Lemon Truffles - Love Instantly (5 page)

~

Cheng wasn’t really sure if Angela was ever going to open the door once she discovered 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 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?”

She stared at him silently, searchingly for a moment. Cheng started to feel fidgety 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 finish 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.”

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 different 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.

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 example. 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 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 thinking 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 being 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.

“
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.

Angela couldn’t believe it. Cheng had come to the US to find her. He’d 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 chemistry 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 moment. She needed time to digest everything and find a way to sort through all this new information 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 standing 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 together, 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 features 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 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 rejection 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, distorted and as far from how he’d envisioned this situation going as he could imagine.