The gorgeous Singaporean heiress Astrid Leong’s sensational $5 billion divorce from venture capitalist Michael Teo continues to pile up collateral damage. The latest victim is Isabel Wu, the ex-wife of Astrid’s current boyfriend, tech billionaire Charles Wu.
Apparently, an explicit video of Ms. Leong in bed with Mr. Wu sent Mrs. Wu into an emotional tailspin, and after leaking the video to a popular Chinese gossip blog, Mrs. Wu tried to hang herself at the spectacular new Tom Kundig–designed mansion that her ex-husband has been building in Shek O.
Isabel has been in a coma at Hong Kong Sanatorium for over a week, where sources say there had been a concerted attempt by Mr. Wu to keep the tragedy under wraps. But Isabel’s mother, The Hon. Madam Justice Deirdre Lai, demands a further investigation into her daughter’s suicide attempt. “Charlie and Astrid are responsible, and I want the world to know what they have done to my daughter!” sobbed the Hong Kong High Court Judge.
The scandal has become the talk of Asia, splitting Hong Kong society as friends and family take opposing sides. An insider on Team Charlie says, “Isabel has been suffering from mental health issues for over two decades. The footage in question was secretly recorded long after Isabel and Charlie’s marriage fell apart, and Isabel leaked it while she was suffering from a manic episode. Charlie and Astrid are the real victims here.”
“Nonsense!” counters an insider from Team Isabel. “Izzie was devastated by this video. It was recorded while Isabel and Charlie were happily married, and it really put her over the edge to learn just how long their affair had been going on.”
Deirdre Lai says, “My poor granddaughters Chloe and Delphine! First they have a porn star for a father, and now they might lose their mother! Can you believe that after all this, that dirty woman dared to show up at the hospital where my poor daughter lies in a coma?”
The Daily Post tried to contact Ms. Leong for a comment, but since her appearance at Hong Kong Sanatorium, Ms. Leong has seemingly vanished. When we contacted her family’s company, Leong Holdings, for comment, spokeswoman Zoe Quan said, “Astrid Leong has no functioning role in this company, and we have no comment.” When we inquired as to Astrid’s whereabouts, Ms. Quan hurriedly barked, “No idea, lah! She is out of the country for an indefinite period.”
CHAPTER ONE
PLACE DE FURSTENBERG, PARIS
Scheherazade padded into the gleaming, state-of-the-art kitchen of her apartment in Saint-Germain, lifted the lid from her frying pan, and put a finger on the crust. Not ready yet. She put the lid over the pan again, went back into her dressing room, and took off her sheer ruffled Delpozo blouse. She had just returned from a party at the loft of a fashion photography couple, where the former pastry chef at Noma had cooked up the most elaborate feast ever, but all through the dinner, Scheherazade only dreamed of getting back to her place, heating up some two-day-old pizza in her frying pan,* opening a bottle of red wine, and catching up on The Walking Dead.
Changing into her pajamas, she brought the plate of pizza into her living room, sank down into her gray suede sofa, turned on her television, and selected the latest episode. As her favorite show began to play, the dialogue was suddenly drowned out by the sound of muffled music outside her window. Scheherazade turned up the volume on her TV, hoping to drown out the noise, but it only got louder. Cars started honking on the street and a neighbor could be heard screaming out his window.
Getting annoyed, Scheherazade paused the show, walked over to her balcony, and opened the glass-paned doors. Suddenly the full force of the music flooded her ears, and as Scheherazade peered over her railing, she saw the most curious sight. Carlton Bao was standing on the roof of a Range Rover parked outside her building, holding up a boom box that was blasting Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes.”
“Carlton! What the hell are you doing?” Scheherazade shouted down at him, absolutely mortified.
“I’m trying to get your attention!” Carlton shouted back.
“What do you want?”
“I want you to listen to me. I want you to know that I’m not some reckless killer! The only thing I’m guilty of is falling—”
“What? Turn down the music! I can’t hear you!”
Carlton refused to turn down the music, but yelled louder, “I said the only thing I’m guilty of is falling in love with yo—”
At that moment, four bodyguards dressed in civilian clothes suddenly grabbed him by the legs, yanked him off the car, and body tackled him onto the ground.
“Oh fuck!” Scheherazade started giggling. She ran out the door, down four flights of stairs, and out the front door. “Get off him!” she told the security guards that were now standing over Carlton.
“Miss Shang, are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure! He’s fine. He’s with me,” Scheherazade insisted.
The beefiest guard reluctantly released his knee from Carlton’s back, and when Carlton got off the ground, Scheherazade saw that the left side of his face was all cut up from the asphalt.
“Oh no. Come upstairs—let’s get some disinfectant on that,” Scheherazade said. As they entered her building and rode up in the ornate wrought-iron elevator, she looked him over again.
“What did you think you were doing?”
“That was my wildly romantic gesture!”
Scheherazade frowned. “That was supposed to be romantic?”
“I was doing my best John Cusack impersonation.”
“Who?”
“You know, Say Anything.”
“Say what?”
“You haven’t seen the movie, have you?” Carlton said, suddenly crestfallen.
“No, but you did look cute standing on top of that car,” Scheherazade said, pulling him in for a kiss.
···
At the other end of Paris, Charlie was walking back to the Hotel George V after a very frustrating dinner with Astrid’s old friend Grégoire L’Herme-Pierre. Grégoire had been more charming than usual, and Charlie suspected that he knew far more about Astrid’s whereabouts than he let on. She had been in Paris for probably three days, Grégoire surmised, and then she was gone. No, she hadn’t seemed distraught—I just assumed she was making her usual semiannual trip to the city for her couture fittings.
Over the past two weeks, Charlie had crisscrossed the globe frantically searching for Astrid. Mad with worry, he had started in Singapore, then Paris and London, going to all their familiar haunts and speaking with all her friends. He then headed down to Venice to see if she was hiding out in her friend Domiella Finzi-Contini’s palazzo, but Domi, like so many of Astrid’s friends, remained as silent as the Sphinx. I haven’t heard a peep from Astrid, but then I’ve been in Ferrara for the past month. We always spend the winter in Ferrara. No, I didn’t hear about the scandal at all.