Thank God.
“Just Khai,” he said in English, dropping the surname and the tones. His mom was the only one who called him Diệp Khải, 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 Khải.” 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?”
“She leaves me alone.” He already had a mom, a sister, and a bazillion aunts and girl cousins to send him on senseless errands, harass him about his clothing choices, and tell him to cut his hair. He didn’t need any more women in his life.
“You don’t want that,” she said with a decisive shake of her head. “I’ll help you be happy. You’ll see.”
He stiffened. “I don’t need that kind of help.” Her suggestion was galling in unprecedented ways. If she was going to spend the summer pushing him to dance and sing, he was probably going to have some manner of epic mental breakdown. Happiness, like grief, was not in his personal emotional card deck. But minor emotions like irritation and frustration were. He was feeling those in healthy measure right this moment.
A skeptical look crossed her face. “Happy people don’t wear all black.”
His clothes again. He tightened his fingers on the steering wheel. “I disagree.” Black was perfectly acceptable at weddings, and those were happy events. For other people, anyway. He’d rather have a colon exam. Proctologists only tortured you for a few seconds, whereas weddings went on for hours and hours.
Her lips thinned, and a tense moment stretched out before she asked, “What work do you do? Do you like it?”
“It’s complicated to explain, but yes, I like it.”
Her lips moved quietly for a moment, and he was fairly certain she was testing out the feel of the word complicated. But then she glanced about the car, took in his black suit and shirt again, and gave him a funny look. Her lips curved ever so slightly. “Are you a spy like James Bond?”
He blinked several times. “No.”
“An assassin?”
“No, I’m not an assassin.” What was wrong with her?
“Too bad.” But she didn’t look disappointed, not with that smile on her face. What weird things were going on in her brain?
Shaking his head, he said, “You’re stranger than I am.”
She confused him even more by hugging her arms to her chest and laughing down at her lap. It was a pretty sound, musical in a way. When she crossed her legs, his eyes were drawn helplessly to her thighs. Her skirt slid up, revealing another inch of flawless skin.
Rule Number Six, Rule Number Six, Rule Number Six.
He wrenched his eyes away and stared blindly at the dashboard. “I was an accounting major in school, but I’m more of a tax specialist now. My friend and I started an accounting software company. He’s in charge of the programming, and I handle the accounting, which means I need to stay up-to-date on generally accepted accounting principles and tax law as set forth in the Internal Revenue Code. Lately, we’ve added transfer pricing analysis to our software package, so I’ve had to get particularly familiar with section 482 of the IRC. It’s very interesting figuring out how to test if business transactions are at ‘arm’s length’ when you have large multinational corporations. Sometimes, they’ll create tax shelters in low-tax jurisdictions in, say, the Bahamas, so you have to—”
He forced himself to stop midsentence. People got bored when he talked about work. He even bored other accounting people from time to time. The intricacies and elegance of accounting principles and tax law weren’t for everyone. He had no idea why.