“Sorry, Girara.” Jin stepped back from her, turning to Mimi who was on the other side of him. “Please meet my wife, Mimi Stewart.”
“Didn’t you get a catch?” the model said after blowing an air kiss to each of Mimi’s cheeks.
“Indeed I did.” Mimi made a big gesture of slipping her arm through Jin’s. She was used to seeing Jin being flirted with, hunted even, by beautiful women. No one could blame any of them for taking their shot. He was an incredibly good-looking man with scruples and business smarts. Why wouldn’t they want to be with him?
“Congratulations!” Amanda Boswell approached the circle as Girara blew away. She was a LilyZ retailer and the main reason Jin had wanted to come to Maverick Choi’s showing. Probably a former model herself, Amanda stood about six feet tall and was about eighty years old. She wore a white fedora hat, a colorful kimono covering a black turtleneck, and black pants with bright blue patent leather loafers. Fashion run riot, Mimi thought while smiling gamely.
“I’m delighted to meet you.” Mimi jumped in. Jin had briefed her on who was going to be in attendance.
Mimi looked past Amanda to survey the scene. Rather than a runway, designer Maverick Choi had his models walking around the showroom parading his latest looks, even inviting guests to touch the clothing if they so desired. Green-haired Choi, working a schoolboy nerd outfit with plaid pants, stood in a corner holding court.
There was some kind of cotton candy theme to the event. Pastel-colored balloons that floated all over the floor were clumsy, forcing people to kick them out of the way to get where they were going. Columns of other balloons hung from ribbons attached to the ceiling.
Waiters dressed in orange tuxedos passed around pink cocktails, each with a rainbow-hued candy stick in them as a straw. It was a mostly well-executed concept that fit with the angelic clothes.
With Mimi’s arm still through Jin’s she mentally flashed on how they appeared to other party guests, who would have no reason to guess that the newlyweds were not really together. The media had reported impartially on Jin’s news that he had recently married and named his wife as his new designer. Things were proceeding according to plan.
As they worked their way around the room with hellos and introductions, Mimi never let go of Jin’s bicep, hard and solid under his suit jacket. She let her eyes travel sideways and upward to his straight lips. Those same lips that had kissed her for too long at the courthouse after they were pronounced man and wife. Mimi would never find out if any of the imaginings she’d had about what those lips could do were accurate. Jin had made that explicitly clear earlier today by calling his matrimonial kiss a mistake.
“You’re doing great. What’s the matter?” Jin bent down to whisper in her ear, sensing her unease. “Everyone has been wishing us well. Even if they’re surprised I got married, they’re never going to know why I did.”
She couldn’t tell him that it wasn’t the party guests that were causing her discomfort. No, as her rib cage expanded more than it should with each breath, it was that she was doubting her ability to pretend at something she’d spent thirteen years reminding herself that she could never have.
“I’m fine,” she said, covering. “Just getting used to it all.”
Mimi needed to focus on company business. Even before this phony marriage, she and Aaron had been a sounding board for Jin. She knew a lot about LilyZ’s history and exactly what should, and shouldn’t, be discussed in a professional setting. She handled herself competently.
As a matter of fact, while Jin was called away by Amanda Boswell, Mimi entered into a conversation with a flashy French photographer clad head to toe in denim, probably twenty years older than her. He had a sarcastic take on the industry that made Mimi laugh.
Like laser beams shooting through her, she suddenly sensed Jin’s eyes from across the room. He removed himself from the conversation he was having and made a straight line toward her, kicking away the balloons on the floor with annoyance.
“Jin, do you know Marc-Claude Robar?” she asked by way of introduction. “This is my...husband, Jin Zhang.”
“Ah! You charlatan! You’ve entranced me only to tell me that you won’t be mine,” Marc-Claude said, pretending insult at Mimi. He turned to Jin and gave him an exaggerated handshake. “You are a very lucky man, monsieur.”
“I know,” Jin replied, grabbing Mimi by the arm and leading her away. “If you’ll excuse us.”
Jin was clearly upset. Could he have been angry that she was talking to Marc-Claude? Why would he care who she did, and didn’t, chat with? Although the older man was flirting with her, Mimi was not returning the advance. She’d merely been schmoozing. It wasn’t as if Jin could be thinking she was acting improperly in her role as wife. And he couldn’t have been genuinely jealous, because why would he care one way or another who she spoke with?
“What’s wrong?” she asked after Jin ushered her into a taxi.
“Nothing,” he clipped out unconvincingly, and peered out the cab window the entire ride home. Mimi leaned her head back on the seat. As well as she knew Jin, she didn’t know his every trigger, wasn’t familiar with every single thing that would please or displease him. They had some learning to do. She’d let this one go.
When they got home, Jin undid the knot in his tie. With a yank, he pulled it out from under his shirt collar. A motion millions of men made all of the time. But when Jin did it, Mimi’s knees bobbled.
“You’ll take my room,” he said as he peeled off his jacket and slung it over one of the dining table chairs. What he meant by my room was the master bedroom that his parents used when he was growing up, that he later shared with Helene during their marriage and where he had been sleeping alone after his divorce.
“You’re going to use your old bedroom?” Mimi gestured her head in the direction of the two other bedrooms in the large apartment. One had been a guest room and the other was Jin’s as a boy.
“I sent a courier to Aaron’s to get your things.” Jin pointed to the suitcases in the hallway. Grabbing several of them, he left only the lighter items for Mimi. With her following him, they entered the master suite.
Mimi eyeballed the bed. When Jin had ended things with Helene, Mimi remembered him talking about going from sleeping on one side of the bed to the middle like he did when he was single. How awful that had felt to him. Like a defeat, he’d said.
Mimi had experienced something similar going from Gunnar’s ultraexpensive bed to Aaron’s lumpy sofa.
She had expected to wear a big fat diamond ring courtesy of Gunnar Nilsson. Raised in Stockholm, the wiry blond never ceased to remind Mimi how lucky she was that he chose her to be a junior designer for his label. That should have been a warning sign right away that he was self-centered and controlling.
Their work together had included long hours at his studio that, when they were alone, had turned into middle-of-the-night erotic encounters with the famous and commanding man. Mimi had begun envisioning a future with him, full of success. Through him, she’d hoped to leave behind the shackles she wore for Jin that served her no purpose. Especially after Jin married Helene.
Swept into the domestic and professional bliss she’d thought she was living in, it took Mimi a while to realize that she wasn’t happy. Gunnar had a huge ego that needed constant feeding. He was moody, turning from seemingly content to snappy and critical.
At his shop, he’d referred to Mimi’s designs as their babies, even ones he’d had no part in. When he’d begun to take full credit for her work, reality had sunk in. Gunnar didn’t care about her. Nor did she for him. She’d been trying to invent something with Gunnar to quell the constant longing for Jin that had defined her. She wanted a happy marriage like her parents had had and because she couldn’t have it with Jin, she’d tried to find it elsewhere.
But no one broke up with Gunnar Nilsson! Civility at work was out of the question. He�
�d ridiculed Mimi until she was in tears every morning, dreading having to see him. Finally, unable to handle it, she’d quit. With no money in the bank, she’d landed on her brother’s sofa. Until now. Now she faced Jin’s king-sized bed.
“I bought all new bedding for you,” Jin said as he put her suitcases down. “If you don’t like it, I’ll have my housekeeper change it.”
“No, that’s very nice,” Mimi said as she took note of the sheets and blankets in what Jin knew was her favorite color, purple.
“You can do whatever you want with the room. Are you cooking with my mom on Saturday for Lunar New Year?” Chinese New Year celebrations were an annual tradition for them.
“Of course.”
“When she comes over, we’ll have to make it look like we’re both living in the same room or she might get suspicious.”
Right. Mimi nodded. Outside of this apartment, the world was supposed to think that Jin and Mimi were a typical married couple. Who would, naturally, share a bed. It was only behind closed doors that she and Jin would know what was to really go on here at night.
Nothing.
CHAPTER SIX
JIN WOKE CONFUSED, because in his sleep he’d forgotten he was in his boyhood room. The last few years had been spent in the master, with Helene and then without. His second wife now occupied the suite. Jin vigorously scrubbed his face with his hands as it still seemed unreal to fathom that he was married to Mimi.
The wood desk he’d used for schoolwork as a child now served as nothing more than a surface to display his old basketball trophies. On the wall were his framed diplomas from both undergraduate and business school. There wasn’t much else that was personalized in the room anymore, as it had been purposed and repurposed several times over the years. Save for one photo on the nightstand of him with Mimi and Aaron smiling at the beach, not long after they first became friends.
“Good morning. Can I come in?” Mimi poked her head into the doorway.
“Uh, yeah,” Jin answered, yanking up his blanket to cover more of his naked body.
“I remember that day,” she said, pointing to the snapshot from Coney Island. “I didn’t want you and Aaron to know how nauseous I got on the Ferris wheel. I was sick in the ladies’ room so you wouldn’t find out.”
Jin shrugged his bare shoulders with a snicker. “Look closely at me in the picture. Can you see what a mess I was? I’d been awake the entire night before.”
“Why?” Mimi sat down on the side of the bed. Jin slid over to make room for her. He wasn’t certain having her on his bed when he was naked was a good idea, especially after that courthouse kiss. He reasoned that she was on his bed, not in his bed, hopefully an important distinction.
With her auburn curls tousled this way and that, and that thin, sky-blue bathrobe she favored, in his still hazy state Jin thought she looked like something out of a naughty dream. Mimi was all grown up.
“Why were you up that night?” She pressed the question.
“It wasn’t long after my grandfather had died. I think I’d just wanted to talk to my dad about something, but he couldn’t be bothered with me. By the time I was a teenager I was used to it, although for some reason that night really hurt.”
“Oh, Jin, I had no idea that day,” she said, leaning toward him to squeeze his arm. Her touch was so utterly lovely it was almost agonizing. “Shun accomplished a lot in his life but he was never able to help his son. Wei was born mean and selfish, and that’s all there was to it.”
Toward the end of his life—his wife Meiling having died when Jin was a young boy—Shun would have quiet Sunday afternoon conversations with his grandson. Preparing him to take over the business when the time came. “If I’ve learned anything about how to move through life, I learned it from Shun. How to be fair and just. How to be a leader.”
“Because he always knew in his heart that Wei wouldn’t be able to properly run LilyZ?”
“More than that. He felt it was his duty to teach me how to be a man because he knew my father wouldn’t. But it’s true that my father never wanted the company nor was he apt at running it. Fashion is what my family has done for over a hundred years, one generation to the next. He wasn’t given the decision.”
There was much unspoken amongst the Zhangs. Things that were simply not to be dignified with words, though they stood as elephants in every room. Addiction could be a great shame in any family. To a Chinese family, it was unthinkable. That’s what it all came down to. As a young man, Wei had discovered alcohol and drugs. He’d never found a path away from them. “He made a haphazard effort to run the business, but his heart wasn’t into it. My father wasn’t granted choice in his personal life, either. It didn’t matter that the wife chosen for him was a fine woman who might have turned his life around. His shadow was too dark to allow someone to stand near him.”
Mimi glanced down.
What Jin had just said, about Wei being chased by his own shadow, had come to describe him as well. Unless he decided to change that. Which Mimi was forcing him to question. An unexpected development.
“Your mom once told me she was glad you were a boy,” Mimi said, setting her eyes back on the photo at the beach. “Because the men in your family were traditional enough to insist on siring a male heir to carry on the Zhang name. She considered it just as well that she didn’t bring more than one child into a less than harmonious home.”
“Hmm.” Bai had never said that directly to Jin but he’d sensed it.
He remembered a father who was distant and uninterested in him. Wei demanded all of Bai’s attention, although not that of a loving husband as he was more like a child himself. Jin felt shut out of the dynamic, as Bai was helpless, constantly trying to pacify her husband.
Jin had spent a lot of evenings in this room. It was often a matter of staying out of his father’s way until he drank enough to fall asleep. As long as Wei didn’t become upset about something, the night would pass. While, fortunately, he was never physically violent, Wei in a bad mood would blow throughout the apartment like a cold wind. Tirades, rants and condemnations were followed by sloppy apologies and promises to do better.
By his teenage years, Jin would hardly glance up from his video game during Wei’s histrionics. Although, in truth, they did penetrate into his subconscious mind where they still lay unresolved.
Other evenings Wei would decide to go out, leaving Bai and Jin at home. In the wee hours of those nights, Jin would wake to hear his father stumbling in, never knowing where he’d been. Or he’d hear his mother crying alone in the kitchen. The night before that beach day, Wei hadn’t come home at all.
Jin couldn’t have put it into words at the time, but it was a lonely childhood.
When he was grown and Bai simply couldn’t take it anymore, she’d finally divorced Wei. He could tell his mother had experienced a quiet relief after that, although they hadn’t talked frankly about it until Jin’s own divorce created an unfortunate empathy.
“This wasn’t a house based on kinship or loyalty.” Mimi returned her gaze to him. “I’m so sorry you had to grow up in that. You didn’t tell Aaron and I much about it then.”
“I saw how your family was so different. I think I was embarrassed.” He found himself gravitating toward the Stewart household. Appreciating the tranquility, not to mention Delia’s blueberry muffins that she would make especially for him.
That same sense of serenity had been settling into this apartment since Mimi moved in. It was nicer than Jin could have ever imagined, having her to talk to and share meals and spend evenings with. Secure. Not a word Jin would use to describe the first thirty years of his life.
Maybe now the warm winds were blowing in the Zhang family’s direction.
“None of that was your fault, you know,” Mimi added as the moment came to a natural close.
“Yeah, I know,” he said with an elbow nudge. “Okay
, get off the bed and go get dressed. You’re my employee and I need you to report to work.”
* * *
As soon as they entered the studio, Jin fired up his computer to many emails and messages. Fortunately, his lawyer was able to get the legalities of his and Mimi’s marriage processed quickly so that Jin could see all of the financial disclosures on matters pertaining to LilyZ.
And plenty of matters they were. Unpaid debts, unresolved disputes over shipments, and unfulfilled orders, to name a few. The only way out was through sales, so he was pleased another workday toward the new pieces could begin.
“Oh, great, the maroon stretch corduroy came in,” Mimi said, noticing a bolt on the counter. She called over, “Do you like it?”
“Let’s cut a skirt so we can see how it drapes and moves. I saw your muslin mock-up but go ahead and use the fabric.”
They’d spent the past few days fine-tuning the ideas for the comfortable work wear set, debating over every last detail. Which Jin appreciated. It was going to take more than one opinion to turn the label back to the elite and profitable company it was in years past.
Mimi kept track of trends so she knew what was current. Something Wei hadn’t stressed, adding to the reasons why the business had faltered from its prior glory. Shun had an unspoken promise to his discriminating customers that he’d keep them up to date without being faddish. In his heyday, loyal customers often wore nothing but LilyZ. Jin hoped he could someday experience that same pride as his grandfather.
Mimi set to work and very quickly manufactured a skirt that she held up for Jin’s perusal.
“What size did you cut that?” he inquired, as obviously it was not in the usual industry standard.
“Not a sample size,” she called over her shoulder as she stepped behind a privacy curtain to slip her pants off and put the skirt on. “One that fits me.”
His Convenient New York Bride Page 8
