Crazy Rich Asians

SINGAPORE, 3:30 A.M.

Rachel was quiet all the way home from the wedding ball. She graciously returned the sapphire necklace to Fiona in the foyer and bounded up the stairs. In the bedroom, she grabbed her suitcase from the built-in cupboard and began shoving in her clothes as fast as she could. She noticed that the laundry maids had placed thin sheets of scented blotting paper between each folded piece of clothing, and she began tearing them out frustratedly — she didn’t want to take a single thing from this place.

“What are you doing?” Nick said in bafflement as he entered the bedroom.

“What does it look like? I’m getting out of here!”

“What? Why?” Nick frowned.

“I’ve had enough of this shit! I refuse to be a sitting duck for all these crazy women in your life!”

“What on earth are you talking about, Rachel?” Nick stared at her in confusion. He had never seen her this angry before.

“I’m talking about Mandy and Francesca. And God only knows who else,” Rachel cried, continuing to grab her things from the armoire.

“I don’t know what you’ve heard, Rachel, but—”

“Oh, so you deny it? You deny that you had a threesome with them?”

Nick’s eyes flared in shock. For a moment, he wasn’t sure what to say. “I don’t deny it, but—”

“You asshole!”

Nick threw his hands up in despair. “Rachel, I’m thirty-two, and as far as I know I’ve never mentioned joining the priesthood. I do have a sexual history, but I’ve never tried to conceal any of it from you.”

“It’s not that you concealed it. It’s more that you never told me in the first place! You should have said something. You should have told me that Francesca and you had a past, so I didn’t have to sit there tonight and get totally blindsided. I felt like a total fucking idiot.”

Nick sat down on the edge of the chaise lounge, burying his face in his hands. Rachel had every right to be angry — it just never occurred to him to mention something that happened half a lifetime ago. “I’m so sorry—” he began.

“A threesome? With Mandy and Francesca? Really? Of all the women in the world,” Rachel said contemptuously as she struggled with the zipper on her suitcase.

Nick sighed deeply. He wanted to explain that Francesca had been a very different girl back then, before her grandfather’s stroke and all that money, but he realized that this was not the time to defend her. He approached Rachel slowly and put his arms around her. She tried to break away from him, but he locked his arms around her tightly.

“Look at me, Rachel. Look at me,” he said calmly. “Francesca and I just had a brief fling that summer in Capri. That’s all it was. We were stupid sixteen-year-olds, all raging hormones. That was almost two decades ago. I was single for four years before I met you, and I think you know precisely how the last two years have gone — you are the center of my life, Rachel. The absolute center. What happened tonight? Who told you all these things?”

With that, Rachel broke down and it all came flooding out — everything that happened at Araminta’s bachelorette weekend, all of Mandy’s constant innuendoes, the stunt that Francesca had pulled at the wedding ball. Nick listened to Rachel’s ordeal, feeling sick to his stomach the more he heard. Here he thought she had been having the time of her life. It pained him to see how shaken up she was, to see the tears spill down her pretty face.

“Rachel, I am so sorry. I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry I am,” Nick said earnestly.

Rachel stood facing the window, wiping the tears from her eyes. She was angry at herself for crying and confused by the tidal wave of emotion that had swept over her, but she just couldn’t help it. The shock of the evening and the pent-up stress of the days leading up to it had brought her to this point, and now she was drained.

“I wish you had told me about the bachelorette weekend, Rachel. If I had known, I could have done more to protect you. I really had no clue those girls could be so … so vicious,” Nick said, searching for the right word in his fury. “I’ll make sure you never see them again. Just please, don’t leave like this. Especially when we haven’t even had a chance to enjoy our holiday together. Let me make it up to you, Rachel. Please.”

Rachel kept silent. She stayed facing the window, suddenly noticing a strange set of shadows moving on the darkened expanse of lawn. A moment later, she realized it was just a uniformed Gurkha on his night patrol with a pair of Dobermans.

“I don’t think you get it, Nick. I’m still mad at you. You didn’t prepare me for any of this. I traveled halfway around the world with you, and you told me nothing before we left.”

“What should I have told you?” Nick asked, genuinely perplexed.