Page 20 of From Beijing, With Love

“Just leave it by the door,” Daniel yelled, stepping out of the bathroom with the towel wrapped around his waist. Then the Canadian in him made him add an enthusiastic, “Thanks a lot!”

Hearing nothing in return, he waited a beat before looking through the peephole. The coast was all clear. Opening the door, Daniel ducked his head out, his pruny fingers ready to snatch up the package. He had a busy itinerary of hiding in his room and doing absolutely nothing to get back to.

There was just one tiny problem: Instead of the care package, there was a human being outside his door, standing conveniently (or inconveniently) out of the view of the peephole. Daniel was either hallucinating or he was unknowingly super racist, because the man leaning against the wall looked a whole lot like Yang.

“I don’t think that’s the right outfit for our tour,” Yang said in that sardonic yet polite way that brought Daniel right back to the Great Wall. Something warm spread over Daniel at the sound of that voice until he heard, really heard, Yang’s words.

“Come again?” Daniel asked. The full-body chills he got from hearing the word tour come out of Yang’s mouth chased away any warmth he felt. Then he arrived at a horrible realization.

Yang (the tour with Yang, more precisely) was the care package Poppy had sent him.

Daniel was never going to go back home to Amsterdam, because he was going to murder his best friend and spend the rest of his life in a Chinese jail. And it’d be worth it.

“When the tour company messaged me, I assumed you had booked the tour.” Yang averted his gaze, looking everywhere but at Daniel.

That was when Daniel remembered he was half naked.

“Sorry, it’s Poppy again …” Daniel trailed off. This excuse was getting old, even to him.

“That’s … nice of her,” Yang said, a hint of color on his tanned face. “I should go. You are busy, clearly.”

“No, don’t. I’ll go,” Daniel rushed to say. He had an urge to take Yang’s hand like he had on the first day they met, but he kind of needed both of his hands at the moment—one to hold the door open, the other one to hold up the towel. “Where are we actually going?”

“The tour is for Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.” Yang cleared his throat and briefly met Daniel’s eyes. “We can walk there if you want. It’s just half an hour away. If you don’t like the car.”

“I love cars,” Daniel lied, for no good reason at all.

“Really,” Yang said, one brow arched. He let the professional facade slip just a little. “I can make that happen. The car’s parked downstairs. But at this hour, with the traffic, it’ll be …” He scrunched his brows as if doing a mental calculation. “Two, three hours? You know how the Beijing roads are.”

If it weren’t for that infuriating smile on Yang’s lips, Daniel would have believed him. “Fine. Fine. You win. Give me ten minutes.” Daniel thought about it. “Twenty, tops.”

“I’ll wait here.” Yang leaned against the wall like someone settling in for the long haul.

“Or you could, like, come in,” Daniel said. He might have been overly optimistic about the twenty-minute promise, and it seemed rude to keep Yang standing in the hallway.

Overpromise and Underdeliver—the title of his memoir. At least it wasn’t the title of his sex tape.

“I, uh—I’d rather not,” Yang said, but in the way of someone turning down dessert.

“Well, suit yourself. I’ll try to be quick. Won’t take long at all.” Daniel held the door open.

Yang made a show of rolling his eyes before he followed Daniel into the room.

CHAPTER NINEYang

The interior of Daniel’s hotel room carried the same modern, glass-castle aesthetic as the lobby—minimalist furniture and floor-to-ceiling windows. The only comfortable-looking part of the whole room was the king-sized bed, its bedding still rumpled.

Yang sat at the curved glass desk and stared at his phone, lest his eyes wander. He refreshed his inbox. After he’d sent out the revised draft—with all the information, thanks in large part to Daniel—there had been nothing but silence from his adviser. With his agenda freed for the rest of the week, he’d actually been excited when he received the tour request.

It shouldn’t have made a difference that Daniel wasn’t the one who’d made the booking, but it did.

“I promise to be fast.” Daniel stood in front of the closet in nothing but a pair of shorts. Yang’s eyes trailed along the planes of Daniel’s back, across the smattering of freckles that dotted his shoulders. This wasn’t any better than when he was in just a towel.

Yang walked to the wall of windows overlooking the busy shopping street with department stores galore. “The blinds are open.”

“I’m used to it. That’s the Dutch way. Curtains always open.” Daniel picked up a white T-shirt from the neatly folded stack on the shelf, considering it before putting it back.

“That cannot possibly be.” Yang raised his brows. The idea wasn’t just bizarre; it was unthinkable in China.