Tinseng couldn’t think of a good answer to that, not with Jinzhao lowering himself between Tinseng’s legs. It only took a few more moments for him to stop thinking completely.
They ended up being late for cocktails. Tinseng found he couldn’t bring himself to care.
So it was all going very well, and Tinseng was beginning to think it might be too easy, that he’d have to find fun elsewhere, until he walked into the dining room and actually saw the man.
He’d known he would have to share a room with their target, of course—their whole plan hinged on it. To Lucas Grodescu, Tinseng would be just another foreigner, no one of interest or import. Tinseng would be able to observe him that way, pick his moment more carefully, and steal what they needed. Grodescu would end up empty-handed and none the wiser who had robbed him. That had been the plan.
But a plan never survived its execution.
Lucas Grodescu was more handsome in person than in pictures. His curly salt-and-pepper hair had been tamed back with product. His nose proclaimed his French heritage, and his teeth gleamed through thin lips. His high forehead wrinkled pleasantly whenever he smiled or frowned, but his eyes never lost their sharpness even when his soft cheeks were pushed up by his mirth.
Tinseng sat down to dinner, seething.
For most of the meal he couldn’t stop sneaking looks at the man across the room. He heard himself entertain Mrs. Lanzette and laugh at Chiboon’s jokes, but he’d set himself on autopilot: the conversation mechanical, the laughter hollow. Only a familiar name snapped him back to his surroundings. Restless anger moved under Tinseng’s skin. He smiled around a piece of fish, took a few drinks of wine, and turned in his seat, presumably to speak with Chiboon. Grodescu looked good in his dark-blue three-piece suit; his wife looked better in her yellow satin dinner dress. No one would know the man holding court at his table was one of the most successful blackmailers alive. It would be impossible to tell, looking at his handsome face, that he had ruined dozens of lives, all for power or perhaps just the sheer fun of it. And now he wanted to ruin Jinzhao. And would, unless Tinseng stopped him. The injustice of it gathered in him, simmering.
Evenings on a cruise like this were busier than the days, with revelry and music winding through every deck. Between dinner and the sendoff celebration, Jinzhao excused himself from their company, and Tinseng made an excuse to follow him. As he stood in front of their room searching for his key, Cheuk-Kwan called out from behind them.
“Go ahead,” he told Jinzhao, and walked over to his brother. “Yeah, what is it, didi?” he started to ask; even as he did, his brother pulled Tinseng into his room.
The moment the door closed, he whirled around. “Why are you being such an asshole?”
“What can I say? I missed you so much, it’s hard not to—”
“Jiejie said you haven’t answered about staying with her. You hate Yingtung. You hate his house. What’s the problem? You’re not even going to ask to stay with me? Not going to help look after your own father? What, is your—” He lowered his voice to a harsh whisper, “your friend too good for us?”
Tinseng’s eyes widened, then narrowed.
“Careful.”
“That’d make one of us,” his brother scoffed.
“He is my friend.”
“Then he should have no issue staying with us.”
“He’s his own man. It’s not like we . . . he has his own agenda when we get home.”
“What do you mean, agenda?”
“I mean he might not even stay in Hong Kong permanently.”
Cheuk-Kwan threw up his hands. “You brought him halfway across the world, introduced him to your family, and he’s not even staying? He knows how that looks, right? He knows how rude that is?”
“Oh, he knows,” Tinseng muttered at the ground, then looked up at Cheuk-Kwan’s growl of frustration. “Look, it’s complicated! It’s not his fault! I’m helping him.”
“Of course you are. Let me guess: He started following you around in Paris. Saw the way you lived and wanted a taste of it. Agreed to follow you and then, what? Having second thoughts? Realized it’s not all laughs-a-minute with you?”
“It’s not like that,” Tinseng said weakly, but he could hear the doubt in his own voice.
“Right.” Cheuk-Kwan reached around Tinseng to open the door. “I’m going to talk with him.”
“No! No, you’re not.” Tinseng plastered himself against the wood. “Fuck no. Listen to me.” He pressed a hand flat against Cheuk-Kwan’s chest. “Hey. Listen. You’ve got the wrong idea. Really. He was—his parents just died. And he had me all to himself before. I think seeing me with you and Yukying makes the grief real. He won’t have what we have ever again.” Tinseng’s smile asked something of Cheuk-Kwan. “It’s not second thoughts. It’s . . .”
“Mourning,” Cheuk-Kwan supplied. Tinseng’s fingers gripped slightly on his shirt.
“Yeah. That’s it.” They stared at each other, neither saying the thing each wanted to say.
“I said I’d help him start fresh,” Tinseng said eventually. “But I wanted him to know he wasn’t beholden. No debts owed, you know?”
“Then what exactly are you getting out of it?”
“It’s just the right thing to do, didi.”
Cheuk-Kwan glowered at Tinseng. “You’re an idiot,” he said but let him go.
The moment he was behind his own cabin door Tinseng flopped face-first on the nearest of the two twin beds. Tinseng didn’t think Cheuk-Kwan was wrong, but he was an idiot for reasons his brother couldn’t even imagine. After a moment the mattress dipped. A warm palm spread across the center of his back.
“What did he say?”
“Nothing important. Really, Jinzhao, I’m fine.” He pushed off the bed and stood with a burst of pent-up energy. “Well, I’m fine about my brother anyway. Grodescu’s ugly face nearly put me off dessert, that’s all. Imagine having to stare at that every morning. We should feel sorry for him, living with such a burden. Anyway, I should be asking you: Are you okay?”
“Fine,” Jinzhao echoed dryly.
Tinseng walked over to look out the porthole at the unending blue of the ocean. “How was it, hearing their names tonight at dinner?” Jinzhao’s silence spoke for itself. “Everyone talks too much for knowing so little,” Tinseng said.
