Кевин Кван - China Rich Girlfriend

“Well, you can stare at your car if you want to,” Carlton said, touching the screen on his iPad mini. The wall instantly became transparent again, but this time, special spotlights and mood lighting in the garage made her twelve-year-old Jaguar look like it was a museum showpiece. Eleanor was secretly relieved that her driver, Ahmad, had polished the car the day before.

“Imagine how gorgeous a chrome-colored Lamborghini Aventador would look sitting in there,” Carlton said, shooting his mother a hopeful look.

“You are not getting behind the wheel of another sports car,” Shaoyen said in a huff.

“We’ll see about that,” Carlton muttered under his breath, shooting Eleanor a conspiratorial look. Eleanor smiled back at him, thinking how utterly transformed he seemed. For the first few weeks after he had been moved to Singapore for his rehabilitation, Carlton seemed totally catatonic, barely making eye contact or saying a word to her. But today, the young man in the wheelchair was talking, even joking with her. Maybe they had put him on Zoloft or something.

Shaoyen steered Eleanor into the formal sitting room, an aggressively modern space with floor-to-ceiling windows and backlit onyx walls. A Mainland Chinese maid entered carrying a tray groaning with an elaborate Flora Danica tea service that Eleanor privately judged incongruous with the rest of the decor.

“Come, come, have some tea. You are so nice to spend time with us on New Year’s Eve when you should be with your husband,” Shaoyen said graciously.

“Well, Philip doesn’t arrive until late tonight. Our family doesn’t celebrate New Year’s until tomorrow. Speaking of husbands, is Gaoliang around?”

“You just missed him. He had to fly back to Beijing. There are so many official functions he has to attend over the next few days.”

“How unfortunate. Well, you’ll have to save some of these for him,” Eleanor said as she handed Shaoyen a large plastic OG shopping bag. *1

“Oh, you really shouldn’t have!” Shaoyen reached into the bag and began to take out half a dozen different containers. “Now, what are all these delicious-looking confections?”

“Just some traditional New Year goodies made by my mother-in-law’s cooks. Pineapple tarts, love letters, almond cookies, and assorted nyonya cakes.”

“This is so nice of you. Xiè xie! *2Wait a minute, I have something for you,” Shaoyen said, scurrying off to another room.

Carlton eyed the desserts. “Awfully nice of you to bring all these treats, Mrs. Young. Which one should we try first?”

“I would start with something not too sweet, like the kueh bangkit almond cookies, and work your way up to the pineapple tarts,” Eleanor advised. She studied Carlton’s face for a moment. The scar on his left cheek was just a faint hairline now, and it actually added a dash of roguish charm to his boringly perfect cheekbones. He was a handsome young chap, and even after all the reconstructive surgery still resembled Rachel Chu so closely that it was rather disconcerting to look at him at times. Thankfully, his posh English accent, which reminded her so much of Nicky’s, was much more attractive than Rachel’s absurd American drawl.

“Mind if I share a secret with you, Mrs. Young?” Carlton suddenly whispered.

“Of course,” Eleanor said.

Carlton peered over at the hallway for a moment to see if his mother was approaching, and then, slowly, he lifted himself up from the wheelchair and took a few tentative steps.

“You’re walking now!” Eleanor exclaimed in astonishment.

“Shhhhh! Not so loud!” Carlton said, sitting down in his wheelchair again. “I don’t want my mother to see this until I can walk clear across the room. My PT thinks I’ll be walking normally again within a month, and running by this summer.”

“Oh my goodness! I’m so happy for you,” Eleanor said.

Shaoyen reentered the room. “What’s all the excitement? Did Carlton tell you about his mazi coming to visit?”

“Noooo?” Eleanor replied, her interest piqued.

“She’s not my girlfriend, Mother,” Carlton said.

“Okay, Carlton’s friend is coming to visit us next week,” Shaoyen clarified.

Carlton let out an embarrassed groan.

“ Aiyah , Carlton is so handsome and so smart, of course he would have a friend ! Too bad, I had so many eligible pretty girls lined up to gaai siu ,” *3Eleanor said mischievously.

Carlton blushed a little. “Do you like the view, Mrs. Young?” he said, trying to change the subject.

“Yes, it’s very nice. You know, you can see my apartment from here,” Eleanor said.

“Really? Which one is it?” Shaoyen said with interest, going up to the window. They had been in Singapore for three months now, and she found it a bit curious that Eleanor had never once invited them over.

“It’s the one on top of that hill over there. Do you see the tower that looks like it’s built on top of that old mansion?”

“Yes, yes!”

“Which floor are you on?” Carlton asked.

“I have the penthouse.”

“Wicked! We tried to get the penthouse here but it was already taken,” Carlton bragged.

“This is big enough, don’t you think? Don’t you have the whole floor?”

“Yes. It’s three thousand five hundred square feet, with four bedrooms.”

“My goodness, you must be paying an arm and a leg in rental fees.”

“Well, we decided to buy the place rather than pay rent on it,” Carlton said with a satisfied grin.

“Oh,” Eleanor said, surprised.

“Yes, and now that we’ve moved in, we like it so much that we’ve decided to buy the floors above and below and create a triplex—”

“No, no, we’re just thinking about it,” Shaoyen cut in quickly.

“What do you mean, Mother? We signed the contract two days ago! There’s no backing out now!”

Shaoyen pursed her lips tightly before catching herself and forcing a smile. She was obviously uncomfortable that her son had said so much.

Eleanor tried to put her at ease. “Shaoyen, I think you’ve made a very wise decision. Prices in this district will always go up. Singapore properties are becoming even more sought after than New York, London, or Hong Kong.”

“That’s exactly what I told Mother,” Carlton said.

Shaoyen said nothing, but reached over to pour a cup of tea for Eleanor.

Eleanor smiled as she took the tea, while the adding machine in her brain began to do its work. In such a prime location, this flat must easily have cost the Baos $15 million — probably more with the sky garage — and now it turns out they bought two more floors. With Eddie Cheng as their private banker, Eleanor assumed the Baos had to be loaded, but apparently she had underestimated how loaded.

Daisy Foo had been right all along. Shortly after meeting Shaoyen in London, Daisy had theorized, “I bet these Baos are richer than God. You have no idea how wealthy all these Mainlanders have become — it seems like yesterday Peter and Annabel Lee were the first Mainland billionaires, and now there are hundreds. My son tells me that China will have more billionaires than America within five years.” Mr. Wong, the trusty private investigator Lorena had connected her to, had been crisscrossing China for the last few months trying to dig up every piece of dirt on the Baos, and now Eleanor was even more anxious to read his dossier.

After Carlton and Shaoyen had made a respectable dent in the New Year desserts, Shaoyen handed a large red-and-gold shopping bag to Eleanor. “Here, just a small token for you to celebrate the holiday. Xin nian kuai le .” *4

“ Aiyah , no need lah ! What’s this?” Eleanor said, pulling out an instantly recognizable orange-and-brown-trimmed box from the shopping bag. Lifting the cover, she saw that the box contained a Hermès Birkin bag.