Nick climbed the steps to the uppermost deck of the roof terrace, trying to find a quiet spot away from the crowd below. He didn’t particularly enjoy these raucous parties, and this affair seemed even more over the top than usual—every squillionaire within private-jet flying radius was here, and there were far too many outsize egos filling up the space.

A carefully planted row of Italian cypresses started shaking fitfully behind him, and Nick could hear some guy moaning, “Baby…baby…baby ohhh!” He turned around discreetly to leave, but Richie suddenly ducked out from behind the trees, tucking his shirt back into his trousers as a girl skulked off sheepishly in the other direction.

“Oh, it’s you,” Richie said unabashedly. “You having a good time?”

“The view’s terrific,” Nick said diplomatically.

“Isn’t it? If only these stupid Parisians would allow skyscrapers to be built in their city. The views would be unbelievable, and they’d make a killing selling them. Hey, you never saw me up here, okay?”

“Of course.”

“You didn’t see that girl, okay?”

“What girl?”

Richie grinned. “You’re A-plus on my list now. Hey, I’m sorry for that mix-up downstairs, but I can see why my security wouldn’t let you up. No offense, but you don’t exactly look like you’re dressed for this crowd.”

“My apologies—we were in a park all day and fell asleep. Rachel wanted to go back to the hotel to change, but I thought this party was just going to be drinks on a rooftop. If I knew you were going to be wearing a burgundy velvet smoking jacket, we would have dressed up.”

“Rachel looks slammin’. Girls can get away with anything, but we guys have to make more of an effort, don’t we? You can only get away with dressing this casually if you’re flashing a Billionaire Wristband.”

“What’s that?”

Richie gestured to Nick’s wrist. “Your watch. I see you’re wearing a new Patek.”

“New? Actually, this watch was my grandfather’s.”*

“Nice, but you know Pateks are basically considered middle-class watches these days. It wouldn’t qualify as a Billionaire Wristband like mine. Here, check this out, my latest Richard Plumper Tourbillon,” Richie said, thrusting his wrist within several millimeters of Nick’s nose. “I’m a VIC—very important client—of Richard Plumper, and they let me buy it straight off the display at the Baselworld Watch Show. It’s not even going to be available till October.”

“Looks very impressive.”

“This Plumper’s got seventy-seven complications, and it’s made from a titanium-and-silicon compound that is spun in a centrifuge at such high speeds that it bonds on a molecular level.”

“Wow.”

“I could be wearing a T-shirt and torn jeans with my balls hanging out but still get into any of the hottest clubs or restaurants in the world just by sporting this. Every doorman and ma?tre d’ is trained to spot a Richard Plumper from a mile away, and they all know it costs more than a yacht. That’s what I mean by Billionaire Wristband, heh heh!”

“Tell me, how exactly do you read the time on that?”

“See those two little spokes with the green stars at the tips?”

Nick squinted his eyes. “I think so…”

“When those green stars align with those gears on the cable-and-pulley system, that’s how you tell the hour and the minute. The gears are actually made of unclassified experimental metals that are intended for the next generation of spy drones.”

“You don’t say.”

“Yes, the entire watch is constructed to withstand forces up to ten thousand Gs. That’s equivalent to being strapped to the outside of a rocket while it’s breaking through the earth’s outer atmosphere.”

“But if you were actually exposed to such forces, wouldn’t you be dead?”

“Heh heh! Indeed. But just knowing your watch would survive makes it worth having a Plumper, doesn’t it? Here, I’ll let you try it on.”

“I couldn’t possibly.”

Richie was momentarily distracted by a text message on his phone. “Wow, guess who just arrived? Mehmet Saban?i! That guy’s family basically owns all of Greece.”

“Turkey, actually,” Nick said almost reflexively.

“Oh, you’ve heard of him?”

“He’s one of my best friends.”

Richie looked momentarily shocked. “He is? How in the world do you know him?”

“We were at Stowe together.”

“You guys met at a ski resort?”

“Not Stowe, Vermont. Stowe—it’s a school in England.”

“Oh. I went to Harvard Business School.”

“Yes, you’ve mentioned that a number of times.”

Just then, Mehmet stepped out of the elevator and onto the terrace. Looking down at the late arrival, Richie said excitedly, “Whew—who is that spectacular babe he brought with him?”

Nick glanced down. “My God…I don’t believe it!”

? ? ?

On the main terrace, Carlton leaned against a railing alongside his Cambridge chum Harry Wentworth-Davies, surveying the scene. “You need to try these foie gras cronuts,” Harry yelled into his ear. “Better than crack cocaine. And I couldn’t believe that bloke on the telly who goes around the world terrorizing other people’s restaurants served it to me.”

“This is how Richie draws his crowd. Heaps of pretentious food and pricey booze,” Carlton said with barely veiled contempt.

“Quite right—this Romanée-Conti isn’t shabby at all,” Harry said, swirling his goblet.

“It’s a bit too obvious for me, but I will help to deplete as much of these reserves as I possibly can,” Carlton said.

“Not sure you want to get too sloshed tonight, mate,” Harry cautioned. “Shouldn’t you be in tip-top condition for the main event later?”

“Quite right. The smart thing to do would be to stop drinking now, wouldn’t it?” Carlton deliberated, before downing another glassful in several quick gulps. He scanned the crowd, recognizing most of Richie’s cronies who had gathered here. It was a wonder Colette didn’t suspect anything. He shouldn’t have come tonight. Being here—seeing everyone trying way too hard to have fun—only made him angrier, and he could feel the blood pounding in his temples. Four hours ago he was in Antwerp, and he wished he’d stayed there, or continued on to Brussels and caught the next flight back to Shanghai. Actually, what he really wanted to do was go to England, but Mr. Tin had advised him not to enter the UK for a few years. How did he ever fuck things up to this extent? To be banned from the one place where he felt like he could truly breathe?

“Colette’s looking rather spectacular,” Harry said to Carlton, eyeing her as she posed for a picture with Rachel by the pyramid of champagne glasses.

“She always does.”

“That girl she’s posing with looks rather like you.”

“That’s my sister,” Carlton replied. Rachel was the reason he had come back today. Part of him resented her for it, but he found himself strangely protective of her at the same time. He just couldn’t ditch her in Paris like that. It had been like this from the moment they met. He was all ready to hate her, this girl who had come out of nowhere and set off an atomic bomb in the midst of his family, but she had turned out to be nothing like what he had expected. She was different from all the other women in his life, and Nick was one of the few guys he could actually stand being around. What was it? he wondered. Was it that Nick had also gone to Stowe? Or was it the way Nick didn’t feel the need to vie for position with Richie like all the other party parasites here tonight?

“You never told me you had a sister,” Harry interrupted his thoughts again.

“I do. She’s quite a bit older, though.”

“You look like you could be twins. That’s the trouble with you chinks—you never bloody age.”

“We don’t for a while, but then there’s a tipping point where we go from looking twenty one night to two hundred the next morning.”

“Well, if they all look like your sister or Colette at first, sign me up. Now tell me, what’s the deal with you and Colette these days? One minute you’re on, one minute you’re off, I just can’t keep track anymore.”

“I can’t either,” Carlton said. He was so sick of the games Colette was playing. All week long, she had been dropping hints every time they passed by a jeweler. He knew that when he refused to go into Mauboussin with her on Tuesday, she had put Plan Richie into action and sent for him to come to Paris. She could be so fucking childish sometimes. As if having Richie here throwing her a party with his daddy’s dirty money was going to make him jealous.

Carlton felt Harry jabbing his ribs. “Hey, do you know that girl over there? White dress, nine o’clock.”

“Harry, someday you’re going to realize that not all Asians know each other.”

“You can’t blame me for getting excited—that’s quite possibly the fittest bird I’ve ever seen! I’m going in.”

“Race you there,” Carlton said. If Colette wanted to play games, he could play too. He gave his jacket lapel a tug, grabbed two glasses of wine from a passing server, and strode confidently across the terrace toward the girl in white. Just as he got to her, Nick suddenly cut in front of him and, to his astonishment, wrapped her in a warm embrace.

“Astrid! What the hell are you doing here?” Nick said excitedly.