Chapter 1
The first person to notice me at the engagement party was the photographer.
He lifted his camera, then lowered it. "Sorry, ma'am. Staff entrance is around the back."
I looked down at my dress. Rent from a friend. Forty dollars. Stained at the hem.
"I'm not staff," I said. "I'm Lu Pei's guest."
The laughter started small.
It grew when Ning Jiao walked in on Lu Pei's arm. My best friend. The woman I'd lent my last two hundred dollars to three months ago, because her "landlord" had locked her out.
She wore a diamond necklace.
The same necklace I'd stared at through a shop window for two years, because Lu Pei had said, "One day, baby. When the company takes off."
Ning Jiao's hand drifted to her stomach. Not by accident. The cameras caught it.
"Everyone," Lu Pei said, raising his glass, "I have an announcement."
He looked right at me.
"My fiancée is pregnant."
The room erupted. Someone whispered, "But isn't she the friend Jiang Yao always brought around?"
Another voice: "Jiang Yao? The one who's been supporting him for seven years?"
They were loud on purpose. They wanted me to hear.
Lu Pei walked through the crowd toward me. He didn't stop until he was close enough that only I could hear.
"You came," he said. "Good. Saves me the trip."
He took an envelope from his jacket and pressed it into my hand.
"Five thousand. For seven years. Call it even."
The paper was thick. Crisp. He'd had it printed.
I opened it. Inside was a check. And a handwritten note: Don't make a scene. Ning Jiao is sensitive. The doctor says stress is bad for the baby.
Seven years.
I'd spent them washing dishes at a diner after castings to pay his server bills. I'd slept on his office floor when he couldn't afford rent. I'd told my own father—my father, who owned more office buildings in this city than Lu Pei's company would ever be worth—that "Lu Pei is a self-made man. I don't want him to think I'm a gold digger."
I looked up at Lu Pei.
He was watching me with the careful face of a man who expected tears. Who wanted tears. Who had probably told Ning Jiao an hour ago, "She'll probably cry. Don't worry, I'll handle her."
I smiled.
"Five thousand," I said. "You're gonna want to keep that check, Lu Pei."
His brow twitched. "What's that supposed to mean?"
I didn't answer.
Because at the door, the whole party went quiet.
A man in a perfectly tailored black suit walked in. No invitation. No announcement. The maître d' hurried after him, panicking, trying to stop him. He didn't even look at the man.
He looked at me.
"Miss Jiang," he said. His voice was quiet, but the room went quieter. "Your father's car is outside."
Lu Pei laughed. Nervous. "Your father? Since when does your father send men who look like that?"
The visitor's eyes cut to Lu Pei. Cold. Dispassionate.
"Mr. Wen has been waiting for Miss Jiang in the car for twenty minutes," he said. "He asked me to remind you, Miss Jiang, that the board meeting cannot be rescheduled."
Board meeting.
I watched it land on Lu Pei's face. Watched him do the math. Watched Ning Jiao's hand freeze halfway to her glass.
I picked up my coat.
I looked at Lu Pei. At the envelope still in his hand. At the diamond necklace on the woman who'd been my best friend three months ago.
"Keep the five thousand," I said. "You're going to need it."
Then I walked out.
The paparazzi were already outside. Someone had tipped them off. Cameras flashed as I climbed into the back of a black Rolls-Royce idling at the curb.
Inside, Wen Xijin—my father's driver, my bodyguard, the man I'd known for six years but never really looked at—set down his tablet.
"Heard the speech," he said. "Should I call the bank and pull his line of credit tonight, or wait until morning?"
I leaned my head back. Closed my eyes.
"Tonight," I said. "He should wake up tomorrow to an empty account."
