alarm.

“Exactly. So get me that title! What’s higher-ranking than a countess? A duchess? A princess? An empress? I don’t care if you need to bribe Prince Bibimbap of Korea, I just want Colette to have to curtsy to me the next time I encounter her. I want to wipe the floor with her face!” Kitty screamed.

“Kitty, please calm down. Kitty?” Oliver realized she had hung up on him. A wave of fear suddenly passed through his body. Kitty was one client he could not risk losing. His monthly retainer from her was the one thing that kept the wolves at bay.

Unbeknownst to the Youngs, the Shangs, or the rest of the world, Oliver’s family had fallen on hard times, ever since Barings went bust in 1995. Most of the T’sien portfolio had been invested with the storied investment firm in London that were bankers to Britain’s most aristocratic families, including the queen. But after the firm went bankrupt—ironically due to a rogue trader based in Singapore—the T’siens along with every Barings investor had been wiped out.

What remained in the other T’sien accounts was a pittance, about ten million, and all that went into maintaining his grandmother Rosemary’s lifestyle. It was her money rightfully, and she was entitled to live out her last years in comfort, but it meant that there would be barely anything left for her five children. The T’siens had been one of Singapore’s largest landowners in the 1900s, but there was only one property left now—his grandmother’s sprawling bungalow on Dalvey Road that was maybe worth thirty-five million, forty if the market ever recovered. Split five ways between her children, that meant his father would only inherit six or seven million at the most if the house was ever sold. Far, far less than what his parents were now in debt for.

For years, they had taken out loan after loan, and Oliver had spent his youth living the life of a rich man’s son, sent abroad to the best schools money could buy—from Le Rosey to Oxford. But after the Barings crash, he found himself in the unthinkable position of having to work for a living. Oliver had always existed among the world’s point-one percent crowd, and very few people understood the special hell of having to live in a world where every single person around you was staggeringly rich but you were not.

No one knew the degrees of subterfuge he took to keep up appearances for the sake of his family and career. There were the ballooning interest payments on all their bank loans. There were ten credit cards that he had to play Russian roulette with month after month. There were the mortgages on his parents’ hutong in Beijing, his flat in London, and the condo in Singapore. Last year had been the worst, when his mother had been forced to sell off the legendary T’sien jade brooch along with other family heirlooms in order to pay for unexpected medical expenses. The bills kept coming, and they were endless. And now Kitty was threatening to renege on her gargantuan decorating bills—bills he had signed off on. If he couldn’t work a miracle and get Kitty her title, he knew his whole life, his family, his career, his reputation—all would come crashing down.