They Called Me a Gold Digger, So I Bought the Building novel · Chapter 2 of 3

Chapter 2: The Office That Knows Her Name

Temperance lets Garrett follow her to Zhouyi's office, refuses his request to resume the Shao family's public duties, and learns that he knew Beiying was being prepared to replace her before asking whether he may still come home.

Zhouyi snatched the visitor badge from Garrett's hand and clipped it upside down onto his jacket before he could object.

'Congratulations,' she said. 'You are now legally permitted to look lost.'

Garrett glanced at the badge, then at me. 'I assume this is the part where I'm supposed to be offended.'

'You can submit a written complaint at reception,' Zhouyi said. 'They have a pen shaped like a cucumber.'

I stepped past them into the office.

Shengli occupied two floors above a dental clinic and had the useful quality of making rich men underestimate it. There were paint marks on the glass walls, rolled plans beside the printer, and three abandoned cups of tea on the conference table.

Zhouyi's whiteboard filled one wall.

NET WORTH OF PEOPLE WHO UNDERESTIMATED T.L.

Beneath it, she had written a running figure in red marker.

The number was high enough to offend several families.

I had allowed her to keep the board because it amused her, and because nobody at Shengli needed reminding that I was not here as a visitor.

Garrett noticed it last.

That was useful.

'You could have told me you worked here,' he said.

'I don't work here.'

Zhouyi dropped a folder onto her desk. 'She owns the part that matters.'

I looked at her.

She looked back, entirely unrepentant.

'You told me not to make you look mysterious,' she said. 'I interpreted that as permission to make you look expensive.'

Garrett gave a short laugh before he remembered he was unhappy with me.

There it was. The old ease. The small sound that had once made every difficult room bearable.

I had brought him here to measure whether it survived without an audience.

Zhouyi pointed at the visitor chairs. 'Sit wherever you like. The furniture has no class loyalty.'

Garrett sat opposite me. I remained standing long enough to make him look at the chair he had chosen.

Then I sat.

'Your mother wants you back at the events,' he said.

'Your mother removed me from the events.'

'Yes.'

He had always been good at acknowledging facts after they became impossible to deny.

'Beiying will handle the Jinghu donors temporarily,' he continued. 'It doesn't have to become permanent.'

'How generous.'

'Temperance.'

My name sounded different in his mouth when he was asking me to absorb an insult for him.

'I'm not asking you to pretend nothing happened,' he said. 'I know it was humiliating.'

Zhouyi opened a drawer and took out a packet of sesame balls wrapped in paper.

She pushed it toward me without looking away from Garrett. 'You haven't eaten since breakfast.'

'I had tea.'

'Tea is water with ambitions.'

I took one of the sesame balls. The shell was still warm and crisp, and the filling had enough sweetness to make the morning briefly tolerable.

Garrett watched me eat.

'You can say what you came to say,' I told him.

He folded his hands between his knees. 'I want you to come home.'

The office became very still, though Zhouyi continued marking figures on a printed budget.

'Your mother has already decided I am not part of the family in public,' I said. 'Would she like me back for dinner, or only for photographs?'

'It's not that simple.'

'It has been remarkably simple for her.'

He looked down before answering.

That pause had become familiar. Garrett used it when the truth was inconvenient and a softer version was still available.

'I should have warned you,' he said.

'Yes.'

'I didn't know exactly what she planned.'

'You knew enough to say nothing.'

His fingers tightened together. 'I thought I could stop it before it reached the luncheon.'

'And when that failed?'

'I thought you would handle it.'

I set the sesame ball down.

He had once written my defense in careful paragraphs and sent it to his mother without asking whether I wanted saving. He had listed every way I was better than the women she approved of.

Now he was offering me the burden of being unhurt.

'You were right,' I said. 'I handled it.'

His eyes lifted. 'That isn't what I meant.'

'No. You meant I would survive, so you were free to let it happen.'

Zhouyi stopped writing.

Garrett looked toward the whiteboard. The red total sat beneath the names of people who had once spoken to me with confidence because they believed I owned nothing.

'Is this what you've been doing?' he asked. 'Building a company while I thought you were managing the house?'

'You thought I was managing the house because I was managing the house.'

'You never told me.'

'You never asked what I did when you were away sailing.'

His mouth tightened. 'I asked if you were all right.'

'You asked whether dinner had been ordered.'

That landed harder than I expected.

For one second, the husband I married appeared. He looked tired, ashamed, and entirely capable of understanding me if nobody else was watching.

Then he said, 'I was trying to keep peace.'

I almost laughed.

The Shao family had treated peace as a room where I was expected to stand alone.

'You know how my mother gets at these events,' he said. 'She doesn't mean it personally.'

'That must be comforting for her.'

'Please don't do this.'

'Which part? Answering you?'

'I'm asking you to come back to the family events. Let Beiying handle this one project. You don't need to fight every decision.'

'I'm not fighting it.'

'Then what are you doing?'

I looked past him at the plans stacked beneath Zhouyi's desk. Jinghu's western parcel was marked in blue ink. The corrected number sat on the top sheet, exact and unobtrusive.

'I'm declining an invitation,' I said.

His brow creased. 'To what?'

'Your mother's arrangement.'

'You don't have to be so formal with me.'

'It helps me remain accurate.'

Zhouyi made a noise that might have been a cough and might have been admiration.

Garrett turned to her. 'Does she always speak like this here?'

'No,' Zhouyi said. 'Sometimes she uses spreadsheets.'

I took another sesame ball. Zhouyi watched until I finished it, then returned to her figures.

The ordinary care of it hurt more than Garrett's apology.

Garrett leaned forward. 'I am sorry.'

I believed him.

That was the most inconvenient part.

He had not wanted his mother to humiliate me. He had wanted his mother to remain pleased with him more.

'What would you like me to do with your apology?' I asked.

'Accept it.'

'And then?'

'Come home.'

'You are asking me to return to a house where your mother has announced that another woman is better suited to stand beside you.'

'Beiying is handling public duties. That doesn't change our marriage.'

'It changed the way your family introduced me.'

'You know they don't speak for me.'

'You let them speak while you stood beside them.'

He looked down again.

I watched the silence settle between us and felt its shape with terrible ease.

Three years of silence had made him believe my quiet was agreement.

'I'm not going to perform hurt feelings for your family,' I said. 'It would only give them a better evening.'

His head came up. 'I don't want you to perform anything.'

'You want me to return, smile, and make your mother comfortable.'

'Because you're my wife.'

'Your wife is not a decorative service.'

'I know that.'

'You knew it when you wrote the letter to your mother.'

He went still.

I had never told him I kept that letter in my wallet. The paper had softened at the folds, but his handwriting remained clear. He had called me the better person in every room.

He had believed it then.

'You kept it?' he asked.

'Yes.'

'Why?'

'It was a well-written letter.'

Zhouyi looked down at her budget to conceal a smile.

Garrett did not smile. 'I meant every word.'

'You meant them privately.'

The distinction remained between us, clean and expensive.

He reached across the table, then stopped before touching my hand.

'What do you need from me?' he asked. 'I'm trying to understand.'

'You needed to understand before the luncheon.'

'I know.'

'No. You know now because I am refusing to repair the damage for you.'

His face changed by almost nothing. I saw it anyway.

The door to Zhouyi's glass office remained open behind him. Outside, an assistant carried a stack of drawings past us and nodded to me without hesitation.

Garrett noticed that too.

'You have a place here,' he said.

'I do.'

'Will you come back to the apartment tonight?'

I could have answered quickly. I had spent years making his questions easy to survive.

Instead, I let him sit with the question.

He had once defended me in writing and abandoned me in person. Both things were true.

'You said you were sorry,' I said. 'What did you know before today?'

He did not answer at once.

Outside the glass, Zhouyi lowered her pen.

Garrett looked at the whiteboard, then at the floor, and finally back at me.

'I knew my mother had been preparing Beiying to replace you,' he said. 'I thought I could stop it before you found out.'

His voice was low when he asked, 'Am I still allowed to come home?'

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