“Ah.” I swallowed, afraid of what I might say by accident. I remembered the conversations we had before, when I was her kidnapper. But she recalled none of it. The weight of this, beyond the fear of her possibly remembering, was disconcerting. Talking to her made me feel lopsided, askew. “But during your travels—”
Daiyu gave a humorless laugh. “My father travels a lot for business. But I have never been outside of Taipei.” She nodded at my suit sitting in its glass pod set in the corner of my apartment. “He’s grooming me to take over the company business. I spend a lot of my time at Jin Corp, not on trips abroad. Secretly, I keep hoping that he’ll have another child. And my new sibling could take over the job.”
Surprised that she would reveal so much to me, we sat silent for a moment as I lightly tapped the glass table with my finger. “So you’re an only child?” I made a pretense of asking; I knew that she was.
She nodded.
“You must be close?”
She smiled an enigmatic smile. It did not reach her eyes. “My father is a hard man to get close to. Most times he treats me like another product he’s created—another investment.”
Daiyu gazed out the wall of windows as I took in what she said. Finally, I asked, “Daiyu, why are you here?”
I didn’t want to push her away. But it was a natural question to ask given the situation. And I needed to make this encounter as normal as I could. It’s what I would ask any girl I barely knew who just appeared at my doorstep. “Do you do this a lot?” I went on. “Show up at a near stranger’s door?”
“No,” she interjected. “I never do this. It’s just that meeting you last night . . . I thought you were interesting. Familiar almost.” She turned and smiled at me, and I forced myself to keep my pose natural, feeling suddenly naked for sitting at a glass table. “I’ve always wanted to visit California,” she said in English tinged with a posh British accent.
“There are many mountains there,” I replied, also in English. “Maybe you can attend a university in California?”
“I wish.” She reverted to her precise and educated Mandarin, giving me a wistful sidelong glance. “I’ll be going to National Taiwan University. I don’t think Father will ever allow me to leave this city. And even here, I’m trailed by three bodyguards everywhere I go.”
I raised my eyebrows, remembering the beefy you boy I had punched in the nose at the night market.
“They’re downstairs now,” she said, mistaking my expression for surprise. “I wouldn’t let them come up. They can wait in the damned lobby forever as far as I’m concerned.”
I laughed, because she sounded like every rebellious teen I knew, even given her vast wealth and privilege. “I’d love to visit Jin Corp,” I said, trying to sound as casual as possible. I curled my fingers into a loose fist. If I were anywhere but here, I’d be spinning my butterfly knife to ease my nervous energy—but rich you boys didn’t do that.
“You would?” She studied me over the rim of her cup, and I somehow held her gaze before my mouth twitched into a smile.
“What? Is it so strange? Your father manufactures the most expensive personal product being sold right now—worldwide. And the suits are an amazing feat of engineering.”
She put the mocha down and wandered over to my suit’s pod set in the corner of the large studio. “This is nice. Your first?”
“No,” I lied. “I have one back in California. The air in the Bay Area is bad, but it’s even worse in LA.”
Daiyu turned to me and nodded. “Father has a lot of clients in the LA area. It’s one of our largest markets in the United States, along with New York City.” She began walking around the apartment, trailing a hand along the rock wall. “How about a trade? I take you on a personal tour of Jin Corp, and you”—she stopped by a belaybot and tugged on the rope—“you teach me how to rock climb.”
“What?” I replied without thinking, I was so caught off guard.
“It’s more than a fair trade,” she countered.
I laughed again. “That’s not what I meant. You want to learn how to rock climb?”
“It looks fun.” Daiyu tilted her face up to take in the twenty-foot wall and rubbed her hands together. “It looks like a challenge.”
I shook my head. “You surprise me.”
“How could I surprise you if you don’t even know me?” She was pulling off her ivory sweater, and I wasn’t sure which panicked me more, that or her question.
“Preconceived notions, I guess.”
“Which are stupid,” she said, voice muffled under the wool. Her sweater rode up to show her abdomen, and for a terrible moment, I thought everything would come off at once—and I’d have Jin’s daughter standing in her lace bra in the middle of my apartment.
I was beside her within seconds, grasping at the bottom of her sweater.
“What are you doing?” she asked through the soft, opaque material.
Her stance had tensed, and too late, I saw the edge of a black top beneath the sweater. I reached for the fabric, my hand grazing against her bare stomach, and that was enough for me to imagine myself helping her out of her top, instead of pulling it down. “Just being a gentleman,” I replied smoothly, surprised my voice didn’t hitch, and tugged the shirt down to cover her exposed torso.
Her head emerged after taking the sweater off, revealing the black tank top beneath, and our eyes locked. She smiled at me, as if she had just read my mind. My hand still cupped her waist, and I casually let my arm drop. Gods. I barely noticed the dozens of you girls flaunting their prefect bodies, but the sight of Daiyu removing a sweater could make my mouth go dry. It wasn’t because I was attracted to her that I was so thrown. That was a given. What terrified me was that I liked her.
Daiyu continued to undress, unzipping, then removing her brown boots. Her feet were clad in black stockings and she bounced on the balls of them, turning to scan the rock wall again. She threw a glance over her shoulder and winked. “I’m ready.”
“Right now?”
“Why not?” she replied breezily.
“It’s the best way to begin the new year,” I joked. “Tell the belaybot what size shoes you wear.”
Daiyu spoke to the silver, egg-shaped bot and it retrieved climbing shoes from the depths of its belly. “They fit!” she exclaimed as she jumped up and tested the feel of the shoes. “Now what?”
“We’ll strap you into the harness and you can climb. I’ll reset the wall to beginner level. I can talk you through it.” I took the harness and held it before her. “Your legs go through these holes here.” She laid a hand lightly on my shoulder as she slipped into the harness. “Great. Now we just need to tighten the harness at your waist.”
She was more slender than I was. I adjusted the straps, too aware of my own reluctance to touch her now, but I had to, to make certain the harness fit right. I ran my hands along the small of her back and around her waist, keeping my gaze down, tugging at the harness to make sure it was on correctly.
Resetting the wall configuration with a voice command, I then grabbed a pouch of powder and clipped it to one of the rings on her harness. “Dust your hands and you’re ready to climb. The bot will be belaying your rope.”