25 Adam
25 Adam
H ? i An, Vi ? t Nam
“Adam.” A light slap on the cheek. “Adam Quy ? n.”
He mumbles and turns in his sleep. It doesn’t feel like his bed, but he’s very, very comfortable. As in, he could sleep for
at least another day. Why would he leave this place?
He grumbles, “Not yet.”
“B ? o. You have morning wood, and your father is here.”
At that his eyes finally fly open. They dart around the room, taking in the shelves, the faint crack of daylight under the
door, a semi-dressed Evie with laughing eyes, hands on her hips as she watches him struggle to sit up in the very comfortable armchair that he is now glad he bought.
“Liar,” he says, his voice groggy.
“A little bit. But people will be waking soon, and we have to get back to our rooms before they see us.”
In a few strides, he’s next to her, pulling on her wrist so she swirls back into his arms. He plants a kiss on her lips, watching
her eyes widen in surprise, then close to meet his kiss. So she feels it too. This thing between them has changed. And he
likes it. His hand cups the back of her neck and she leans her head into it, blinking into his face. So beautiful.
“Who cares?” he murmurs into her lips.
She laughs. “Well, not me. But I think it might be better for us to maintain some decorum. In public at least.”
“We’re not going out in public again,” he says, a little imperiously. “We’re just going to stay right here and get our meals delivered and make love until the world ends. That okay with you?”
She melts for a second, and then gathers herself. “I’ve got to go, you Neanderthal. I have a roommate with questions. You
have a tour group to host.”
“More lies.”
“I will see you later today.”
She blows a kiss and sashays out the door. He groans as he pulls on his clothes and attempts to straighten his hair. Tries
not to think of the mind-blowing sex from last night. The sight of her ass, offered up to him. Her lips on his cock. The sweet,
addictive taste of her. Damn, his hard-on is growing again.
There’s a knock on his door and, fully dressed but happily aroused, he opens it with a grin. “Coming back for—”
But it’s not Evie at all. B?ng, the family housekeeper who’s been around for decades, gazes around the room with suspicion.
Eyes him like he has something to hide. For all he knows, she could have one of those tiny surveillance cameras in her uptight
bun.
“I saw MissLang come out. Is everything all right, B ? o?” she asks.
He clears his throat. “I was just... discussing the tour with her. She had a complaint we needed to resolve.”
“At six in the morning?” she asks doubtfully.
Goddammit. He tightens his mouth and says, “Customer service is what we’re all about. Can I help you with anything else?”
She shakes her head suspiciously as he gives a small bow and exits the room. Great, just great. B?ng has always been in his
father’s pocket. When he was a kid, she’d report back to his father about any minor infraction, glowering in the corner as
he or Ruby got punished. They joked that B?ng got a bonus every time she uncovered some new mischief from the siblings. Of
all people to find him and Evie, he would not have chosen her .
But as he stalks to his room, he puts it out of his head. After all, what can he do now? Furthermore, what can anyone do about his relationship with Evie? He’s an adult. If he wants to be with her—in any way they choose—he will. No one would dare say a damn word.
“Ba wants to see you in his office,” Ruby says, just as Adam is about to put a bite of breakfast into his mouth.
She’s casting a shadow on his table, where he’s drinking a cà phê and eyeing his plate of x?i m ? n—the cook’s sticky rice specialty, threaded with egg ribbons and jeweled cubes of Chinese-style sausage. Turns out: midnight
lovemaking works up an appetite. He’s ravenous. Adam has gone back for seconds and thirds on the breakfast buffet spread,
surreptitiously eyeing the dining room entrance for signs of Evie.
“What are you, a messenger pigeon? Tell him to come see me himself.” His own words shock him. One does not typically ignore
a summons from the elder Quy ? n. Not if they choose to remain under his roof and in his good graces.
“He looks very annoyed , BB.”
“Just another day in his sad life, then.”
Ruby sits heavily across from him. “I would give anything for a cigarette.”
“What’s stopping you?”
She doesn’t answer, but there’s a bleakness to her expression. She picks up his coffee cup and takes a long sip. He doesn’t
protest. Today, she’s wearing a pin-striped vest on top of black trousers, but her hair is askew. And she’s not wearing makeup.
On any other woman, none of these things would signal anything. But for Ruby, it means that her mind is occupied. Unsettled.
“Everything okay, Ch ? ?” he asks, careful not to meet her eye. Ruby does not do well with confrontation or even the perception of it.
She drums a nail on the table. “Do you ever think we’ve wasted our whole lives? It feels like I’m on a speeding train, and
I have no idea where it’s going. I just hopped on because it was moving and because I thought I should be moving with it.
And now...”
“Yeah?”
“Now I think it’s far too late to get off.”
Adam puzzles over this. Does Ruby mean the company? Her marriage? Their family? Theirs was not a relationship where metaphor
substituted for logic. Her pensiveness is new and troubling. A disruption in his sister’s usually sturdy stronghold—one he’d
relied on.
“Well, why can’t you?” He tries for gentleness. “If you’re unhappy, I support you in any change you want to make.”
“It’s easy for you to say, BB. You receive half the pressure I do.”
“Half? Really?” Bitterness coats his words. It’s impossible for them just to be together in something. Ruby always insists
hers is the greater burden. How to create a relationship with someone who’s playing the trauma competition game?
Her gaze snaps to him, and suddenly, her expression shutters. “Go on. Ba gets angrier the longer he seethes. Might as well
get it over with.”
His father’s office—the site of many a scolding, many a session of unsolicited advice—is on the top floor of the main house.
Inside, the polished wood gleams. Instead of books on shelves, rows of filing cabinets line the room, all organized pristinely.
Ba’s desk takes up most of the width of the room. And Ba himself sits in a high-backed swiveling chair, his fingertips steepled
above his lips.
“You asked for me?” Adam says.
Usually, his father prefers his guests to stand until invited to sit, but Adam isn’t having any of it. He settles onto the
vastly more uncomfortable chair on the opposite side of the desk, picking up a glass paperweight of Vi ? t Nam on the desk. He spins it around. The major provinces are etched in silver. He traces his fingertip from H ? i An down to H ? Chí Minh City, then back again. How much has changed in a matter of weeks, a matter of miles.
He smiles at the thought of their upcoming cruise in H ? Long Bay, imagining how he will stand on the boat next to Evie, watching the wonder cascade over her face. Clasping her close
to him at night. Adam isn’t a man who believes in fairy tales, but the hope gusting through him is fresh and keen, a breath
of sweet sea air in a stuffy room.
“Vi ? t Nam,” his father murmurs. “The land of history. Of legacy. Do you know that of all the lessons I have ever tried to teach
you, this is the one that matters most to me?”
“Even more than the one about how we only fly first class?” Adam tries to joke.
Mr.Quy ? n’s expression is severe. “And it seems that very few lessons have penetrated you, my son. You are not young anymore. It’s
been time for you to settle down for years. Start a new branch of the tree. Of course, there were the strings of women in
H ? Chí Minh City. Don’t think I don’t know about them. But I was willing to dismiss those. And we’d hoped Lana might be the
one, but of course, that was a disaster. All those wasted years.”
“Yeah, I was there,” Adam grinds out.
Mr.Quy ? n goes on, “And now it seems that you are determined to continue wasting your life.”
“What does that mean, Ba?” Adam hears the acid in his own voice. His fists clench around the glass paperweight so hard that
it might break apart with one forceful squeeze.
“It means that it has escaped no one’s notice how besotted you’ve become with the American—”
“Evie.”
“MissLang. Your sister has been updating me on your adventures. It seems that you’ve become close. Closer than appropriate.”
“She spied on me?” Adam is incredulous—and, if he’s being honest, a little hurt. He and Ruby haven’t always been aligned, especially
when it comes to the ways they should conduct their activities, but they’ve never reported back to their parents. That’s crossing a line. It dismantles an honor code he thought was clear to them both.
“MissLang is not one of us, Adam. I don’t mean just in terms of her mixed race.”
“Careful, Ba.”
Mr.Quy ? n gives his son an amused look, as if he can’t believe Adam has the audacity to caution him about anything. “She is American, through and through. Despite how well she speaks Vietnamese, she is brash, like all the Americans. Her clothes, unacceptable. Not to mention her profession, her outspokenness.”
“That’s enough .” Adam’s eyes darken.
A small flicker of shock registers on Mr.Quy ? n’s face before he barrels ahead. “It’s clear that this little dalliance will go nowhere. But B?ng tells me that MissLang
was seen exiting a room with you at an early hour. Too early an hour. Thankfully, it was B?ng who found you. What might others
say, if they caught you together?”
“I don’t care what they say, Ba. It’s no one’s business. And frankly, it’s not yours either.”
“Ah, but it is, B ? o. What happens on this tour is my business. Am I not the chief investor? The financing keeping you all afloat—keeping you salaried and in that luxury apartment?”
A slow dawning overtakes Adam. Of course. Why would his father not use the most powerful tool at his disposal—his money—to
beat his children into compliance? It has gone this way their whole lives. And it’s worked—until now. Adam stands and makes
his way to the door, puts his hand on the knob.
He says, “You can take your investment and shove it up your ass, Ba.”
Mr.Quy ? n recoils, and to be honest, Adam does too. Vietnamese children, especially dutiful sons, do not speak to their patriarchs
like this. Respect for elders has been the one value drummed into him from an early age. Respect for his father , in particular. The head of the household. The despot with the waistcoats.
A burble of regret emerges in Adam, but he quickly shuts it down when he thinks about how Mr.Quy ? n spoke about Evie. As if she were a problem to be solved, rather than the glorious, headstrong, absolute jewel of a woman
she is. And that is one thing Adam will not allow.
As he opens the door to leave, Mr.Quy ? n shouts, “You think I’m bluffing, boy. But this is no card game. The stakes are higher than just you.”
“I know that.”
“If you do not do as I say and end things with Miss Lang, I will pull out my money. This company will be sunk before it’s even left the ground. And you and your sister, along with it.”
“You wouldn’t do that.”
“I would do anything to save this family’s reputation, B ? o.”
Jaw clenched so hard he thinks he might crack his own skull, Adam turns to leave. He has choice words for his father but chooses
to cool off instead. To take a breath and strategize. It’s what he does best.
Nevertheless, he can’t help storming down the hall on his way to find his spare bike, parked in the garage of the estate along
with his father’s five luxury cars. As he turns a corner, he catches sight of Ruby pressed against the wall of the hallway,
face totally still. She had been listening to his conversation with his father. She opens her mouth as if to say something
to Adam, but he brushes past her before she can speak.
“BB,” she calls faintly.
He doesn’t answer. Just for a few hours, he wants a respite from his family and their endless requests. Just once, he wants
a chance to think for himself without their voices filling his head, trying to influence his decisions.