Chapter 28
28
Renee felt better for the shower, cleansed and calm. After the day’s extremes of feeling, she was wrung out, too tired to be nervous about the man waiting in her living room. She pulled on black leggings, an oversized grey cable-knit jumper and her fluffiest bed socks, and went to see what he was doing.
Ket Siong wasn’t in the living room, where she’d left him nursing a barley tea. He was in her kitchen, apparently busy poking through her cabinets.
“Looking for something?” said Renee.
“I thought you might want something to eat,” said Ket Siong. He shut a cabinet door.
“And then you found out I live on Nespresso pods and Graze packets.” The pot of barley tea she’d made for Ket Siong before going off for her shower was still hot. Renee got a mug out and poured herself some. “I don’t really cook. There’s a Whole Foods nearby if you’re hungry. We could pick something up.”
“It’s OK. I’m not hungry.” Ket Siong hesitated, looking her over.
It was more of a checkup than a checkout. He said, “How are you feeling?”
Fine, Renee was about to say, automatically.
But Ket Siong had found her crouched and shivering on the ground like an injured animal, barely capable of speech. There wasn’t much point in lying at this stage.
“Better,” she said. “I’m sorry about all of that.”
Ket Siong waved the apology away. “I’m glad I found you.” He paused. “What you said earlier… I know you were upset. But you know, you aren’t stuck. It’s not too late. You can make a different choice.”
Renee stared down at her tea. She’d chosen her favourite hexagonal mug, hand-thrown in a celadon glaze by a former CSM coursemate. In it, the barley tea took on an unearthly green tint.
“The Freshview deal’s going ahead,” she said. “There’s nothing I can do to change that, now. If I hadn’t apologised to Andrew, maybe…”
Ket Siong’s eyebrows drew together. “What did you apologise to Andrew for?”
Renee told him. “I should have refused to go back with my brother. Apologising seemed like the right thing to do. But it’s not like anyone could blame Lin for me telling off Andrew. What’s the worst that could have happened to her?”
Ket Siong listened with the completeness of attention she was used to from him, his hands cupped around his own mug.
Staring at them, Renee was visited by a vivid sense-memory of him hoisting her up against the kitchen island, those long fingers digging into her thighs. Warmth flooded her cheeks.
She pushed off the counter like it had scalded her. “Shall we go sit down? I’m pretty tired.”
“Of course,” said Ket Siong, looking concerned.
He showed no sign of experiencing inconvenient horny flashbacks. She might have imagined him holding her hand all the way back to her building.
In the living room, he chose an armchair a decorous distance from the sofa where she was sitting.
“Going by what Andrew tried with you, it could have been even worse for Lin,” said Ket Siong. “You’ve been trying to win his business, but you’re still the daughter of Goh Kheng Tat. She has fewer protections. It was a good impulse, to want to shield her.”
Andrew was full of shit, obviously, but till now, Renee had not questioned one aspect of his story—that his outrageous behaviour was due to the history between them. Renee had dumped Andrew even though he’d felt entitled to her, and that was why he hadn’t gotten over it, ten years on.
It had not previously occurred to her that she was probably not the singular recipient of Andrew’s sense of entitlement, out of all the women he knew.
She sat up. “Ket Siong, you’re right. If Andrew’s willing to harass me, what’s to say he’s not doing the same thing with his staff? I don’t know why I never thought of it before. I thought it was about me, like I’m special. How self-absorbed is that?”
“You are special,” said Ket Siong.
Renee blinked.
She waited for him to make it into a joke, or change the subject, but he didn’t. He was blushing, but his gaze on her was steady.
“I thought you’d never want to speak to me again,” Renee said, after a moment. “After how I behaved.”
“You’re the one who stopped talking to me.”
“I’m sorry—”
“That’s not what I meant,” said Ket Siong. “I know I put you in a difficult position. Hearing all that, the night before your pitch… I knew how important it was to you. I made a serious accusation about someone you know, a friend of your family’s, and I expected you to just take my word for it.”
“But we’re friends,” said Renee. “You’re entitled to expect your friends to trust you.”
Ket Siong tried to suppress it, but she caught his wince. Guilt twisted in her chest.
“It was a big deal,” she said. “That you trusted me enough to tell me about Stephen. I’m not proud of how I reacted. I should have been there for you. I’m sorry I let you down.”
Renee looked down at her hands, empty now she’d put her tea on the coffee table.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said. “I don’t know how to make a different choice.”
“You’ll figure it out,” said Ket Siong. He got up and crossed the living room, sitting down next to her. “Renee.”
His voice was low and tender. Renee felt hypnotised. She couldn’t look away from him.
He reached out and touched her hair. Just the lightest brush of the fingers, but it went through Renee like a hot knife through butter. It felt like her bones were dissolving, like she might melt into the sofa.
Ket Siong was looking at her like she was something magical, like he couldn’t believe he was allowed so close.
He was going to kiss her. Renee’s heart was racing, but she felt at the same time profoundly calm, as though nothing could go wrong. Everything that had happened between them was meant to lead up to this. Every misunderstanding, every hurt, every time she’d doubted his feelings: it all fell away, insignificant, compared to the supreme importance of this one moment…
“Do you have a hair dryer?” said Ket Siong.
Renee’s eyes snapped open. “What?”
Ket Siong had that perfect little crease between his eyes that always made her want to kiss him, first there, and then on his mouth.
“It’s just,” he said apologetically. “Your hair’s wet.”
Renee had towelled her hair off till it was no longer dripping, brushed the worst of the tangles out, and bundled it up in a bun. It was true it was somewhat damp, but… “You don’t believe that stuff about leaving your hair wet? Like, it’s bad luck or you’ll get rheumatism or something?”
Ket Siong frowned. “I get headaches when my hair’s wet.”
Renee must be down bad. Ket Siong was pouting—there was really no other word for the stubborn curl of his lip—but it suited him.
“You are the most Chinese person I have ever met,” she said. She flopped back onto the sofa, glaring at the ceiling.
She was so deluded. At least Ket Siong was busy looking embarrassed over having been revealed to hold beliefs at least a generation too old for him. He probably hadn’t noticed Renee’s own embarrassment.
“I’m too tired to blow-dry my hair,” she said. “It’s not going to kill me if I let it dry by itself, this one time.”
Ket Siong muttered something unintelligible.
“What’s that?” said Renee.
Ket Siong looked at her, then away. His ears were pink.
“If you tell me where your hair dryer is,” he said, “I can do it.”
Renee moved to one of her rattan armchairs, close to a power point.
Ket Siong took up position behind her, turning her hair dryer over in his hands. “I’ve never seen one like this before.”
“It cost three hundred pounds.”
“What?”
“My hair’s important.” Renee leaned back in the chair. “No pressure.”
She wasn’t sure why she was letting Ket Siong loose on her head. She could have done it herself, or insisted on letting the air-drying process complete itself, Chinese superstitions about wet hair be damned.
But then Ket Siong touched her, running his fingers over the curve of her ear and lifting a damp coil of hair in his hand. And—well.
Ket Siong was gentle and thorough. He took his time, dividing her hair into sections and blow-drying each one separately until the strands were slipping through his fingers. His touch was almost impersonal. Almost.
By the time he was done, Renee felt drowsy and loose-limbed. She could have laid her head down on his lap and gone to sleep.
She carded her fingers through her hair. She had to admit it was nice having it dry.
“That seems to have done the job.” She yawned. “Happy now?”
Silence. Renee turned around. “Ket Siong?”
Ket Siong unplugged the hair dryer, set it down on a side table, and came to sit by her. He was looking thoughtful.
“You haven’t asked why I kept coming to Hyde Park,” he said.
Renee’s brain had been tiptoeing around that particular revelation. Getting to the park and back home meant a two-hour round trip for Ket Siong. It was a lot to take in.
“You wanted to apologise,” she said. A thought struck her. “Why didn’t you come to my building? You know where I live.”
“That would have been… I didn’t want to cross the line.”
Renee tried to suppress her grin, but from the way Ket Siong ducked his head, she wasn’t that successful. He went on:
“Apologising was part of it. But it wasn’t just that. There were some other things I wanted to talk to you about.”
Renee nodded. “About Freshview?”
“What? No.” Biting his lip, Ket Siong looked away, as though casting around for something to help him.
She realised he was nervous.
“Renee, I haven’t been honest with you,” he said. “I was trying to respect what you wanted, from—from our friendship. But when we stopped talking, I regretted not telling you how I felt.”
He paused, his eyes slipping down to the coffee table where their two mugs of tea sat, side by side.
Renee wasn’t feeling sleepy anymore. She could hear her own heartbeat, a rushing in her ears.
“I hope we will stay friends,” said Ket Siong. “But that’s not what I want from you. My feelings for you haven’t changed. I know you said you weren’t looking for anything serious. But if you’ve changed your mind about that—or if you think you might change your mind, sometime—”
“Wait, wait,” said Renee. “What do you mean, your feelings for me? What feelings?”
The colour in Ket Siong’s cheeks deepened.
“You know,” he said.
Renee’s blank stare must have made it evident that she did not, in fact, know.
Ket Siong said, “I—I’m in love with you.”
“Did I know that?” said Renee. “I don’t think I knew. You never said. I would definitely have remembered.”
Ket Siong was very red. “Wasn’t it—I thought it was obvious. Everyone else seemed to know.”
Renee’s head was spinning. “They did? Who’s everyone else?”
“My family. And…” Ket Siong cleared his throat. “Dragan.”
“Dragan?”
“Your concierge,” said Ket Siong, unnecessarily. “We talked when I left your flat last time. After the V it was too big. “I’ll buy you were interested, from that point.” In retrospect, she had to admit the signals he’d been giving since they’d run into each other at the V&A had been pretty clear. “But you can’t have liked me since uni.”
“I did. I told you, back then.”
“No, no. I told you ,” said Renee. Her recollection of that particular conversation was perfectly distinct. She’d gone over it so many times in subsequent years, trying to figure out where she’d gone wrong—what she could have done differently, to alter the outcome. “And you nodded, because you didn’t feel you could say I’d got it wrong. You told me you were my friend. That’s what you wanted from me.”
Ket Siong raised an eyebrow. “And then I kissed you.”
OK, he had a point there.
“But you changed your mind,” said Renee. “You dumped me.”
“That wasn’t because I didn’t like you,” said Ket Siong. He leaned back, his expression sombre. “I found out your father was the reason my mother lost her job. Her firm was representing Chahaya at the time. She was blocking a deal, so they fired her.”
“Shit, are you serious?” said Renee, before realising how that might come off. “Sorry, it’s not that I don’t believe you. I mean, it sounds like Dad. If somebody was holding up a deal he wanted, he wouldn’t think twice about getting them fired. But why was your mom blocking it?”
Ket Siong hesitated. “My mother found some irregularities when she was working on the transaction. She made an internal report under the firm’s anti–money laundering policy. But it wasn’t a popular move.”
“I can imagine.” Renee dug her thumbs into her temples, pushing her hair back. “So my dad told the firm to fire your mom.”
Ket Siong nodded.
Renee was remembering being in his narrow room at halls. Ket Siong saying, I have to go back, refusing to look her in the eye.
“That’s why you had to break off your studies,” she said.
He shrugged. “We were already stretched. It was better for me to go home.”
It wasn’t a denial.
“Oh my God,” said Renee. “Ket Siong, this is terrible. No wonder you resented me.”
He’d been so different, after coming back to his room. Renee could summon his expression even now, could recreate every detail. It was the way he’d flinched away from her, like he couldn’t bear to look at her, much less touch her.
Even now, the memory stung. Even with an understanding of Ket Siong’s reasons, and Ket Siong himself gazing at her with his heart in his eyes.
The change had been so complete and shocking. She’d felt like a piece of garbage, thrown aside.
“I couldn’t understand why you were acting that way,” she said. “I thought I’d made a mistake. Like I’d pushed you into it, or something.”
“No,” said Ket Siong. “I think I fell in love with you the day we met. When you sat next to me at Nathalie’s piano. Do you remember?”
Renee had asked Ket Siong to teach her the Mozart sonata he’d played for her. She remembered watching his fingers on the keys, trying to reproduce what they did, complaining when she fell short. Ket Siong had tried to help, showing her what she should do with her hands, taking her through each bar. He had been utterly charming.
“A pretty girl sitting next to you, letting you show off,” said Renee. “You never had a chance.”
“No,” Ket Siong agreed. He reached out and took her hand. “The day we first kissed… I’ve never forgotten it. What happened with your father didn’t make a difference to how I felt about you. I knew it wasn’t your fault. But I felt I owed it to my family to break things off.”
He traced the veins in Renee’s wrist with his index finger. The touch was light, barely there. Every brush of his fingertip against her skin sent a shivery thrill racing from the back of her neck down her spine.
She swallowed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Ket Siong’s finger paused, resting against the thin skin of her wrist, just over her pulse.
“I promised my brother I wouldn’t tell anyone,” he said. “I’m sorry, Renee. I know I hurt you. I didn’t feel I had a choice, at the time. I’ve always regretted it.”
His hand was large and warm. It felt right, cradling hers. Renee never wanted to let it go.
She made to disentangle their hands. Ket Siong released her, sitting back. She didn’t want to see hurt or wariness in his eyes, so she didn’t look up.
“I wish I’d known,” said Renee. “But I get it. I get why you did it.”
A thread had come loose on her jumper. She played with it, twirling the thread around her finger before letting it go.
“But what’s changed?” she said. “My dad’s still the reason your mom got fired. I don’t agree with everything he does. It’d be more accurate to say I disagree with almost everything he does. We have different values. And…” She hesitated. “I don’t think this thing with Chahaya is going to happen.”
“You don’t think he’ll choose you?”
It was hard to read Ket Siong’s tone of voice. Renee couldn’t stop herself from sneaking a look at him.
He was waiting for her answer, clear-eyed and calm. She could tell him anything, and he’d listen.
“I think my chances are pretty good,” she said. “We got the deal, and I’m still on speaking terms with my brother. I’ve done everything Dad wanted. That doesn’t mean he’ll go for me, but…” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever happens, I don’t think I want to do it.
“I don’t want to run Chahaya,” she repeated, and knew it was true. It was the first time Renee had admitted it to herself. “It’s not even about the Freshview deal. I mean, that’s what got me thinking about it. But if I took on Chahaya, I’d have to give up Virtu. I couldn’t keep running it myself. I could hire somebody else to do it, but… and I’d have to move back to Singapore. Back to dinner with the family every Sunday.”
She tipped her head back, closing her eyes. “Oh my God, you can’t imagine. There was always some stupid fight, every time. Su Beng or Su Khoon would start squabbling about Chahaya, or money, or something dumb one of them did. And I’d be right in the middle of it, this time around. No way out.”
She opened her eyes. Her artisanal light fitting twisted on the ceiling, the fluted golden-brown petals of wood casting arced shadows on the wall. Watching the shadows, she said:
“I was so blown away when Dad asked, I didn’t think it through. But it’s not what I want.”
She would have thought the admission would feel like failure. As though she was giving up, not only on all the work she’d put into the pitch, but on her relationship with her family.
At the end of the day, everything she’d done to win Chahaya had been for that. To prove she deserved a place in the family. All she’d wanted was to belong.
So much for that. She’d left Singapore and stopped talking to her family for a reason. If they didn’t love her now, as the not particularly wayward daughter whose main offence was that she’d built something of her own and didn’t mean to give it up to anyone else, they wouldn’t love her just because she was CEO of Chahaya. They’d respect her, maybe, but respect was a cold thing to walk away from a life for.
The thought was painful. But it was a relief, too. She felt like she’d put down a burden.
“But they’re my family,” said Renee. “That’s not going to change. I’m not planning to cut them off, unless they do it first.”
Ket Siong said, “I wouldn’t expect that of you.”
Renee turned her face so her cheek was resting on the back of the chair. The rattan cane was cold against her face, but it meant she could see Ket Siong. “So what makes things different now?”
“It’s been ten years,” said Ket Siong. “My mother moved on, she found a job she liked better. She’s retired now. And what happened, with Stephen… it changed things for me.” He met her eyes. “It made me realise love isn’t something to give up easily.”
This time, it was Renee who reached out. She sat up, perching on the edge of her chair, and trailed her fingers along the arcs of his eyebrows, stroking the bridge of his nose. The pad of her finger fit perfectly into the dent above his upper lip.
He was very still, watching her. Renee traced the shape of his mouth, memorising it as though they were going to test her later.
Ket Siong’s breathing was harsh. She could feel him trembling under her touch. She leaned over and pressed her lips to his mouth.
The kiss started out gentle, almost chaste, but it didn’t stay chaste for long. She wasn’t sure if he pulled her towards him, or if she clambered on top of him, but she ended up sprawled across his lap as they kissed. Long, languorous kisses, stealing her breath, Ket Siong’s chest moving rapidly under her.
There was something she should say. Renee pulled back so she could remember what it was, giving Ket Siong a little push when he tried to follow her.
“I like you, too,” she said. “By the way.”
Ket Siong’s smile spread across his face like sunlight. He ducked his head and then he was dropping delicate kisses along her neck, tracing a line down to the place where it joined her shoulder, his hands stroking warmth down her back.
Renee said against his hair, “Do you want to move to the bedroom?”
Ket Siong nodded. He slid an arm under her knees, the other around her back, and stood up, surprising a squeak out of her.
“Sweeping me off my feet,” said Renee, laughing.
Ket Siong pressed a dreamy kiss to the shell of her ear. A shock of sensation zinged through her, earthing between her thighs. She pressed them together and turned her face to his shoulder, found his collarbone, and bit down.
It occurred to her a moment later that possibly she shouldn’t distract him while he was bearing her full weight. But Ket Siong only shivered a little and carried on, through the hallway and into the bedroom. He laid her on the bed carefully, as if she was something precious, before drawing back.
“What is it?” said Renee, with a twinge of apprehension.
The expression in Ket Siong’s eyes reassured her.
“Just looking at you,” he said.
“Come here,” said Renee, pulling him down.
There was a lot of kissing before anything else happened. Ket Siong didn’t seem to be in a rush, which was nice, but after a while Renee started getting impatient. She managed to get his hoodie off and the T-shirt underneath. But when she got to work unbuttoning his jeans, he wriggled out of her grasp, pulled off her leggings and underwear, and tossed them over the side of the bed.
She made a noise of protest. Ket Siong looked intent, engrossed in what he was doing. His big warm hands holding her thighs open, he lowered his head and licked her.
Renee forgot about complaining. She fisted her hand in his hair, thrilling when he groaned against her, and gave herself up to pleasure.
She might have been a little noisy when she came. Ket Siong certainly looked smug when he hauled himself up the bed. He didn’t seem sure if she would want to kiss him. Renee kissed him a few times to put that beyond doubt, tasting herself on his lips.
“I want you inside me,” she said, and felt his cock jerk against her thigh. “There are condoms in the bedside cabinet. In the bottom drawer.”
“OK,” said Ket Siong breathlessly.
So then they did that. And it was good. It was very good.
Ket Siong was a postcoital cuddler. Renee had forgotten that about him.
“We should have dinner,” she said. “Do you want to order in?”
Ket Siong murmured something contented and indecipherable into the back of her neck.
“Can I ask you a question?” said Renee.
“Hmm?”
“What was up with this woman you had a coffee with?”
Ket Siong didn’t react to this particularly. Renee would have been able to tell—they were touching all along the length of their bodies. Any tension in him would have communicated itself to her.
“What woman?” he said sleepily.
“You know, when Nathalie ran into you at Foyles. She got worried because you didn’t mention you were having coffee with someone when she asked what you were doing there.”
That did get a reaction. Ket Siong stiffened—not in a good way. Renee turned, wriggling away a little so she could get a proper look at him.
His eyes were open. He was frowning. “Was Nathalie spying on me?”
“She just happened to be there,” said Renee. “But for the record, she absolutely would spy on you. Nathalie’s hated you ever since you broke my heart. She made me burn your pictures.”
“Really?”
“She thought I needed to move on,” said Renee. “I had a hard time getting over you.”
Ket Siong’s eyes softened. He brushed Renee’s hair back, tucking a lock behind her ear. “It was Low Teck Wee’s daughter. The woman I was meeting. I was trying to find out about Stephen.”
“ Oh, ” said Renee. “Is that how you found him?”
Ket Siong shook his head. “It was through a journalist. Helen Daley. She writes a blog called—”
“The Hornbill Gazette .” At Ket Siong’s look, Renee said, “I told you, I did some research. Is she writing an article about Freshview?”
“Er…”
“It’s OK, you don’t need to answer that. You’re really bad at lying, by the way,” she added, kissing him on the chin. “It’s cute. Can you put me in touch with her? Just to talk.”
Ket Siong was looking like he couldn’t decide whether to be miffed or not. “Talk about?”
“Business,” said Renee. She was buzzing with energy, the beginnings of a plan coalescing in her head. “You told me I’d figure it out, and I think I have.”
She rolled over onto Ket Siong, pushing him onto his back, and kissed him. Partly because it was thanks to him she’d had her idea, but mostly because she could. His mouth opened under hers. She nipped his bottom lip, licking it to soothe the sting. Ket Siong hummed deep inside his throat, sliding a hand up the back of her thigh.
Renee had been starting to feel a little peckish, but she decided she wasn’t that hungry—not for food, at least.
For once, Ket Siong didn’t seem inclined to worry about her food intake. She wasn’t about to remind him. Dinner could wait.