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“This looks like a lot of fun,” Cassiel said, stepping between the two of them, and facing Ben Goh with a forced smile. “But maybe we save it? I mean, you don’t want me and my brother standing over you while this guy kicks the ever-loving shit out of you in public, now do you? Much as I’d love to see that.”
Ben Goh backed off immediately. “And now it’s the whole Loring family together. Not that you’ll ever be one of them,” he said to Elias. He continued on in Mandarin and then left.
“What did he say?” Rafe asked.
Elias shook his head, his eyes darting to Bianca. “Nothing worth repeating,” he said. He let out a gusty breath. “Are you okay?” he asked Bianca.
“Who was that?” Abbe asked, joining them.
“Someone I went to school with,” Bianca replied, shivering with disgust. “As big an asshole then as he is now.”
She knew everyone must have a million questions, but she didn’t know how much of this she was allowed to talk about. Luckily everyone was trying to act like nothing had happened in order to avoid making a scene.
“Come here,” Elias said, stepping forward and giving Bianca a hug.
“Can we go?” she asked him, resting against him and not at all sure she could keep pretending everything was fine.
He seemed to know the night was ruined. “Yeah. Let’s go,” he said.
“I’ll have the car brought out,” Cassiel said, taking out his phone.
Cassiel walked them out the front and to the Range Rover already pulling around to collect them. Elias put Bianca in the car.
“Can you give me one second with your brother?” he asked. She nodded and he shut the door.
Bianca couldn’t hear their voices through the reinforced glass, but she could see them. Elias spoke heatedly, and Cassiel nodded, crossing his arms, and listening. When Elias was done talking, Cassiel reached out and put his hand on Elias’ shoulder for a moment, pulling his head closer to say something intensely before letting him go.
She noticed a new feeling of camaraderie between them, something that Bianca never would have imagined before, but she could see it just beginning between them now. Elias went around to the other side of the Range Rover and got in the back with her and their driver sped off without needing to be given directions.
Elias let his head fall back against the headrest for a moment and he pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, holding in either a scream or a string of obscenities. Then he turned to Bianca and pulled her across the seat and into his arms.
“Areyouokay?” she asked.
“Sorry, yeah,” he said, still visibly shaken up. She could feel his heat beating under her cheek.
Bianca pushed against his chest until he let her go enough so that she could look him in the eye. “What did he say to you? In Mandarin?”
“Just some filthy shit. Like I said, nothing I care to repeat,” he said, his expression shuttered.
“Was it something about our racial differences?” she asked. They needed to have this conversation. She was upset that it was happening because of Ben Goh, but still, it had to happen.
“Some of it,” he admitted.
She felt like there was this big, ugly thing that had come in and sat down between them. It had nothing to do with them as a couple, but still, they had to find a way to talk above it, around it, or through it somehow, or pretty soon they wouldn’t be able to talk to each other at all.
“Did anything he said make you feel differently about me?” she asked.
He looked surprised. “No, Bianca. It’s all shit I’ve dealt with before. My father’s white. Blonde-haired, blue-eyed. Do you know how many of his so-called friends would point at me and say to him,you sure he’s yours,like that was even remotely funny, let alone not downright racist?”
“That’s horrible,” she whispered, her heart going out to the little boy he’d been, having to hear that. She took his hand.
“That’s all some people see, and when they look at us, that’s all they’ll be thinking,” he said like he was warning her. “That you’re white, and I’m not. Are you sure you can handle that?”
“If you can deal with it, so can I,” she said. “This is worth it to me. You’re worth it.”
A pained look crossed his face, then he leaned closer and kissed her briefly before leaning back again. “Do you want to come to my place tonight?” he asked. He looked younger all of a sudden. Vulnerable.
“Yes,” she replied. Then she gestured down to her gown. “But only if you have a pair of sweats I can borrow. Because this is not something I’m going to want to wear while we’re having breakfast.”
