Page 54

Man. Field.Oh, that name was trouble. “She did not tell me she was visiting a boy. You must understand, I am her aunt and responsible for her here. Ms. Cecelia Lam is the daughter of my older sister, Lilian Wong, and our father’s business partner Frank Lam. You will not recognize the business they own, but they are a rich and powerful family in Hong Kong. Do you understand what I am getting at here?”

Cheeks flushed as the maid opened the door to let Jane in. “Upstairs,” she meekly said. “First door on the left. The Mr. and Mrs. Manfield do not allow locks on their children’s doors, but…” She quickly closed the door when Jane entered, nostrils flaring and breaths rapidly increasing. “The young Mr. Manfield knows that I do not enter without knocking.”

“Let me guess, the Mr. and Mrs. are out tonight.”

“They are gone to Los Angeles this weekend.”

“Do they know their son brings girls like my niece home with him? Who are lying to me about where they are and who they are with?”

The maid shook her head, defeated. “They do not care. It’s shameful, but…”

“You’re the help. I know how it works. Thank you.” Jane doubled-back on her way to the staircase. “I suggest you step out of the way. This might get loud.”

Funny, wasn’t it? Jane had been nervous only a few minutes ago, but now?Fuck it, we’re going in.Every step up the staircase only made her angrier. How dare Cecelia, who had been extended plenty of trust and a loose leash, betray Jane like this? If she were dating a boy, why hadn’t she said so? Jane didn’t need to know too many details! In fact, she’d rather not know any! But if this was how she was going to find out…

Cecelia deserved this. She would quickly learn that Aunt Jane was not one to be pushed around and stepped all over like an absentee guardian.

First door on the right. Why did it have to come so soon?

There were few things Jane thought she’d ever have to deal with in her life. She had never been inclined to motherhood, let alone having a maternal bone in her body. Shit, the few times Caitlyn brought up getting a pet, Jane made it clear that she didn’t know much about that at all, nor did she care to.

So this? Sitting in her car with a rageful teenager in the passenger seat? One pissed ather?This was new, and Jane was in dangerous territory.

“Let me out!” Cecelia fussed with the door handle in such an obnoxious, hormonal rage that Jane covered her ear. The childproof locks would prevent her niece from running out into the urban night, but they still had to put up withthis.“This is bullshit!” She switched to Cantonese, where she knew more colorful, painted idioms to drive the point home to her aunt. “If I wanted to be raised by a cunt, I would have stayed in Hong Kongwith my bitch of a mother and old smelly cunt of a grandmother! I’ve had menstrual clots prettier than you!”

Jane laid on the horn not to punish her niece’s cursing, but to get her toshut the bloody hell up.Ever since she barged into the young Mr. Manfield’s room, where she had theunfortunatesight of her niece in bed with a naked boy, Jane’s brain had been blasting with everything she didn’t want to think about. Like how she had to handle this on her own.

“Are you quite done?” Jane asked when she moved her hand off the car horn. “We are going home, and after you shower, you are going straight to bed.”

“Maybe I don’t want to shower!”

“Oh, you’re showering! You’re washing that boy off you!”

“He didn’t do anything bad! I wanted it!”

The headache Jane cultivated up inOwen Manfield’sroom made her want to drive her own stick shift through her temple. “Trust me, I am well aware that you wanted it! That was very clear when youliedto me about where you were going and who you were seeing!”

“Like you would have let me go out with a boy?”

“Maybe! I don’t know! Wasn’t given the choice to figure it out, now was I?”

Cecelia slammed her face in her hands and held back a sob of teenage frustration. “This isn’t happening. Youcannottell Mom! Or Dad! Or, oh god,Grandma!”

“You’re bloody damn right I am not telling any of them! I’m responsible for you, Cece! The last thing I need is any of them knowing how badly I fucked this up!”

“Oh, yeah, it’s all about you! All about yourstupidimage to Grandma and Mom punting me off to you while…” Cecelia sniffed, losing her train of thought. “I am going to die.”

That was the realest thing she said all night. Jane changed gears and pulled out into the street while Cecelia stared straight ahead beside her.

This is not happening.In one day, everything had changed in Jane’s domestic life. She had gone from the available but respectfully distant aunt who fed and housed this girl to the stuff of a Chinese child’s nightmares.Or any child’s…Jane didn’t regret it. She knew it was better her than anyone else in the family barging in on a high school senior getting ready to possibly impregnate Jane’s niece, but it was stillmessy.For one thing, Jane didn’t know one bit about being a teen girl in lust with boys. For a second thing…

She felt like such a hypocrite.

How many girls was I screwing around with behind my family’s back?Jane could hardly remember now. She recalled some faces, some names, but mostly she remembered the heady kisses and heavy caresses of a schoolgirl discovering what she liked about sex. There was that part of Jane that insisted it was different… she hadn’t been sleeping with boys, who could have done way worse things than any of the girls, but she knew it was hypocritical. She was the first to tell anyone that sex was sex, no matter what gender or set of genitalia it was with.

So why was she so adamant on getting Cecelia out of there?

“You lied to me,” she reiterated. “You broke my trust.” They were stuck at the final light, the blinker flashing a red arrow to the left as they waited to turn down their street. “I have given you quite a bit of leeway since you moved here. Your familyandthe government has put you into my care, Cece. I have to know what’s going on with you. Physically. Mentally. Bloody hellyesthat also means sexually!”