Page 41 of Billionaire’s Promise

“You don’t have to.” I announced. “I’ll help you.”

Fortunately, I always kept a picture of my passport on my phone. It was easier so I could send it to agents that helped me manage all the traveling that was part of my job. I made a few taps on my phone and Air Dropped the picture to him.

Evidently, I wasn’t so precious about my personal data after all.

“Sent. Don’t look.”

“Sorry, it’s impossible not to look, I have to forward it to Dave.” He took a peek and then chuckled. “Cute. And I promise I’ll show you my passport photo later.”

Or more? I wouldn’t mind.

* * *

When Kai told me about picking up Ting Ting, I had no idea he meant we had to leave right away. Dave picked us up pretty much straight after I sent my passport photo, allowing me only ten minutes to clean up and get dressed. Thank God I had a shower last night and didn’t smell too bad. I spritzed extra perfume on just to be sure.

What surprised me most was the fact that security took so little time to clear. I never thought twice about things like this, but I guess it wasn’t impossible in the age of the internet. IT was never really my strong suit but as long as they were sure that I was a trustworthy person to be around their guests and promised not to shoot me while I was there, I wouldn’t think too much more about it.

After about forty minutes of driving, we entered a secluded space with a large sign on display – the largest one I had ever seen – trespassers will not be tolerated. What did that mean? Would they be shot at? Or taken down to a little dark room and held captive until the police came?

I knew people got into trouble for trespassing, but it had never occurred to me how serious it could be. To me, those signs were just there to keep people out of unused land. Seeing the number of surveillance cameras and armed guards around the compound had given me a different understanding of those signs now. It took us another few minutes before we reached another compound, and inside the high walls were even more cameras, and guards, all armed.

There was a container looking building and, on the tarmac, parked several small to medium sized luxury jets.

“Are we here?”

“Yeah, we were here about fifteen minutes ago,” Kai confirmed.

“Fifteen minutes ago?”

“Yes. It wasn’t marked or anything. But the land belongs to the airport.”

Funny how he called it an airport like it was just a regular bus stop or something. “You come here a lot?”

“Only in emergencies. I like traveling commercial. It’s more fun.”

Okay. He and I had a very different understanding of fun. I hated flying and every time I thought about flying it just made me nervous. I wasn’t afraid, but I hated the whole routine, checking in, security checks, the waiting, etc. I wondered if I would enjoy traveling in a private jet, not that I had the money to afford one – not even a sharing scheme.

“I think that’s our plane.”

Right in front of us was a white plane with three golden stripes, and some Chinese characters thrown in – probably saying The Great Li Empire or something like that.

“You own that?”

“No, this one belongs to one of my friends. My family owns one too, but I couldn’t let them know that I brought Ting Ting over without them finding out about Jenny. They get notifications when I use it. That’s the other reason why commercial is better, because they can’t really track me.” I doubted that was true. Someone could hack into the airline database and find him if they really wanted to. I’d seen it in movies – any ordinary geek downtown would be able to do that.

We got out of the car and waited, watching the plane pull up closer to us. The door was released after a few minutes. A lady in red, with a stick thin supermodel body walked out onto the steps.

Kai removed his sunglasses as if he was trying to verify how hot this woman was.

“Lucy?”

What was going on here? I thought we were picking up Ting Ting.

“Li Kai.” She didn’t seem surprised to see him, though.

“Zen me shi ni?” I could only assume that Kai was speaking in Mandarin, or some other dialect that I didn’t understand.

“Does she speak English?” I snapped, interrupting rudely like the American that I was. No one should speak in any language other than English.