The Bride Test(12)

3. Pay for everything.



4. Carry everything. (That included her purse if she wanted. Never mind the fact that he preferred keeping his hands free.)

5. Give her your coat if she seems cold. (No, it didn’t matter if he was cold, too.)

6. No matter how she’s dressed, don’t check out inappropriate areas of her body.*

7. *Specifically, boobs, butt, and thighs. He could make an exception if she was grievously wounded.



Uncomfortable heat flushed his face and singed the tips of his ears. He’d just gone to town on Rule Number Six. In his defense, he had no practice being with a woman like this.

She positioned her suitcase in front of her legs and took and released a fast breath before smiling again. “You’re Di?p Kh?i. I’m Esme,” she said in Vietnamese.

That surreal sensation came back. This was really happening. His mail-order bride was introducing herself. But wasn’t her name M??

Please don’t let there be two of them. He didn’t know what he was going to do with one woman. If his mom had acquired him an entire harem, he needed therapy. After a heart-pounding second, logic returned to his brain, and he concluded she must have adopted a Western name to help her in the States. He did not have a harem.

Thank God.

“Just Khai,” he said in English, dropping the surname and the tones. His mom was the only one who called him Di?p Kh?i, and usually when he was in trouble.

Her response was a puzzled tilt of her head, and he wondered if she’d understood what he’d said. As she looked him over, a crease formed between her eyebrows. “Why are you wearing all black? Black is for funerals in America. I’ve seen that in movies. Did someone die?” she asked in Vietnamese again.

“No, no one died. I just like it.” Picking out clothes was so much easier when it was all one color. Besides, black didn’t stain, and it was socially versatile, appropriate for every occasion from work functions to bar mitzvahs.

While she appeared to absorb that information, he grabbed her suitcase by the handle and started toward the parking garage.

“This way,” he said.

With each step through the airport, words pounded in Khai’s head.

What. Had. His. Mom. Been. Thinking.

His mail-order bride was nothing like he’d expected—which was a younger replica of his mom, complete with the matching sweat suits and the sriracha and hoisin sauce she always kept in her purse. That, he could have handled. But this girl, Esme, looked like a Playboy bunny. She lacked the trademark platinum hair, but the rest of her fit the description. What did you do with a Playboy bunny? Aside from sex. Not that he was thinking about sex.

Except, clearly, he was thinking of sex. Fuck. No, there wouldn’t be any fucking. A sneaky part of his brain reminded him he’d promised to do all the things a fiancé would do. Fiancés had sex …

He shook his head to clear it of the porn thoughts. It was wrong to reduce a person to their sexual value. He was a rational being. He should be better than this. Besides, she could be the kind of person who regularly performed ritual animal sacrifices in her backyard. Was it safe to drop your pants around such a woman? That killed the sex thoughts quickly, and the rest of his trip through the airport went smoothly.

Once he passed through a set of sliding glass doors, the clacking of Esme’s shoes on the parking structure’s concrete floor followed him to his car. He stashed her suitcase in the trunk up front and prepared to walk around the car and follow Rule Number One, but Esme opened her door and lowered herself into her seat. Then she shut the door, too.

For a moment, he stood still, staring at her side of the car. Did she know she’d just breached social etiquette? Should he tell her? And wasn’t that ironic? That he knew the Rules better than she did? Or maybe they weren’t international?

With a mental shrug, he got behind the wheel, started the engine, and shifted the gear into reverse.

“Wait a little,” she said. “Can we talk?”

He sighed and put the car back in park. It looked like they were going to do more of this thing where they both spoke their own languages and neither entirely understood the other, just like when he and his mom talked.

“Thank you, Anh Kh?i.” Anh meant brother, but when they weren’t related it was more of an endearment. He didn’t find it endearing. But when she flashed another of her disruptive smiles at him, he forgot to be annoyed. Right as his brain function started to stutter, she looked about the interior of his car. “This car is nice.”

“Thanks.” He didn’t generally like flashy things, but he loved to drive. His car was by far the most self-indulgent thing he owned. Too bad about all the bird shit on the windshield.

She took a deep breath. “I know you don’t want to marry me.”

“That’s right.” He saw no reason why he should lie.

Silence hung in the air as she worried her bottom lip, and his muscles tightened unpleasantly.

“Are you going to cry?” he asked. “There are tissues in the center console.” Should he get them out for her? He didn’t know what else to do. Pat her on the arm maybe.

She shook her head before she lifted her chin and met his gaze. “Your mom wants me to change your mind.”

“You can’t change my mind.”

“Do you have …” She glanced to the side as she searched for words. “A perfect woman in your mind? What is she like?”