The Bride Test (The Kiss Quotient #2)(82)

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Tomorrow was the big day, and Kh?i hadn’t called or tried to see Esme even once.

If he was willing to let her marry his brother, he couldn’t be jealous.

Quan was wrong.

Just as she thought of him, Quan strode into the restaurant. Her chest constricted when she saw the large garment bag thrown over his shoulder.

She could guess what that was, and it made her palms sweat.

He set it down on the table and aimed a lopsided smile at her. “Vy borrowed this for you.”

Esme wiped her hands on her apron. After looking at him to confirm it was okay, she reached for the zipper and pulled it down.

Gauzy folds of cloth spilled out of the bag, and she gasped and covered her mouth. It was Sara’s ten-thousand-dollar Vera Wang gown.

Quan chuckled at her reaction. “It turns out booking wedding venues last minute is pretty nuts. You kinda have to take what you can get, and what I got was San Francisco City Hall—the couple who reserved it had some massive breakup and canceled yesterday. You’re going to want to dress up.”

“It is nice?”

“Yeah, pretty nice,” Quan said with another laugh.

She pulled her hands away from the dress and wiped her palms over her apron again. She knew he’d mentioned marrying her if Kh?i didn’t figure out his feelings, but he couldn’t mean it. Why would he want to marry her? He didn’t know anything about her.

With a wrinkle of her lips, she zipped the garment bag back up. “You should cancel the wedding and return this to Sara. Anh Kh?i did not call me. Don’t waste your money.”

“Can’t. I already paid for city hall, and your family are on their way, remember?” His eyes gleamed as he aimed a clever smile at her, distracting her from the spark of desperate joy that came when she thought of seeing her girl after so long. “Besides, if you look happy because I’m spoiling you, he’ll get even more jealous.”

“More?” A bad taste filled her mouth. It was clear that he wasn’t jealous at all.

Quan stepped close and tilted his head as he looked at her. “He’s totally jealous over you. You know that, right?”

She stared at him without answering.

“I meant it when I said I’d marry you,” Quan said. “It’d just be a temporary thing, anyway. I’ll do my thing, and you’ll do yours. Separate rooms. We can divorce when the time comes.”

“But …” She shook her head in bemusement. “Why help me?”

A sad smile stretched over his lips. “Because I’m his big brother, and I need to make things right.” Then his smile warmed and reached his eyes. “And I like you and want to see you make it. It’s a small thing for me to do, but it means a lot to you, right?”

The breath seeped out of her, and all she could say was, “Yes.” It was everything to her.

He pushed the dress back toward her. “Really, it’s not a big deal to me, and my mom loves having you help at the restaurant. I don’t see any downside to this.”

Tension built up inside. She had to tell him. He deserved to know. She stared down at the garment bag, unsure if she should pull it closer or push it away. It depended on how he reacted to what she was going to say. “I have a little girl. Jade. She is home. In Vi?t Nam. Kh?i …” She bit her lip and ran her finger along the zipper. “He does not know about her.”

When a long moment of silence passed, she peeked up and found Quan smiling at her. She saw no judgment in his eyes. “I like kids.”

“You do?” she said on an exhaled breath.

“Sure.”

“D-does Anh Kh?i?”

He thought about it for a second before saying, “I think he’d like your kid.”

“Do you still want to marry?” she made herself ask. Sweat misted her skin, but she continued, “I want her to come live with me—with us. And my má and ngo?i.”

“Yeah,” he said with a laugh. “Let’s do it. The more the merrier, right? It actually doesn’t matter much to me. I’m hardly home.”

Her throat choked up, and she swiped the moisture from her eyes with the back of her arm as her body weakened with relief. “Then I am happy and grateful to marry you. But we do not need a nice wedding.” Honestly, she wanted a cheap one. She was going to owe Quan for the rest of her life, and she didn’t want to add an expensive wedding to her tab.

He shook his head at her. “I can see you worrying. Don’t.”

“But—”

“It’s really fine, Esme.” And this time, there was a hard edge to his tone and expression.

She nodded. “Okay, no worrying.” But that was a lie.

Marrying Quan was the solution to all her problems. Once she married him, she could apply to schools as a legal resident and work for her tuition. She wouldn’t need a scholarship in order to pursue her new dream.

But a large part of her still hoped Kh?i would intervene, and worried that he wouldn’t. Her future, even an empowered one, wasn’t perfect unless he was in it. And not as her brother-in-law.





CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN



Today was the day.

Khai had done everything humanly possible to find a way out of this mess. He’d spent money, pulled strings, found encouraging leads—if he bought a racehorse, he could say Esme was a horse trainer and get her a special visa that way—but he needed more time. He was out of time.