Except...
It was as if Cinderella’s clock abruptly struck midnight. As he swept Mimi across the ballroom floor he noticed the older couple that had been dancing were sitting at their table. All at once, the woman slapped the man across the face, fury in her eyes.
Jin’s head snapped back as if he had been the one to receive the smack.
The woman grabbed the beaded evening purse beside her and stood up. The man rose as well and, as they left the table, he tried to take her elbow in his hand. With a jerk, she shooed him away.
Jin’s heart pounded, still experiencing what he witnessed as if it was happening to him personally.
“What’s wrong, Jin?” Mimi sensed his upset.
Yes, the ballroom was disintegrating into a rotting pumpkin all around him. Jin was turning into a dirty sewer mouse.
Heaven only knew what had transpired between those two people to make the woman so angry. They could have just met, not had the decades as a couple Jin had decided to imagine. In any case, he was reminded about deception and appearances. His parents had probably attended a formal event like this, and to onlookers seemed to be a long-married couple committed to walking forward as one in life. Same with Jin and his ex-wife.
“Did Helene and I look happy together?” he whispered as they continued to dance, his voice sounding tinny and faraway. He pressed impatiently. “Did we?”
“No, Jin,” Mimi answered, breaking their dance hold to caress his cheek with her cool palm. “You didn’t.”
* * *
“Good morning.” Jin rolled over with his eyes still closed as his hands sought the source of warmth that was making this bed the most comfortable place on earth. It didn’t take him long to find Mimi’s soft skin only a few inches from him. As his eyelids finally unstuck, the first thing he saw was a crazy tangle of her satiny hair strewn across her bare, alabaster shoulders.
Running his hands through her strands prompted her to roll over as well, where they took each other into a still-sleepy embrace. Jin kissed the top of her head as his hands wove through her locks.
He held her in silence for a few moments before confirming the decision he had been making. They had to talk about the fact that they’d been making love, which was a most unexpected turn of events.
“Mimi, my friend.” He exhaled, not even knowing what it was he wanted to say. His thumb began to trace a slow line from her wrist to the crook of her neck, which was counterproductive to the conversation they needed to have. “You know that when I asked you to do this pretend marriage with me, there was no expectation of...this.”
A hint of a chuckle escaped her lips. “Why are we doing it then?”
“I don’t know. The playacting took on a real quality that I have to admit felt good to me.”
“Me, too,” she squeezed out, her voice apprehensive.
“But, of course, this has never been part of our relationship.” His thumb pad continued its leisurely journey. Clouding his concentration.
“Uh-huh.”
Mimi’s head was bent with her face against his shoulder. Jin was grateful to not have to look her in the eye.
“Maybe it’s natural that we had some curiosity. Living as husband and wife.”
Over the years he’d had, on occasion, carnal feelings toward Mimi. They saw so much of each other. As a teen he’d reacted to her sensual body—after all, he was only a mortal. Pressed close side by side on a subway seat, wet from swimming at the beach, curled up on a picnic blanket, their physical proximity had seen thirteen years together.
Although through the years, Jin always knew that he would never act on any of the sensations or desires he might have had. There was a list of reasons why. Mimi was his best friend’s little sister, who always seemed much younger than him even though there were only two years between them. And Bai loved her like a daughter, just to name a few.
They’d both had some casual relationships before he married Helene and Mimi got serious about Gunnar. So, in their adult life, there had never been a right time for something to develop romantically. Plus, they valued their lifelong friendship. This charade to save LilyZ and help Mimi’s career shouldn’t have changed anything.
It wasn’t supposed to.
That wasn’t the plan.
“I love you like a sister,” he continued, still fumbling for the words. “In a million years I could never repay you for what you’re doing for me.”
“But?” Mimi finally raised her head and looked at his face, making his task more difficult. Why did she have to have such a luscious mouth?
Oh, how he enjoyed claiming her lush lips, melding his into them until they were joined as one being.
Making love to her was to visit with the divine, as their essences merged along with their flesh and blood. Even though so much about her was familiar, their couplings were voyages to discover everything he didn’t know. How she moved her fluid body during their lovemaking, yielding to him, welcoming his rhythms. Until she taught him some of her own. He had never experienced passion like he had with her, surging up in him as he grabbed her for dear life, making the world around them disappear.
“But...” He tried to summon what he needed to say. He knew he should tell her that having sex had been a mistake. That they needed to remember they were only pretending to be together and that the very reason they thought this arrangement would work was because there was no fear that either of them would start to believe the illusion.
As a matter of fact, he chastised himself for letting them take these lovemaking risks that could lead to disaster. It was his sole responsibility to be sure not to jeopardize the relationships, not his nor hers or Aaron’s or his mother’s.
Further still, he was not open to a lasting relationship. With anyone. He would not have his hope betrayed again. Was never going to subject himself to the certain jealousy and pain that loving someone would entail. Look at how he’d almost lost his mind when that weasel photographer Marc-Claude Robar merely flirted with Mimi.
At the Dressworks dinner, he’d gotten irrationally bothered when he saw that older couple in conflict. Reminding him that things weren’t always what they seemed.
Coupling was no longer for Jin. He couldn’t take it. Which was why this ruse with Mimi had made sense. They’d swerved in the wrong direction by making love but he’d correct the mistake right now and they’d proceed forward, back on track.
That’s what they’d do.
His brain was forming the sentences. Really, it was.
Then Mimi reached to pull the warm blankets over them, rendering him unable to utter words as his best intentions faded into the morning air.
* * *
A bit later while Jin and his wife had their breakfast, he checked messages on his phone. His brow scrunched at one from his attorney marked as urgent.
The set of financial numbers caused his temples to throb as he read them a second time.
“What are you reading?” Mimi immediately noticed the tension that came over him.
“My father had rung up thousands upon thousands of dollars on a personal account.”
“That you didn’t know about?”
Jin covered his mouth with his hand as he went through the figures a third time. “Credit card purchases. Travel. Gourmet food shops. Top-label clothes. What was the man thinking?”
“If we can get a small collection produced sooner rather than later, we’ll know that income will be flowing back in soon.”
Mimi’s brain went right toward solutions.
“I’ve got a make-nice dinner with Thandy Luard in a few days.” Their uptown retailer. “If we’ve got something, I’ll invite her to the studio instead. She can feel like we’re doing a private showing for her.”
“Well then, what are we waiting for?” Mimi said, standing to collect her breakfast dishes. “Let’s rock some clothes.”
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Jin shook his head back and forth. If he didn’t watch himself, all his plans about this being a fake marriage were going to swirl down the drain.
His best friend’s sister. Who he’d bedded after promising Aaron he wouldn’t do anything to risk Mimi’s feelings. Worse still, he wanted to do it again. And again. And again.
But he couldn’t. Seduced by her lovely body in the shelter of the bed earlier, he wasn’t able to get said what he needed to. He would, though.
No more marital relations.
He needed to put a stop to it. To protect them both.
When they went down to the studio, Mimi set right to task. She’d already completed the details for the two skirts. Together, they worked and reworked the wide-leg pants for hours, getting that nineteen-seventies flair she wanted while still being current and appealing.
“How fast can you get me the cheongsam-inspired swatches for the blouses?”
“On it,” he replied, sending an email to a fabric house where he knew he could get them.
They reviewed the drawings for the three tops. One was to be a menswear style button-down that would be a revelation done in the traditional Chinese brocade with flower embroidery. What Mimi needed, though, was a wearable and durable fabric.
“I’m hoping for something with green and black in the pattern and the maroon. Too much to ask for?”
“Let’s see what they can do for us.”
The next top was a simple shell that would look good under a blazer.
“So what, a single button at the back of the neck?”
“How low a scoop are we doing in front?”
“Let me show you what I’m thinking. And for the third I want to do a tunic.”
“To go with the slim pant. But make sure it looks good with the pencil skirt. We need that mix-and-match option.”
“Okay.”
* * *
Hours later, they’d created samples of the blouses and ordered sandwiches. Day had turned to night and the staff had come and gone. Jin had fielded a thousand questions, as he always did, but he and Mimi had diligently stuck to their work. Jin felt comfortable asking Thandy Luard to come to the studio, sure they could complete the pieces in time.
“I have a new thought,” Mimi announced. “Let’s invite some other retailers. Not just Thandy. How about a few you’ve never worked with before?”
“This late in the game? I like your aspirations but I don’t want any embarrassments. It’s bad enough how many missteps my dad made. We’ll be lucky if anyone wants to work with us again.”
“I’ll have them done.”
“If you’re really ready to show these, I’ll call some people I know at the magazines tomorrow. We need to have some fashion editors take a look.” Massaging his forehead, Jin was tired and ready to turn off the lights and go upstairs to bed. He squeezed Mimi’s shoulder as she finished up a seam on the machine. “Enough, my hardworking partner. We’ll rest now.”
Leaning her head back into him standing behind her, her hair brushed against his waist. “You’re right.”
She stood, arched her back and then followed him upstairs.
* * *
In the morning, Jin called upon some magazine editors he was friendly with and they were able to come by to look at the samples for Mimi’s mini collection. They suggested some very helpful changes with regard to balance and proportions. Uri Azoulai, a tall older man who carried himself like royalty, was effusive in his praise for Mimi’s designs. He asked her a dozen questions about her background and point of view on what women wanted to wear.
It was a professional high for her, one of the best days of her life.
They worked until the middle of the night again before heading upstairs, incorporating the comments they’d received from the editors. Still brainstorming, they both flopped down on the bed in the master bedroom.
“Let me just try a slightly slimmer leg and a shorter hemline.”
“What, to graze the ankle?”
They fell asleep discussing her suggestions. In the morning, they were eating apples in bed with their sketchbooks when they heard the click of the front door.
“Hello?” came the sound of Aaron’s voice, Mimi’s brother using the spare key he had to let himself in.
Mimi and Jin snapped their heads to look at each other. Aaron wasn’t aware that the game had changed between his sister and his best friend. They were supposed to be living out the fake marriage they had agreed upon, complete with separate bedrooms.
“Just a second,” Mimi quickly called out. “I’m not dressed.”
She bolted out of bed and gathered up the clothes that had been tossed on the floor in their tiredness. Hastily pulling hers on, she gestured for Jin to do the same, tossing him the pants that were on the floor at her feet. She felt like a misbehaving teenager who was going to have to suffer the consequences of her actions.
But their haste wasn’t enough as Aaron, with the comfort around each other they had always taken for granted, stepped into the hallway. Where he could see into the bedroom as Mimi and Jin scrambled to get dressed. Aaron’s eyes focused not on his sister but on Jin, as his best friend met his glare.
The two locked into a stare-down so intense Mimi’s jaw began to pulse.
CHAPTER NINE
IF JIN NEEDED any reminding, the look on Aaron’s face confirmed that what he and Mimi had morphed into was wrong. As Jin finally slid his eyes away from Aaron’s disapproving gape, he watched numbly as Mimi tugged on her boots.
“It appears the Zhang marriage is quite a success,” Aaron spat from the hallway. Jin knew his best friend to think before he spoke, and he could only stand in waiting as Aaron mentally put the pieces together. “You made some promises to me, Jin. It doesn’t look like you kept them.”
Jin’s temple twitched. Yes, the game had changed. Truth be told, he’d gotten lost in a soft-focus domesticity living with Mimi, in a way he hadn’t expected. Which led to the celestial passion they’d discovered. A pull toward each other that he couldn’t stop thinking about and one he had never imagined feeling with anyone. Certainly not with her.
He surely hadn’t been thinking about violating his words to Aaron when he first took Mimi into his arms.
Guilt stabbed at him, as well it should. It didn’t occur to him that this exact moment might come, when the only person besides he and Mimi who knew their marriage was a ruse would learn that the con wasn’t being played by the rules.
Jin had asked Aaron for his sister’s hand in marriage, with assurances about the nature of their agreement. He gave his friend his word that Mimi would be helped, and in no way harmed, by the deal. Could he still make that commitment to her brother?
If Jin was being honest, he knew that embarking on a physical relationship with Mimi would be risky. He, Aaron and Mimi had always spoken of their value to each other and had vowed never to put their familial bond in jeopardy. Which romantic liaisons always seemed to do.
The three of them were supposed to be all for one and one for all. Except now they weren’t. They’d hurt Aaron by going beyond the terms they had agreed on. Jin questioned if everything that had transpired, even the idea for the phony marriage, had been a mistake.
Posing as a couple had become as natural as brushing their teeth. They moved as one now, a sum greater than their parts. Mimi spoke of LilyZ as if she’d been part of the company for her whole life. With her, Jin didn’t need to sensor himself and was the freest he’d ever felt.
Yet the behind closed doors part wasn’t going according to plan. A reversal that Aaron had known nothing of.
Until now.
“I can’t say anything to defend myself.” Jin shrugged as he walked through the bedroom doorway and closer to his friend. “Under the unusual circumstances, Mimi and I found we had feelings for each other that went beyond our platonic history.”
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“What happens if that doesn’t work out between you? What if this newfound romance blows up in your face?”
“Then I will have made the biggest misstep of my life.”
Jin meant that. If he wronged Mimi, or Aaron for that matter, he would carry that with him until his dying day. To lose either of them would be worse than his divorce, so important were these people to him.
“Let’s say your little honeymoon doesn’t last,” Aaron continued, anger flickering in his subdued voice. “How are you going to work together?”
It’s not that Jin hadn’t had those cautions crop up. But he’d been keeping them at arm’s length with so much else on his mind. Trying to quickly rebuild the label and take care of his mother. To prevent his father’s double cross and to protect his grandfather’s legacy. That was as much as he’d been able to manage.
It fulfilled him to hold Mimi, to stroke her smooth skin, to give his manhood license to explore. Surely he should be allowed some comfort through all of this.
Jin didn’t even know how Mimi really felt about this new development between them. She’d bent just as easily toward him as he did to her. Although with thirteen years of friendship behind them, they should have at least talked it through.
What if she fell in love with him? After all these years. He was determined not to get close to anyone. After Helene’s betrayal and his father’s, he knew he’d be a suspicious and jealous partner who would make happiness impossible for his mate. The real deal wasn’t for him. The outcome could only lead to Mimi being hurt.
Jin already had examples of how unfit a partner he was. His blood had boiled when that photographer Marc-Claude Robar was monopolizing Mimi’s time at Maverick Choi’s party. Which was nothing compared to when they had the editors in and she chatted with Fashion Forward Magazine’s Uri Azoulai. At the quickest whiff of what looked like him flirting with Mimi, Jin was ready to abandon his gentlemanly decorum and claim his woman, even if he had to take Uri out to a back alley. Which was, of course, ridiculous as Jin did not settle disputes in back alleys. He was already in too deep with Mimi if he was having those animal instincts. Those were the thoughts of a man in love.
His Convenient New York Bride Page 12
