“So you’re going to sell?”
“The temple will remain the same. That is a condition of the sale. Then all the money will be held in trust for my mother, aunt and siblings.”
Tracy nodded, her agile mind already understanding more of the financial details than his family ever would. “Is your mother okay with this?”
He tightened his jaw. “She has no choice. She gave me power of attorney long ago.” He lifted his chin, embarrassment and pride at war inside him. “Even as a child, I feared this day would come.”
“Nathan, I’m so sorry.” She reached out to touch his hand. Without thinking, he flipped his hand over so he could grip her palm to palm.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “The temple will survive. My family will have enough to do what they want, and…” He forced his next words out. “I am available as your guide to introduce you to Hong Kong. I can ease your way into the temple.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I can’t possibly afford a trip to Hong Kong. And neither can you. So where—”
“Stephen has loaned me the money. And he has paid for your ticket—round trip, first class, open-ended return.”
She laughed—a short burst of air that filled the room. “Are you nuts? You think I can go to Hong Kong tomorrow morning?”
He nodded. “I don’t think you can resist it.”
Tracy studied him, her gaze silent and hard. And the longer she remained quiet, the more his hopes rose. Maybe she did have the strength to resist the siren call of priesthood. Spirit would not influence her, and her scruples would not allow her to accept a free ticket from a man she didn’t know. Maybe…
“All right,” she said.
His hopes plummeted, but still a tiny sliver of his heart held on. “All right what? You will refuse to go?”
She pushed up from her chair so that she faced him eye to eye. “All right, Nathan, I’ll go to Hong Kong with you. My brother can cover for me here. I’ll meet this Stephen. I’ll see what my big possibilities are for divinity or priestesshood or whatever. But you know what I’ll really be doing when I’m there looking at your secret tigress rites?”
Nathan didn’t answer. He already knew she would be walking the path of the divine tigresses. He knew that within a week, he would be nothing more than a fond memory, stepping stone along her road.
“I’m going to find out what happened to you, Nathan. I’m going to find out how you can claim to love me, kiss me with such passion, even send me to heaven, and yet still want to throw me to another man. I’m going to learn about the secret life and times of Nathan Gao.”
He stared at her, shocked to see that she really did mean exactly what she said. “But I have no secrets. There is nothing for you to find except your own potential.”
“Yeah,” she drawled. “And I’m Joe Namath reborn.”
Chapter 16
THEY LEFT BEFORE DAWN the next morning. It was a miracle that she already had a passport, but with the stricter ID requirements, she’d gotten one last year. Then there was packing and a surprisingly quick discussion with Joey. Far from being upset by her trip, her little brother was thrilled to get the chance to manage the apartment building himself. Tracy could only pray that he remembered he was supposed to go to school, too.
Their flights went from Champaign to Chicago to Los Angeles to Hong Kong. Then there was the endless wait through customs before meeting a limo that wanted to take them directly to Stephen’s home. Even though Tracy could barely see straight, she had the strength to flat-out refuse. She and Nathan would go to the tigress temple now. Stephen could visit tomorrow after she’d had a bath, breakfast—or was it dinner?—and felt a little more oriented.
The driver had no choice but to agree, and she had Nathan there to make sure they were driving to the right place. Then she collapsed backward against his outstretched arm and thought she might take a little nap. Except, of course, she had never been out of Illinois, much less the United States. And no matter how tired she felt, she couldn’t suppress the excitement zipping down her spine.
She was in Hong Kong! And it was huge! Flying in, she had seen mountains and buildings and more buildings. Nathan had told her of huge shopping districts, flea markets and designer boutiques. Of food that ran the gamut from curbside stir fry to $500-a-plate dining.
Tracy had listened closely to everything he’d said. He was her only source of information since there hadn’t been time to pick up a guidebook before leaving Illinois. But what struck her most was his description of his native island, Lamma. It turned out that what she called Hong Kong was actually a network of over two hundred islands. Whereas Hong Kong was a steep rocky place of high rise after high rise, Lamma was mostly unspoiled by urban sprawl. In fact, his temple home didn’t even have electricity.
The concrete road out of the airport felt busy to her, but Nathan assured her that the traffic was light. As they drove, she caught a glimpse of a massive bronze Buddha and gasped, “Is that your temple?” The statue was huge!
“No,” he answered, his voice warm against her cheek. “The tigresses are not so wealthy or as obvious as Po Lin.”
She turned and pressed a kiss to his beard-roughened cheek. “Because you study sex? It’s important to keep a low profile?” She hadn’t forgotten that the Hong Kong police still believed the temple was a glorified prostitution ring.
“Because we use all that our bodies are capable of to launch our way to heaven.” He looked down at her, and when she quirked an eyebrow at him, he released a carefree laugh. “And yes, sex is often a hidden discussion among the Chinese.”
“Not just among the Chinese,” she murmured, her attention drawn back to the landscape. Very soon, Buddha was far away and they were zooming toward the huge skyscape of Hong Kong Island. “How do we get to your home?”
“By ferry then bicycle. Or Stephen’s car.”
She blinked. “Seriously?” She couldn’t imagine a place that she couldn’t get to by car. Certainly not in this huge, zooming metropolis. “I think I’m getting whiplash. It’s like how I imagine Gotham City on steroids. And yet your home doesn’t have electricity.”
He began pointing out highlights, talking about things he had done and seen as a child. He’d had footraces against boys on bikes and sometimes won because the road was so rocky. He had carried packages for tourists at Stanley Market for a Hong Kong dollar—less than a U.S. quarter. He had even snuck onto the ferry and ridden for hours….
Then they were at that very same ferry, unloading their luggage to sit on a large open ferry boat. Though there was enough seating for two hundred, barely twenty people shared the ride with them, and no one joined them at the very windy bow. Tracy watched the water and the skyline as long as she could, but in the end, she simply closed her eyes, lifted her face to the wind and felt the warm, strong presence of Nathan as he stood by her side, his arm around her waist, his broad shoulders blocking the worst of the wind.
“Perfect,” she said. He couldn’t hear her. The wind snatched the word away, but when she opened her eyes she caught him looking down at her, a yearning in his eyes that took her breath away. She would have stretched up on her toes to kiss him then, but he turned away. Still being noble, she supposed, letting her see if she had some great pro-football career. So she pinched him as hard as she could, and when his face snapped back to her, she surged up on her toes and kissed him. “I choose my path,” she said a moment later. She spoke right in his ear so he would hear her. “I choose.”
He didn’t answer. She could tell he didn’t believe her. He simply turned away, but the hand that held her waist pulled a little tighter, and she happily snuggled into his side. They stayed like that all the way to the quaint wood pier that led to a well-trod footpath obviously designed for tourists.