“I’ll have my assistant send you the details of the contract tonight, if you’re interested,” Long Ge tells her.
“That would be fabulous—”
“Mom,” I try again, the panic closing in around me like a physical force, as if the air has turned solid. “Seriously, I really need to talk—”
She ignores me. “I’ll have my team look over it.”
“If you have any questions, we could always discuss it in greater depth over dinner,” Long Ge says, extending a hand, and all I can see is him in the vision, the flames licking the sky.
My mom reaches out to shake it, but I grab her arm. Pull her back.
“Oh my god, Mom, please,” I whisper. “Stop talking to him. You don’t know what he wants.”
She whips toward me, her eyes wide with incredulity. “What is going on with you?” she hisses under her breath. “You’re acting very rude, Chanel. He’s an old classmate of mine, and he’s been extremely sympathetic and supportive after hearing the news—”
“He’s dangerous,” I blurt out. “He... he’sobsessedwith you.”
My words are met with a terrible silence.
In the background, conversations are still flowing, more wine poured into fancy glasses, the appetizers being passed from tray to tray: crystal bowls of sweetened red bean congee and platters of iced fruits—peeled longans from Guangxi, sliced dragon fruit from Hainan, glistening purple grapes from Australia.
But the silence seems to spread and congeal, until the whole room feels suspended in motion, amplifying the loud, ragged beat of my heart. Long Ge’s expression appears frozen in a maskof polite confusion, but something dark shifts in his eyes as he appraises me. A look so chilling that I actually stumble back a step, my fingers trembling so hard I drop the phone in my hand.
It falls with a loud clatter to the hardwood floor, and before I can move, Long Ge bends down calmly to pick it up.
“Here you go,” he says, his voice still perfectly amiable. But as he starts handing my phone over, he glances at the lock screen, the photo of Ares glowing over it. It’s the photo I’d taken of him at the tattoo parlor, zoomed in to his collarbones and the arm he has propped up on one knee, the ring glinting on his thumb. For a second, recognition flickers over Long Ge’s face.
I think back to the dragon symbol carved into the office door at the fight club. Is Long Ge the reason why Ares has been fighting there the whole time? And just how well does Long Ge know Ares?
“What are you talking about?” my mom demands. “You’ve never even met Long Zong before.”
“No,” I say. Shake my head, frustration choking off the very air in my lungs. I don’t have enough time to explain, can’t find the right words to. “I mean... please, you have to trust me—”
“I think your daughter has confused me with someone else,” Long Ge says gently. “We certainly have not met before. I understand, I have one of those faces, you know. Happens all the time.” He lets out a generous laugh, and my mom joins in, though the sound is strained.
I stare between them. Suddenly I can see this moment playing out like I’m a bystander: Long Ge, the successful, dignified businessman, a trusted old classmate, with his pressed suit andexpensive watch and cheerful, patient manner. And me, the spoiled daughter, volatile, impulsive, impossible to reason with. Two adults in a world of their own, while I’m just a kid throwing a tantrum. I can’t convince my mom to steer clear of him, not without evidence, and I can’t provide any evidence without telling her about the vision—and why would she believe me?
It feels like the ground is turning to quicksand beneath my feet. Desperate, I twist around before I can sink completely to the bottom. My heels click against the marble, my hair flowing behind me, my breathing tight and shallow and too loud in my ears. I walk so fast I almost crash into one of the waitresses, who tries to offer me congee.
Behind me, I hear my mom’s voice over the crowd, sweet and apologetic: “I’msosorry about her. I have no idea what that was—”
“No, I get it. Teenagers—they can be very emotional, can’t they?”
“I don’t remember us being quite so dramatic when we were younger.”
“Ah, who knows what the new generation is thinking, hmm? Though you’re still very young. If I hadn’t known you all those years ago, I would’ve confused you for a teenager.”
“Please, you flatter me.”
Their laughter chases me all the way out the door.
22
Ares
As Ares inches forward in the bakery line, he mentally lists out all the reasons why he should not fall for Chanel Cao.
One: She can be incredibly vain.Although he supposes that any girl who looked like her and had hundreds of dedicated fan accountswouldbe at least a little vain. And can he really blame her for often staring at her own reflection, when even hefinds it hard to stop staring at her sometimes? But never mind that.
