# Read the first page of Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan

Read the opening of Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan free, no signup. A forbidden affair erupts at a lavish tropical society wedding.

- Page: https://uncovered.ink/read/lies-and-weddings-kevin-kwan
- Genre: Literary fiction
- Year: 2024
- ISBN: 9780385546300
- Read it blind (cover and title hidden): https://uncovered.ink/?b=9780593862704&s=read-page
- Buy: https://bookshop.org/a/125786/9780385546300
- Borrow: https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=9780385546300

## The opening

“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk in my garden forever.” Henry kept chanting the line out loud over the roar of the helicopter’s engine. He had just seen it in an ad at the jewelry shop, and he did not want to forget it tonight. Against the ink blue of the evening sky, the jagged ridges of the mountain pass reminded him of a great slumbering beast. The Dragon’s Back, as it was known to locals. Looking out over the twinkling lights that came into view as the chopper crested Shek O Peak, Henry remembered what his mother always said: The feng shui was especially good on Hong Kong Island because the city was situated with the mountain at its back and the ocean at its feet. This was why so many great fortunes were made here.

And no one felt more fortunate tonight than Henry Tong. He was flying home from a weekend on the nearby island of Macau, where, after winning $7.4 million at the high-stakes poker table of the Casino Lisboa, he had directed the pilot to take him straight to his favorite watering hole at the best hotel in Hong Kong, where his closest chums had been commanded to meet him. What none of his friends knew was that before jumping aboard the helicopter, Henry had made a pit stop at the jeweler on the mezzanine level of the casino and hastily snapped up a twelve-carat canary diamond ring.* This night called for a grand celebration—he was going to make Gabriella Soong his fiancée.

The helicopter descended atop the Peninsula Hotel on Kowloon’s waterfront, and Henry impatiently jumped out before the rotor blades came to a stop. Rakishly handsome with his hair slicked back and his Armani jacket flapping against the wind, the twenty-six-year-old strode across the landing pad feeling as if he owned the whole joint. A uniformed attendant in the hotel’s signature Brewster Green livery bowed deferentially as he held open the door.

One level down—on the twenty-eighth floor of the hotel—was the city’s most exclusive nightspot: Felix.

At that moment in time, no place on the planet could compete with Felix in terms of sheer wow factor. As one entered the main dining room through a darkened hallway, the space suddenly opened up to soaring floor-to-ceiling windows that

* To be precise, an 11.68-carat fancy yellow VVS2 Asscher-cut diamond ring accented by two large kite-shaped diamond side stones.

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