Chapter 12
12
Renee insisted on going straight to Jason’s hotel room, so he could surrender his devices to her there and then. She had no intention of letting him go off to screw a counteroffer out of Su Khoon.
Jason resisted, until Ket Siong got involved. He didn’t do anything—just loomed, with an uncharacteristic lack of respect for Jason’s personal space. But Jason caved with remarkable rapidity. Renee had a feeling he wouldn’t be going out without his security detail again.
They all went to the hotel together, the whole posse packed into a black cab, Jason’s girl included. She looked pale and abashed.
If Renee had had any spare emotional bandwidth, she might have felt sorry for the girl. She’d set out that morning, the lead in a rom-com with a hot celebrity love interest, only to end the day playing a bit part in a tawdry melodrama.
Renee might have been embarrassed about dragging Nathalie and Ket Siong into the affair, too. Well, maybe not Nathalie. Nathalie wouldn’t have been anywhere else for the world. She was making the most of her ability to beam rays of hatred at Jason while sitting opposite him in the cab. He was visibly wilting under the pressure.
Ket Siong, though… helpful as he’d been, Renee would happily have done without him. He was sitting in the passenger seat next to the driver, so she couldn’t watch him and obsess about what he must be thinking.
She’d freak out about that later. For now, she couldn’t find it in herself to worry about anything except wrapping up this hideous business.
The scouring quality of Nathalie’s scrutiny seemed to put Jason in a penitent mood. When they arrived at the hotel, he dropped back from the group. Renee paid the cabbie, so she was lagging a little behind everyone else.
“Today was the first time I met Cherry in person,” Jason said abruptly. He glanced at the others, his gaze skipping over his new girlfriend to rest on Ket Siong and Nathalie. He seemed unsure which of the two terrified him more.
“I never cheated on you with her,” he went on. “I know you think I’m the scum of the earth, Renee, but you can trust me on that. When we were together, I was all in.”
There must be something incurably honest about Jason, after all; his phrasing was so revealing. Renee hadn’t seen him “in person” in months when she sent him those accursed photos of herself. As for that telling “never cheated on you with her ”…
“I really cared about you,” said Jason. “But you and Virtu… it was like you were married to your business. We were never going to come first.”
“I believe you,” said Renee wearily, because it was less effort than explaining she didn’t give a shit anymore.
She waited till he moved away to take out her phone and schedule a reminder to herself to get tested for STDs. They’d been safe the last time they slept together, but who the hell knew anymore?
The operation went off without a hitch. Jason didn’t even get Renee’s phone off her, though he tried.
“I’m not the one who was auctioning off nudes,” Renee said. “You can tell me when your people want to come over and go through my devices, and we can set something up. You are not invited,” she added.
It was afternoon by the time she, Nathalie, and Ket Siong emerged from the hotel. The longer they’d been in Jason’s room, the less abashed and the more thunderous Cherry had looked. It was clear Jason’s day of mortifications was far from over.
This would no doubt be gratifying some other time. Renee should probably be feeling triumphant, or violated, or something . But she was blank as a stone. All she wanted was to crawl into bed and sleep for a thousand years.
She started saying to the others, “Sorry about all of that. You guys will be wanting to get home.”
But a wave of dizziness passed over her. She stumbled. Ket Siong caught her by the arm.
Nathalie said, “You need to have lunch. I cancelled the reservation at Roka—the Aldwych branch is closing soon anyway—but Mayfair’s open. How about it?” She held her phone up to show them the location of the restaurant on Google Maps. “It’s not far. Ten-minute walk, at most.”
Renee was aware of Ket Siong’s gaze on her. He said, “Do you feel up to it?”
“I can do a ten-minute walk,” said Renee, with dignity. Ket Siong nodded, letting go of her arm.
She found herself regretting the loss of his warmth. Maybe she should have toned it down with the dignity.
The walk to the restaurant and the wait for a table felt interminable. Exhaustion weighed Renee down.
She should have insisted on going home. She wasn’t hungry, and she was hardly going to be good company.
But that didn’t seem to bother Nathalie and Ket Siong. They chatted quietly together, as though there had never been any animus between them. Neither made any effort to involve Renee in the conversation, or asked her questions, save to check that the menu they chose was fine with her. She might not have been there, for all the overt attention they gave her.
It wasn’t how Renee had imagined this day might go. She’d been prepared to be the social linchpin, mediating between Nathalie and Ket Siong.
It took her a little while to understand that she was being looked after. It was a novel experience. She sank into it gratefully, if a little dubiously, like someone lowering themselves to a rickety chair they weren’t sure could bear their weight.
She felt much more human once she’d got some black cod and green tea down her. Renee found herself telling them everything—Su Khoon’s appearance at her office, his threats, her attempt to contact Jason.
Ket Siong listened with that stillness she’d never encountered in anyone else—a completeness of focus that was both soothing and a little unnerving.
Nathalie managed to contain herself while Renee was speaking, but she turned puce from the effort. Renee finally stopped because she was a little worried Nathalie might explode if she didn’t get to express herself.
“That douchebag!” Nathalie burst out. “I always hated that motherfucker.”
“Do you mean my brother, or Jason?” said Renee.
“Both of them,” said Nathalie. “But especially Jason. No, especially your brother. Oh, I don’t know who I hate more. I shouldn’t have given up smoking. If I had a lighter, I could have set fire to that shit’s hotel room.”
It was a little funny how differently she and Ket Siong were taking it. Ket Siong’s head was bowed. He was curling his right hand into a fist and uncurling it, over and over.
But when he looked up, his gaze was steady. He said, “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” tried Renee. Then, because if she didn’t say it, Nathalie would: “Not really. No.”
“I’m sorry,” said Ket Siong.
“It’s fine,” said Renee, though it wasn’t. She looked down at her plate, tears filling her eyes. She cleared her throat and said, “What are Thomas and Jeroen up to today?”
Nathalie told them, transitioning from there to general anecdotes about her son. Renee was used to people being tedious about their children, but Nathalie, of course, was not like that. Laughing over a photo of the destruction Thomas had wrought with Nathalie’s makeup stash, Renee suddenly realised she hadn’t thought about Jason once in the past half hour.
Ket Siong said very little during the meal. He mostly looked, mostly at her.
It was comforting. Renee was not prepared to think about what any of this meant.
Nathalie was not standing for such wilful obliviousness. After they settled the bill (Nathalie won the fight), she said she’d wait with Renee for her Uber. The moment Ket Siong’s tall figure disappeared down the street, Nathalie said to Renee:
“What is going on with that guy? He acts like he’s crazy about you back at uni and then you make out and he dumps you. Now he turns up and acts like he’s crazy about you again.”
She’d evidently been mulling on the problem throughout lunch and was desperate to hash it out. “I was thinking, do you think he has a split personality? Maybe it was Hyde who was into you, but Jekyll who broke up with you. No, Hyde was the evil one. I mean, Jekyll who was into you, but Hyde…”
“I know what you mean,” said Renee. “Ket Siong’s just a friend.”
“That is fake, though. You and Ket have made it up between you,” said Nathalie. “I thought he wanted to sleep with you and that was why. But now I have seen you together and I see I got it wrong. Obviously, he wants to marry you. What I don’t understand is why he didn’t go for it back then.”
“I don’t really want to—”
“Maybe it’s something to do with the family?” Nathalie chewed her lip, her brow furrowed. “But what could they even find to disapprove of? You are hot, you are successful, you are smart, you are even nice. It is the whole package. Are they racist against Singaporeans? Is that a thing?”
“ Nathalie, ” said Renee.
There must have been a note in her voice that warned Nathalie to lay off. She looked Renee in the face and went quiet.
Renee wasn’t sure she’d be able to explain without embarrassing herself again. She was already maxed out on humiliation after the morning’s shenanigans. But she owed Nathalie—for this day, and every other time Nathalie had come through for her.
“It meant a lot,” Renee said, with difficulty. “Having you and Ket Siong with me today. Having your support. That’s what I need right now. I need him to be a friend. Not a complication.”
Not someone she’d be tempted to trust too much, who would become a vulnerability her family could exploit. That was all love had ever been for her.
But a lump had risen in her throat, preventing her from saying any more. Renee swallowed.
Nathalie got it, anyway.
“OK,” she said. “OK.” She put her arms around Renee. “I’m sorry.”
After a moment, Renee relaxed into the hug. She buried her face in Nathalie’s shoulder.
“Is that a new scent?” she said. “What happened to Chanel No. 5?”
Nathalie had already had a signature scent by the time Renee met her, at the advanced age of twenty-one. Renee remembered how impossibly cool she’d seemed then. That was one thing that hadn’t changed.
“I’m branching out,” said Nathalie. “This one’s Citrus Noir by Molinard. Notes of calamansi and incense.”
“It’s nice,” mumbled Renee. “You smell nice.”
They started laughing and broke apart, wiping their eyes, and then Renee’s Uber came, so that was where they left it.