Ep 4

I’d stepped foot in my childhood home ten minutes ago, and I’d already

been criticized for my hair (too messy), my nails (too long), and now, my

complexion.

Just another night at the Lau manor.

“Good. Remember, you can’t let yourself go,” my mother said. “You’re

not married yet.”

I held back a sigh. Here we go again.Despite my thriving career in Manhattan, where the event planning

market was more cutthroat than a designer sample sale, my parents were

fixated on my lack of a boyfriend and, therefore, lack of marital prospects.

They tolerated my work because it was no longer fashionable for

heiresses to do nothing, but they were salivating for a son-in-law, one who

could increase their foothold in the circles of the old money elite.

We were rich, but we would never be old money. Not in this generation.

“I’m still young,” I said patiently. “I have plenty of time to meet

someone.”

I was only twenty-eight, but my parents acted like I would shrivel into

the Crypt Keeper the second midnight struck on my thirtieth birthday.

“You’re almost thirty,” my mother countered. “You’re not getting any

younger, and you have to start thinking about marriage and kids. The longer

you wait, the smaller the dating pool becomes.”

“I am thinking about it.” Thinking about the year of freedom I have left

before I’m forced to marry a banker with a numeral after his last name. “As

for getting younger, that’s what Botox and plastic surgery is for.”

If my sister were here, she would’ve laughed. Since she wasn’t, my joke

fell flatter than a poorly baked soufflé.

My mother’s lips thinned.

Beside her, my father’s thick, gray-tipped brows formed a stern V over

the bridge of his nose.

Sixty years old, spry, and fit, Francis Lau looked every inch the self-

made CEO. He’d expanded Lau Jewels from a small, family-run shop to a

multinational behemoth over three decades, and a silent stare from him was

enough to make me shrink back against the couch cushions.

“Every time we bring up marriage, you make a joke.” His tone seeped

with disapproval. “Marriage is not a joke, Vivian. It’s an important matter

for our family. Look at your sister. Thanks to her, we’re now connected to

the royal family of Eldorra.”

I bit my tongue so hard the taste of copper filled my mouth.

My sister had married an Eldorran earl who was a second cousin twice

removed from the queen. Our “connection” to the small European

kingdom’s royal family was a stretch, but in my father’s eyes, an

aristocratic title was an aristocratic title.

“I know it’s not a joke,” I said, reaching for my tea. I needed something

to do with my hands. “But it’s also not something I need to think about

right now. I’m dating. Exploring my prospects. There are plenty of single

men in New York. I just have to find the right one.”

I left out the caveat: there were plenty of single men in New York, but

the pool of single, straight, non-douchey, non-flaky, non-disturbingly

eccentric men was much smaller.

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