“If you’ve read all my e-mails, you should know that I haven’t written a single inappropriate thing to Charlie. Not one word! He has been nothing but a good friend to me. He’s been a better friend than you could possibly ever imagine,” Astrid said, her voice cracking with emotion.

“Yes, I know you’ve been very careful in covering your tracks. But that home-wrecker Charlie hasn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s so obvious, Astrid. The guy is so crazy in love with you it’s fucking sad. All his e-mails read like pathetic love letters.”

In a flash, it occurred to Astrid that what Michael said was true. Every casual e-mail, every text message Charlie had ever written to her was a testament to his love. He had never broken his promise. Not since the day they were at Abelard and Hélo?se’s tomb in Paris. Suddenly, Astrid was flooded with a power that made her more courageous than ever. “Michael, if you don’t move away from the front door right now, I swear to God I will call the police myself!”

“Go ahead! We can both be in the fucking papers tomorrow morning!” Michael screamed.

Astrid got out her phone and dialed 999, all the while smiling calmly. “Michael, don’t you know by now that my grandmother and Uncle Alfred are the largest private shareholders of Singapore Press Holdings? We’re not going to be in the papers. We’re never going to be in the papers.”

* * *

* “This is fucking bullshit!” (Sounds so civilized in French, doesn’t it?)

16

188 TAIYUAN ROAD

SHANGHAI

“Why do I have to find out from Eleanor Young that my own daughter almost died?” Kerry Chu scolded into the phone.

“I didn’t almost die, Mom,” Rachel said, stretched out on a chaise lounge in her bedroom at the Bao residence.

“Hiyah, Eleanor said you were on your deathbed! I’m going to catch the first flight to Shanghai tomorrow!”

“You don’t need to come, Mom. I can assure you I was never in any danger, and I’m perfectly fine now.” Rachel laughed, trying to downplay it.

“Why didn’t Nick call me sooner? Why am I the last to know everything?”

“I was only in the hospital for a few days, and since I got back to normal so quickly I really didn’t see any reason to worry you. And since when have you started believing everything Eleanor tells you? Are you best buddies now?”

“We are nothing of the sort. But she calls me several times a week now, and I have no choice but to take her calls.”

“Wait a minute, why is she calling you several times a week?”

“Hiyah! Ever since she found out at the wedding that I sell houses to all the tech people in Cupertino and Palo Alto, she’s been calling me for hot tips on tech stocks. And then she keeps hassling me for news about you. Every few days she wants to know if there’s any news.”

“News about our trip?”

“No, she couldn’t care less about your trip. She wants to know if you’re pregnant, of course!”

“Oh God! Now it begins,” Rachel muttered under her breath.

“Seriously, wouldn’t it be nice to say you conceived a baby in Shanghai? I hope you and Nick have been trying very hard.”

Rachel made a sound like she was choking. “Ack! Stop, stop! I don’t want to be having this conversation with you, Mom. Please. Boundaries!”

“What do you mean, ‘boundaries’? You came out of my vagina. What kind of boundaries do we have? You are already thirty-two, and if you don’t start having your babies now, when are you going to start?”

“Duly noted, Mom. Duly noted.”

Kerry sighed. “So what happened to the girl who tried to poison you? Are they going to hang her?”

“Oh God, I have no idea. I hope not.”

“What do you mean you hope not? She tried to kill you!”

Rachel sighed. “It’s more complicated than that. I can’t really explain it all over the phone, Mom. It’s a long story, one that could only happen in China.”

“You keep forgetting I’m from China, daughter! I know much more about the country than you do,” Kerry said in annoyance.

“Of course, Mom, I didn’t mean it that way. But you just don’t know the people and the circumstances that I’ve been exposed to since getting here,” Rachel said, feeling a sadness come over her, as she thought about her encounter with Colette earlier that week.

The morning after they had returned to Shanghai, Rachel had been bombarded with voice mails from Colette: “Oh my God, Rachel, I am so, so sorry. I don’t know what to say. I just found out about Roxanne and everything. Please call me back.”

Followed very shortly by: “Rachel, where are you? Can I please see you? I called the Peninsula and they said you never checked in. Are you with the Baos? Call me back, please.”

Half an hour later: “Hi, it’s me again, Colette. Is Carlton with you? I’m really worried for him. He’s completely disappeared and not returning my calls or texts. Please call me.”

And then in the afternoon, a tearful voice message: “Rachel, I really hope and pray that you know I had NOTHING to do with this. Nothing at all. Please believe me. This is just horrible. Please let me explain.”

Nick felt strongly that Rachel should not return any of Colette’s calls. “You know, I really don’t believe that she’s as innocent as Roxanne claims. She’s ultimately responsible for what happened to you, and I’d just as soon never see or hear from her again.”

Rachel was more sympathetic. “Say what you want about her being an obscenely spoiled princess, but you can’t say she hasn’t been nice to us.”

“I just don’t want to ever see you get hurt again, that’s all,” Nick said, his brow furrowed with worry.

“I know. But I don’t believe Colette really wanted to see me hurt, and I certainly don’t think she’s going to hurt me now. I feel like I owe it to her to at least hear her out.”

At five o’clock the next afternoon, Rachel walked into the Waldorf Astoria Hotel on the Bund, tailed discreetly by two of Bao Gaoliang’s security men that Nick insisted accompany her. She made her way to the Grand Brasserie, a magnificent space framed by an elliptical mezzanine, tall marble columns that rose up to the second floor, and a stunningly landscaped interior courtyard. Colette got out of her seat and rushed toward Rachel the minute she saw her.

“I’m so glad you came! I didn’t know if you would,” Colette said, hugging her tightly.

“Of course I would,” Rachel said.

“They have a fabulous high tea here. You must try the scones—they’re just like the ones at Claridges. Now, what tea do you feel like today? I think I’ll have the Darjeeling, that’s always the best.” Colette fluttered nervously.

“I’ll have whatever you’re having,” Rachel said, trying to put her at ease. She noticed that Colette was dressed in a completely different manner than she had ever seen her—in an austerely elegant gray-and-white dress accessorized with nothing but a Maltese cross made out of old cabochon emeralds. She wore less makeup than usual, and her eyes appeared to be swollen from crying.

“Rachel, you must believe me when I say that I had no idea Roxanne was going to do what she did. It was as much a shock to me as it must have been to you. I never, ever ordered Roxanne to do anything that would harm you. Nothing at all. You believe me, don’t you? Please say you believe me.”

“I believe you,” Rachel said.

“Oh thank God. Thank God.” Colette sighed. “For a while there I thought you were going to hate me forever.”

“I could never hate you, Colette,” Rachel said gently, placing her hand over Colette’s.

Two steaming pots of tea arrived, along with a tall silver stand overflowing with daintily cut triangles of sandwiches, scones, and a decadent array of sweet confections. As Colette began piling glistening pastries and fluffy warm scones onto Rachel’s plate, she continued to explain herself.

“Roxanne was the one who came up with the idea of eavesdropping on the Baos after we left—it was all her idea. But then, when we heard their conversation, I was in shock, that’s all. All I could think of was that I had hurt Carlton, that I had made things far worse for him. And in that moment, just that one moment, I got really upset—not at you, but at the whole situation—and Roxanne misinterpreted my feelings.”

“Boy, she really misinterpreted,” Rachel remarked.

“Yes she did. Roxanne and I…we have a complicated relationship. She’s worked for me for five years now—she was an eighteenth-birthday present from my father—and she knows me inside out. Before she came to work for me, she had a miserable job at P. J. Whitney, and she’s so thankful to me, she doesn’t have anything else—I’m her whole life. She’s like that Helen Mirren character in Gosford Park, the ultimate housekeeper—she can anticipate my needs even before I know what they are, and she does things all the time that she thinks are good for me, even when I don’t ask her. But she crossed the line, she really crossed the line. I hope you know I fired her. I sent her a text message firing her the minute I found out everything.”