CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Khai stared at the Evite on his phone in a dazed stupor. He had to be dreaming—no, not dreaming, nightmaring. This couldn’t be real.
YOU’RE CORDIALLY INVITED TO
Esmeralda and Quan’s Wedding
Saturday, August 8th
11:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m.
San Francisco, CA
PLEASE RSVP BY AUGUST 7TH
Who the hell sent their invitations out the same week as their wedding? No one, that was who. He was probably still in bed, hugging Esme’s pillow close because it smelled like her. The scent had been fading, and he didn’t know what he’d do when it was gone altogether. Start cuddling up with the dirty laundry she’d left behind maybe.
His phone buzzed with an incoming call as he stared at the Evite.
Quan mobile.
He hit the talk button immediately. “I just got your Evite.”
Quan laughed, the fucker.
“It’s not funny,” Khai said, but his relief was almost dizzying. It was just a practical joke.
“It wasn’t meant to be,” Quan said. “We’re really getting married Saturday.”
His brother’s words hit Khai like a punch in the gut, and he sank down
onto his couch. Esme’s glass on the coffee table caught his eye. There was only a tiny amount of water left inside. It would probably dry out around the same time she married his traitor of a brother.
“You’re really getting married?” he asked.
“That’s the plan, yeah.”
“To Esme.” His Esme.
“It’s either that or watch her leave on Sunday,” Quan said. “This is mostly to get her a green card, but I do like her. I’m looking at it as a trial period.
Who knows, maybe it’ll work out, and we’ll make a go of it.”
That gut-punched feeling worsened, and Khai gripped the edge of the couch with his free hand and squeezed until his knuckles turned white.
“Unless you’re going to do it,” Quan added.
“I already asked her.”
“You know what you have to do if you want her to say yes.”
“I. Don’t. Love. Her,” he gritted out. Why did people keep pushing him on this? It wasn’t like he enjoyed saying he didn’t love her. He wanted to love her. He just … didn’t.
“Did you get rid of that bike yet?” Quan asked in a casual tone.
Khai’s muscles tightened until the blood vessels on his arm bulged. “No.”
“Maybe you should go do that.” Khai opened his mouth to argue, but before he could get a word out, Quan said, “I gotta go, but you’re coming
Saturday, right?”
“Yeah,” Khai said.
“Great. See you then.”
The line disconnected, and the gravity in the room pulled him down further.
This wasn’t just a dance or a night. This was marriage. Esme was marrying Quan. She’d be sharing his apartment with him, maybe even his bed because
of the nightmares, smiling at him every day, filling his silence, reading his accounting books.
She would fall in love with Quan. If she could fall for Khai, she’d definitely fall for Quan. And Quan would love her back. Quan would be excellent to her.
Fuck, he didn’t want his brother to be excellent to Esme.
He pressed his palms to his eye sockets until his eyes hurt, so he let his hands drop away, but then he was staring at her glass again. There was only a millimeter or two of water left, and when it was dry, the likelihood of her filling it was basically zero.
What should he do? He couldn’t let her go, and he couldn’t marry her. But he couldn’t let her marry Quan, either. None of the available options were acceptable.
He clenched his jaw and shot to his feet. That meant he had to find another option. And he knew just the one.
• • •
Tomorrow was the big day, and Khải hadn’t called or tried to see Esme even once.
If he was willing to let her marry his brother, he couldn’t be jealous.
Quân was wrong.
Just as she thought of him, Quân strode into the restaurant. Her chest constricted when she saw the large garment bag thrown over his shoulder.
She could guess what that was, and it made her palms sweat.
He set it down on the table and aimed a lopsided smile at her. “Vy borrowed this for you.”
Esme wiped her hands on her apron. After looking at him to confirm it was
okay, she reached for the zipper and pulled it down.
Gauzy folds of cloth spilled out of the bag, and she gasped and covered her mouth. It was Sara’s ten-thousand-dollar Vera Wang gown.
Quân chuckled at her reaction. “It turns out booking wedding venues last minute is pretty nuts. You kinda have to take what you can get, and what I got was San Francisco City Hall—the couple who reserved it had some massive breakup and canceled yesterday. You’re going to want to dress up.”
“It is nice?”
“Yeah, pretty nice,” Quân said with another laugh.
She pulled her hands away from the dress and wiped her palms over her apron again. She knew he’d mentioned marrying her if Khải didn’t figure out his feelings, but he couldn’t mean it. Why would he want to marry her? He didn’t know anything about her.
With a wrinkle of her lips, she zipped the garment bag back up. “You should cancel the wedding and return this to Sara. Anh Khải did not call me.
Don’t waste your money.”
“Can’t. I already paid for city hall, and your family are on their way, remember?” His eyes gleamed as he aimed a clever smile at her, distracting her from the spark of desperate joy that came when she thought of seeing her girl after so long. “Besides, if you look happy because I’m spoiling you, he’ll get even more jealous.”
“More?” A bad taste filled her mouth. It was clear that he wasn’t jealous at all.
Quân stepped close and tilted his head as he looked at her. “He’s totally jealous over you. You know that, right?”
She stared at him without answering.
“I meant it when I said I’d marry you,” Quân said. “It’d just be a temporary thing, anyway. I’ll do my thing, and you’ll do yours. Separate rooms. We can divorce when the time comes.”
“But …” She shook her head in bemusement. “Why help me?”
A sad smile stretched over his lips. “Because I’m his big brother, and I need to make things right.” Then his smile warmed and reached his eyes.
“And I like you and want to see you make it. It’s a small thing for me to do, but it means a lot to you, right?”
The breath seeped out of her, and all she could say was, “Yes.” It was everything to her.
He pushed the dress back toward her. “Really, it’s not a big deal to me, and my mom loves having you help at the restaurant. I don’t see any downside to this.”
Tension built up inside. She had to tell him. He deserved to know. She stared down at the garment bag, unsure if she should pull it closer or push it away. It depended on how he reacted to what she was going to say. “I have a little girl. Jade. She is home. In Việt Nam. Khải …” She bit her lip and ran her finger along the zipper. “He does not know about her.”
When a long moment of silence passed, she peeked up and found Quân smiling at her. She saw no judgment in his eyes. “I like kids.”
“You do?” she said on an exhaled breath.
“Sure.”
“D-does Anh Khải?”
He thought about it for a second before saying, “I think he’d like your kid.”
“Do you still want to marry?” she made herself ask. Sweat misted her skin, but she continued, “I want her to come live with me—with us. And my má and ngoại.”
“Yeah,” he said with a laugh. “Let’s do it. The more the merrier, right? It actually doesn’t matter much to me. I’m hardly home.”
Her throat choked up, and she swiped the moisture from her eyes with the back of her arm as her body weakened with relief. “Then I am happy and
grateful to marry you. But we do not need a nice wedding.” Honestly, she wanted a cheap one. She was going to owe Quân for the rest of her life, and she didn’t want to add an expensive wedding to her tab.
He shook his head at her. “I can see you worrying. Don’t.”
“But—”
“It’s really fine, Esme.” And this time, there was a hard edge to his tone and expression.
She nodded. “Okay, no worrying.” But that was a lie.
Marrying Quân was the solution to all her problems. Once she married him, she could apply to schools as a legal resident and work for her tuition.
She wouldn’t need a scholarship in order to pursue her new dream.
But a large part of her still hoped Khải would intervene, and worried that he wouldn’t. Her future, even an empowered one, wasn’t perfect unless he was in it. And not as her brother-in-law.
