Chapter 15

Jane

Cecelia could not have been more unimpressed about her grandmother's visit if Jane had given her ample warning. Yet the few times Jane let the two have dinner together, Cecelia said nothing afterward, aside from, "She's the same as always." Jane decided not to press the issue.

She was busy, anyway. Between entering a deal with Monica Warren and hoping Damon didn't immediately find out before she got her story straight, Rebecca was off to Iowa, leaving Jane to deal with everything by herself until she rendezvoused with them in New York.

Granted, that wasn't far away at all, but it felt like three months, at least.

"I am going to miss you." Jane stood with Rebecca inside the lounge of the private airport where they currently stored their plane when it wasn't in use. In thirty minutes, it would take off to Des Moines with Rebecca, where the family was paying for the flight crew to stay for a whole week until flying everyone to New York. Jane was driving herself and Cecelia because apparently, the universe hated her. "Tell Cait that I said hello and I miss her too."

Rebecca looped her arms around Jane's shoulders and offered a lingering kiss that may – or may not, depending on how Jane felt like relaying it later – have included some tongue. She was going to be devoid of a woman's touch for at least a week, and by the clouds in the sky, Jane would get what she could right now!

"Oh, my God, you guys. Ew."

Jane broke away from Rebecca and sent her niece a death glare. "You're old enough to live after watching your nasty old aunt snog for a second."

Cecelia rolled her eyes before plugging her earbuds back in and staring at her phone. Jane quickly grabbed Rebecca's ass before patting her on the hip. "I hate that she gets to have you to herself for a whole week," Jane whispered into her ear. "Pageants make her so randy."

"You had me for three, Jane."

"Like I said, it's not fair." She glanced at Rebecca's suitcase. "You have her goodies?"

"Yes, wrapped as From Jane, With Love."

"That you do, eh?"

Jane and Cecelia remained in the lounge until Rebecca had boarded the plane on the tarmac. When it began taxiing down the runway, Jane stretched her arms above her head, announcing that it was fine for them to leave. She had to say it twice because Cecelia was engrossed in her texting.

"Can I meet up with some people later?" Cecelia asked on their way back to the car. "From school."

"That depends on what you are doing and who you are meeting."

"My friend is hosting a horror movie party at her place tonight. Have you ever seen Alien? I hear it's really good."

"That one escapes me, but I am not much one for horror." Jane blessed her lucky star that the route home was clear. She wanted to do some work at home to take her mind off being alone. Well, I've got the squirt, but it's not the same thing. The most Jane and Cecelia did together was eat dinner and drive around in the car. "If you plan on being back by eleven, I'm sure it's fine. Do you need a ride?"

Cecelia assured her that her friend, who was sixteen and had her license, would come by to pick her up and bring her home later. Nevertheless, she asked for the friend's address and phone number in case there was an emergency. Jane wasn't sure what that would be, but one could never be too sure anymore. This isn't my day in Hong Kong when we left the bloody house when we felt like it. Most of the time, Willow had no idea where any of her children were once they were teenagers.

Jane shuddered to think of it now.

She was in the middle of work when Cecelia announced she was leaving. Jane waved her off, dithering between heating something in the microwave for dinner or ordering in. Then she jumped back into her work, balancing spreadsheets, going over the meeting notes Rebecca had taken that week, and completely losing track of time. The sun had long set when her stomach finally growled. That's rare in itself. Jane rarely got hungry enough for her stomach to protest.

She grabbed her keys, went down to the parking garage, and drove to a local Italian bistro to treat herself to a solo dinner while texting with Rebecca and Caitlyn, who had met up at the lake house in Iowa.

"Wish I was there with the two most beautiful ladies in the world," Jane texted. "You know what to do, Cait."

She added a winking face and put down her phone, sighing. If only she could have gone with them. But no, have to watch this kid who is going to school.

The only reason she thought of Cecelia was because she saw a girl who looked like her at the front counter, picking up takeout.

But that couldn't be Cecelia, because she was at a female classmate's house watching horror movies. Cecelia would not – could not – be wandering around at night with a boy who looked old enough to be her uncle.

Let alone with their arms wrapped around each other.

Let alone stealing whole snogs while waiting for the waitress to return with their takeout.

What the bloody hell? Jane strained her head to get a better look at the girl who could not have been Cecelia, even though they were the same height, carried the same prominent Wong genes, and had the same haircut that Cecelia had gone out and procured as soon as she landed in America. Then again, it was hard to tell with some stranger boy's face all over hers!

Jane leaned back out of sight when the waitress returned with the takeout bag, commanding the amorous couple's attention. She picked up her phone and texted her niece an innocuous question about when she planned on being home because Jane felt like going to bed early that night.

Sure enough, the girl's butt buzzed up front. While the girl who totally-couldn't-be-Cecelia checked her messages and groaned in annoyance, Jane's face twisted into the kind of look she knew she had never made before in her life.

But her mother had. Multiple times.

Be calm. Play this cool. Unlike her mother, Jane knew how to handle this situation. Or, at least, she knew better than to rush up and catch Cecelia in a lie. Also, who the hell was this boy? Where was Perry Merryweather? Granted, Cecelia said nothing about him after homecoming, but…

Jane had a bad feeling. Part of her thought it best to leave well enough alone and trust Cecelia to come home on time, probably smelling of a teen boy's aftershave. Assuming he's in high school. Jane couldn't tell with American boys. Some of them still looked like babies in high school, and others looked old enough to have seen two tours of war.

This one had facial hair. That was way too old for Cecelia! Even if he was the same age!

She thought about texting Caitlyn, but what would she do? Who the hell could she even call on for help in this situation? Ironically, the only person who might know what to do was Lilian, but she wasn't here. She wasn't even on the same continent. Worse help than Cait. Jane bit her lip and tried to forget about it. This wasn't her daughter.

But it was her ward.

After fifteen minutes of dithering, she paid her bill and slipped out of the restaurant, convinced that Cecelia hadn't seen her. She had yet to receive a text response. But Jane did have the supposed friend's address in her phone and decided to take matters into her own hands.

I can't believe I'm doing this.

Cecelia's friend was only a few blocks away, living in a large townhouse by the marina. After finding a parking space nearby, she conjured the courage to go up and ring the bell, all while trying to come up with any story that wouldn't make her look insane in front of her niece and all the friends who were totally, absolutely, 100% watching movies and nothing more.

She wasn't surprised that a maid answered the door. What did surprise her was the face Jane instantly pegged as Malay.

"Selamat patong," Jane greeted, instantly throwing the maid off guard. The faster they built a rapport, the better. I'm grateful for my Malay nannies growing up. Jane wasn't fluent, but she knew enough to make the maid feel at ease and understand where someone like Jane Wong might be coming from. "I'm here looking for my niece, Cecelia. Do you speak Mandarin?"

The maid made a gesture indicating she spoke a little Mandarin, but English was better.

"Is she here?" Jane asked.

The maid looked behind her before answering. "There is a girl named Cecelia here, yes."

"Is she visiting a girl from school? Watching movies?"

"She is in the upstairs room watching a movie, yes." The maid looked down, lips curling in indecisive worry. "With Mr. Manfield."

Man. Field. Oh, that name was trouble. "She did not tell me she was visiting a boy. You must understand, I am her aunt and responsible for her here. Ms. Cecelia Lam is the daughter of my older sister, Lilian Wong, and our father's business partner Frank Lam. You will not recognize the business they own, but they are a rich and powerful family in Hong Kong. Do you understand what I am getting at here?"

Cheeks flushed as the maid opened the door to let Jane in. "Upstairs," she meekly said. "First door on the left. The Mr. and Mrs. Manfield do not allow locks on their children's doors, but…" She quickly closed the door when Jane entered, nostrils flaring and breaths rapidly increasing. "The young Mr. Manfield knows that I do not enter without knocking."

"Let me guess, the Mr. and Mrs. are out tonight."

"They are gone to Los Angeles this weekend."

"Do they know their son brings girls like my niece home with him? Who are lying to me about where they are and who they are with?"

The maid shook her head, defeated. "They do not care. It's shameful, but…"

"You're the help. I know how it works. Thank you." Jane doubled-back on her way to the staircase. "I suggest you step out of the way. This might get loud."

Funny, wasn't it? Jane had been nervous only a few minutes ago, but now? Fuck it, we're going in. Every step up the staircase only made her angrier. How dare Cecelia, who had been extended plenty of trust and a loose leash, betray Jane like this? If she were dating a boy, why hadn't she said so? Jane didn't need to know too many details! In fact, she'd rather not know any! But if this was how she was going to find out…

Cecelia deserved this. She would quickly learn that Aunt Jane was not one to be pushed around and stepped all over like an absentee guardian.

First door on the right. Why did it have to come so soon?

There were few things Jane thought she'd ever have to deal with in her life. She had never been inclined to motherhood, let alone having a maternal bone in her body. Shit, the few times Caitlyn brought up getting a pet, Jane made it clear that she didn't know much about that at all, nor did she care to.

So this? Sitting in her car with a rageful teenager in the passenger seat? One pissed at her? This was new, and Jane was in dangerous territory.

"Let me out!" Cecelia fussed with the door handle in such an obnoxious, hormonal rage that Jane covered her ear. The childproof locks would prevent her niece from running out into the urban night, but they still had to put up with this. "This is bullshit!" She switched to Cantonese, where she knew more colorful, painted idioms to drive the point home to her aunt. "If I wanted to be raised by a cunt, I would have stayed in Hong Kong with my bitch of a mother and old smelly cunt of a grandmother! I've had menstrual clots prettier than you!"

Jane laid on the horn not to punish her niece's cursing, but to get her to shut the bloody hell up. Ever since she barged into the young Mr. Manfield's room, where she had the unfortunate sight of her niece in bed with a naked boy, Jane's brain had been blasting with everything she didn't want to think about. Like how she had to handle this on her own.

"Are you quite done?" Jane asked when she moved her hand off the car horn. "We are going home, and after you shower, you are going straight to bed."

"Maybe I don't want to shower!"

"Oh, you're showering! You're washing that boy off you!"

"He didn't do anything bad! I wanted it!"

The headache Jane cultivated up in Owen Manfield's room made her want to drive her own stick shift through her temple. "Trust me, I am well aware that you wanted it! That was very clear when you lied to me about where you were going and who you were seeing!"

"Like you would have let me go out with a boy?"

"Maybe! I don't know! Wasn't given the choice to figure it out, now was I?"

Cecelia slammed her face in her hands and held back a sob of teenage frustration. "This isn't happening. You cannot tell Mom! Or Dad! Or, oh god, Grandma!"

"You're bloody damn right I am not telling any of them! I'm responsible for you, Cece! The last thing I need is any of them knowing how badly I fucked this up!"

"Oh, yeah, it's all about you! All about your stupid image to Grandma and Mom punting me off to you while…" Cecelia sniffed, losing her train of thought. "I am going to die."

That was the realest thing she said all night. Jane changed gears and pulled out into the street while Cecelia stared straight ahead beside her.

This is not happening. In one day, everything had changed in Jane's domestic life. She had gone from the available but respectfully distant aunt who fed and housed this girl to the stuff of a Chinese child's nightmares. Or any child's… Jane didn't regret it. She knew it was better her than anyone else in the family barging in on a high school senior getting ready to possibly impregnate Jane's niece, but it was still messy. For one thing, Jane didn't know one bit about being a teen girl in lust with boys. For a second thing…

She felt like such a hypocrite.

How many girls was I screwing around with behind my family's back? Jane could hardly remember now. She recalled some faces, some names, but mostly she remembered the heady kisses and heavy caresses of a schoolgirl discovering what she liked about sex. There was that part of Jane that insisted it was different… she hadn't been sleeping with boys, who could have done way worse things than any of the girls, but she knew it was hypocritical. She was the first to tell anyone that sex was sex, no matter what gender or set of genitalia it was with.

So why was she so adamant on getting Cecelia out of there?

"You lied to me," she reiterated. "You broke my trust." They were stuck at the final light, the blinker flashing a red arrow to the left as they waited to turn down their street. "I have given you quite a bit of leeway since you moved here. Your family and the government has put you into my care, Cece. I have to know what's going on with you. Physically. Mentally. Bloody hell yes that also means sexually!"

Cecelia was silent, staring at her lap while creating a curtain of hair around her head.

"What if you got pregnant?" That was the main thing Jane kept coming back to, but there was something else, too. "What if he hurt you, hm? How could I help you if he hurt you and I didn't know where you really were?" The light had long turned green, but Jane was so distracted that it was a miracle there were no other cars behind them to honk and curse at her to go. Right when the arrow turned yellow, she jerked the car to the left. "This is one of my worst nightmares. Only way it could be worse is if he did hurt you."

"He wouldn't hurt me," she pathetically whimpered.

Yes, that's what you believe, Cece. Jane didn't dare say that out loud, lest her niece raged in return. "I know you think that, love. But this isn't even the boy you went to that dance with. What happened to Perry? Who the hell was that?"

"I never dated Perry. We went to a dance together. I don't even like him."

"Then why did you bother going to the dance with him?"

"I thought it was mandatory! I don't know! Everyone else had a date so I thought I needed one too. It was my first stupid American dance. Owen, though…"

They pulled into their parking garage, Jane forcing herself to pay attention to the tight curve at the bottom of the incline. "What about him?" she asked when their space was in sight.

Cecelia's tone quickly changed. "Why should I tell you? You're going to judge me."

The car was soon in park again. Jane should have been eager to get up to her flat, but her rear was glued to her seat, her mind losing track of time now that everything had changed in one evening. I am so buggered. Even if she managed to keep this a secret between her and Cecelia, her own mother would still somehow find out. All it would take was one scandal reaching Hong Kong for Cecelia to get pulled home or, worse, sent to an all-girl boarding school in England like Jane had been. Worked out brilliantly for me, but only because I'm gay.

Jane pulled her key out of the ignition. "I am not going to judge you."

"Yes, you are! You have been judging me this whole time."

"There is judging you, and then there is being concerned for your safety." When Cecelia wasn't about to say anything else, Jane changed tactics. "Let's go upstairs, huh? By the way? You are so grounded."

"You can't ground me!"

Maybe Jane should have held off on that before they made it up to the flat. What if she takes off as soon as the doors open? Jane really hadn't thought this through.

"Yes, I can ground you. In fact, I just did. I think you will find it is a common thing here in the West! If I say you have to stay home and cannot go out and see your friends outside of school and clubs, well, that is how it is!"

"You're not my mom!"

Thank God for that. "No, I am your guardian. Which means your family signed these powers over to me when I picked you up from the airport. Do you understand?"

"Why am I grounded? That's so stupid."

"Seriously? You lied to me about where you were going and who you would be with. Did you even watch a horror movie with this boy? Or did you lie about that too? Come on, did you really think you would get away with this if I caught you?"

Cecelia said nothing. She merely crossed her arms in a pout and huffed.

"I want tea. Let's go upstairs."

"So I can be trapped there forever?"

"You want to be trapped in this car?"

Sighing, Cecelia opened the door. "No."

She trudged behind Jane up to their flat. There has to be a way to mitigate this… She knew they had humiliated each other, but the fact was? Cecelia had lied. Big time. She was in trouble, but that didn't mean Jane wanted any animosity between them. Why aren't you here, Cait? Becca? Why did she have to deal with this on her own?

As soon as they entered the flat, Jane turned toward the kitchen to make tea. She thought Cecelia would sit in the living room and immediately start texting all her friends how evil her mean Aunt Jane was, but instead, the girl rushed to her room, where she slammed her door so hard that the pictures rattled on the wall.

Jane braced herself against the counter. God give me strength. Did she act like this as a teenager? Did she owe her mother an apology?

She went ahead and brewed the tea that was supposed to calm her down. She made Cecelia a cup as well and took it to her door.

"I have some tea for you here, love," she said after knocking. "Don't let it get cold, huh?"

She was about to step away from the door when she heard, "Fuck you!"

Well, that was a shift in tone.

"I'm sorry," Jane said in Cantonese through the door. "Did you just swear at me? Do you want to take this up a notch and go to hell for another few weeks?"

"What right do you have to treat me like this?" Cecelia shouted back through the door. "Back in Hong Kong, I could do whatever I wanted! Nobody cared!"

"Trust me, I remember what it was like to be your age in Hong Kong! The perfect age and station for boys to take advantage of me!"

"What the fuck do you know about that? You're a perv!"

This was getting good, wasn't it? After a deep breath, Jane projected back, "You want to run that by me one time?"

"You heard me! You're a pervert who lives with two other women! You think that's normal or something? How am I supposed to be getting a good education in this country with all of this perversion around me! Really, Aunt Jane, it's your fault I'm having sex with boys because I need some balance in my personal life!"

"This has nothing to do with me and my perfectly legal and acceptable way of life! Also, kindly leave my wife and Rebecca out of this! They have been nothing but welcoming and loving toward you!"

"They have to be! They're American!"

"Furthermore, my personal life has nothing to do with yours! Fact of the matter is that your gallivanting with a man who is old enough to vote is a problem in itself! Do you know nothing about how things work here? He could get in massive trouble if I wanted to pursue it!" Jane wouldn't, but Cecelia had to know that she could. Like I don't know about Romeo and Juliet laws. It was much the same in Hong Kong, and quite frankly, Jane didn't care about her niece dating a boy she went to school with. This was about the lying and the deception. Because if Cecelia was lying about this, what else was she avoiding telling her aunt about? "Were you even going to use protection? Because it's more than your head if you get pregnant! It's mine too!"

"Eww!"

Not the correct response. "How long has this been going on, huh? Is this a recent development since coming to America, or were you doing this back home, too?"

"I am not a virgin if that's what your whack-ass is asking!"

"Oh! So happens that I'm not either! Want to talk about it?"

"No!"

Jane snorted. "Of course you don't! Neither do I! But here we are, screaming through a door in my flat because you lied to me about what you were doing!"

"Like you would have let me go out with Owen!"

"Not without a serious discussion first, that's for sure!" Jane thumped her forehead against the door. "Look, neither of us wants to do this right now. You're grounded. We'll discuss what that means later. Right now, I'm going to enjoy my tea and get ready for bed. If you even so much as think about sneaking out of this flat, I will tell your grandmother what you're up to. Not only your mom, but Gradmum Wong." Jane loathed the thought. Oh, God, did she ever. "I don't think you want that. So you're going to stay right here until we talk about this tomorrow."

"Blackmail!"

"Welcome to actually being parented, kid!" Jane couldn't believe those words had come out of her mouth. What reality was this? "Anyway, tea outside your door! Be careful when opening it! You're welcome and goodnight!"

She stomped back to the kitchen, where she grabbed her herbal tea and remained in the living area in case Cecelia wanted to come out and talk.

She did not. That was fine with Jane, who slowly sipped her tea while staring at her phone. She oscillated between her group chat with Caitlyn and Rebecca and a single, private chat with Caitlyn. The only one I can actually talk to about this right now. Caitlyn might know what to do. She would know what to say to keep Cecelia placated and understanding the gravity of the situation. Right?

Except Jane couldn't bring herself to actually text anything. She didn't know what to say.

So she put her phone down and stared out the window. Was it her, or did this flat feel awfully cramped? Practically… claustrophobic?

Jane had reached the bottom of her cup. She was too tired to get another one.