After the showing, the caterers served the cakes with a variety of teas poured from antique Chinese pots. Jin made handshake agreements with the new retailers, who were complimentary and committed to carrying the pieces.
“You’ve done well, son.” Bai slid up beside him during a quiet moment. They both surveyed the room, eyes landing on Mimi who was laughing with the two people she was standing beside.
“For the company, yes. For my new designer, yes. For my wife, not so much.” Although that was about to change.
“I know. She told me.”
Jin had come to a conclusion. And now that he had, it washed over and over him in waves like an ocean’s tide touching the shore.
“Did she?” he asked, eyes still on his spectacular wife who slipped her hand in her jacket pocket and patted something there.
“What you grew up in wasn’t normal, Jin. I always worried that because you didn’t have the right example of a marriage as a child, you chose a woman who was like your father. I’m glad you didn’t make the same mistake I did by staying with her.”
“I know, Mom.”
“But I don’t want you to abandon love.”
“I’m not. It just took me awhile to realize that mine was in front of me all along.”
Bai pivoted her head toward Jin, beckoning him to make eye contact.
“Good, then.” She nodded once. “We understand each other.”
He planted a kiss on his mother’s cheek.
Once the showing was finished and deals had been made, Jin was anxious to have time alone with Mimi. He found her tidying up the staging area where clothes were strewn about.
“Where’s the pencil skirt?” Mimi asked herself aloud.
Jin picked it up from a table right behind her. “Funny how something can be clearly in view but you don’t see it.”
Mimi smirked. “I’ve noticed.” He handed her the skirt, which she put onto a hanger and hooked on a rack.
“I can only imagine the torment I’ve caused you over the years,” he said in earnest. “To tell you the truth, if I had known you had romantic feelings for me when we were younger, I don’t know how I would have reacted. You were my best friend’s kid sister. Even though we’re only two years apart in age, that’s how I saw you.”
“There’s nothing we can do about it now,” she said while continuing to busy herself collecting her tools from the table. “I guess our destinies were predetermined.”
Jin wrapped his hand around her upper arms to still her and get her to face him. “Yes, our fates are sealed.”
This was it. This was his moment. With overflowing elation in his heart, he knelt down on one knee while taking Mimi’s hand in his.
“I love you, Mimi. I’ve always loved you as a friend but I’ve come to see that I love you in that other way, too.”
“You do?”
“I’ve fallen in love with you. And I want us to be together. Not just for a year but forever. Can you be patient with me? I have a lot to learn about healthy relationships. Will you show me the way?”
Her eyes pooled as she looked down at him on bent knee.
“Mimi Lynn Stewart, will you stay married to me?”
Jin would never forget the smile that swept across her radiant face. “Yes, Jin.”
“I have to buy you a ring.”
With her free hand, Mimi reached inside her jacket pocket to remove something that she handed to Jin. It was his grandfather’s china thimble.
“I decided to keep it with me today for luck,” she said. “The hand painting of the boat at sunset is so detailed and intricate. It reminds me of the beauty of determination and its rewards.”
For the second time, Jin fit the thimble onto Mimi’s fingertip.
Then he stood and took his wife in his arms, knowing he would continue to do so for the rest of their lives.
EPILOGUE
One year later...
MIMI HELD ON to the stair rail with her right hand as she made her way down the steps from the apartment to the studio. She’d been careful about that lately.
Her husband Jin was standing at one of the cutting tables, talking to a small group of new employees. Holding up a navy blue wraparound dress that Mimi had just given the go-ahead on, his pleasure with the garment was obvious and filled her with contentment and pride.
In a year’s time, Jin and Mimi had begun to rebuild LilyZ into the exclusive and profitable label that Shun Zhang had dreamed of. The company was doing so well that they’d hired new management to meet the demand for distribution. Following Jin’s business plan, they’d expanded from selling through twenty retail shops to thirty-five worldwide, moving toward his goal of fifty. Uncle Fu in Hong Kong was even moving into a larger manufacturing space to accommodate the production.
Aaron had saved enough money to buy an apartment near Wall Street. She was helping him choose furnishings. And Mamabai was well and happy, although not as happy as Mimi figured she was going to be when her daughter-in-law shared some important news with her.
But Jin needed to be the first to hear it.
She grabbed the sketch pad that she kept on the desk opposite Jin’s, in what had now become their shared office.
After his meeting finished, he came to join her.
He greeted his wife with a sensuous kiss, as he always did.
“How is the best young designer in New York doing today?” he flattered her.
“Grateful to have a boss that respects her work so much,” she said, flirting. The beaming smile she got in return filled her heart with joy. “Can I show you something?”
“Of course.” He gestured toward her sketchbook, which she opened and laid out on his desk.
“What’s going on here?” He pointed to some unusual pleating at the waist of a skirt she’d drawn.
“Room to grow.”
“What do you mean?”
Mimi teased by not answering him, until he ventured a guess.
“We’re going into maternity wear now?”
“Well, a woman should be able to look chic while being comfortable during every phase of her pregnancy, shouldn’t she?”
“Sure.”
“I know I, for one, intend to.”
Mimi delighted as comprehension slowly made its way across her true love’s face.
“You mean...?”
“Let’s hope he or she likes clothes.”
Jin swept Mimi into an embrace then placed one hand flat against her tummy. As he kissed her face over and over again, unable to conceal his excitement, he told her, “Just like LilyZ, our family will never go out of style.”
* * *
If you enjoyed this story, check out these other great reads from Andrea Bolter
The Prince’s Cinderella
The Italian’s Runaway Princess
Her Las Vegas Wedding
Her New York Billionaire
All available now!
Keep reading for an excerpt from Tempted by the Single Dad by Cara Colter.
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Tempted by the Single Dad
by Cara Colter
CHAPTER ONE
IT WAS A perfect moment. Of course,
if there was one thing Alicia Cook had a right to distrust, that was it. Perfect moments.
Still, with a sigh, and a sip of her lime-infused club soda, Allie gave herself over to it. The setting sun was gilding the foam on the ocean waves, and turning the beach sand to pure, luminous gold. From the hanging porch swing in the shadows of her covered veranda, she observed as the daytime crowds dissipated.
Now, one last family remained, the father deflating a humungous ride-on dragon water toy, the mother shaking out a picnic blanket and calling the children back from the water’s edge as she packed the remains of their day into an oversize basket.
A pang of pure longing hovered at the edges of Allie’s perfect moment, so she shifted her focus. Farther down the beach a couple strolled, hand in hand.
The sense of longing intensified.
“Don’t believe a word he says,” Allie muttered, watching through narrowed eyes as they stopped, leaned into each other and he nuzzled her ear and said something to her that made her laughter carry up the beach.
Allie’s muttered words were a defense, of course, against all that weakness that was still there, even though she, of all people, should know better than to long for dangerous things.
Perfect moments. To not be alone. To share life. To be deeply connected...there, her perfect moment was gone. She looked away from the couple, ignored the family and took a determined sip of her drink, concentrating furiously on the beauty of the setting sun, hoping to get it back.
No, the moment had been as iridescent—and as fragile—as a soap bubble blown from a child’s wand. It was gone.
She set down her drink, leaned over and drew her guitar from a shadowed corner.
“Perfect moments do not pay bills, anyway,” Allie told herself sternly. The contract to produce a jingle was the practical approach to solving her financial difficulties.
The guitar, however, was unmoved by the urgency she felt. She ran her thumb coaxingly down the six strings—E, B, G, D, A, E—but the guitar refused to be seduced. The instrument was acting like a friend who was mad at her, silent, refusing to speak.
It was almost a relief—a reprieve—when Allie heard a muffled noise through the patio door that opened into the cottage behind her. What was that? Was someone at her front door? She strained her ears. That had to be her imagination.
The very same imagination that would not give her a song, was quite happy to indulge her fears, she noticed.
But as she strained to hear, she could have sworn the sound she was hearing was very real. She was hearing the creaky front door handle being tried!
A recent newspaper article had been pinned to the community bulletin board in front of the post office. Mimi Roberts’s villa—located just down the beach—had experienced a break-in. An audacious thief had come in the front door while Mimi was home, but fortunately for the well-known celebrity, she was out back enjoying her deck. A Sugar Cone Beach police spokesman said there had been several similar break-ins in the neighborhoods surrounding the beach community and urged people to lock those front doors, even while they were at home.
Honestly, Allie had had trouble sleeping ever since, awaking to every sound, too hot because she was keeping the doors and windows firmly locked. No wonder she couldn’t write a simple jingle. Sleep deprived.
A muffled bang made her jump. Okay. It was definitely her front door. Being kicked in? No, probably something way less threatening, like a newspaper being thrown up against it.
You don’t get the paper, a little voice insisted on reminding her.
Still Allie tried to reason with herself. It would take an extraordinarily unambitious thief to choose her little cottage for break-and-enter purposes. The end of Sugar Cone Beach that was farthest away from her had long since gone to developers. High-end hotels and condos, with their main floor restaurants and shops, vied for every inch of space along that baby-powder-fine stretch of sand.
But the beachfront properties at this end of Sugar Cone Beach—a sheltered bay—were largely single-family homes that had become the enclave of the very wealthy, like Mimi Roberts. For the past twenty years extravagant beach houses had been popping up here. The glass, concrete and steel behemoths rose out of the sand on either side of Allie.
And there she sat, in the middle of them all, in a sagging and tiny gray-shingled cottage, that had been her grandmother’s for as long as she could remember.
Gram. Allie felt the ache in her throat that momentarily overrode the adrenaline that was beginning to pump through her. Her Gram was the one person who had stuck by her, believed in her and never given up on her.
Gram was gone now but the cottage that was so beloved to them both had been her final gift to Allie.
If Allie could hold on to it. The taxes alone took her breath away. And every day, someone came, ignored the unfriendly sign that said No Soliciting and knocked on her front door. They were developers and real estate agents, and people just passing by, putting temptation in front of her, offering her ridiculous sums of money to sell the one place in the world where Allie felt safe and hidden from prying eyes.
And where the love of her grandmother remained, as comforting as a hug.
There was definitely somebody at the door but Allie calmed herself with the rationale it was probably not a thief, though it was unlikely to be a real estate agent at this time of day, either. Whoever it was, they weren’t ringing the bell.
The bell hasn’t worked for three weeks, Allie told herself. It’s not a thief.
But whoever it was, they weren’t giving up, either.
Allie put down her guitar, not unaware that she felt relieved for a distraction, no matter how unpleasant that distraction might be. She got up, and went through the back into the cottage, not sure of the proper protocol for a would-be break-in.
Should she make lots of noise and throw on all the lights so it was apparent someone was home? Or should she tiptoe up to the door and peek out the front window?
Coming from the brightness outside into the cottage was like being plunged into a mine shaft. It had originally been a fisherman’s place—the only one that remained on this stretch of beachfront. Back in the 1920s, when it was built, no thought at all was given to such frivolous concerns as where to place windows to take most advantage of the view. Windows would have been regarded as a luxury in those days.
And so the kitchen was in the back of the house, cramped and dark. Faucets dripped and cabinet doors hung crookedly, and the painted wooden floor was chipping. Despite all that, there was a determined cheeriness to the space, a laid-back beach vibe that Allie adored.
One summer she and her grandmother, in an attempt to brighten things up, had painted all the cabinets sunshine yellow, and they had liked the color so much they had done the kitchen table, too. They had installed a backsplash of handmade sea-themed tile, and hung homemade curtains with a pink flamingo motif.
Off the kitchen, there was a narrow hall, painted turquoise, with Allie’s childhood art hung gallery style. There were three tiny bedrooms on one side of the hall, each holding little more than a bed, a bureau and a nightstand. Her grandmother, a quilter, had loved fabric and every closet in the whole cottage was stuffed with it. Allie could not bring herself to throw a single remnant away. Each bed was adorned with a handmade quilt. Allie’s favorite, the double wedding ring pattern, was on her own small bed.
Still tiptoeing, Allie followed the hallway to the front door, and the arched opening to the living room, where a paned picture window looked onto the street. The furniture and the wooden floors, worn to gray, sagged equally with age and good use.
In the heyday of her career—imagine being twenty-three years old and the heyday of your career was already over—Allie had been in many houses that looked like the ones on either side of her. Houses that were open plan, with light spilling in huge windows, and stainless steel appliances bigger than most restaur
ants required. They had miles of granite countertops, gorgeous beams and sleek furniture. Not one of them had ever made her feel this way.
Home.
That’s what she needed to remember about the career that had soared like a shooting star, and then fizzled even more quickly, and that’s what she needed to remember when another million-dollar offer was made. Neither success nor money could make you feel at home. She steeled herself to the possibility of temptation as she moved past the door to have a peek out the window.
But before she made it past, there was another thump. Someone had kicked the door! Her heart flew into double time. Then, to Allie’s horror, the door creaked open an inch. Allie stopped and stared, her heart in her throat. Her first instinct, the one she had reasoned herself out of, had been correct.
Home invader.
She was sure she had locked the front door since seeing the news report.
Not that it mattered. Locked or not, her space was being invaded! Her safe place was being threatened.
In one motion, she reached out and grabbed the nearest thing she could lay hands on—a heavy statue, one of her grandmother’s favorites. It was a bronze of a donkey, looking forlorn and unkempt. Weapon firmly in hand, Allie threw her weight against the opening door, trying to force it closed again.
* * *
Sam Walker was beyond exhaustion. He’d been late getting away. The traffic heading to the beaches of Southern California, in anticipation of the upcoming Fourth of July holiday, had been horrendous. And his traveling companions were cantankerous.
The key had been sticky, but finally worked. But despite trying to persuade it with his foot—twice—the door remained stuck.
He was used to the cottage being a touch temperamental, but his patience was at a breaking point. Sam had had quite enough of cantankerous anything for one day. The floorboard beneath the door was probably swollen with moisture or age. He’d put it—and the lock—on his list of things to fix while he was here. Not even in the door yet, and he had a list of things that needed doing. Normal, mature man things. What a relief.
His Convenient New York Bride Page 15
