The Bride Test(24)

Was he going to be hers someday? He’d held her last night, and she’d enjoyed her first good night of sleep since she’d come here. No nightmares about her baby’s playboy daddy and heiress wife taking Jade or the accompanying guilt that she’d been selfish in keeping her child. She told herself repeatedly that she hadn’t done it just for herself. She’d mostly done it for Jade. Because her love for her child was strong enough to make a difference. That love had brought her here, hadn’t it?

Maybe another kind of love could grow between her and Kh?i. If he opened up to her. She felt like she was on the verge of reaching him, so very close. Maybe it would happen tonight. Maybe when they danced.

The couple kissed, and the crowd broke into applause. Everyone stood up as Sara and her new husband strode past, huge grins on their faces. Cameras flashed, phone screens glowed, and bubbles floated in the air. An announcer said it was time to move to the banquet room for the reception, and Esme gathered her courage and hooked her hand around Kh?i’s arm. His body tensed as he looked down at her fingers on his coat sleeve. She held her breath, horribly conscious of how unpretty her hand looked on him. Those short nails and inelegant fingers. Her mom had nice hands and often lamented that Esme hadn’t inherited them. She said Esme had truck-driver hands.

Silly comments flitted through her mind, things she could say to possibly make him crack a smile, but she didn’t say them. She was too anxious to be funny. In the end, he didn’t relax, but he didn’t brush her off, either. That was good. Right?

“Well, isn’t this cute?” asked a feminine voice in a dry tone.

A pretty woman with straight bangs, natural-toned lipstick, and a severe black cocktail dress approached them, and Kh?i broke away to hug her.

“Hi, baby brother.”

“Hi, Vy.”

The woman brushed away invisible lint from the shoulders of his suit and inspected him like a momma cat did her kittens. “You need a haircut.”

“It’s fine.” But Kh?i swiped the hair away from his face anyway.

It was on the tip of Esme’s tongue to offer to cut his hair, but she swallowed her words. These weren’t the kind of people who cut their own hair. Judging by this place and their designer clothes, they probably went to fancy salons where they gave you tea and a neck massage.

Vy’s lips thinned. “It’s getting messy. Unless you’re growing it out. That could work for you.”

“I’ll take care of it,” he said.

She fingered the lapel of his suit coat. “Is this the one I picked out for you?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s probably why I like it so much.” Appeased, the woman finally looked away from Kh?i and focused on Esme. “So here she is.”

Esme smiled tentatively, unsure of what to expect. “Hi, Ch? Vy.”

Vy shook her hand and returned her smile just as tentatively. “You’re M?.” Her eyes swept over Esme’s tiny green dress and mostly naked limbs, and her expression went carefully blank.

Esme tried to pull on the hem of her skirt without people noticing. She should have worn something else, something Grandma-approved that didn’t have cheap sequins and glitter, but she hadn’t known it wasn’t acceptable until she’d seen all the conservative dresses here. “I changed it to Esme when I came here.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” Vy said in slow, awkward Vietnamese, which suggested she didn’t speak it often but had switched over for Esme’s sake.

“It’s from my dau—my favorite Disney movie,” she said quickly, and then she bit her lip. Now that she’d explained that out loud, it didn’t sound like a very classy way to pick a name. She needed to be classy, like Vy, like Kh?i, like all these people. “I am an accountant. Back in Vi?t Nam.”

A genuine smile stretched over Vy’s mouth as she looked at her brother. “I didn’t know that. How perfect.” She squeezed Kh?i’s arm like he’d run into great luck.

Esme’s lying heart twisted and beat faster. The heavens needed to strike her down right now because she was a horrible person. At least she had a rough idea of what accounting was now. She’d been sneak reading his textbooks since she was supposed to be an expert, but more often than not, she ended up lost inside dictionaries instead.

“Here, here, here, here. Precious Girl is here,” a familiar voice said.

As C? Nga wrapped her in a tight hug, Esme’s stomach tied itself in a big knot. Had Kh?i’s mom heard Esme lying? Was the woman ashamed of her now? Sky, earth, demons, and gods, why was she such a big liar? She wasn’t this person.

“Chào, C? Nga,” Esme said.

C? Nga took in Esme’s green dress and smiled in approval, not caring that it was prostitutey. “You’re too beautiful. Did you like the ceremony? Are you having fun, Precious Girl?”

“Yes, it was beautiful as a dream, and—”

“You’re calling her that now?” Vy interrupted. “You know you have a daughter, right?”

C? Nga pulled away from Esme and rubbed Vy’s arm. She meant it to be comforting, but that was also how she shredded carrots at the restaurant. “You’re my precious girl, too.”

A tight grimace of a smile stretched over Vy’s mouth.

“Eh? What’s this?” C? Nga waved both hands at the space in between Esme and Kh?i. “Why are you two so far apart? This doesn’t look like an engaged couple.”