Lemon Truffles - Love
Instantly
The Chocolate Chronicles [1]
Cece Monét
Diva C Publishing (2012)
Rating: ?????
Product Description
Cheng Liu is a hot shot young Chinese
professional. He’s tall, polished, assert-
ive, sexy, ambitious, good looking and
used to speaking up and getting what he
wants. So when he sees beautiful and
equally poised, but shy and reserved
African-American professional Angela
Hawkins, he knows that opposites defin-
itely attract in this case. He simply must
go introduce himself to her and maybe
even seduce her in the process…
In CeCe Monét's first installment of the
contemporary romance series The
Chocolate Chronicles… Lemon Truffles –
Love Instantly, two young adult work-
aholic professionals share one steamy,
pleasurable night together in Hong
Kong. Yet can their short, passionate
one night affair turn into a lifetime of
love, happiness and companionship?
Can their AMBW (Asian Man Black Wo-
man), lemon and chocolate swirl decad-
ence, creamy, sultry, rich, sweet, tangy
and indulgent romance survive a seem-
ingly betrayed promise?
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Two hearts forever intertwined by one, wild, hot, passionate night…
Cheng had… left behind his friends, family and his entire way of life to risk
everything by placing all his bets on her. Wow. It must be amazing to live with that kind of
certainty. To want to be with someone so badly and know so fully that everything was going
to work out in the end. Angela couldn’t take this. Her head was swimming from the glass of
wine that was really starting to kick in right now of course, her emotions were in a jumble,
and her hormones were in a knot as he stood so close she could smell Cheng’s cologne.
It was a heady mix of a citrusy, masculine fragrance that suited him interwoven
with his own intoxicating essence and pheromones that had combined to call out to her like
the sirens. She remembered this scent all too well. It triggered a memory that drew her right
back to their night together in Hong Kong. The memories of their bodies interlaced came
back vividly, in full color as they assaulted her mind. Angela had the kind of explosive chem-
istry with Cheng that she couldn’t deny or control, no matter how conflicted and confused she
felt right now. He was also still holding her hand up to his forehead, looking at her with the
kind of yearning she personally knew and understood all too well…
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CeCe Monét
The Chocolate Chronicles Volume 1:
Lemon Truffles – Love Instantly
· Los Angeles ·
This novel is completely a work of fiction. Characters – including their names, places and in-
cidents are products of the author’s imagination or are otherwise used fictitiously. Any simil-
arity from this book to events occurring in real life – including location(s), or person(s) living
or dead is wholly coincidental.
P.O. Box 4464
Carson, CA 90749
The Chocolate Chronicles Volume 1: Lemon Truffles – Love Instantly Copyright © 2012
CeCe Monét
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form
whatsoever, except for short excerpts appearing in book reviews. For reprint or excerpt per-
mission inquiries, please contact the author by e-mail at
or write to
Diva C Publishing, c/o CeCe Monét, P.O. Box 4464, Carson, CA 90749.
First published and distributed in the United States of America in March, 2012.
Cover photo used with implied permission from an AMBW online group’s public domain
images.
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Acknowledgements
This book is dedicated to all of the people who really believed in me, supported me and
helped me to get this book finished – thank you!
To my son and main source of inspiration to keep going every day – Caleb because without
you, I wouldn’t have found the courage to do any of this. Remember to always follow your
dreams baby!
Special appreciation and much love going out to my entire family and to my true friends –
most especially to Cameesha Gordon. Thanks homie, you’re the best!
Chapter One
Cheng wasn’t some sappy guy who believed in love at first sight, winning the
lottery or getting lucky in some other random, mysterious, bullshit way. In fact, he was studi-
ous, industrious and most assuredly believed in the power of an individual’s own hard work
and sheer will power. Okay, so his classmates and close friends also knew he was an avid
prankster, at least during his school days. Still, he had worked his ass off and had earned
some of the highest grades in his business classes when he was attending the University of
Hong Kong.
He was also multilingual and had managed to learn three languages fluently –
English, Mandarin, Cantonese, as well as one dialect – Shanghainese. So Cheng simply didn’t
believe in being lazy. Nor could he lollygag with nothing more than wishful thinking about
how good things would somehow magically come to him as he sat around on his ass. He be-
lieved in carving out his own path, making things happen and taking action to manifest what
he wanted into reality. This was why he was now one of the youngest members of a corporate
management team that oversaw one of the largest manufacturing conglomerates in China.
Headquartered in Hong Kong, he was only twenty-five years old and already
had his own office, shining like a super star amidst the vast sea of worker bees who were his
peers. Cheng wasn’t taken in by any of the so called glitz and glamour of his seemingly sexy
job, status or wealth either. He’d already seen the world, was responsible overall and gener-
ally careful with his money. He’d also sacrificed a lot to get to the top so quickly in part by
working endless hours.
Trusting his gut instincts had always paid off, so he’d taken calculated risks,
putting his career and reputation on the line numerous times to be super outspoken. Thus,
Cheng had been taken seriously more often than not when he knew he was right about a dir-
ection the company should take. After all, his father had taught him how to handle business
people and Cheng had a knack for speaking to them respectfully, though assertively.
Cheng was good too at winning people over one-on-one or in small groups to
socialize with them and persuade them to see things his way. He enrolled his colleagues in his
visions then enlisted them to execute those goals. Then they were much more likely to sup-
port his initiatives companywide. Networking with his father’s connections and having sever-
al of his late father’s colleagues as mentors hadn’t hurt either. So Cheng had basically fore-
gone his personal life in order to get to where he was now, always putting work first instead.
In times of quiet reflection though, like now when it was late in the day, the of-
fice was totally deserted and he was basically past his productive prime time for the day, he
knew. Cheng knew that he was missing out on so many of those things that made life really
worth living. He stood looking out of his office high rise’s floor to ceiling windows, seeing the
lights of the city glowing with vibrancy all around him.
So much of life seemed to be passing him by. All of his days were blending to-
gether as they were spent much the same way, especially since both of his parents were gone
now. Cheng worked, went home and slept for a few hours, then went back to work. Wash,
rinse and repeat. Day in and day out. The only thing that occasionally broke up the monotony
was his various business trips, like the one he was scheduled to be leaving for tomorrow.
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Cheng glanced at the clock and decided to go grab a late dinner and a drink at
one of the many nearby hotel restaurants in Kowloon. His flight wasn’t scheduled to depart
for another twelve hours and it seemed silly to bother going all the way home now. He wasn’t
sure how long he’d have to work today and was only going to be gone for a few days so he had
his lightly packed carry-on luggage with him already.
Maybe he could kill some time and go to Novotel’s Tasca Bar before making his
way to the airport? Cheng shut down his computer, got his blazer and roll away suitcase be-
fore he finally left work for the day. He walked the short distance to the hotel’s entrance,
made his way through the lobby and eventually landed at the type of hotel bar he’d been
searching for. He ordered himself a double Kaolian on the rocks and requested a dinner
menu from the bartender.
As Cheng contemplated whether or not to get a savory fried noodle dish or the
appetizer sampler platter instead, he saw her. A woman who’d captured his attention so com-
pletely, he nearly dropped his drink as he watched her take a seat at the other end of the bar.
She was beautiful, with a sleek, toned frame, slender, graceful fingers, large, round, beautiful
eyes with creased eyelids, toasted almond colored skin and hair in tight curly ringlets that
came just past her shoulders. Surprisingly, she also had an American accent when she
ordered her apple martini in English. Most of the Black women he’d seen in HK were from
Africa, though there were occasionally a few from the UK as well.
He’d run into American women in HK from time to time, but never someone
like her. Cheng was fairly certain that the woman now seated at the opposite end of the bar
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from him was Black, but he would guess that she had some kind of mixed race ancestry in her
family’s background too. Cheng had never seen a woman who made everything else around
him feel like it melted into non-existence in her wake. In a word, she was extraordinary. He
hadn’t meant to, but he stared at her so long and so intensely, he caught her attention.
The lady looked up at him and must’ve seen the blatant interest he couldn’t
conceal even if he’d wanted to. She smiled shyly and then looked back down at her drink.
Normally, Cheng would’ve felt embarrassed at having been caught so openly gaping at a wo-
man, but he’d just downed his own drink and it must’ve been fueling his bravado with liquid
courage. After all, he did live by the “just do it” motto to the fullest.
Cheng realized suddenly that he should’ve eaten first since he’d just had a
double shot of whiskey on an empty stomach, not having eaten since lunch time. Oh well, too
late now he thought to himself wryly as he motioned for the bartender. When the bartender
came over, Cheng ordered a second drink for himself as well as one for the lady he hoped
would allow him to get to know her much better before the night was over.
~
Angela was an attractive woman, or so she’d been told on several occasions. So she was some-
what used to being noticed by her fair share of men in various places around the world. Her
job for the US State Department often had her traveling to numerous international sites, but
she sometimes found it lonely always moving, shaking and jet-setting. Angela knew how to
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put on her professional game face and was definitely confident in her abilities when it came
to her job.
Yet for some reason, she didn’t feel nearly as comfortable randomly starting up
conversations with strangers she ran across out in the big, wide world. Though the gorgeous
man at the other end of the bar was making her rethink the limitations imposed by her social
awkwardness and general shyness. She’d had the instinct that someone was watching her and
when she’d looked up to meet his gaze she couldn’t help but smile at him like a simpleton.
She hoped he didn’t think she was behaving in a way that made her seem as
silly as she currently felt. If only she were more like her best friend Beverly. Beverly believed
in getting what she wanted above all else. If a desirable man was scoping out Bev like he
wanted to devour her slowly, sensuously, Bev would definitely find a way to make it happen.
Angela wasn’t like Beverly though. So instead, the best Angela had managed had been a tiny,
juvenile, idiotic smile.
The good thing about that inane little smile, however, was that it had apparently worked well
enough to give Mr. HK Super Model the green light. Angela had barely sipped out of her first
drink when the bartender slid her over a lychee martini and inclined his head towards the
other end of the bar and said “from the gentleman over there.”
“Thanks,” Angela said as she accepted the drink with a slight dip of her head and another
weak smile in the handsome stranger’s general direction. She took a deep breath, then pro-
ceeded to make a cheers gesture towards the man, which he returned in kind, before she
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gulped down the drink he’d sent her. Good thing it had been delicious and smooth, which had
made it easy to chug down so quickly. Then Angela immediately returned her attention to her
first drink, pretending to study the glass, thereby giving her an excuse to keep her eyes aver-
ted from the man.
Angela couldn’t help but think about how it was a good thing that the stranger
was handsome even without “beer goggles.” Unfortunately, that thought gave her a slight case
of the giggles, that she was having a hard time keeping in check now. Angela became more
somber as she thought about the fact that she was twenty-four years old and had never had a
one night stand before. She wondered if there really was a first time for everything in life and
if this was going to be her first time to engage in a casual affair? If so, how did one initiate
such a thing?
Oh God. She was doing it again. What Bev called “micro dissecting,” or Angela’s
tendency to overly analyze absolutely everything. Angela couldn’t help it though. Sometimes
other people made her feel so anxious. She always wanted to know what they were thinking
and why. She also wanted to know what they thought about her specifically and did she meet,
exceed or fail their expectations. Yet as the alcohol loosened her up a bit more, her brain de-
cided it was tired of working in hyper drive.
She’d been stuck at work all day, then at an exhausting business dinner where
she’d had to play peacekeeper and referee between two stubborn idiots (her boss being one of
them), and it was getting late now. All Angela wanted to do was go with the flow, relax and
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maybe even have some fun for once in her life. She glanced up then to see the man making
his way over to her.
Angela nervously tucked a few locks of her hair behind her ear and looked down
into her nearly full drink again. She took a sip and watched his continued approach over the
rim of her martini glass. He was tall, lean, and sexy; his stride even exuded the utmost in
male confidence and swagger. He was so comfortable with himself that he wore his self-as-
surance like he wore his well tailored suit – as though it was his second skin. He was also
much closer to where she was sitting now. Angela took another deep breath. Well, here
goes…
~
Under normal circumstances, Cheng would be calling himself all kinds of
names akin to the phrase “dumb ass” right now. Despite her earlier tipsy giggle fit, the wo-
man now looked like she’d rather be getting her toenails all ripped off one by one than have
him come over and talk to her. It was already too late though. Despite her positively terrified
expression, Cheng felt the momentum of his feet carrying him towards her.
He was drawn to this woman and wasn’t sure he could halt his forward progres-
sion to her even if he wanted to. Which by the way, he most assuredly did not, could not.
Cheng had to go over to her. It felt like he’d been waiting all his life for this one particular
moment and dammit, he was going to seize this instant and live it to the fullest even if it
killed him.
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If nothing else, he had to meet her and at least learn her name. He didn’t want
to be full of regrets tomorrow, torturing himself by playing the “what if” game over and over
again in his own mind. So Cheng had to take the chance to see where just striking up a con-
versation with this remarkable lady could lead. Despite the playful, boyish, womanizing bach-
elor image that some local gossips would like to associate him with, Cheng wanted the oppor-
tunity to show this woman he was so much more than that.
He was actually glad she wasn’t a local so she wouldn’t know to associate him
with any of that agitating gossip rag rubbish. It might have unduly prejudiced her against
him. Cheng briefly mentally flashed back to when he was dating a college student just over a
year ago. At the time, he was already receiving some local press attention for being a Liu heir
and so-called “golden boy.”
So when the girl he’d been dating decided to sell her “tell all” story to the
highest bidder, Cheng had been thrust even more so into the spot light, but of the very unwel-
come variety. He’d been advised, however, not to worry about it and let the would-be scandal
die a slow death. Apparently, his defending himself to the public would only make things
worse for him.
He’d immediately broken up with the girl when she’d admitted to him what
she’d done. Of course she’d only been looking for additional funding for her studies and
seemed genuinely remorseful, once it was too late to undo all the damage that was. Later,
Cheng came to understand that she hadn’t really understood all of the ramifications of her
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actions at the time. Still, her betrayal stung and was only one complicating element in his life
then.
It had already been challenging enough for Cheng to deal with that whole situ-
ation, but later, the tabloids tried printing more and more inventive, salacious, outrageous
lies just to get him to respond, oh yeah and to sell even more of their publications. He’d per-
severed and had managed to ignore every single scathing word, through eight grueling
months, until the whole thing seemed to have finally blown over. Did people really not have
anything better to do with their time than try to learn every juicy tidbit about his life? Too
bad for them, because there wasn’t much of that in Cheng’s life anyway these days. Actually,
there really hadn’t been ever.
That situation had made him much more reluctant to trust people in general,
but women specifically seemed to fall into his automatic category of being untrustworthy
these days. So Cheng was surprised as hell at himself when he was suddenly overcome with
the strongest urge to really get to know this lady in front of him now. As if doing so was going
to forever alter the course of his life. He couldn’t shake the strongest suspicion that this wo-
man would definitely have something to do with his life’s ultimate fate.
“
Do you mind if I join you?” Cheng asked the young woman in his friendliest
tone. He smiled at her then and she nervously took a sip of her drink again. Cheng waited pa-
tiently for a moment and when she looked back over at him, she simply nodded and inclined
her hand to gesture to the seat next to her. So Cheng sat down. He realized then that he’d
miscalculated. Looking at her now, not only did he want to get to know her, but being in even
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closer proximity to her was awakening a hunger in him to physically possess her. He wanted
to reach out and touch her, kiss her, make love to her.
Despite what some people seemed to mistakenly think, Cheng was not the
smoothest operator on the planet when it came to dealing with women. High stakes business
deals, he could deal with that. Women? They were delicate and delicious, yet sometimes
seemed to be another species entirely. Maybe they really were from a different planet? How
could Cheng be so well versed in business best practices and still be such a novice when it
came to interacting with the ladies?
Good thing even Cheng had some sense when dealing with the fairer sex. He
had the inkling that if he tried to start off a conversation with her by telling her everything
that was on his mind right now, that the rest of this night probably wouldn’t go very well. He
wanted this woman, badly, but if he handled this situation right, she’d still know. He could be
subtle… kind of. He knew how not to come off too strong anyway, while still letting his gener-
al interest in her speak volumes. So throwing her up on the bar top right now, as he had an
impulse to do, was definitely not the way to go.
“
Hi, I’m Angela,” the lady said as she extended her hand to him. Her voice
sounded thin and tight, as though severely strained. As if she’d had to force herself to speak
at all.
Glad for any excuse to touch her, however, he accepted her hand and replied.
“Hello Angela. It’s nice to meet you. I’m Cheng.” He smiled at her again and let her hand
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linger in his longer than was clearly necessary. He noticed that he really liked how smooth
her skin felt touching his. Though her grip was firm and businesslike, her skin was so soft. He
couldn’t help but think about her velvety hands gliding over all of his skin.
Angela seemed to relax a bit more then and smiled at him too, giving him a
genuine smile now that revealed dimples in each of her cheeks. If Cheng thought she’d been
beautiful before, she was simply breathtaking now. How he longed to kiss each of her
dimples… “So are you here for work?” he asked, finally releasing her hand. His question was
based upon the business suit she was still attired in, a navy blue blazer and skirt with a crisp
white blouse buttoned up all the way to the top, pantyhose and matching navy pumps.
Essentially, she was dressed in every business woman’s corporate armor.
Though unlike many of the business women he regularly saw in Hong Kong, she had on very
little makeup. Only her lips held a bit of glossy tint. He loved her natural beauty and appreci-
ated that she didn’t have to cake on layer upon layer of gunk to allow her true essence to
shine through. He now had another adjective with which to describe this lovely lady –
impressive.
“
Yes, but I’m heading back home tomorrow. What about you?”
“
HK is my home base, so I work from here most of the time, but I’m actually
going out of town tomorrow for a business trip.” Angela nodded, and then continued sipping
her drink without further comment. “Are you hungry? I was just about to finally eat dinner,”
he added persuasively.
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Chapter Two
Angela nearly declined Cheng’s dinner invitation knowing she would likely be too nervous to
eat in front of him, but just then her stomach started a low level grumbling. It was reminding
her that while she’d been so busy playing peacekeeper earlier in the night trying to keep too
dignitaries from verbally assaulting one another, she hadn’t gotten to actually eat much at her
business dinner.
So in response to Cheng’s invitation, she simply nodded graciously and
wondered what on earth this man saw in her. No, there weren’t many people here at the bar,
but the hostess was pretty. There were likely other businesswomen here as well as the hotel
staff… Argh! Angela was doing that other thing Bev always accused her of doing too, being in-
secure by way of self-deprecation.
Angela sipped her martini again and gave herself a stern warning internally to
stop it. She had a lot to offer a guy; she brought intelligence as well as inner and outer beauty
to the table. Trying to move on from her issue of being self-conscious, Angela wished she had
spent more time paying attention to polite conversation subjects with which to engage the
locals. It was always the part of her work briefings that she paid the least attention to. She
didn’t really talk to people outside of work when she traveled, or if she did, she never engaged
in small talk, so that part of her job never seemed particularly relevant to her.
Coming back into the present moment, she could feel Cheng’s eyes on her again
now, watching her as she put her glass back on the bar’s counter. She barely kept her hands
from trembling under his gaze. His stare seemed to be a nearly tangible touch. Everywhere
his eyes grazed her seemed to ignite her nerve endings as though he had physically reached
out to caress her. He made her feel so desirable with just a glance.
It was incredibly distracting, but oh so unbelievably hot! As Angela absently
began to run her fingers over the stem of her martini glass, Cheng cleared his throat and
asked her, “So are you staying here at the hotel?” He sounded distracted too she realized as
she stilled her hands and finally looked back over at him.
“
Yes,” she replied, but suddenly the husky way she’d uttered that single word
seemed to take on new significance and she wondered if she wasn’t really answering his un-
spoken question too. The one where he seemed to be pondering whether or not she would in-
vite him back to her hotel room. He nodded his understanding, his eyes aglow as though he
realized an entire non-verbal conversation had just taken place between the two of them.
The rest of their time in the bar was filled with eating, drinking another round,
telling stories from each of their childhoods, comparing notes on their friends and family and
generally getting to know one another. After the initial awkwardness had dissipated, it felt
like Angela had known Cheng all her life. He was so easy to talk to. Yet, somewhere in the
back of her mind, a vague sense of being ill at ease began to bug her.
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What if sleeping with him ruined their newfound camaraderie? Then Angela re-
membered she’d be leaving by tomorrow afternoon and likely wouldn’t see him again anyway,
so what difference did it make? For some reason, that thought suddenly made her feel a
twinge of sadness. She’d never felt anything like this with having only known someone for
such a short period of time before. At least they had tonight, so she had better make the most
of it.
~
By the time Cheng was walking hand-in-hand with Angela into the elevator,
then to her hotel room, he wondered if just this one night would be enough for him. Already
he was dreading the time when he would have to leave her and go to the airport in the morn-
ing. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but he was certain he’d found something special
with her.
Mentally flashing back to last year again, he knew that something like this hap-
pening so rapidly should concern him. Yet for some reason, he wasn’t worried. He was on
autopilot now and following that same gut feeling he did when he had a solid lead about
something at work. He knew Angela was trustworthy.
Cheng knew now too that Angela had been painfully shy as a child and that
sometimes she still struggled with socializing. So once they got into her room, put all their
stuff down and had closed and locked the door, he made it easy on both of them. He kissed
her, so no one would have time to think about anything, feel awkward, or have to search for
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random things to say. Okay, so maybe that wasn’t the only reason he’d kissed her straight
away. He’d also been dying to do it since he’d first laid eyes on her. Her lips were so soft,
supple, warm and full.
As he pulled her body into his arms, he couldn’t help but notice how perfectly
she fit pressed snug up against him. She felt so right there, like she was made just for him and
belonged there for now and for always. He deepened their kiss, exploring her mouth with a
reckless abandon and intensity, a sheer lusty greed that would have shocked his normally
much more reserved self. However, this wasn’t a normal situation. This moment that seemed
to freeze outside of time, was so special that Cheng couldn’t begin to imagine what this meant
for him and his life forever hereafter.
~
As Cheng slowly undressed Angela and then himself, she felt like everything was moving in
slow motion. Angela was glad for the unhurried pace of it all because she wanted to savor this
sumptuous, sensuous experience, especially since she felt like she’d been waiting for it her
whole life. She wanted to take it leisurely and remember each detail of this night forever.
When at last they stood before one another completely nude, Angela took in her soon-to-be-
lover’s magnificent body. He was tall, firm and toned all over. His jet black hair was close
cropped around the sides and a bit longer in the top. His well-groomed mustache and goatee
had felt both silky and prickly in different places when he’d kissed her.
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Angela looked her fill, until Cheng gently embraced her again and kissed her some more.
While the urgency still remained lit and increasingly gathering momentum, they took their
time with this kiss, thoroughly pleasing each other with lazy, seductive embraces of lips, ex-
plorations of tongue and teeth. When they eased apart to get some air, Angela knew she was
hopelessly lost as she looked into his mysterious, coffee brown eyes.
Cheng took her hand and led her to the bed. He laid her down on the soft, cool, crisp, white
hotel sheets and began a slow, erotic and comprehensive foreplay session that started with
him kissing her senseless, yet again. He massaged her scalp with just the tips of his fingers
and trailed his magical fingers over various pulse points on her body as he kept kissing her.
She’d already been wet; with her pulse racing uncontrollably, but whatever he’d just done to
her made her feel even wetter and more ready and willing to give into the desire arcing
between the two of them.
~
Cheng took his time learning Angela’s body and her responses to his pleasurable stimulation
as he nibbled, licked and teased his way up, down and all around every nook and cranny of
her skin. He knew her erogenous zones, had tapped into some tantric acupuncture pressure
points to encourage her circulatory system which increased her blood flow throughout her
body, sending it to all the right places. Now for the pièce de résistance. He trailed small,
tender kisses from her lips, down her neck, between her breasts before he detoured to lick
and suckle each of her nipples, then he continued down the path still headed south.
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He licked her stomach and her bellybutton before lightly licking, kissing, sucking then gently
nipping each of her inner thighs. She was so wet; her liquid molten core was calling out to
him, begging him to plunge into her innermost depths. So using his tongue, he did just dive
right in and she cried out, lifting her hips off the mattress to have her core meet his thrusting
tongue. Then Cheng proceeded to lick, suck and simply feast on Angela until she’d already
climaxed twice and just couldn’t take any more.
At that point, he found some condoms in the top drawer of the night stand in a kit the hotel
kept on hand for the “convenience” of their guests. When he’d sheathed himself, he slowly
began his descent to heaven, wrapping one of his hands around her waist and the other
clenching his rod as he guided himself into her.
Some moments in life were simply too perfect to be imagined. The sheer bliss
that Cheng felt as he intimately joined their two bodies together was definitely one of those
moments and was simply indescribable. Angela and Cheng found an easy rhythm together
and worked towards pleasing each other as they made love. They switched from missionary,
to a side position where one of her legs was over his shoulder, to doggy style, to another side
position. From the front, back, side, to the other side, they worked each other inside and out
until they finally arrived at a mind blowing crescendo and ocean waves of pleasure like a
riptide rang through both of them.
~
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Angela hadn’t been a virgin, but she had never known having sex could be like that with any-
one. Their bodies were so in sync with each other’s and she’d even achieved multiple or-
gasms, which hadn’t happened before. She’d never had a lover so skilled in the fine art of
foreplay which she hadn’t realized just how important it was before she’d made love with
Cheng. Yet it was more than just the physical aspect of their coupling that astounded her. He
seemed to be doing something to her. Touching her on a much more personal level, getting
through to her very soul.
Was this the kind of thing people were referring to when they talked about love at first sight?
Had she really just thought that? It must be the after plateau sex highs talking in her mind
right now, because clearly it was way too soon to even think about that kind of nonsense.
There was no way Angela was already feeling this sure about a man who was practically a
stranger to her.
Angela and Cheng rested for a while and talked, got water and took bathroom
and clean up breaks. So when they went for round two, Angela made sure to give him as good
as she’d gotten during their initial interlude. When she was done with him, she didn’t think
there was an inch of his skin that she hadn’t explored with her mouth, her lips, tongue and/or
her fingers. She was licking the length of his shaft now, before moving up to swirl her tongue
around his tip.
When she’d sucked and licked him until he was so hard he was nearly ready to
blow his load again, he put on another condom and she rode him. He grabbed her hips, driv-
ing into her more forcefully and they gave ecstasy a whole new meaning together again.
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~
Cheng already thought Angela was something special before he’d slept with her, but when
they’d gone again and again – a total of four times which was a new personal record for him
in a single night, before dawn, he was totally smitten. That was probably why he had been so
slow to rise this morning. Normally, he woke up for work every morning by 6:00 am without
an alarm clock. Now, it was already 7:30 am and he had a 10:00 am flight. He rushed to take
a shower, waking Angela along the way and asking her if she could call a cab for him.
While he got dressed, she’d also ordered room service breakfast for the two of them. He ate
with her and was grateful also for the general ease and comfort that their “morning after” to-
gether seemed to have in abundance. No awkwardness, no drama. Cheng could definitely ap-
preciate that. “While you were in the shower, I put my business card into your wallet. It has
my cell number,” Angela said nonchalantly as she sipped her coffee.
Cheng smiled. “Good, I’ll call you tomorrow morning then once you’re back at home. I’ll be in
meetings all day today, but I promise that Saturday I will get in touch with you.”
She smiled too then. “Good. I’m looking forward to hearing from you.” By the look in her
eyes, Cheng could see that she meant it. Which was a very good thing indeed, because so did
he. Just then, the phone rang and Angela answered it. The front desk was calling to inform
them that the cab was there to take Cheng to the airport for his international flight.
With one last lingering, sultry kiss that he knew he had to pull back from sooner rather than
later, or else he’d never make his flight or his first meeting today in Tokyo, Cheng bid Angela
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good bye. “We’ll talk soon tian shi,” he told her as he glanced back one last time, and then he
stepped out the door. He couldn’t believe their incredible time together was over already. It
had been far too short, but he’d make a way to see her again soon.
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Chapter Three
Your love is like lemon truffles
Divine
A sublime
Treat for the soul
Moving to the beat
A feast of citrus and sweet
Rich, velvety chocolate
A seductive kiss with
Ripples of delicious
Delectable sensuous
Waves sheeting over
My taste buds
Rewarding me with ecstasy
Pleasure for my mind and body
Rocking, twisting, dipping,
Tasting, praising, gazing,
Glazing and satisfying
Mmm… lemon truffles
Do you know what you to me?
Sending me delight
I’m on a high
As you send me bursts of energy
A synergy uniting perfection
And introspection
A resurrection
With delicate balance in selection
A symphony for all of my senses
~
Angela had been reminiscing again. She knew it was foolish, but that one night
that changed her whole life all those years ago, five years ago to be exact, kept replaying again
and again in her mind. At first, she really had believed that Cheng would call her. She really
thought that they had found something way more special than a quick, superficial physical
connection. Yet, as the hours had melted into days, days had turned into months and those
months sooner or later had melded into years, she began to believe that maybe she’d been
wrong about Cheng.
She had hurt feelings, sure. Maybe even a slightly bruised ego that Cheng had never called
her like he’d promised her he would after they’d slept together, especially since she always
thought he would. Yet the real reason that his slight chaffed so badly was because above all
else, Angela still felt disappointed that they hadn’t seen things through. She always had that
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feeling that the two of them could be great together, real life partners and no matter how hard
she tried, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Cheng was the one who’d gotten away.
Pride, hurt feelings and way too many Internet searches that had not yielded
Angela the results she wanted left her in despair about ever seeing Cheng again. In fact, that
had all only served to make her sadder, thinking how hopeless and impossible it was to keep
trying to find the man of her dreams again. Worst of all though was the wondering. Wonder-
ing what had ever happened to Cheng and why he had decided not to call her after all.
Wondering where he was now, did he ever think of her, and whether or not he
was happy? Had he gotten married and started a family? Angela wouldn’t admit it, especially
not out loud, but she didn’t want to think about any of those things anymore. All of those
“whatever happened to Cheng?” thoughts were only tormenting her, causing her to suffer
worse internal anguish. So she’d attempted to officially give up on Cheng about two years ago
and eventually settled for a strong, silent type that was stable and dependable instead.
Actually, they were engaged to be married in a few months. Somehow as Angela
glanced down at the platinum encased diamond on her ring finger she didn’t feel overjoyed
the way she thought a soon-to-be bride should feel. She felt empty and knew she was trying to
overcompensate by marrying this man to fill the void of incompleteness she felt vividly every
day. An ache that had began the first day Cheng didn’t call when he said he would.
Angela sighed and stopped procrastinating. She was only a year into her new
job and every day that she worked for the American branch of the Chinese company that
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employed her, she was reminded that she was still in the fledging/paying her dues mode. As
it was, she would just barely get to work on time today. Normally, she liked to be at least
thirty to forty-five minutes early.
Yet, for some reason, thoughts of Cheng had been plaguing her throughout the
last few days, now more so than they had in a while. Angela had thought about him most of
the weekend, even as she’d tried to sleep and still this Monday morning as she drove into
work in Downtown San Francisco from her Oakland home. Maybe it was because it was al-
most five years to the day since she’d last seen him. She shook her head as she sat in bumper
to bumper traffic on the East Bridge.
Angela didn’t have time to get distracted like this. She was a professional and
needed to get back into her work mode for this week. At five minutes to nine o’clock in the
morning, and 9:00 am was her official start time, she was sliding into her seat in her work cu-
bicle. Even after a year here, she still had a hard time getting used to working in a cube. She’d
had an office at her last job and at the Director level, had expected one for here too.
“
Angela, your new boss, the Senior Vice President of Operations, just arrived
this morning from Shanghai. You will need to go and greet him and start finding out ways in
which he’d like the two of you to work together. He’s already been here for about half an hour
and is waiting for you. I know you don’t have to start until nine, but you’re usually here early
so he arrived early too in order to go ahead and get started today. Please go on into his office
now. It’s the one Wu Lü Ma used to occupy,” Mylan, the office’s Receptionist and Adminis-
trative Assistant said hurriedly.
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“
Thank you,” Angela said in acknowledgement as she quickly stood, and then
grabbed her work iPad, before heading down the hall.
When she arrived, the door was closed. So Angela knocked, announcing her
presence and desire for entry. “Come in,” she heard a male voice muffled by the door call out
to her. Angela took a deep breath. She couldn’t believe she’d forgotten Mr. Liu, her new boss,
was starting today. Of all the days she had to pick to space out about Cheng… shit! She had to
get that man out of her mind so she could get two neurons to fire correctly and maybe, just
maybe, she could actually concentrate today.
Angela opened the door after what felt like an eternity, since she’d tried to clear
her mind first. When she finally entered, the huge, black, leather executive chair her new boss
was sitting in was faced away from her and the door she’d just entered through. He appeared
to be rummaging through some boxes, unpacking. Apparently trying to clear her mind of
Cheng hadn’t been completely successful, so without thinking or even asking because she was
still so distracted, Angela closed the door behind her.
At which point, her equally distracted supervisor finally seemed to remember
she was there and turned towards her. Angela dropped her iPad when she saw his face. After
five years of agonizing about him and the abruptness of their crazy, passionate interlude to-
gether, Cheng was sitting right in front of her.
~
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Cheng closed his eyes, savoring the memories of Angela’s warmth, both from
her personality as well as her body, remembering their time together fondly. Before he could
even stop himself, he found himself saying those words that had so easily found their way out
of his mouth that morning when they’d last seen each other “tian shi.” It was barely a whis-
per, but so full of the yearning he’d held for her all of this time.
Yes, she was indeed his angel and he’d been waiting nearly half a decade for this
reunion. One he thought he was going to have to work a hell of a lot harder to orchestrate
than this once he was in the states. He couldn’t believe that the one person he’d been search-
ing for turned out to be his Director of Operations in the US satellite office he’d just been
transferred to in Northern California.
Yet when Cheng opened his eyes again, he saw that Angela’s look of stricken
surprise, and now what he recognized as possibly even being dismay, had turned into
something else altogether – sheer ice. The glacial contempt and composure of a General
about to go into an all out assault in a war battle greeted him as she’d already rearmed herself
with her iPad. She’d even just reopened the door so that they did not have any level of privacy
or unnecessary personal intimacy at all right now.
“
Mr. Liu, welcome,” she said in a frigid tone that invited many different feel-
ings, but not of any sort of warm reception at all. “I trust you’ve had your tour around the fa-
cilities and are getting all set up, so I’ll briefly run through a list of priorities so we can discuss
who should handle what tasks and specific responsibilities.”
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Cheng simply nodded, dumbfounded. He stared at her, trying to take in her
words when all he wanted to do was kiss her, beg for her forgiveness and start over. Well,
pick up from where they had last left off anyway. He understood her hurt and anger, but if
she’d only give him a chance to explain, he was sure she’d understand what had kept him
away from her for so long and they could find a way to work things out. They were here to-
gether again at last and that was all that mattered… right?
~
Angela went through her list with rapid fire succession, efficiency and profes-
sionalism. Being good at her job, she understood. The barrage of feelings tripping through
what was normally a very rational mind, but was now reduced to a mushy pile of goo that she
was sure would ooze out of her head through her ears at any second? That shit she couldn’t
comprehend right now to save her life. There were so many questions she wanted to ask, but
knew she wouldn’t. Knew she couldn’t. Too much time had passed.
Nothing in her life was the same now as it had been that day that she left Hong
Kong five years ago. Angela felt conflicted. On the one hand there were so many things she
wanted to tell Cheng; even if it was just to cuss him out for how much grief his breaking his
promise had caused her in the last few years. Yet she felt torn because on the other hand,
what if he didn’t even care about what she felt and had to say? Maybe it had just been a screw
to him after all, and none of her heartache would even matter to him. She didn’t really believe
that though, couldn’t really, especially not the way he was looking at her now.
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Still, the anger, which she almost never allowed herself to feel, and the sadness
combined to make her feel like she could barely breathe. She simply wanted to get out of here
as soon as possible. After she’d rattled off priorities along with her recommendations for who
should be responsible for them, she told him she would follow up with key bullet points in a
PowerPoint presentation by e-mail later today.
The rest of the day, she did everything in her power to avoid Cheng. She would
duck into the ladies’ restroom or talk to another colleague whenever he started to come her
way. She did not attend his first day welcome lunch, making excuses that she had pressing
work that needed to get done immediately – which was true. She answered any of his inquir-
ies by e-mail only, though she normally preferred more face time with her coworkers, since
they had such a small office environment. Angela even went home on time, instead of staying
late as usual to keep from being trapped in the same office building with that insufferable
man another second.
Why oh why did he have to be even finer than she’d remembered? He looked
like he’d been doing nothing but hitting the gym every day since they’d last encountered one
another. The man was looking so damn good, but a bit different than the last time she’d seen
him. His hair was now a few inches long and arranged in a stylish layered haircut and he was
clean shaven.
Angela hadn’t drunk any alcohol in a long time, but as she was on her way home
tonight, she stopped to pick up a bottle of wine. A glass of wine, or maybe ten, sounded excel-
lent right about now.
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Chapter Four
Cheng’s transfer to this US satellite office had taken place so quickly that he’d never gotten a
chance to learn too much about the people he’d be working with before he got here. He was
now realizing that had been a huge tactical error on his part. There had been a sudden open-
ing in the states so he’d gone ahead and seized the opportunity. Yet if he’d known Angela was
going to be here, he could have at least been more prepared to face her.
He thought he’d have time to get himself situated and at least somewhat settled
before he sought her out. Then he’d found himself face-to-face with her, tongue-tied like a
moron, while she’d done everything she could to ignore him. Damn. This hadn’t gone at all
like the scenario he had pictured of her in his head with them reuniting.
Cheng wasn’t at all surprised to discover later that Angela was dedicated and
considered to be one of the hardest workers in their entire office. When she had avoided him
all day, even bowing out of his welcome lunch under the auspice of having work to do, no one
had missed a step, blinked an eye, or said anything at all. Even if they thought her behavior a
bit rude, they still simply expected her to be the glue that kept shit running smoothly in their
office. No matter what her personal sacrifice was and how much they had to brow beat her to
make her feel like she had to continue proving herself.
Cheng didn’t like to see those kind of psychological tactics employed in the
workplace, but he was her supervisor and needed to see for himself what, if anything, needed
to change with those dynamics. Cheng knew how things like that really went. It was simply
par for the course at work. Others treated her like a grunt so that her expectation would al-
ways be that she had to constantly work harder than anyone else so she could continually
provide evidence that she was good enough to keep working here.
Though if he had to guess, he’d say she’d probably proven herself here a hun-
dred times over already. Otherwise, at a Chinese company that predominantly had Asian em-
ployees, she would have long since been let go, despite her general international expertise
and specific American business know-how. Cheng would bet Angela had never taken any time
off from work and had never been late to this job either. That was just her way though. He
knew she was always the one who made that invisible magic happen behind the scenes so that
others around her could benefit. Cheng sighed and raked a frustrated hand over his face. He
couldn’t do this.
He couldn’t pretend like he was just her supervisor and nothing more. They
couldn’t have another work day of Angela begrudgingly answering his emails, not speaking to
him directly after she found out he was her new boss and her generally avoiding him. Cheng
had waited too long to hold her again, to see her, to make love to her. So even though he
probably shouldn’t be doing this for his personal gain, ok he definitely shouldn’t be, he was
thumbing through her personnel file to find her home address right now. If anyone caught
him, he could just say he was interested in knowing more about all of his employees…
~
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Angela still wasn’t sure what to make of all the day’s events as she sat in her fa-
vorite, soothing, chocolate brown leather recliner, ignoring the sights and sounds of the TV
and drinking a glass of Roscato, a sweet, red wine. As she finally made her way to the kitchen,
nearly unwilling to leave the comfort of her familiar chair, the doorbell rang. Weird. Looking
over at the microwave clock, she saw that it was already 8:00 pm. She wasn’t expecting any-
one tonight. Her fiancé was a doctor and was on-call at the hospital tonight, so she knew it
wasn’t him.
Maybe it was one of her neighbors, a friend, or a family member? Though
people who knew her well also knew that she didn’t like for them to stop by uninvited or
without at least calling first. Angela checked the peephole and stiffened. Seriously?
She was so sick and tired of Mr. McDreamy Businessman dropping in unexpec-
tedly and unwanted in her life today. How the hell had Cheng gotten her address anyway? As
part of her efforts to move on from this very man, Angela had ensured that she wasn’t listed.
Oh wait… he was her boss. He’d probably raided her HR files. Son. Of. A. Bitch! Angela just
wanted to ignore him here at home, the way she’d mostly done throughout the day at work.
As the thought of turning away from the door began to seem more and more ap-
pealing to her, Cheng spoke out as if he sensed her intentions. “Angela, I know you’re in
there. Please open the door and let me talk to you.” She rolled her eyes, but knew she wasn’t
going to be able to stall on having another confrontation with him forever.
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After all, it wasn’t like she wouldn’t see him again at work tomorrow, and the
day after, and the day after that too. She rolled her eyes again. This couldn’t go on all week
and certainly not any longer, with him stalking her at work and home, so she figured she
might as well open the door now and get this over with. She took a deep breath and unlocked
the door then twisted the doorknob.
~
Cheng wasn’t really sure if Angela was ever going to open the door once she dis-
covered it was him on the other side. He hoped she would so he wouldn’t have driven forty-
five minutes from work, not to mention relocating to a foreign country, and all for nothing.
She did open the door eventually, slowly, cautiously and she looked none too pleased to see
him now either. “I’m sorry to show up unexpectedly at your home. Please let me explain to
you that my disappearing act for the last few years hasn’t been what you probably thought it
was.”
Angela raised an eyebrow in what was clearly suspicion and disbelief, but just as he was
opening his mouth, about to begin his own tale of woe, Cheng got distracted. It turned out
that Angela clearly wasn’t at home alone as he had hoped she’d be, because behind her now
stood a small child. “Mommy, who’s this man? Did he come to visit and play with us?” Angela
had stiffened at the sound of her son’s voice and now stood completely frozen.
When she recovered herself a bit she answered her little boy. “Mommy works with this man,
now why don’t you go back and finish watching Yo Gabba Gabba. I’ll come back into the den
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with you soon, okay baby?” Angela squatted on her haunches to talk directly to her son before
she gave him a quick hug and tried to send him on his way.
“Hey mister, do you want to stay and watch Yo Gabba Gabba too? This one is all about
friends.” The boy beamed in anticipation of Cheng’s response.
Cheng looked at Angela’s stricken, pleading face then back at the boy’s. Cheng smiled warmly
and replied, “Maybe another time little guy, your mommy is tired and I’m not staying long
right now.”
“Well I think I’d like if you came back and visited me another time then. I like you. You kind
of look like me,” the boy smiled brilliantly then ran off from the main foyer.
Yes, Cheng had noticed the resemblance too. The little boy looked to be about four years old
and looked mostly like Cheng except that he was just a little tanner, had slightly rounder eyes,
but they were still most decidedly almond shaped, his lips were a bit fuller than Cheng’s and
he had loose curly hair in the deep, rich, auburn color that was his mother’s natural hair
color.
For what seemed like a long time, Angela, the most beautiful woman in the world to Cheng,
simply stared at the ground, seemingly at a loss for words. Cheng finally decided to break the
silence first, his quiet words seeming to force Angela to look up at him again. “So what’s my
son’s name?”
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She stared at him silently, searchingly for a moment. Cheng started to feel fid-
gety with her extended silence while he was seemingly under her scrutiny, though he forced
himself to remain standing erect and unmoving. Would Angela try to deny that the baby was
his? He hoped not, because his gut instinct told him, screamed at him in fact, that the boy
was indeed his son too. “Jayden,” she finally answered too quietly.
Cheng nodded and said, “I like that name. It seems to suit him.” When she
didn’t say anything further, Cheng added, “Is Jayden the reason you’ve been avoiding me all
day? You weren’t going to tell me about him?”
Angela visibly stiffened again. When she did speak again, this time her tone was
definitely raised. “What do you care? My son and I have been doing just fine without you for
the last five years.”
Cheng felt affronted, as though she’d physically slapped him. “I still want to
know him. He is my son too.”
Panic and fear lit Angela’s slightly widened eyes now. “You… you wouldn’t…”
she started, but her voice faltered and trailed off there, as if she couldn’t bring herself to fin-
ish what she was going to ask.
“
Take him from you?” Cheng asked incredulously, one of his eyebrows arching.
Angela’s sheer terror in response answered his question for him. “Of course not! You’re his
mother. I’d never try to separate the two of you.” Cheng’s voice softened then as he continued
to look into her eyes. “Besides, Jayden is both our baby, and I want the both of you.”
45/121
Cheng couldn’t believe he’d just told her that, but he’d had to because he knew
it was true. He’d wanted Angela and had desired to be a part of her life for a long time. Yet
even though he’d just found out he had a son he hadn’t known existed prior to a few minutes
ago, he couldn’t think of anything he’d rather do more than raise a family with the woman he
adored, admired and desired.
Angela was already shaking her head, however. “It’s too late. Everything is dif-
ferent now and too much time has passed. Besides, we’re practically strangers anyway and
since you don’t seem to have noticed, I’m already engaged to someone else. We’re getting
married in another few months,” she said as she pointed out the sparkly engagement ring on
her left hand.
Cheng felt like someone had just ripped the floor out from beneath him after
sucker punching him in the stomach. After all the time and sacrifice he’d put into making this
moment a reality, in the same five minute period he couldn’t have just gone through losing
most of what he’d wanted and valued most in his life for so long. His woman, his baby and his
dreams for all of them to have a future together, gone? Just like that?
His eyes narrowed at her and his jaw clenched as he managed to eke out a
barely audible, “then break up with him. He’s not right for you.” Cheng had said it without
any hesitation, because of his absolute certainty that the words he’d spoken were the truth.
Speaking up when he was absolutely convicted about something was still his MO. Besides, he
already knew that this was definitely a time where he had to say what he really felt right here
and right now, or forever hereafter hold his peace on the matter.
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Now Angela looked offended. “How are you gonna say that? You don’t even
know my fiancé. Hell, you barely even know me.”
Without putting much thought into it, he just reacted. Cheng stepped closer to
her and took her hand in his. He put her fingers up to a place on his forehead that part of his
hair had been styled to conceal. She gasped in surprise as he pulled the hair away from his
face with his left hand. Simultaneously, he used his right hand to touch her fingers to a scar
on the right side of his forehead near his hairline. A scar she knew for a fact hadn’t been there
when she’d been kissing every inch of his skin in Hong Kong.
“
Five years ago, I promised I would call you when you returned to the states. I
know you remember that, and since I didn’t do it, you want to punish me now and I get that.
You’re assuming that I’m a liar and untrustworthy. I get that too. First, hear me out as to why
I never got to call you. I landed in Tokyo as scheduled that day, went to my business meetings
and left late in the day to get to my hotel. I was traveling light and decided to take the train to
my hotel instead of getting a taxi.
“
As I was leaving Shinjuku station, some yakuza members mistook me for a
rival triad member who had double crossed them on some criminal deal during the days in
which they were supposed to have had an alliance. I still don’t know all the exact details
about that, but what I do know is that they decided to teach a lesson by making me an ex-
ample. So they proceeded to beat me until I was almost dead, ignoring me when I tried to tell
them they had the wrong guy. They even hit me on the head with a glass bottle which caused
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a gash here where this scar is now,” he emphasized the point, by lightly pushing down on her
fingers over the scar.
“
That blow to the head must’ve knocked me out, I’m not really sure because I
don’t remember anything else after that from that night. Then they must’ve stolen everything
I had on me while I was unconscious. When I finally did wake up again, I was in a hospital
with only the bloody clothes I’d come in with. My phone, carry-on bag, wallet, passport,
everything were all missing. I ended up being there for a few weeks, recovering from internal
bleeding, broken ribs and other broken bones, and all the other injuries that I’d sustained.
“
Once I was finally well enough, I had to go to the Chinese Embassy and it took
a few more weeks for me to get legal documentation so I could leave Japan. The only reason it
didn’t take longer is because some of my father’s connections came through and got me the
hell out of there, especially once they’d found out what happened to me. When I did get back
to Hong Kong, everyone in the office knew what had happened, but I’d missed so much work
that I had lost my ‘golden boy’ status there. They shipped me off to the Shanghai office as
soon as they possibly could and I started over.
“
What got me through a lot of the worst parts of that time in my life was think-
ing about you. The time we spent together meant a lot to me and I became obsessed with
finding a way to locate you. I didn’t know your last name, there were way too many Angela’s
that came up on social networking sites. I remembered you mentioning something about be-
ing from California, so I thought I’d eventually start my search for you here and even hire a
local private detective if needed in order to track you down.
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“
For work, I decided to go ahead and make my money and renew my career at
the Shanghai branch, which was alright because my mother’s family was from there anyway.
So I also spent much more time getting to know my maternal family. When the opportunity
finally came around, I made the first available transfer here to the US. So I’m pretty sure my
situation was not what you thought. I never would have gone back on my word to you if I’d
had a way to keep it. If I had known you were already the mother of my child, I would’ve
found another way to get to you both sooner.
“
To answer your question, I don’t have to know that guy you’re engaged to in
order to know he isn’t the right man for you, because he could never love you the way I do.
Would likely never be willing to give up everything just for the possibility of being with you,
especially not the way I already have.”
Cheng hoped Angela could hear how earnest he was right now. Maybe he was
being more honest in this moment than he’d ever been about anything else in his entire life.
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Chapter Five
Angela couldn’t believe it. Cheng had come to the US to find her. He’d left be-
hind his friends, family and his entire way of life to risk everything by placing all his bets on
her. Wow. It must be amazing to live with that kind of certainty. To want to be with someone
so badly and know so fully that everything was going to work out in the end. Angela couldn’t
take this. Her head was swimming from the glass of wine that was really starting to kick in
right now of course, her emotions were in a jumble, and her hormones were in a knot as he
stood so close she could smell Cheng’s cologne.
It was a heady mix of a citrusy, masculine fragrance that suited him interwoven
with his own intoxicating essence and pheromones that had combined to call out to her like
the sirens. She remembered this scent all too well. It triggered a memory that drew her right
back to their night together in Hong Kong. The memories of their bodies interlaced came
back vividly, in full color as they assaulted her mind. Angela had the kind of explosive chem-
istry with Cheng that she couldn’t deny or control, no matter how conflicted and confused she
felt right now. He was also still holding her hand up to his forehead, looking at her with the
kind of yearning she personally knew and understood all too well.
Angela felt too overwhelmed right now. She couldn’t take this all in at the mo-
ment. She needed time to digest everything and find a way to sort through all this new in-
formation and her feelings about it before she could figure out what to do next. Cheng was
gently stroking his fingers over her hand and she knew before she got completely sucked in
that she had to do something. Right. Now.
So she did. She finally found some common sense and pulled out of his grasp, in
a move that was firm and definitive. What the hell was she doing anyway? They were stand-
ing at her front door where any one of her nosy ass neighbors could be, and one of them
probably was out there, spying on her right now. Angela knew some of those old biddies were
just salivating over the opportunity to tell her fiancé that she was having an affair behind his
back. Damn busybodies.
Actually, Angela really thought deep about that for a few lingering seconds.
Hadn’t she been having a long distance emotional affair with Cheng all this time anyway?
That thought made this whole situation even more difficult to deal with right now. Ironically,
she needed time, space and some distance from Cheng so she could think and get herself to-
gether, because being so near to him right now was wreaking havoc on her brain as well as
her body. So Angela wasn’t paying much attention, but she was vaguely aware of Cheng
pulling something out of his pocket and putting it into her hand at that point.
“
I’m not sure what to say. I had no idea you’d suffered so much personal loss
and in such a short period of time. I feel bad for you. It’s unbelievable how so much has
happened since we spent time together in Hong Kong. Honestly, I just don’t think I can deal
with all of this right now. It’s too much to take in at once… and… and… I gotta go put Jayden
to bed. I can’t. I just can’t handle this.”
Seeing the disappointment and dismay clearly etched across Cheng’s facial fea-
tures made Angela feel even worse. She didn’t know if this conversation was going to end up
being a strategic retreat or if she was just completely running away from this whole situation
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altogether, and quite possibly forever. This of course only made her pained heart clench even
tighter in her chest as she somehow managed to close the door in his face.
~
Cheng was a businessman, so he did have some occasional experience with dealing with re-
jection in his life. However, this situation was becoming unbearable. By what he’d hoped was
some stroke of luck or even fate, he’d finally found the one woman he’d ever truly been in
love with in his entire life again. Somehow though, everything was turning out twisted, dis-
torted and as far from how he’d envisioned this situation going as he could imagine.
He’d wanted to be with Angela, but she was already betrothed to another man.
He wanted to spend his life with her and have a family with her, and they already even had a
child together. Yet she’d been making plans to have another man stand in his place as Jay-
den’s father.
Cheng couldn’t breathe as he clenched the steering wheel of his rental car so hard his
knuckles turned white. “Fuck!” he shouted to the top of his lungs as he slammed his head
back against the headrest. Now what?
~
“What’s that mommy?” Jayden asked Angela as she absently made her way back to the den of
their three bedroom, two and a half bath, new construction townhouse. She visually followed
Jayden’s line of sight as well as his pointed finger down to her hand. It was then that she
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realized she was in such a daze that she was still tightly clutching the object that Cheng had
given her. Peering down to get a good look at it, she finally saw that the item was a USB flash
drive.
“It’s something that goes to the computer. Now it’s time for you to be off to bed. I’ll race you
to the bathroom. Last one there’s a rotten egg!” She smiled brightly for her son’s sake and
hurried for a few steps until he lost interest in asking about the flash drive and rushed off,
screeching with laughter out of the room, down the hall, all the way up the stairs and into his
bathroom.
Angela gently laid the USB drive down near her laptop on her desk in a corner of the den
she’d sectioned off with walls to create a home office space for herself. Then she went upstairs
and got her young son ready for bed. When Jayden was finally down for the night, with the
whole bedtime routine seeming to have taken even longer than usual tonight, she went back
downstairs. In the den, she powered on her computer and reached for the removable drive
from Cheng.
She wasn’t sure what she’d find as she went to open the digital content on the flash drive. The
files had been arranged in the order in which Cheng had obviously wanted her to view them
and were numbered accordingly. The first file was a Word document. Angela opened it and
discovered that it was a letter to her, or at least what had started out as a letter and turned in-
to an ongoing journal of sorts. In it, Cheng had been updating the letter, adding various
entries at different times throughout the last five years. It was like a personal blog he’d
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written just for her. Each section was dated, with the initial entry starting about two months
after their night together in HK and it ended with the current date.
In his first entry, Cheng related in more details his time in Japan that kept them
apart and told her how sorry he was for them losing touch, but vowed someday, somehow he
would find her again. Throughout his later entries, there were plenty of comical stories of him
with his family in Shanghai and somber moments of him telling of the distress he felt at not
being able to find her, talk to her or hold her. Of him worrying he would end up alone be-
cause he sometimes had such a difficult time relating to other people personally, which he felt
was ironic since he seemed to know how to interact with them when it came to business.
In short, Cheng spoke of his accomplishments, his isolation, his joy, fears,
hopes, and desperation over the last few years. He’d spoken of missing his parents, who were
both now deceased. Cheng also told her how he spent a lot of his time learning discipline and
self defense by doing tai chi, Buddhist meditation, and learning mixed martial arts, particu-
larly after the incident in Tokyo. He spent a lot of the rest of his time outside of work by help-
ing some of the elderly people from his maternal grandmother’s community. He did a lot of
the manual labor and maintenance around their homes that they were getting too elderly to
continue doing themselves, especially for those without family members who could assist
them.
Cheng even had a section in which he mused about what a biracial child they
had together might look like or be like. In his last entry from today he again referred to An-
gela as “tian shi” utilizing the Mandarin characters as he did throughout many of his entries.
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He had written more about his hopes for their future together once she realized he wasn’t the
bad guy in all of this. When she finished reading his extended letter, she went on to the next
file, which was a picture file.
It was a digital photo though it didn’t have great resolution and was likely taken
from a last generation camera phone. The image was definitely from the time he was in
Japan. In it, Cheng’s entire face was covered in dark, purplish black bruises, his jaw looked to
be wired shut and she was sure his nose had been broken too. There was a gash where his
scar was now that had been sutured closed with a number of stitches. Angela gasped. Now
she could understand and feel the full impact of what he’d suffered and it made her want to
vomit. She couldn’t believe anyone could do such a foul, horrible thing to such a remarkable
man, attempting to destroy such an exquisite wonder of natural male beauty.
At times, the depths of human cruelty astonished Angela. It was almost incon-
ceivable to her the kinds of things she knew human beings could do to each other. With shaky
hands, she closed the chilling, disturbing image and felt sad that she hadn’t been there to
help him in his times of need either. That feeling that they’d missed out on so much together
again haunted her, but she did her best to suppress it as she clicked on the next few files
which were also images. Both the photo labels and the pictures themselves showed the trans-
ition Cheng had made from his high rise life in HK to starting back at the ground floor where
he’d ended up in Shanghai. Angela couldn’t help but feel proud of Cheng for all that he’d ac-
complished in such a relatively short period of time, rebuilding and then quickly improving
his lot in life in just the last few years.
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Opening the next digital file from Cheng, she saw that the next image was actu-
ally an artist’s rendering of her. Angela was startled. Cheng had either drawn it himself or
commissioned someone to do it, but since she knew he hadn’t had any photos of her, he’d
done it from his memory. It was done in pencil or maybe charcoal so the image was in black
and white, but it was a lovely, flattering piece of artwork and surprisingly accurate, capturing
nuances that she wouldn’t have thought Cheng knew or remembered from their brief time to-
gether. Especially since it was dated from about a year after they’d met.
Then in the next file she opened, were images from one of those online “baby
maker” photo games where he’d utilized a picture of him and his drawing of her to create a
boy baby and a girl baby that both looked like a combination of them. The images made An-
gela laugh. The babies were cute, but the boy baby didn’t look much like their Jayden, espe-
cially since every day that he got older, Jayden looked more and more like his father. Angela
sighed.
There were two files left for her to open now. The next to last one was another
Word document. This one was titled “Get to Know Cheng” and was clearly some Internet so-
cial networking website survey. Full name: Cheng Hung Liu. Favorite color: red. Siblings:
none – only child. She found out some other fun and interesting facts about him too, includ-
ing that he’d spent time being educated in England as a child, which would explain his UK ac-
cent when he spoke in English. Though Hong Kong had previously been under UK colonial
rule, Cheng hadn’t been born there. He’d been born in Shanghai. She saw too that he had left
a blank survey for her to fill out as well in this Word document.
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Next, she made her way to the final file on the flash drive. It was a MP3 playlist
that had been compiled today. The first song was Aaliyah’s “I Don’t Wanna Be.” Track two
was J. Holiday’s “You Should Be With Me,” while track three was Alicia Key’s “Unthinkable
(I’m Ready).” Next was Tamia’s “I’m So Into You.” The song on track five turned out to be a
Chinese and English duet by a duo of singer’s Angela had never heard of before – Dawen and
Sha Sha Jones and it was done to the tune of Drake’s song “Marvin’s Room.”
Angela didn’t understand all of the Chinese parts word for word, but got the
general gist of the song. It was a heartbreaking song about two ex-lovers who still loved each
other, but couldn’t work their relationship out due to long distance. Now, the former girl-
friend had a new man in her life but the ex-boyfriend wanted her back. Angela sighed and
thought about how art imitated life and life imitated art as the last track on the playlist began
to play. It was Cheng sending her a spoken message that kind of reminded Angela of an ex-
tended voicemail recording.
“
Tian shi, I remember how you told me that you really like American R&B mu-
sic, so I put together this play list for you. Each of these songs reminded me of you for various
reasons; mostly the song lyrics or contexts were specific to us, because I don’t want to be
without you. I do think you should be with me. If you ask me, I am ready whenever you are
for the next phase of our relationship and saying that ‘I’m into you’ is definitely an
understatement.
“
So while I hope you aren’t with anyone else right now, I mean really, really
hope you aren’t, the last song was an AMBW duet that I found on YouTube with a Chinese
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man and an African-American woman singing. AMBW stands for Asian Men Black Women
by the way. I really like the song since it makes me think of you and how long we’ve been sep-
arated by uncontrollable circumstances every time I hear it.
“
Anyway, I’ll explain more about why you haven’t heard from me in so long
when I see you later tonight, since I’m on my way to drive out to your house in a few minutes.
I hope you can forgive the intrusion as well my absence. I really do hope we can work
everything out between us.”
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Chapter Six
Angela looked up and saw that it was already 2:00 am. She’d been so engrossed
in all the files Cheng had given her that she hadn’t paid any attention to the fact that she’d
been down here for more than four hours going through everything. Angela chewed on her
bottom lip trying to decide what she should do now.
She felt wide awake and she didn’t feel like going up to bed yet. So instead, she
filled out the blank survey with information on her and Jayden. Name(s): Angela Louise
Hawkins and Jayden Cheng Hawkins. Favorite color(s): ALH – blue, JCH – orange. Siblings:
ALH – one brother named Nathan, JCH – none, only child.
Angela completed the other survey questions and saved the new file to her
desktop. She then retrieved her diary and scanned some select pages into a new PDF that she
also saved to her desktop. Then she created a new folder that she called “Cheng” and put the
files she’d just created in it before she started dragging and dropping photos she wanted to
share with him into the folder as well.
Some pictures were of her throughout her life, especially when she was preg-
nant with Jayden. She put in ultrasound shots from when she’d been carrying Jayden too.
She even included some videos of Jayden taking some of his first steps, some footage from
her and Jayden’s vacation to Hawaii a couple of years ago. She added videos of her and their
son at Disneyland as well as Jayden learning to ride his tricycle and even his first swimming
lesson. Then Angela decided to record a voice message too.
“
Hey Cheng. So I’m sure, as you can imagine, that today has been a whirlwind,
rollercoaster ride of emotions for me. I’m not feeling as overwhelmed right now as I did dur-
ing our conversation earlier tonight. Look, I really need you to understand my position. It
took me a while to find a guy who I thought would be good for me and who would also accept
Jayden as part of a package deal. That being said, I don’t want to make promises to you that I
don’t know whether or not I can keep right now.
“
What I mean is that I’m starting to feel like no matter what I ultimately de-
cide, someone is going to end getting hurt. Brian has been really good to me and Jayden and
we’ve been seeing each other for about the last year and a half now. I don’t think I can just
throw all that away and break our engagement based on some random one-day re-acquaint-
ance with you. Plus, I had felt so much hurt and resentment towards you for so long, thinking
you’d abandoned me, even though of course you didn’t even know about Jayden then, that I
can’t just pick up where we left off before like nothing ever happened.
“
I need time still to figure out how I want to proceed from here. However, I do
want to give you the opportunity to get to know our son, if you want to do that. Understand
too that I don’t want our baby stuck in the middle of any drama. I’ve worked damn hard to
make his world as stress-free as possible, but I’m sure we can work out something
reasonable.
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I also wanted to say thanks for taking the time to reach out to me and share the
good, the bad, the ugly and the wonderful from your life adventures and misadventures over
the last few years. Having some of these chronicles archived will probably also make a world
of difference to Jayden when he’s older too and we can share some of these things with him.
So anyway, it’s getting late and I need to get to bed.
I saw the contact page you included in your letter slash journal slash blog, so I’ll
send these files to your personal e-mail address before I go to sleep in a few minutes. Oh and
by the way, I think it would be best if I work from home tomorrow. Clearly you know where to
find me if you need me, but I will be checking my work e-mail and I’ll be connected via my
VPN access so I’ll be able to connect to our intranet portals, SharePoint, network drives and
folders and Basecamp projects. So I’m all set. I’ll talk to you later in the week. Good night.”
Angela sent all the files over to his g-mail account and tried to get her over-
wrought mind to calm down so she could get some sleep tonight.
~
Cheng was currently living at an extended stay executive corporate housing loc-
ation, but it was basically a luxury hotel. Which fortunately for him meant that they had both
a fully stocked mini bar in his suite as well as twenty-four room service. Cheng had been too
upset to eat when he’d first gotten back here after having driven around for a while, and
paced around the room for what felt like hours.
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However, around the 1:30am mark, his stomach growling had gotten the better
of him and he’d ordered a turkey and Swiss cheese sandwich on whole wheat bread with a
side of fries. He’d also gotten a gin and tonic to wash it all down. Oh, alright. So he’d gotten
three gin and tonics to wash it all down…
He sat poking at his fries then pushing the uneaten half of his sandwich around on the plate,
before he decided to just give up on the food altogether. Next, he started in on his second
drink. He hadn’t drank much in a while, but he welcomed the familiar burn of the uniquely
strong gin flavored mixed drink as it went down his gullet nice and smooth. When he was
about halfway through this drink, his smart phone buzzed to notify him that he had a new e-
mail message.
He looked at his phone and saw that the pop up notifier read that the message was from An-
gela and contained an attachment. He immediately flipped open his laptop and opened the
folder she’d sent him. He didn’t know what to expect, but if she was still up this late and had
just sent him something, that at least meant she was thinking about him on some level or an-
other. So for now, he would take this new development as a good sign. Maybe there was still
hope for them… maybe?
He read through her diary entries, understood her joy at having a baby as well
as her anguish as she’d faced the daunting challenge of guaranteed single motherhood. She
talked about her fatigue especially in the first year after Jayden’s birth and how she got
through it better whenever she saw her son’s happy little face. She also wrote how difficult
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having a biracial child was at times, because there were things she knew about Chinese cul-
ture, including some words from both the Mandarin and Cantonese languages.
However, she was not completely fluent in Chinese, didn’t know how to teach
her son to be a Chinese, even a half Chinese man (or a man at all, for that matter) and was
worried that their son wasn’t getting enough full exposure to his dual cultures. Also, since
their son “looked Asian," people never thought she was Jayden’s mother, and had even as-
sumed that she was just his nanny on several occasions, like when she went to enroll him in
preschool. It was that type of assumption which Angela found annoying, frustrating and
downright insulting at times.
Angela went on to talk about the looks she got at times when an “Asian” child
called her “mommy” in the Black community. She’d surprisingly even encountered resistance
from her own family as some of her family members didn’t seem to approve of her having had
a Blasian baby. They’d stressed that it was bad enough that she was a single, unwed mother,
but on top of all that she’d be raising a biracial child that she wasn’t qualified to raise. What
did she really know about being a mother, let alone a mixed race upbringing, or what it meant
to be half Asian anyway?
She’d countered with the fact that her child was human first and foremost and
how as long as the family loved, accepted and treated him with respect, what difference did it
make what ethnic background he had? The alternative of her having had an abortion which
would have ended her baby’s life didn’t seem like a better, more viable solution, especially
given that she thought her family was pro-life. Cheng could feel her outrage from her written
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words at those who were supposed to have supported her, but instead had withdrawn and
condemned her.
On the other hand, there were definitely those in her family and community
that had supported her throughout, like her brother Nate and her best friend Beverly. Ac-
cording to Angela’s journal, they were always the two who had her back, her biggest cheer-
leaders no matter what. Cheng couldn’t wait to meet the people who had been some of Angela
and Jayden’s biggest advocates.
He couldn’t help but feel pangs of sadness and longing when he read all of the
parts in her journal where she wrote of going it all alone or missing her son’s father. Cheng
also felt distressed where she’d briefly written about how pissed she was at him for not being
there for her and their son when they needed him the most. She’d wanted him to hold her,
defend her, console her and let her know that everything would be alright, but she knew it
was too much to expect given their brief acquaintance.
Cheng suspected that she’d written a lot more on this topic that she hadn’t sent
to him, but he definitely got the general gist of her feelings from what she had shared. Yet
Cheng admired Angela even more now than ever before. He now knew about some of her
challenges as a single mother. However, despite the less than ideal circumstances in which
Jayden had been born and raised thus far, their son was healthy, well cared for and appeared
to be happy and well adjusted too.
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Overall, Cheng found Angela’s journal enlightening. It gave him more insights
into her inner workings as well as let him know what to really expect as a parent and particu-
larly what some of the challenges of raising a biracial kid were. He’d never really considered
any of these issues before, but he was glad to have a heads up on them because he knew how
important they’d be for the three of them to address. However, it still seemed to Cheng that
many of Angela’s thoughts and concerns would be relevant to almost any parent of a young
child, especially in her position. He wondered how his family would respond to Angela and
Jayden.
His extended family members from his mother’s side knew that he had met a
young African-American woman that he was absolutely crazy about during his days in Hong
Kong. He’d even drawn them a picture of her so they knew what she looked like. The only
comment that one of his male cousins made was that yes, he agreed she was beautiful, but his
other cousins had remained markedly silent.
Then his aunt had said something along the lines of how interesting it must be
to travel the world. It must give one a new perspective on being Chinese and what’s accept-
able for one’s children. She didn’t say anything else on the matter and he’d dropped it too,
not wanting to be rude. Cheng had to acknowledge that Angela probably wasn’t the only one
with family members who would give them grief over their relationship and their son. He
didn’t care though. Cheng wasn’t about to let other people’s prejudice keep him away from
his woman and their baby.
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Next, Cheng saw Angela’s survey responses. He was glad to see that she had
answered for both herself as well as Jayden, so he could get to know them both better.
However, glancing at Angela and Jayden’s surname, he couldn’t help but yearn for the day
when they would both be called Liu.
Cheng looked at all of her and Jayden’s pictures and watched the videos of all
the time he’d missed so far of participating in his son’s life as he’d grown up. He sighed each
time as he re-watched the videos of Jayden taking his first steps, learning to swim then learn-
ing how to ride his tricycle. Cheng couldn’t help but feel cheated. He should’ve been there to
help teach his son those things.
Then he listened to her recorded voice message. Actually, he listened to it three
times all the way through to be sure he hadn’t missed anything that she’d said. Subsequently,
Cheng went back to pacing around his suite and drinking the remainder of his second gin and
tonic. Clearly, they were at an impasse. Angela hadn’t given up on him altogether. At least not
yet, but she certainly wasn’t prepared right this second to give up everything she’d worked so
hard for in the last few years for him either. Including what sounded like a dreadfully boring,
albeit it a fairly stable relationship with her current fiancé.
Cheng thought about his options. He could be patient, and wait, hope and pray
that eventually Angela chose him. This, given that he’d basically been doing that already for
half a decade didn’t feel like the best option. Besides, it felt like too passive of a stance to take.
He could go the slightly more devious way and after spending time with his son, find ways to
put the moves on his baby’s mama.
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Cheng laughed out loud at that idea. First of all, he didn’t do covert very well so
he couldn’t image a plan like that latter one working out for him. On that same note, he also
couldn’t believe he had someone in his life to which the term “baby mama” could apply.
Cheng wanted so much more than this highly limiting set of circumstances for his family. He
sighed yet again and his pacing continued.
Should he shower her with gifts? What could he send her? Flowers? Chocol-
ates? Make a counter marriage proposal complete with an even better engagement ring than
she was already wearing so she would know to consider him as a serious suitor too? Yet, he
couldn’t imagine that anything material was going to seriously impress Angela. She was a wo-
man of her own means and Cheng didn’t want her to feel like he was trying to buy her. He
blew out a frustrated, exasperated breath and kept pacing. Suddenly, a thought struck Cheng
like a lightning bolt and the epiphany made him freeze, mid-stride.
He had been so busy thinking about how he could convince Angela to take a
chance on him like he’d taken on her, that he’d overlooked something major. He remembered
reading a letter of recommendation in Angela’s file earlier where a previous supervisor com-
mended her. The supervisor said Angela had an uncanny ability to “see beyond a difficult
situation and differences of opinion to get at the real heart of the matter and settle disputes in
a way that garnered successful results for all parties involved.” In fact, this one leadership
strength was listed as one of the most key assets Angela could bring to any organization.
Thus, this woman was used to taking charge and calling the shots in tough situ-
ations, even if it was from behind the scenes. Not only that, but Angela could turn things
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around so that it became a win-win scenario on all sides. Her strength and ability to make
challenging circumstances all work out favorably was even evidenced in how she was raising
their son Jayden.
So if Cheng kept pushing her without ever allowing Angela breathing room to
do what it was that she did best, he would definitely lose her. He took a deep breath and ex-
haled slowly. For once in his life, Cheng was going to have to remain silent and hand com-
plete control over to someone else. He’d have to put utter faith and confidence in whatever fi-
nal decision Angela arrived at and be prepared to live with it.
Cheng already knew that no amount of scheming, plotting, bribery, nepotism or
corporate political alignments would sway Angela. So despite his personal feelings and de-
sires in the matter, he was going to have to do the one thing he wanted to do the least. Cheng
was used to being in control, taking decisive action and saying exactly what he thought. Now
he was going to have to let go of the woman he loved entirely by learning when and how to
proactively be still and silent, starting from this moment on.
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Chapter Seven
Angela hadn’t slept well the previous night. She couldn’t get her mind to rest, so
she tossed and turned uncomfortably trying to run a myriad of scenarios through her brain
with how everything would turn out depending upon who she chose. Angela couldn’t believe
it. She was stuck in a real life love triangle.
This morning she’d dropped Jayden off at school and had come back home to
get a little more rest. Now she was dragging ass, glad to be at home where none of her
coworkers and especially her new boss, could see that she looked and felt like hell. She was
checking e-mails and responding to various customer, colleague and vendor inquiries. She
finished a report on a new customer service and relations management software tool she
thought the company should implement, updated a general supply chain work flow docu-
ment, and then created a timeline for a new project she was currently managing.
She sent the items she’d been working on to Cheng and spent the next hour on a
conference call. When the long, tedious, boring and mostly irrelevant call was finally over,
Angela went back to the kitchen to refill her mug and had her third cup of coffee for the
morning. She normally only drank one cup of coffee max in a single day, but today she really
needed the extra caffeine boost if she was going to stay awake. When Angela walked back into
the den, she saw that she had a text message from her fiancé.
From their routine good morning call earlier, Brian knew she was working from
home today and was now texting to ask if he could take her out to lunch. She texted the word
“yes” back to him. Then she hurriedly tried to get herself looking presentably decent for the
next thirty minutes, though Brian said he’d come get her in an hour. She checked her e-mail
messages for work again and decided to take her iPad with her when she went out to eat
lunch with Brian. Who, as expected, showed up to pick her up about fifteen minutes early.
Angela knew he would.
That was Brian though – predictable. Solid. Stable. Boring. She mentally chas-
tised herself immediately, reminding her stupid heart that was suddenly beating overtime at
the very thought of Cheng, that Jayden needed stability and so did she. That Cheng was a
wild card that she wasn’t sure she could fully trust or view as a sure bet.
What if five year’s worth of nostalgia was making her romanticize and idealize a
man who wasn’t really right for her? Would she still feel the same way about him even if he
wasn’t her only child’s father? Was that even a relevant or fair question seeing as how he
already was her son’s father?
When she opened her front door, Brian greeted her with a kiss on the lips. It
was nice, but there weren’t any of the kind of fireworks that she knew from experience a
couple who were seriously into one another could achieve. Stop it! During the drive to lunch,
Brian told her about his rounds last night at the hospital. She tried to stifle a yawn as he
spoke. She also tried to tell herself it was just fatigue from sleep deprivation, not a general
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lack of interest that truthfully seemed to have always pervaded most of her conversations
with Brian.
Honestly, Angela just didn’t care what color a patient’s mucous was or that dif-
ferent colors of phlegm represented different ailments. She wasn’t that interested in resetting
broken bones or reattaching severed fingers. In truth, she thought those details from his for-
ays as an on-call staff doctor in the ER were just gross and wished like all hell that Brian
would keep them to himself. Brian rarely spoke to her as it was though. So she could hardly
tell the man she was supposed to marry to find something else, perhaps less nausea-inducing,
especially as they were about to go eat, to converse about.
Angela found herself sighing, though she made sure she did it quietly. Her best
friend Bev wouldn’t be in this situation, she mused. Beverly would be off jet-setting to some
fabulous location with a gorgeous guy who couldn’t possibly keep his hands off of her. Brian’s
hands were most assuredly on his steering wheel. Cool, calm, collected, in control and self-
composed as always. Was this man a reflection of who she was now? How motherhood had
turned her into a woman who was afraid to take any risks at all? Yet she couldn’t deny that
the potential fallout to her and her son could be astronomical if she took a critical misstep
now.
On the other hand, could Angela afford to live the rest of her life like this? In
quiet desperation? Also mostly in solitude as Brian was almost always at work and living on
someone else’s schedule, seeing him only in the rare moments that he was available to her?
She’d told herself that she’d chosen Brian because he was suitable and wouldn’t create waves
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in her or Jayden’s lives. Yet she couldn’t help but wonder how this upcoming marriage would
be any different for Jayden than having an absentee father had been before she’d met her
fiancé.
Though she’d had a discussion with her young son about how Brian would be-
come his new stepfather, which Jayden seemed to be okay with, she wasn’t sure he knew
what it meant. Hell, Angela wasn’t sure she really knew what it meant. She’d explained that
they would need to live with Brian, but that Jayden would still have his own room and be al-
lowed to continue watching his favorite shows and he could bring all his toys, books and oth-
er stuff from their current home. However, she hadn’t really discussed with Brian if there
were any rules that would change for her son once they were consolidated into a new family
unit with this man.
Angela and Brian were scheduled to start a ten-week “marriage expectations”
series of guided couples’ pre-marriage counseling sessions next month. Maybe they both as-
sumed they could discuss such matters there? Perhaps Brian hadn’t thought about those
things because he didn’t have any children yet, so he didn’t know how to prepare for gaining a
stepson? Now at a stop light, Brian had stopped talking about having to use a scalpel to cut
someone’s thumb open a bit before using tweezers to remove a piece of embedded glass that
had broken off and stuck into the appendage. He looked over and smiled at her now. For
some reason, this rare, unexpected action startled Angela and she smiled back clumsily as
more of an automatic response. Brian continued driving when the light changed.
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Now at one of Brian’s favorite restaurants, they were seated and had just
ordered lunch. Brian had just said something to her that Angela was too lost in thought to
really hear. “Oh yeah, fine,” she murmured as a general response. It was then too that Angela
noticed and fully paid attention to the fact that they co-existed with each other in a way that
was peaceful, a cordial politeness with which to interact with one another.
It was respectful, but did they really know each other? It was kind of like having
an acquaintance with a co-worker she didn’t know very well, more so than a passionate, in-
timate relationship with a man she was supposed to spend the rest of her life with. They were
definitely going to have a marriage based on convenience, not love and mutual understand-
ing. Maybe that’s how things had been all along though. How had she not really observed any
of this before?
“
Good. I’m glad wedding planning is going so well. Have you found the dress
you want yet?” she barely heard Brian ask.
“
Oh no, not yet. Bev’s gonna help me with that some more either this weekend
or next.” Angela had tried on a few dresses so far, but she was having a hard time picturing in
her mind what she wanted. She couldn’t see in her mind’s eye how Brian was going to react
when he saw her in any of those dresses, so she thought none of them had been the right one
and she decided to keep looking, continuing her search for “the dress.”
Their food came then and they were mostly silent throughout the rest of lunch.
However, towards the end of their meal, Brian asked, “Is everything okay Angela? You don’t
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seem like you’re usual self. Like you’re distracted and I don’t know, maybe a bit out of sorts
today?” He looked concerned, but she couldn’t help but wonder if this was the same expres-
sion most of his patients saw when he had to ask them the hard questions about how they
were really taking care of their health.
Angela took a deep breath. Maybe now was the perfect time to get some of her
concerns out on the table. “Actually something has come up. Jayden’s father is in town and
has tracked us down and wants to start seeing Jayden. I’ve had our son entirely to myself for
all this time and I’m just not sure how this is all going to work out.” Okay, so maybe she omit-
ted a detail or two from that description, but what she’d said was still true nonetheless. She
could open up and say more depending upon how Brian reacted to the news she’d just given
him.
Brian nodded slowly. “Well if the two of you can’t agree and work something
amiable out for everybody involved, then I know a really good family law lawyer that can take
care of the whole situation for you.” Angela smiled weakly, topically, but couldn’t help feeling
a little put off, especially when he quickly added, “Good, I’m glad that’s all settled now. So
what do you want for dessert?”
Clearly this was Brian signaling that he thought the whole matter was now at a
close. He had solved her problem for her and he wanted to continue as before, as though
none of this situation would affect her any more than a slightly bothersome splinter that he
could simply pluck out. Then he could throw a band-aid on her boo-boo and everything was
good as new. What had Angela really expected though?
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For Brian to allow her to open up and pour out her real feelings to him about
everything? He’d never done that before, but then again, she’d never needed him to before.
They were engaged and he didn’t know anything about her history with Cheng. Besides, Brian
was a doctor, he “fixed” things for a living by definitively giving people medical advice, pre-
scribing pills, doing quick medical procedures, or handing patients off via referrals if there
was something too complicated he couldn’t immediately fix himself.
Then those matters were definitely at an end for him. That was exactly how he’d
just handled this situation with her too, except for Angela this matter was definitely not case
closed. So she remained silent and ended up picking at a lemon bar Brian had suggested that
she didn’t really want to eat a few minutes later.
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Chapter Eight
Cheng’s new resolve to give Angela space and find a way to not let the whole
situation kill him, or drive him insane in the process was challenging, to say the least. He’d
never experienced trying to let go of something he wanted so badly and that seemed to finally
be within his reach. He meditated and exercised a lot, doing tai chi every weekday morning,
hitting the gym to lift weights and do his workout routine three times per week, and training
under a new ju-jitsu instructor twice a week. He even fit in either an hour of yoga or deep
stretching once per week. Then at work every day, Cheng was cordial with Angela if he
happened to see her in the hall, but he treated her as any other subordinate. Well, at least in
terms of outer appearances.
The main difference was that he went out of his way to avoid her as much as
possible and asked her things only out of necessity and then only via e-mail or on their office
communicator instant messaging. Cheng only had regular face time with Angela in staff
meetings, in which he deliberately did not sit anywhere near her and if he could, he would
even sit where he couldn’t see her. He trusted her operations decisions and did not sit in on
any of her meetings either.
After the first two weeks, he still burned for her, probably now more so than
ever before, but he didn’t give in to any of his impulses. He just increased his rigid, grueling
calisthenics routine instead. He wondered how many mantras about separating himself from
all earthly desires he would need to endure before any of it actually kicked in and started
working…
~
About a month had passed since Cheng’s initial arrival at their office and with
each passing day, Angela was increasingly having a difficult time staying focused at work.
Cheng consumed her almost every thought now, though she had to give herself credit for pre-
tending to be unaffected. He mostly stayed away from her, which made life somewhat easier,
though he avoided her so much now that she honestly began wondering if he had changed his
mind about her altogether. Maybe the nostalgia factor had worn off for him and he was start-
ing to think she was just a plain, ordinary mom, the way she often felt herself to be these
days.
Today, however, they’d had to make a business deal which required his VP level
sign off, so he had to attend the meeting, unlike the rest of her meetings that he usually de-
clined. The two of them sat on one side of the large rectangular conference room table, while
a team from their partner company sat across from them. The meeting, which included some
last minute negotiations, had lasted two hours. It felt like an eternity of bittersweet torture.
Angela thought she would pass out her awareness of Cheng was so strong from
the moment he’d sat down beside her. Though she was pretty sure she kept her facial expres-
sion neutral and she eventually got her breathing steady, she couldn’t control her rapid heart
rate and she felt flushed. Hopefully that glow on her face just looked like makeup. She did her
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best to ignore the way Cheng affected her and went on to keep her cool and do her best work
under pressure.
Cheng gave his feedback too, though it was minimal. From what she’d heard
about him and his usual business dealings, she had to wonder if he was behaving uncharac-
teristically right now. Had he diverted from his usual management style here lately being so
hands off with her? Probably. She had to admit that his trust in her ability to handle things
was refreshing too; she liked and appreciated it.
When Angela slid a sideway glance over at him out of her periphery, she could
tell from the rigid set of his body that he could feel the pull too. The animal magnetism
charged up between the two of them was making it hard for her to concentrate. She silently
mused about what would happen if she just jumped on Cheng right now. The two of them
could go at it on the floor, the table, up against one of the room’s walls…
Cheng must have caught the general direction in which her mind was moving
because he cleared his throat then, seemingly in warning for her to knock it off. Damn his in-
tuition was always so on point and he was definitely in sync with her. Angela found that
Cheng being so in tuned with everything around him was both annoying as well as arousing…
Angela couldn’t help it. She wasn’t trying to inflame the two of them. Just like
the sun rose in the morning and set at night, their attraction for each other simply was and
couldn’t be ignored forever. The meeting finally ended and two of the three men from their
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partner company had left the room already, leaving the last man alone with Angela and
Cheng.
The man pulled Cheng to the side of the conference room and proceeded to tell
Cheng in Mandarin that if he were smart, he would go ahead and marry his Director of Oper-
ations over there. The man laughed heartily as Cheng’s expression quickly changed into a mix
of anxious, stricken longing and his gaze automatically shifted over to Angela, then back to
their business partner. However, Cheng swiftly schooled his facial expression and once again,
masked himself, returning to the stoic, unshakable businessman.
Angela pretended to be oblivious as she continued picking up the contract with
her scribbled change notes that their Legal team would need to amend and get implemented.
Then she gathered up her other belongings. She’d heard what their partner had said and
while she hadn’t understood every single word, she’d understood most of the man’s com-
ments and certainly his overall meaning.
Angela had also observed Cheng’s fleetingly altered facial expression as covertly
as she could. Well, at least now she knew for sure that she wasn’t suffering in silence alone.
That was little consolation for her; however, as their colleague looked from her face to
Cheng’s and shook his head. Then the man finally made his way out of the conference room
still bellowing out laughter along his way.
Cheng was holding the door open for her now, standing in the doorframe stiffly
as she exited the conference room. Unintentionally, Angela’s shoulder brushed against his
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chest as she made her hasty departure. She swore she heard him groan and she apologized
for her clumsiness hastily, without ever looking at him. Angela knew better than to linger in
that ticking time bomb situation, so she’d gotten out and hadn’t looked back.
She hurriedly made her way down the hallway, fleeing to the supposed safety of
her own desk as soon as possible. Otherwise, she would’ve dumped everything in her arms on
the floor, grabbed Cheng and dragged him back into that conference room before pushing
him back onto the table. That large, heavy, solid mahogany table was sturdy enough to sup-
port both of their weight…
Oh my God! Stop it already – that meeting was enough torment as it was she
chastised herself inside of her head as her shaky legs with wobbly, weak knees finally got her
back to her cubicle. Then, as if on cue, her telephone rang. She pulled herself together and
answered it on the third ring after putting down all of her items on her desk. “This is Angela
Hawkins,” she said into her phone’s receiver.
“
Hi Angela, it’s Zoe,” a young woman said in response. Zoe, Jayden’s nanny,
almost never called her at work. Angela was just about to panic when Zoe added, “Jayden’s
been drawing a picture that he insisted I scan and send to your e-mail right away and he
wants to talk to you. I hope you’re not too busy right now?”
Angela exhaled a breath she didn’t even know she’d been holding in relief. “Of
course, you know I always have time for my baby.”
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She opened her personal email then, since Zoe knew not to send anything to her
work account unless it was an absolute emergency, and was downloading the paint file Zoe
had sent her when she heard Jayden’s excited voice on the line. “Hi mommy! I drew a picture
for you. Did you see it yet?”
“
Hi Jayden. Actually I’m opening it now.”
“
Where are you? Are you at work?”
“
Yes baby. You know this is where I am every day when you stay with Miss
Zoe.”
“
Oh good. Then can you bring that nice man so he can watch Yo Gabba Gabba
with me tonight?”
Angela wasn’t sure what had prompted all of this coming from Jayden sud-
denly, but then again who really knew or understood the intricate inner workings of
preschoolers? She also wasn’t sure how to answer him, but as she was about to say
something, anything in response to Jayden, she became aware of someone else’s presence be-
side her. With the way her body responded to that proximity, she knew it could only be one
person.
Of course her son’s picture chose that exact second to finally finish downloading
and pop open. Jayden had drawn a picture of himself, her and a stick figure man she had a
feeling was supposed to be Cheng. They were all smiling and standing next to a square shape
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with a red blob on it. She was pretty sure they were all happy in the drawing as they watched
one of Jayden’s favorite TV shows.
Slowly she turned to look over her shoulder. Cheng was staring at her intently
as though he was awaiting her answer as eagerly as Jayden was. She knew intuitively that
he’d heard their son’s excited, high pitched voice, especially with the high volume on her
phone. Damn broken volume button. She slowly turned back around and closed her eyes,
willing her pulse and breathing to both slow down so she could think. Knowing she couldn’t
delay the inevitable any longer, she finally replied as her son prompted her with “mommy?”
Almost as if he’d had to remind her so she didn’t forgot he was still there. That was laughable.
As if that could or ever would happen.
“
Yes baby. I’ll bring him so we can all watch Yo Gabba Gabba.”
“
Yay! Okay, I’ll see you later. Bye mommy.”
As she turned back to look at her son’s father, who still maintained a bit of a
tight posture, Angela knew for sure. Heaven help her, but she was in trouble.
~
Cheng should have felt happy about this situation. Ironically, his son had made
the first move when indecisiveness seemed to have plagued both Cheng and Angela, causing
them both to have tied hands, thereby guaranteeing their inaction. Cheng had been allowing
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Angela to have space in order to figure out what she wanted to do. He had also been prepar-
ing himself mentally for if she ultimately rejected him.
His hormones and thoughts were in disarray right now though as he drove to
her house. Sitting next to her during what felt like a marathon meeting earlier had been sheer
agony. She smelled so feminine, so soft and sweet like night blooming jasmine. He’d wanted
to slowly run his fingers up and down her stocking covered leg until his hand could disappear
under her skirt and between her thighs... He’d actually spent most of that meeting being quite
uncomfortable and trying to hide his hard on.
Now at his own child’s behest, he would continue to be forced to spend time in
the presence of the very source of his hellish anguish. Cheng sighed in frustration and ran his
fingers through his hair as he was now stopped at a traffic light. He wanted to convince him-
self when he agreed to this meeting that he was simply doing what would be in Jayden’s best
interest.
He didn’t want the nagging thoughts that felt an awful lot like an ulterior
motive to detract from the time he would spend with his son. If he were being honest with
himself, he could admit that he was not a damn monk though and his attempts at feigning
such were failing miserably. He still hadn’t been able to divorce himself from desire at all,
much less keep himself from the one woman he really wanted.
In preparation for eventually spending time with Jayden, Cheng had spent time
looking at his son’s photos and videos at least a few times every week. Truthfully, he’d found
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that one of the reasons keeping his distance from Angela was so hard was because it also
meant spending even more time away from his only child. He hadn’t been actively focused on
it, but his desire to have a family had grown exponentially, especially since he’d found out
how much time he’d already missed being a part of Jayden’s life.
Maybe this is what happened to people once they were in their thirties – the
ache to be a part of their own family bit and sank in hard. They finally thought about their
long term futures with the desire to be settled at least to some extent becoming downright re-
lentless. Then again, his own immediate family of origin being gone might have something to
do with his specific increasing need to start his own family now too.
Cheng’s mother had died of pancreatic cancer seven years ago and his father,
who was significantly older than his mother, thirty years her senior in fact, had died of natur-
al causes about a year later. Cheng didn’t really allow himself much time to think of them
these days, but he missed his parents, especially his mother. That was probably another one
of the main factors in why working through things with Angela and being able to see Jayden
was so important to him right now.
Although things being so unsettled between him and his son’s other parent was
continuing to make everything extremely complicated. He also didn’t want Jayden to keep
thinking of him as just some random nice man from his mom’s job. Cheng wanted Jayden to
know who his father was. However, Cheng didn’t have much experience dealing with small
children.
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How did he broach such a delicate matter with a four year old? He laughed as
he envisioned a Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker revelation moment between the two of
them. Well, at least Cheng hadn’t lost his sense of humor.
In preparation for tonight, both Cheng and Angela had left work earlier than
they normally would have. This was to say, that it was only 7:00 pm now as he found parking
on Angela’s street, instead of after 9:00 pm. Cheng knew this meeting had more significance
than any other high stakes business meeting he’d ever had in his life and he was super
nervous. Other than the items Angela had emailed him about a month ago, the only real prep
he’d had for spending time with his son was doing a Google search to find out just what the
hell Yo Gabba Gabba even was.
Cheng rang the doorbell, still uncertain about what to expect this evening.
When she opened the door, Cheng could tell that Angela had showered and changed. Now,
she looked at home, comfortable and relaxed, lounging in a black stretch velour zippered
hoodie and matching pants.
She also wore black flip flops that showed off her cute, hot pink pedicured toes,
a drastic change to the severely professional attire she always wore to work and he liked it. He
again felt her lure pulling him in, giving him the intense desire to hug her, but he managed to
ignore it.
“
Hi, please come on in,” Angela told Cheng as she stepped back so he could
pass. He removed his shoes and left them on her porch before entering her home.
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As soon as he stepped through the door, Jayden came running forward. “Yay!
Hi mister. I’m glad you came. I knew you would. Do you want to watch TV or see my room
first?” Cheng glanced nervously at Angela, who only smiled casually and shrugged.
It seemed that they were both now at the full mercy of their son. Before he got
dragged into his four year old’s world too completely, Cheng opened a small gift bag he’d
brought with him. “We can do whichever one you’d like to do first, but before we go, I
brought a few things for you and your mother.” He then presented Angela with an assortment
of chocolate truffles, exported from Hong Kong. He had a feeling she’d especially enjoy the
lemon truffles the best.
“
Thanks,” she said quietly as she took the small package from him. He enjoyed
that giving her such a small token could make her flush with such tremendous pleasure. He
couldn’t help but wonder what her reaction would be if he were presenting her with a ring
instead…
Before he got too caught up in that fantasy, he pulled a small box out of the bag
and handed it to Jayden. The boy opened the little hinged jewelry box to reveal a miniature
hand-crafted jade dragon pendant attached to a thin twenty-four karat gold double stranded
rope chain. “Cool! Can you help me put it on?” Jayden asked after he’d attempted to remove
it from the box.
Clearly flustered that he was having such a hard time getting the dragon chain
out of the box, he silently handed the opened lidded, black velvet covered box back to Cheng.
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In turn, Cheng dutifully accepted the box back and removed the jewelry from its container
before sinking down to his knees behind Jayden to attach the chain to his boy’s neck. As he
latched the clasp, he caught sight of Angela watching him.
Her gaze appeared to be approving, but when they caught and held each other’s
eyes for what must’ve been too long, she looked away first. Angela was likely embarrassed to
be caught staring at her baby’s father. Cheng was getting sick of sneaking glances at the wo-
man who’d already given birth to his son. The very idea seemed ridiculous to him and he
knew that Angela was going to have to make a decision soon.
They both knew the ball was in her court since he’d already put what he wanted
all the way out there… Before Cheng could dwell on that and ended up saying something that
would undo all his disciplined efforts during the last month, he distracted himself by reaching
back into the bag and pulling out the last gift he’d gotten. It was a small plush toy, a rendition
of one of the characters from Yo Gabba Gabba – the red one with the bumps and one eye.
Jayden’s whole face lit up again. “Muno!” he exclaimed as he took the small toy
in both of his hands. “Thank you! He’s my favorite.”
Cheng smiled and ruffled the boy’s curly hair with one hand. “You’re welcome.
So what’s next?”
“
Um, let’s go see my room. Then we can watch the show.”
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“
Sounds good. You go ahead and lead the way,” Cheng said as he stood again
from his squatting position. He followed Jayden, but glanced back over his shoulder to see
what Angela was doing. She was simply following them up the stairs soundlessly. A tiny, al-
most amused smile seemed to barely touch her full lips. Cheng wondered what was in store
for him now.
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Chapter Nine
Angela wasn’t sure why she’d been so worried about this evening. After all, Jay-
den had actually requested his father’s presence here in their home tonight. Cheng also
wanted to get to know their son better and so far, so good.
The two guys seemed to naturally have an affinity towards one another, which
wasn’t that unusual given that they were father and son. So while Cheng was discovering all
about the characters that populated Jayden’s favorite TV shows, books and movies, not to
mention getting caught up on all the daily happenings of preschool, Angela snuck away.
Cheng was handling himself well and was already playing with Transformer action figures be-
fore Angela even made it out the door.
She rested the back of her head against the wall in the hallway. What was she
doing? Procrastinating? She had finally made a decision today that she wanted to discuss
with everyone tonight. She was just waiting for the right time. She hoped she was doing the
right thing and that everyone could live with her choice.
She continued down the hall and went to her master bedroom suite. She could
hear Jayden’s shrieks of laughter drifting out from his bedroom as she prepared some things
in her own room.
~
As it turned out, having a little boy was fun, absolutely exhausting and well,
kind of cool. Cheng had fallen right into a natural role as soon as he and Jayden had gotten
into his son’s room. He had noticed when Angela slipped out to give them time alone togeth-
er, but it was fine with him. Cheng told Jayden stories that he knew from his childhood,
where he’d heard international fairytales.
Though he’d been born in Shanghai, his father had been a Chinese dignitary
originally from Macau, so Cheng had spent a good deal of time away from China as he’d
grown up. He’d been to England, Australia, the US and even various parts of the Caribbean
before his father had finally settled into a very cushy government job in Hong Kong. By that
point in time, Cheng had been twelve years old, so he’d retained a lot of his cosmopolitan
ways from his days globetrotting with his parents.
Having been an only child where he was frequently moved around had at times
been both fatigue-inducing as well as isolating. Even once his family had settled in Hong
Kong, there were a lot of times that he found he just couldn’t really relate to the other local
kids. Many of them hadn’t traveled very far outside of HK and they weren’t as into global
happenings as he was, which often made him feel like an outsider. Being well traveled and
understanding global context had paid off though when he’d decided to go into the business
world.
Yet the social difficulties of his childhood where his father was frequently off
working and his kind, gentle, generous mother had often been his only companion had left a
profound impact on Cheng’s adult life. Cheng couldn’t help but think that in some ways, he
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and his son actually shared similar upbringings as he stared at Jayden now. His boy was jab-
bering on and on about his Disney’s Cars’ books at the moment.
Yup, Jayden had a dad who cared about him, but that had still been gone most
of his life. Also, Jayden was trapped in a multicultural pluralism, trying to find his way in the
world and figure out his own identity. Cheng could certainly relate to those issues. He just
hoped he could help his son from this moment forward and throughout the rest of his life
with whatever challenges lay on the road ahead for Jayden.
Finally, after they’d drawn pictures too, Jayden was ready for a snack and asked
if Cheng wanted to go downstairs and watch TV. Cheng agreed and they started for the door.
He admired his son’s endless energy as well as his natural charisma and how articulate he
was. He was giving Jayden a piggyback ride once they were out in the hall outside of the bed-
rooms when his son called for his mother. Angela rejoined them almost instantly, smiling up
at her baby before they all made their way down to the den.
Cheng helped Jayden down from his shoulders and their son went into the den
to turn on his program, before Angela and Cheng detoured to the kitchen to prepare a snack.
“Thank you for letting me see and get to know Jayden. Our son’s a great kid,” he told her as
she was spreading natural peanut butter on some whole grain bread and he was cutting up
pieces of organic bananas to go on their banana roll ups. Angela nodded.
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“
I would’ve come sooner, but I think everyone needed time to get used to the
idea.” Angela nodded again. She was still very quiet and definitely seemed distracted. “I want
to tell him that I’m his father. When do you think would be a good time for that?”
“
Maybe when we’re getting him ready for bed tonight we can tell him together
then,” she said quietly, without missing a beat. It was as if she’d been waiting for that ques-
tion, had been expecting it and was thus prepared to answer it. Cheng simply nodded himself
this time, not really sure what else to say.
~
Angela mostly tuned out the previously recorded DVR show as always, but what
she did pay attention to was the fact that she was spending quality family time with her son.
Jayden positioned himself in the middle of the comfy L-shaped sectional sofa and gestured
for his parents to sit on either side of him, which of course they acquiesced and did. Jayden
seemed to be perfectly content as he ate his snack and drank his low fat organic milk. Angela
wondered what it would be like if things were always like this.
Soon the show went off and Jayden knew it was bed time. “Jayden, we’re both
going to help get you ready for bed tonight. Do you think that would be alright?” Angela
asked. Jayden wagged his head up and down vigorously, smiling.
Cheng scooped up and carried their boy up the stairs and Angela again couldn’t
help but think she wished he was always around. Had she ever felt like this with Brian? She
couldn’t remember a time when a truly comfortable, family vibe existed with her fiancé.
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Cheng helped Jayden brush his teeth while Angela prepared his bath. Their son
then picked out his bath toys, used the toilet and stripped down before he got into the tub.
Kids were so uninhibited she mused as Cheng washed their son’s hair. Angela finished
bathing him.
Cheng rinsed and dried Jayden. Then Angela put on his lotion and pajamas be-
fore she and Cheng took turns reading the book Jayden picked out for his bedtime story. To-
night’s reading selection was one of their son’s favorites – Bear Hugs.
Angela wondered if kids simply knew some things intuitively. Then again, their
son had probably inherited his father’s uncanny ability to be in tune with people around him.
Jayden seemed so naturally comfortable with Cheng; it was like he already knew the man was
his biological father.
Even the book Jayden had picked out was about a baby bear spending time with
both of his parents. After they’d read through the entire book, twice, Cheng closed it and
cleared his throat to get Angela’s attention. She looked over at him and nodded. Cheng looked
back at their son who was sitting up in his bed adorned in his Elmo jammies and covered in
his Spiderman bedding.
“
Um Jayden, there’s something that your mommy and I want to talk to you
about. Um, you see,” Cheng began, sounding way more nervous and unsure than Angela had
ever observed before. She put her hand on his shoulder, in a way she hoped was encouraging.
He took a deep breath then just blurted out, “Jayden, I’m your father.”
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Jayden looked between the two of them for a minute, his eyes darting wildly
from one face to the other. Angela nodded and smiled, letting him know it was true and that
everything was alright. At the same time she was very worried about how her son would react
to all of this. Then Jayden hopped up suddenly and pounced on Cheng. “Daddy!”
Cheng seemed to recover from his initial shock and hugged Jayden, cradling
him close to his chest. Angela felt overwhelmed, but happy and before she knew it, she joined
in the hug. She threw her arms around Cheng and Jayden, but Cheng readjusted and held
Jayden tight with one arm while he gathered Angela against him with his other arm. She
didn’t even care that they were having a sappy group hug; this was a moment she realized
now that she’d been waiting a long time to make sure her son had.
~
The three of them stayed locked in that embrace for a long time. So long in fact
that Cheng now noticed a change in Jayden’s breathing pattern. Reluctantly, he let go of An-
gela and carried his peacefully sleeping son over to his bed. Cheng put his little boy down and
covered him up.
Angela flipped the light switch, leaving the room in near darkness, except for
the illumination coming from a small night light. Then she walked over to the door and
Cheng followed her out before the two of them made their way back down the stairs. “Could I
interest you in a glass a wine?” she asked as they got back down to the first floor landing.
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Cheng nodded, and then proceeded to follow her into the kitchen. He uncorked
the bottle she indicated as she rinsed and dried two wine glasses. They both remained silent
even as he poured a glass for her and handed it to her before doing the same for himself. They
went into the den and he sat on the sectional while she went to her computer.
A few seconds later, he heard a slow song begin to play, but wasn’t really paying
attention to it until she came over and sat down next to him then started to slowly sip her
wine along with him. When he realized it was Alicia Keys’ “Unthinkable – I’m Ready,” he
gulped his next sip of wine. Wide-eyed he looked over at her, wondering if he was reading too
much into this or if she was saying what he thought she was saying.
Before he could ask, Angela spoke. “For the last month, I’ve had a lot of time to
do some soul searching as well as evaluate every angle I could possibly think of for the pros
and cons of being with you or not. I’ve finally reached a verdict,” she said taking another sip
of her wine, then pausing. This time Cheng finally noticed. Angela’s engagement ring was
conspicuously missing from her left hand.
“
I think I knew last month, but I wasn’t ready to go there yet. Then I convinced
myself that Jayden was really the deciding factor. If he was okay with all this, I could finally
give myself permission to make peace with the past so I could clear the way for our future.”
Cheng put his glass down on the coffee table in front of him. “So straight up
tian shi, what are you saying? I want to be clear, so we don’t have any more misunderstand-
ings. So that we never have any misunderstandings between the two of us ever again.”
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“
I’m saying Cheng that I’m finally ready to be with you. That I want you, me
and Jayden to be a family with all of us finally together under one roof. If that’s still what you
want too, that is,” he heard her lack of certainty in the last part of what she’d said. Especially
about what he wanted for their future right now and he’d heard the out clause she was giving
him in the unspoken writing between the lines.
Cheng searched Angela’s face, but knew she was being sincere. He could hardly
believe this. At long last, the moment he’d been waiting for during all those long, lonely years
of trials and tribulations was finally here. The only woman he’d ever been in love with finally
wanted to be with him as well.
“
You have to know that more than anything else in the world, I still want all
three of us to be a family too tian shi.” Then he took her wine glass and put it down on the
table with his. He pulled her over to him then and kissed her until he alleviated that soul deep
ache that had been permeating and reverberating through his entire being for such a long
time while he’d been without her.
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Chapter Ten
Angela hoped like hell that she had just made the right decision. It seemed a bit
too late right now to be second guessing herself as Cheng carried her up the stairs. She knew
though, deep in her heart that she had finally made the correct choice for her as well as Jay-
den, so she decided also not to let self-doubt ruin this moment.
After all, Cheng was actually interested in her. He valued her opinion and let
her take lead at home and in their work, including on things that her previous boss would
have never allowed, even though they should have been her areas of responsibility and were
part of her core competencies. Under her leadership and with Cheng’s stamp of approval, An-
gela had increased efficiency in their workplace, got them more organized so they had better
productivity in their office overall, and could better respond to their customer’s needs.
The bottom line was that she’d improved their net profits already by ten percent
in only one month. Now with Cheng’s full collaboration both at work and at home, she felt
like they’d be an unstoppable duo, taking the world by storm. Even more importantly, he paid
attention to her and their son as actual people.
Cheng had a nickname for her and really listened when she spoke. He cared
about what their son was interested in too. Cheng had even gotten their son a cool piece of
jewelry to reflect his namesake and Chinese heritage. He was considerate and he wanted her.
He even genuinely wanted their enthusiastic, highly animated son around.
In the month since she’d really forced herself to pay attention to Brian, he
hadn’t exhibited any of those characteristics. She was fairly certain that the same way she was
bored and disgusted by his topics of interest, he was equally as uninterested in hers. He
didn’t have a nickname or pet name for her, was not remotely interested in anything pertain-
ing to her son and she’d begun to notice that he had a serious wandering eye too. Whenever
she was out with him, Brian seemed to be checking out almost every other woman around
them, except her.
In the end, she wasn’t sure why either of them was marrying the other. So when
she saw how favorably Jayden responded to his father again tonight, she knew for sure. She’d
gone to her room to return her engagement ring to its box so that tomorrow morning she
could give it back to Brian.
Now she could focus her full attention on Cheng. Something she wished she’d
had the courage to do sooner. They were in the hallway now, just a few feet from the door to
her master bedroom, so soon they’d be at the point of no return. Yet Angela didn’t feel pan-
icked about this night, since it felt like they were finally right where they were supposed be.
Cheng crossed the threshold to her bedroom and quietly kicked the door closed
behind him before he placed her down gently on her bed. He kissed her softly and ran his
hands through her hair. She would have thought that with all the time they’d been apart he
would have been spurred on to a quicker pace by urgency, but Cheng took his time as he
began to undress himself.
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Angela supposed they did have all the time in the world now. She watched as he
slid off his black slacks, before he undid the buttons to his short sleeve black shirt. He took off
his black ribbed tank top and pulled off his socks so that he now stood only in a pair of heath-
er gray cotton boxer briefs. Cheng’s body could’ve been curved from granite it was so lean and
chiseled.
Cheng had definitely been working out a lot more these days than he had in the
days when they’d been in HK together. His sculpted to perfection form actually began to
make Angela feel a bit apprehensive about getting nude with him again. She’d kept herself up,
but having a baby a few years ago had taken a bit of a toll on her body.
Angela’s body was softer, rounder and not nearly as unflawed now as it had
been a few years ago. Her stomach especially was not nearly the same now, as pregnancy had
definitely not left it as unmarred as it had been previously. Damn stretch marks.
Cheng climbed onto the bed and made his way over to her. He was so confident,
masculine, powerful, sexy, and simply gorgeous. He moved with a control, grace, purpose and
self-assuredness that was simply hypnotic. When he looked at her like that, how could Angela
not feel desired and turned on to the point of near insanity?
Although when he tugged to start taking off her sweatpants, her insecurities
flared up again. Cheng stopped, clearly having sensed her hesitation. He kissed her face then
trailed his fingers through her hair and alongside her face then down her neck. “What’s
wrong tian shi?” his words were a seductive, coaxing whisper.
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“
I… well… my body’s not exactly the same as it was before when we were to-
gether now that I’ve had Jayden. I just, don’t want you to be… disappointed.”
He smiled ruefully. “Trust me, that’s definitely not going to happen,” he mur-
mured as he began to undress her again. The only light on in the room was the one coming
faintly from her bathroom, so at least the room was only dimly lit.
Angela was still a little apprehensive as he undressed her down to her skivvies,
but he didn’t look disappointed at all. In fact, as he stared at her now, he looked more rever-
ent, in awe of her body really, than anything else. Cheng delighted in showing her his revelry
was true indeed as he spent the next four hours repeatedly worshipping her body.
~
Cheng was pretty sure he’d died and gone to heaven, a feeling that fortunately
for him didn’t subside even as he tried to pry one of his sandpaper-esque eyelids open. He’d
been awakened by Angela’s alarm clock that went off at 7:00 am. He knew she was tempted
to press snooze. She did in fact actually press the snooze button, but she still hopped up and
turned off the alarm clock before the buzzer had a chance to go off again.
Angela looked wonderful all groggy and half sleep as she shuffled around her
room. She had spent about ten minutes in the bathroom and came out showered, with teeth
and hair brushed. She threw on clean underwear, bra and jogging suit and grabbed
something he couldn’t see off her dresser that she put in her pocket before she slipped out of
her bedroom, closing the door quietly behind her.
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She must not have realized that Cheng had been awake and watching her move-
ments from underneath the arm he had draped over his face. She really must’ve been serious
last night, allowing him to sleep over and still not kicking him out now. Angela also must’ve
really had the whole morning routine thing down too because Cheng only heard a little bit of
shuffling around as she was getting Jayden ready and within another fifteen minutes they
had left the house, so that she was gone by 7:30 am. Damn his woman was amazing.
Cheng mostly faded in and out of consciousness during that whole time that
Angela and Jayden were getting ready before succumbing and going back to sleep. After all,
he had expended a lot of energy just a few hours ago and he needed his beauty rest. He
smiled thinking the only time he overslept was when he was spending intimate time with
Angela.
Somewhere as Cheng drifted back to sleep now, he thought he heard a phone
ringing, but he knew it wasn’t his. At least he was fairly certain that wasn’t his phone ringing
in the distance. Oh well. Even if it was his cell phone, he was definitely going to have to call
whoever that was back later.
~
Angela had only been gone about ten minutes for the round trip to drop her son
off at preschool. She’d been so deliriously happy, distracted and in a hurry, that she’d forgot-
ten her cell phone at home and thus, had missed her morning call with Brian. Much to her
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dismay, when she returned home, there the doctor was in the flesh sitting in his car, parked
and waiting in her driveway.
Oh but she was so glad that they had never exchanged keys to each other’s
places. She had claimed that she didn’t want to make Jayden uncomfortable, but in her heart
of hearts, maybe she knew all along she really wasn’t ever going to marry this guy. Brian was
still in scrubs and looked like he had just arrived and thankfully had seen her before he went
up to knock on her door.
“
Good morning. I thought we could grab a quick breakfast together,” he said
cheerily when he saw her, though his smile faded quickly when he saw her corresponding ex-
pression. “What’s the matter?” he asked coming over to her, the doctor façade of concern
masking his face. Had the two of them ever had a genuine moment with true feelings
together?
Everything about their relationship seemed so fake in comparison to the ease
and real interest that abounded when she was with Cheng. Angela bit her lip and fidgeted for
a few seconds, stalling. She decided to stop hesitating and just take the most direct approach
possible, since there really wasn’t any other way to handle this matter anyway. She took a
deep breath.
“
Brian, there’s no easy way to say this,” she began as she took the ring box out
of her pocket. “So here it is. We definitely can’t get married. I’m sorry,” she said as
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apologetically and sympathetically as she could manage, before she handed the small white
jewelry box over to him.
“
What? What the hell is this? What do you mean we can’t get married?” he
asked, clearly getting agitated as he got even closer to her then grabbed her arm, causing the
ring box to fall to the ground.
“
You’ve been putting me through the paces for more than a year now, leading
me on and now you’re saying you’re not going through with it? After all I’ve done for you.
Didn’t I give you the ring, wasn’t I even okay with you having a kid that’s not mine and gave
you cart blanche to spent whatever you wanted on your fantasy wedding? Then you still think
you’re gonna turn around and reject me?” Anger burned in his eyes as he gripped her arm
even tighter with every word he’d spoken.
Angela had never been afraid of Brian before now, but then again she’d never
seen this side of him either. Not everyone dealt well with being rejected and this was far from
an ideal scenario. She got that of course. However, this scene in her front yard was getting out
of hand. Trying to appeal to his more rational side, Angela said very quietly, “Brian, please let
me go. You’re hurting me and you’re starting to cause a scene.”
It dawned on her suddenly that this was why Brian had wanted to marry her all
along. He was an entitled, self-centered jerk and she’d basically been his doormat all this
time, having gone along with the respectable façade. She had never disagreed with him, told
him he was out of line or being inappropriate even during times that she knew she should
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have. Something told her to just go along with it and do whatever he’d wanted if she was go-
ing to marry him.
How else was she going to marry a doctor or anyone else of his so-called caliber
as a single, unwed mother? In this very moment, however, reality was coming crashing back
down on her. What had she almost done? She would have had this man, who now seemed
like a maniac, living in the same home as her child?
No “good life” fantasy was worth being with a man like this or having to live a
lie like this ever again. She realized now too that this was another thing that she admired
about Cheng. He knew how not to let his emotions get the best of him in a destructive way.
He was patient, thoughtful, kind and knew other people were not just pawns and objects he
could use at his whims simply for immediate gratification.
She knew without a doubt that Cheng wouldn’t wait until they got married and
then become an abusive prick. Angela couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen the writing on the wall
sooner than this. She shook her head now, feeling like a complete and utter fool. Yet at the
same time, she felt grateful because if none of this drama had happened, three months from
now she knew she would’ve had to hide a hell of a lot more than just annoyance or boredom.
“
You really thought you were going to be able to waste this much of my time
and then just walk away? Just like that? Like I don’t even matter to you at all? What the fuck
is this all about? Is this about another guy? Who is he? I swear I’ll kill that mother fucker.”
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Angela tried to pull away, but Brian only grabbed on tighter. He was definitely
going to leave a bruise on her arm, but she realized he was way too far gone right now to care.
“Brian, please go ahead and get out of here before someone calls the cops. You really are
causing a scene and I’d rather you didn’t.”
“
I don’t give a fuck about your stool pigeon ass neighbors calling the police.
How long do you think they’ll hold a doctor anyway? An hour?”
Angela recognized his attempt at trying to intimidate her with his status in the
community. “Take your property, both your car and your ring and go now,” she said in her
sternest, most authoritative voice. Brian of course, didn’t budge.
In fact, Brian suddenly seemed to be studying her face, searching for an answer
there. Angela was worried now that this situation was going to get a whole hell of a lot worse
before it could get better, and she for one didn’t want anything else to do with this matter.
Lord, if she’d known he was such a psycho, she never would’ve gone out to dinner with him in
the first place, let alone eventually agreed to become his wife. Damn Internet dating.
“
Wait, this is about your kid’s dad isn’t it? You started acting real funny about
a month ago when you said he first came to town. Are you screwing him?” Brian asked getting
right in her face, madder now than ever.
Just as she was trying to figure out an escape route that she could manage
without anyone getting hurt or arrested, all hell broke loose. She now heard running behind
her coming from the direction of her front door and Brian started to cuss as he flung her to
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the side. The next thing Angela knew she was on her ass in her own driveway and two grown
ass men were having a brawl in her neat, tiny front yard. Good thing this day had started off
way better than it was going right now.
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Chapter Eleven
If there was one thing that Cheng couldn’t tolerate, it was men who put their
hands on women out of violence and disrespect. He’d never done that shit and knew no one
else had any good reason to ever do it either. So when something just seemed to be calling out
to him, some kind of instinct that screamed at him to wake up and go downstairs to check on
Angela, he barely took the time to throw on his pants before he sprinted to the front door.
When he saw another man had grabbed her and looked to be threatening viol-
ence against his woman from the peephole, he rushed outside like a freight train. He didn’t
really think about it, Cheng had simply reacted and gone into full on protection mode. No
one, but no one was ever going to harm or even threaten the mother of his child, his baby, or
him while he was still here on this Earth and there was still breath left in his body that he
could use to defend his family. That was probably why Cheng was doing his level damndest
right now to kill this man he had perceived as a threat to his family.
Now fueled by a righteous fury, Cheng was really going to work on this guy, em-
ploying many different fighting techniques he’d learned over the years. Cheng hadn’t worked
this hard to allow anyone to destroy that which he held most precious and sacred. So it could
only have taken an act of God, or maybe in this case just three armed police officers, to keep
Cheng from obliterating that other guy altogether instead.
~
As the officers kept Cheng subdued and both men separated from one another,
a female officer pulled Angela to the side and asked her what was going on. Angela identified
herself and told the officer, “I dropped my son off at preschool and when I returned home,
that man, Brian Donovan,” she pointed to Brian who was now sitting on the curb with his
nose dripping blood and talking to another cop, “was parked in my driveway.
“
He’d come over unannounced to ask me to go to breakfast with him. I de-
clined, because I decided I didn’t want to marry him. Then when I tried to give him his ring
back to officially break off our engagement, he got belligerent. He grabbed me by the arm and
wouldn’t let me go, refusing to leave even when I asked him to repeatedly.” Angela pulled up
the sleeve of her jogging suit to show the officer the bruising on her left arm.
“
Ma’am that is absolutely unacceptable behavior and I’m sorry you were
treated so badly. Had anything like this ever happened before?”
“
No, never,” Angela answered then shuttered. “I can’t believe I almost married
that bastard,” Angela said mostly to herself as she looked over at Brian and seemed to be see-
ing him through new eyes, because now she could see him for the monster he truly was.
“
Lady, I’m glad you dodged that bullet too. I can’t begin to tell you how many
times we see that scenario and how quickly after the wedding a situation like that falls com-
pletely to shit. Anyway, please identify the other man and how he got involved.”
“
He’s my son’s father, Cheng Liu. He was inside my home when all of the com-
motion broke out. I guess he must’ve heard Brian raising his voice and came out to see what
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was going on. He stepped in to defend me when Brian continued to threaten me.” She looked
over to see Cheng now calmly speaking to the officers who no longer needed to restrain him.
“
I can’t believe this mess. I’m probably going to have to move now. Who
would’ve thought that a doctor and a businessman would have a fistfight in the middle of a
quiet suburban neighborhood before eight o’clock in the morning? On a week day at that and
without any alcohol involved,” Angela muttered shaking her head, again more to herself than
to the cop who still obviously heard her anyway.
“
You’d be surprised at what unexpected circumstances cause people to do. Put
adrenaline and testosterone in the mix and people start acting irrationally real quick. Just be
glad things weren’t worse. Your child wasn’t here to witness any of this and eventually your
neighbors will probably get over this little skirmish. Otherwise, yeah, you could always
move,” the cop said wryly.
“
What now? Will the cops do anything to Cheng?” Angela asked anxiously.
The cop gave her kind of a strange look. “Naw, probably not. Self defense, in-
cluding defense of loved ones is always an acceptable reason to utilize force.” The officer
paused briefly before adding, “So let me ask you a question. If you have these kinds of strong
feelings for your son’s dad, why were you ever engaged to someone else to begin with?”
Aww, the million dollar question of the decade… century… millennium. “Time,
distance, missed connections and a huge misunderstanding kept us separated for a long time.
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So we’ve only reunited within the last month. He and our son just met each other for the first
time a few weeks ago.”
“
Well honey, I almost never say this, but that one over there, the businessman,
right?” Angela nodded in the affirmative. “Your business man slash baby’s father is a keeper.”
“
Yes, he is,” Angela smiled dreamily as she looked over at Cheng who was
swiping at a bleeding cut on his bottom lip. Turning her attention back to the cop she asked
“so what are you guys planning to do about Brian? He threatened to kill Cheng and now that I
know what a whack job he is, I really don’t want him anywhere near my son.”
“
Don’t worry we’ll enter the restraining order for you right away, which will
mandate he must keep a distance of at least three hundred feet away from you, your property,
your vehicle, your son, and your son’s dad at all times. The order will automatically cover
places like school, work and the like. So that should about do it, but if anything else comes up
you can always call us back out.”
Angela simply nodded.
~
Less than an hour later, after Brian had been arrested for disturbing the peace,
the cops had cleared out, and the nosy neighbors had finally gone on about their business,
Cheng was sitting at Angela’s dining room table. They had made a quick breakfast and were
eating together now. “I sent word to the office that the two of us have a vendor’s meeting this
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morning and we won’t be in until the early afternoon. So I blocked off both of our calendars
until two.”
Angela nodded mutely as she nibbled on a piece of turkey bacon. She still
looked like she felt shaken. Cheng scooted his chair over closer to hers and she immediately
leaned her head on his shoulder as she continued to take mini bites out her turkey bacon. He
put his arm around her and continued eating his breakfast too.
Afterwards they went back to her bedroom where he held her and stroked her
hair until they both ended up going back to sleep for a two hour nap. When they awoke again,
Cheng showered and dressed. Angela was dressed for work now too and he offered to drive
them both in today, which she said was alright with her.
However, they detoured before they got to work. Cheng drove them to a shop on
the outer edge of Chinatown. “What are we doing here?” Angela asked as Cheng came around
to open the passenger door for her.
“
I told you we had a vendor meeting this morning,” Cheng reminded her smil-
ing and with a wink before they were buzzed in and permitted entry into what turned out to
be a very exclusive jewelry store.
Cheng had made a personal appointment with the jeweler himself because the
ring he was here to buy had to be something extra special. Just like the necklace he’d had cus-
tom made for his son here had to be something unique.
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Cheng and Angela were greeted warmly in Mandarin and English before they
were shown into a private back viewing room. Various settings and precious gem stones were
brought in for their perusal until Angela decided what she wanted. Once they made their se-
lection, they were shown to another room where they waited with refreshments while An-
gela’s ring was being set in its custom casting and unbeknownst to her, also being engraved.
Cheng also completed his purchase transaction there and another two hours
later, they made one more stop. They went to a beautiful park, complete with a spouting wa-
ter fountain, an idyllic setting, where Cheng dropped down on one knee.
“
Tian shi, would you do me the honor of being my wife?”
“
Of course,” Angela answered, smiling. “I’d love nothing more than to spend
the rest of my life with you. The guy who despite all your refinement can still kick the other
guy’s ass at the end of the day… and at the beginning of it too apparently.”
They both laughed as he slipped the ring onto her finger. Cheng lamented that
they would finally have to head into work for the day soon, but he couldn’t wait to see how
this news would be accepted in their office.
~
“
Looks like you took that old guy’s advice after all,” Angela said admiring the
new ring on her finger. Though truth be told, she appreciated Cheng way more than the phe-
nomenal ring he’d just gifted her with. Never in her life did she imagine she would wear two
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different engagement rings, especially from two such completely dissimilar men in the span
of less than twenty-four hours. The difference was like day and night.
The ironic shift in jewelry also represented the shift her life had taken overall
within the last day, though some things had been in the works for more than half a decade
already. Angela knew this latest directional shift was a good, healthy paradigm change for
her, and gearing her life to go down a much more positive and solid path than it had previ-
ously been heading.
“
What do you mean?” Cheng asked as he came up from kneeling and moved to
embrace her now, planting a light peck on her lips in the process.
“
Remember, our business partner told you just yesterday that if you were
smart, you’d go ahead and marry your Director, damn what anybody else thought or said.”
She paused briefly before adding, “Good thing you’re so smart.” Angela smiled at him then.
Cheng laughed, still holding Angela lightly around her waist. “Yeah, he was
right. What can I say? We gotta respect our elders.” He paused for a moment before adding,
“good thing those damn hotel condoms didn’t work either. Now I got you and our baby for
life,” he said as he wagged his eyebrows at her.
Angela laughed heartily herself this time. Then she wrapped her arms gracefully
around his neck and kissed him with the kind of fervor and passion that she’d always re-
served just for him. Since the moment she’d first seen him and had fallen in love with him
instantly.
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Keep Reading for a Preview from Vol. 2…
The Chocolate Chronicles Volume 2:
Fudge Brownies – Trouble at All Costs
Coming Summer, 2012!
Beautiful, outrageous, outspoken, untamable, flamboyant radio personality and
self-certified diva Beverly Simmons is in danger of losing both her heart, figuratively as well
as her life, literally!
SWAT negotiator and sharp shooter Nathan Hawkins was star struck by Beverly
Simmons long before she became a celebrity in the public’s eye. Now his sister’s best friend
since high school, which also happens to be his long time crush, needs his help. Bev is in
danger as an unknown stalker closes in on her. Can Nate catch the culprit and keep the spir-
ited and sassy Bev from falling into any unsuspected traps, while he simultaneously gets her
to fall into his arms and bed forever?
~
Nate was staring at her now in a way that made his admiration for her shine through his eyes
clearly, definitively. Beverly felt lost as she stared into the depths of his mesmerizing chocol-
ate eyes. Unconsciously, she pressed her pouty, full lips covered in a metallic fudge lip color
together. Nate’s eyes tracked the movement of her mouth, his gaze suddenly making her feel
self-conscious. He wasn’t even touching her and yet with just a look, he made her feel breath-
less, exposed, vulnerable in a way no one else could, and oh so aware. His sensuality was a
nearly tangible cloak that only added to his mysterious, tall, dark and handsome allure.
“
W-w-what are you doing to me?” she stammered. Dammit! Bev didn’t stam-
mer. She didn’t lose her cool normally, even when she was completely out of her element. It’s
not like she was some inexperienced virgin saint about to get her first kiss. After all, she was
the one who was used to calling all the shots, whether it was at work in the studio or at home
in her bedroom. She’d always been in the driver’s seat. Yet, there was something so enticing
right now about the thought of having a partner. Someone she truly trusted enough to open
up to and genuinely share her life with, including all of the responsibilities she usually
shouldered alone and maybe even some of the lime light.
Nate stepped closer to Bev, so close that she could smell his deep, rich, earthy,
masculine, sandalwood essence. His very presence reminded Bev suddenly of getting back to
the basics, to a place that was clean, rustic, refreshing, maybe even a bit primitive, but defin-
itely simpler. “I’m not doing anything really. I’m simply letting nature take its course and re-
minding you that we could be good together. Good to and for one another. I’m letting you re-
member what it’s like to just be a woman in the company of a man who appreciates
everything about you.”
Nate skimmed his hands over Bev’s waist then, allowing his big, strong hands to
rest on the satiny smooth bronzed skin of her bare midriff. Then he moved closer to her be-
fore he engulfed her body by wrapping her into his solid embrace. She kept staring into his
eyes, still uncertain about what it was she wanted from him. Though she could tell as they
stood there on her deck staring at one another in the moonlight that she could let herself fall,
right here, right now and Nate would catch her. So as he moved his face closer to hers, Bev
sighed in resignation. She closed her eyes and lifted her arms up and moved them into place
around his neck.
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When his lips touched hers, it was like a spark that set off a whole storm of
lightning. The blaze swept quickly from her lips, traveling through her blood stream and
spreading to her limbs, blasting a trail that rapidly shot through everywhere until it em-
blazoned her entire body. Bev felt like liquid fire was coursing through her veins now, pro-
pelling her to greedily deepen her kiss with Nate. Good Lord! If the man could do this to her
with just one kiss, what would happen when their clothes actually started coming off…
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About The Author
CeCe Monét is a contemporary romance author who focuses much of her writing on the true
essence of human nature via the choices people make when faced with unexpected circum-
stances. She is also interested in diversity in general, such as multicultural human social con-
nections and interactions. She has specific interests in multi-ethnic and biracial people, inter-
racial and multiracial romances, and race relations’ issues too.
Additionally, she is a veteran writer who has covered a broad spectrum of liter-
ature from short stories, blogs, novels, articles, newsletters to poetry. She currently resides in
Southern California with her son and is a self professed foodie who not only enjoys writing,
but also reading, art, baking and wine tastings.
CeCe Monét loves to connect with her readers, so feel free to check out her web-
site at
or contact her at
!
Cheng Liu is a hot shot young Chinese professional. He’s tall, polished, assert-
ive, sexy, ambitious, good looking and used to speaking up and getting what he wants. So
when he sees beautiful and equally poised, but shy and reserved African-American profes-
sional Angela Hawkins, he knows that opposites definitely attract in this case. He simply
must go introduce himself to her and maybe even seduce her in the process…
In this first installment of the contemporary romance series The Chocolate
Chronicles… Lemon Truffles – Love Instantly, two young adult workaholic profes-
sionals share one steamy, pleasurable night together in Hong Kong. Yet can their short, pas-
sionate one night affair turn into a lifetime of love, happiness and companionship? Can their
AMBW (Asian Man Black Woman), lemon and chocolate swirl decadence, creamy, sultry,
rich, sweet, tangy and indulgent romance survive a seemingly betrayed promise?
CeCe Monét
The Chocolate Chronicles Volume 1:
Lemon Truffles – Love Instantly
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Document Outline
- Product Description
- Chapter One
- Chapter Two
- Chapter Three
- Chapter Four
- Chapter Five
- Chapter Six
- Chapter Seven
- Chapter Eight
- Chapter Nine
- Chapter Ten
- Chapter Eleven
- Keep Reading for a Preview from Vol. 2…
- About The Author
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