The Crazy Rich Asians Trilogy

“It worked. It bloody worked.” Oliver sighed in relief.

“That Kitty girl is going to buy the house?”

“You better believe it. Auntie Zarah, I could kiss your feet.”

“I can’t believe it was that easy,” the Dowager Sultana of Perawak said.

“The minute you started talking about Tyersall Park, she forgot all about the stupid title. You were absolutely brilliant!”

“Was I?”

“I had no idea you could act like that!”

The Dowager Sultana giggled like a schoolgirl. “Oh my goodness, I haven’t had this much fun in a long time! That ridiculously formal way you were speaking to me—‘If I might venture to ask’—hahahaha, you sounded like you were in a Jane Austen novel! I was biting my lip to stop from laughing. And oh, and I have a horrible neck ache now from wearing all those damn necklaces! I thought I was going to be strangled by diamonds, heeheeheeheehee!”

“If you hadn’t been dressed like that, Kitty would not have been in such awe of you. She’s been spoiled with jewels herself, so we really had to lay on the shock and awe.”

“Shock and awe indeed! Did you like what I had my guards chant before I made my grand entrance into the room?”

“Oh my God, I almost peed in my pants! I was thinking, why are they chanting the Singapore Children’s Day song?”

“Heeheehee! Remember when your mummy made you sing it to me one day when you came home from school? You were so proud to sing a song in Malay. Now, did you like my mention of China’s First Lady?”

“I did, I did. Very appropriate, Auntie Zarah.”

“I’ve never even met her, heeheeheehee!”

“You deserve an Oscar, Auntie Zarah. I owe you big-time.”

“Just send me a jar of those pineapple tarts that your cook makes, and we’ll call it even.”

“Auntie Zarah, you’re going to get a whole crate of those pineapple tarts.”

“Alamak, no! Please don’t! I’m on a diet! I was so nervous during my performance, I ate too many of those coconut puffs today, heeheeheehee. I have to force myself to go to my granddaughter’s zoomba class in the ballroom now!”

* * *

* The Yang di-Pertuan Agong, or Agong for short, is the monarch of Malaysia. The Nine Malay states each have their own hereditary rulers and royal families, and the Agong is elected from among these rulers every five years.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

MACRITCHIE RESERVOIR, SINGAPORE

It had been a long, hot, mosquito-ridden hike, and as Carlton pounded his way up another sloping hill, he wondered what the hell he had been thinking when he suggested this plan to Scheherazade. His shirt was drenched in sweat, and he was certain that no amount of Serge Lutens cologne could mask how he smelled at this point. He turned around to check on Scheherazade and saw that she was crouched on the ground, staring at something. At a discreet distance, three of her bodyguards in jogging clothes stood watching them.

“Look! It’s a monitor lizard!” She pointed.

“He’s a pretty big fella,” Carlton said as he caught sight of the three-foot-long reptile resting under a clump of bushes.

“It’s a she, I believe,” Scheherazade corrected. “We had quite a big menagerie of pets when I was growing up. Reptiles were my thing.”

“This was in Surrey?”

“Actually, this was when we were in Bali. My family lived there for about three years when I was a little girl. I was a bit of a wild child then, going barefoot everywhere around the island.”

“That explains why you’re not even breaking a sweat right now,” Carlton said, trying his best not to stare too hard at her goddess-like physique shown off to perfection in her mesh paneled leggings and stretch knit sports bra.

“You know it’s funny—I never sweat. Ever. I’m told that Queen Elizabeth doesn’t either.”