“Aiyah, who cares about Rachel Chu? Peik Lin, you go after him!” Wye Mun declared.

Peik Lin grinned at her father, and began texting Rachel.

Wye Mun patted his wife on her shoulder. “Come, call the driver. Let’s take a drive down Tyersall Road. I want to see this place for myself.”

They decided to take the Audi SUV in an effort to be as inconspicuous as possible. “See, I think this is where the property actually begins,” Peik Lin noted as they turned onto the curving, densely wooded road. “I think all this on the left side is the southern boundary of the land.” When they reached the gray iron gates, Wye Mun made the driver stop the car for a minute. The place looked completely deserted. “See, you wouldn’t think there’s anything here. It looks like some old section of the Botanic Gardens. There’s another guard house farther down this road, a high-tech one manned by Gurkha guards,” Peik Lin explained. Wye Mun stared down the unlit, overgrown road, completely fascinated. He was one of Singapore’s leading property developers, and he knew every square inch of land on the island. Or at least he thought he did.

 

* * *

 

* Hokkien for “big house.”

† Hokkien for “Have you been drinking?”

4

Rachel and Nick

TYERSALL PARK

 

“The tan huas are coming into bloom!” Ling Cheh announced excitedly to everyone on the terrace. As the guests began to head back in through the conservatory, Nick pulled Rachel aside. “Here, let’s take a shortcut,” he said. Rachel followed him through a side door, and they wandered down a long hallway, past many darkened rooms that she longed to peek into. When Nick led her through an arch at the end of the passage, Rachel’s jaw dropped in disbelief.

They were no longer in Singapore. It was as if they had stumbled onto a secret cloister deep within a Moorish palace. The vast courtyard was enclosed on all sides but completely open to the sky. Elaborately carved columns lined the arcades around its perimeter, and an Andalusian fountain protruded from the stone wall, spouting a stream of water from a lotus blossom sculpted out of rose quartz. Overhead, hundreds of copper lanterns had been meticulously strung across the courtyard from the second-floor walkway, each flickering with candlelight.

“I wanted to show you this place while it was still empty,” Nick said in a hushed voice, pulling Rachel into an embrace.

“Pinch me, please. Is any of this real?” Rachel whispered as she looked into Nick’s eyes.

“This place is very real. You’re the dream,” Nick answered as he kissed her deeply.

A few guests began to trickle in, disrupting the spell they had momentarily been under. “Come, it’s dessert time!” Nick said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

Along one of the arcades stretched long banquet tables that displayed a wondrous selection of desserts. There were elaborate cakes, soufflés, and sweet puddings, there was goreng pisang* drizzled with Lyle’s Golden Syrup, nyonya kuehs in every color of the rainbow, and tall polished samovars filled with different steaming-hot elixirs. Servers wearing white toques stood behind each table, ready to dish out the delicacies.

“Tell me this isn’t how your family eats every day,” Rachel said in amazement.

“Well, tonight was leftovers night,” Nick deadpanned.

Rachel elbowed him in the ribs playfully.

“Ow! And I was about to offer you a slice of the best chocolate chiffon cake in the world.”

“I just stuffed my face with eighteen different types of noodles! I couldn’t possibly eat dessert,” Rachel groaned, pressing her palm against her stomach momentarily. She walked to the center of the courtyard, where chairs were arranged around a reflecting pool. In the middle of the pool were huge terra-cotta urns that held the painstakingly cultivated tan huas. Rachel had never seen a species of flora quite so exotic. The tangled forest of plants grew together into a tall profusion of large floppy leaves the color of dark jade. Long stems sprouted from the edges of the leaves, curving until they formed huge bulbs. The pale reddish petals curled tightly like delicate fingers grasping a silken white peach. Oliver stood by the flowers, scrutinizing one of the bulbs closely.

“How can you tell they are about to bloom?” Rachel asked him.

“See how swollen they’ve become, and how the whiteness of the bulbs are peeking through these red tentacles? Within the hour, you will see them open fully. You know, it’s considered to be very auspicious to witness tan huas blooming in the night.”

“Really?”

“Yes, indeed. They bloom so rarely and so unpredictably, and it all happens so fast. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime event for most people, so I’d say you’re very lucky to be here tonight.”

As Rachel strolled around the reflecting pool, she noticed Nick under an arcade chatting intently with the striking lady who had been sitting next to Nick’s grandmother. “Who is that woman talking to Nick? You were with her earlier,” Rachel asked.

“Oh, that’s Jacqueline Ling. An old family friend.”

“She looks like a movie star,” Rachel commented.

“Yes, doesn’t she? I’ve always thought that Jacqueline looks like a Chinese Catherine Deneuve, only more beautiful.”

“She does look like Catherine Deneuve!”

“And aging better too.”

“Well, she’s not that old. What is she, in her early forties?”

“Try adding twenty years to that.”

“You’re kidding!” Rachel said, staring in awe at Jacqueline’s ballerina-like figure, shown to great advantage by the pale yellow halter top and palazzo pants that she wore with a pair of silver stilettos.

“I’ve always thought it a bit of a pity that she hasn’t done more with herself than disarm men with her looks,” Oliver observed.

“Is that what she’s done?”

“Widowed once, almost married a British marquess, and since then she’s been the companion of a Norwegian tycoon. There’s a story I heard as a child: Jacqueline’s beauty was so legendary that when she visited Hong Kong for the first time in the sixties, her arrival attracted a throng of spectators, as if she were Elizabeth Taylor. All the men were clamoring to propose to her, and fights broke out at the terminal. It made the newspapers, apparently.”

“All because of her beauty.”

“Yes, and her bloodline. She’s the granddaughter of Ling Yin Chao.”

“Who’s that?”

“He was one of Asia’s most revered philanthropists. Built schools all over China. Not that Jacqueline is following in his footsteps, unless you consider her donations in aid of Manolo Blahnik.”

Rachel laughed, as both of them noticed that Jacqueline had one hand on Nick’s upper arm, stroking it gently.

“Don’t worry—she flirts with everyone,” Oliver quipped. “Do you want another piece of juicy gossip?”

“Please.”

“I’m told Nick’s grandmother very much wanted Jacqueline for Nick’s father. But she didn’t succeed.”

“He wasn’t swayed by her looks?”