PRIZE: An MMA Fighter Secret Baby Romance

by Brooke Valentine

  “Uh, I like to do my yard myself,” he faltered. “What are you doing here?”

  She shrugged. “You stood me up. So I thought I’d come by and bother you.”

  “Listen –“

  She cut him off with a sweep of her acrylic talons. “I already know what you’re about to say. The girlfriend. But I’ve done my research and she’s all the way in Cambodia. Come on, honey, do you really think you need to settle for a mail order bride? I think you could do better.” She winked.

  Chris took in her revealing outfit, her overdone makeup, and her sexy body language and he saw one thing: desperate. “Look. I don’t know why you’re here or who you are. You seem…nice. But I’m not interested in a relationship with anyone else right now.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re not lonely? Sleeping by yourself every night, waiting for your little bride to come here? You know how those women are. It’s all scams for money and green cards. I’m one hundred percent down home American. All I want to do is have fun. Look, I’m an honest girl, and I’ll be honest with you right now. You’re one of the finest hunks I’ve seen. And I would like to have you.”

  Chris chuckled with embarrassment as he adjusted his hat. The sun was glaring in his eyes from behind Leslie. “And I’m being honest too. I am not interested, not now. I want to see how things work out with Chanda. She’s the love of my life.”

  “It’s not cheatin’ if it’s in different zip codes,” Leslie persisted.

  Chris sighed. “I really didn’t want to do this. But I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” He pointed down the driveway before bending over to pick up his rake.

  Leslie gasped, then placed her hands on her hips and cocked them. “Are you seriously telling me to leave?”

  “I’m not the fun guy you think I am, OK? You need to go.”

  “I heard about you. How you used to run coke. How you shot your own brother when he double crossed you. I think you’re a hot guy with a dark past. Nothing turns me on more than a challenge.” She licked her lips and then snapped a bubble with her green gum. “I won’t give up so easy, Mr. Stryker.”

  “You better, or I’ll call the authorities.” Chris started shaking.

  Leslie shook her head, her long blonde curls falling around her bare shoulders. “OK then. Just know that you’re making the mistake of your life.” She shot him one last scalding look before getting back in her truck and slowly backing out. “You know how to get a hold of me,” she added out the window.

  Chris put up the rake and went inside. The frank way that Leslie brought up Jake made him feel ill. If Leslie could find out about his past so easily, how soon would Chanda find out when she got here? He considered buying a house in the city, where he could stay with Chanda in safety, but the idea of leaving his ranch and his horses filled him with torment. Confused and anguished, he laid down on the couch and closed his eyes.

  “Mr. Stryker?” It was Rita, waking him up from his stress nap. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, yes, I’m fine,” he said, sitting up.

  “Your alarm is going off. It’s time for your practice,” she urged him.

  “Oh.” He retrieved his phone and slid off the alarm. Then he sat down in the living room and turned on his huge touch screen TV, which was synced with his computer, to start his Khmer practice. He was practicing every day, and every night he told Chanda new words and phrases that he had learned. She always offered suggestions for improvement and then clapped and cheered him on. Before hanging up, he always told her that he loved her in Khmer. She also said it back.

  He couldn’t concentrate today, though. Leslie had really shook him up. His past and the threat Leslie posed on his relationship made it difficult for him to calm down. This all had the potential to really screw things up with the love of his life. What if he lost Chanda after she came here? What if she left him and went back to Cambodia, or moved on with her life and her green card? He knew that she wasn’t just using him, but he could understand why she might not want to stay.

  It was an agonizing wait. Now that the visa application was complete, he just had to bide his time until Chanda was approved to come here and marry him. Would time please speed up?

  The following months were agonizing, but Chris and Chanda stood strong through it all. They spoke every day and held the utmost affection for each other. Sometimes Leslie would antagonize him when she saw him in town but each time he rejected her, she seemed to become bitterer and less interested. That December, Chris took off to Cambodia again. He didn’t want to spend Christmas alone for yet another year and he wanted to show Chanda the magic of the holiday.

  When he landed, he found that it was humid but not hot and rainy like before. Cambodia was actually very pleasant and mild. There was no rain falling as he made his way on an open tuk tuk to the same café. Everything was the same as before, yet slightly different because of the familiarity. The crumbling façade of the café looked smaller and more welcoming, for instance. He glanced down the street, at the shoddy building where Chanda used to live. While she had moved, they still agreed to meet at the same café.

  “Chris Stryker!” a female voice cried out joyfully.

  Chris turned, and realized that the old woman from the café recognized him. Of course they wouldn’t forget him, after how he had overpaid for his meal before. This time, however, he was hungrier. He politely greeted the woman and let her seat him on an outdoor table and bring him endless bowls of food. As usual, he overpaid her. She kept thanking him, bowing graciously and nodding, smiling from ear to ear.

  “Are you waiting for girlfriend?” the woman asked him. She remembered how they had often eaten at the café, sharing intimate breakfasts or late dinners after Chanda returned from work.

  “Yes,” he smiled. “I am marrying her. We are waiting for the visa so that she can come to the United States.”

  “Oh.” The woman smiled even more graciously and nodded eagerly. “Very nice, very nice.”

  “Thank you.” Chris looked up, and noticed that Chanda had arrived. She was thrilled to see him and he scooped her up and spun her around, kissing her on the lips and the neck.

  “Put me down!” she squealed.

  “Sit,” the woman told Chanda, pulling out a chair opposite of Chris. “Congratulations on your marriage,” she told Chanda in Khmer.

  “Thank you.” Chanda nodded, then asked Chris how he felt.

  “I had a nice overnight layover in LA and then again in Hong Kong. I got lots of sleep in, so I feel much better than last time. The flight is brutal if you don’t lay over for a night.” Chris reached into his pack and pulled out a present wrapped in Santa Claus paper. “Merry Christmas.”

  “Oh! I do not have your gift with me,” she said apologetically.

  “It’s OK. Just seeing you is a gift.”

  “Oh, you are so sweet. But I got you a gift. See?” she started to look for a picture on her phone. “My aunty and Yun helped me find it for you.”

  Chris put his hand over hers and lowered the phone to the table. “I don’t want to see it. Christmas is supposed to be surprises. Now open your gift.”

  With the anticipation of a young girl, Chanda ripped into the package and revealed the black velvet box. “Oh! Is this jewelry?” She gingerly lifted the lid and then squealed. “Oh! It is beautiful.” Chris stood to fasten the diamond butterfly necklace around her neck.

  “I like your hair,” he commented, stroking it.

  “Now do you want to see my new apartment?” she asked him.

  Chris had already seen plenty of pictures of Chanda’s new place, but he enjoyed seeing Chanda’s excitement and pride. She had refused to move into a luxury building as he had wanted her to; she had remained in the same district as her factory, and rented a simple place that was even smaller than the previous one. But her new building had a doorman and fresh paint, and was nicer than her old one. She also had new furnishings and a new bed. They took a taxi there. He looked around her new place, grinning in a
pproval.

  “Here is the gift,” she said, stepping into the bathroom. She emerged a moment later, wearing a risqué negligee that left her breasts and stomach bare. The necklace glittered around her neck. Chris seized her and took her to bed before she could say anything more.

  Afterward, they lay in bed, stroking one another’s hair and chests. “This is the best Christmas I have ever had,” Chris said.

  “I am sorry that I have no tree. It does not seem like a good Christmas,” Chanda apologized.

  “Just the fact that I am here is so special. Usually I spend the holidays alone. John will come in for a few beers. I took him in and he doesn’t have any family, either.”

  “But you do have family,” Chanda said, confused. “I still don’t see why you don’t spend the holidays with them?”

  “I told you that I don’t have a particularly close relationship with my family,” Chris cut her off. “I don’t spend the holidays with them. You’re the closest thing to family that I have.”

  Chanda seemed disturbed and sad. “I wish that wasn’t so. But you know that I am the same, except for my aunty and uncle and Yun.”

  “Well, soon, you will be my wife. And you will be my family. We will spend every holiday doing this.” He indicated the bed with its crumpled, messy sheets. Chanda’s lingerie lay in a twisted heap beside the bed.

  Chanda giggled and snuggled harder into his chest. “Yes, we will. You will never be alone with me.”

  “I’m not alone anymore,” Chris told her, kissing her forehead. And it was true. Chanda filled his life and his heart in a way that he had never known before.

  Chapter 11

  Chanda woke up to the best news that she had ever received. The US had approved her visa! It was waiting for her in the mail, in its official air mail envelop. She whooped and shrieked before calling Chris with the excellent news. Chris bought her ticket and said that she would be cleared through customs and able to join him in Los Angeles on the fourth of May. It had been over nine months and their marriage was like a baby, slowly growing in gestation, finally coming to reality with a bang.

  “We must go out!” Yun told Chanda when Chanda called her with the thrilling news.

  “We must.” Chanda grew sober. Her joy evaporated like a puddle of water in the hot sun when she realized that her new life was about to start without Yun in it. Yun was her best friend and the only family member who didn’t disown her for wanting to move to America. “I am going to miss you so much.”

  “Well your rich husband better fly me there so that I can meet one of his friends!”

  Chanda grinned at the idea. It would be so nice to be able to get her best friend into America too. “Of course you will visit. And we will visit you. Now where are we going tonight?”

  “You had better put on something extra sexy! We’re going clubbing!” Yun shrieked. “It will be your bachelorette party!”

  “Bachelorette party?” Chanda felt faint as she clutched her heart. “I never imagined I would have one!”

  “Yes! It will be like in the movies. We will get into so much trouble.”

  Despite the city’s third-world status, Phnom Penh had many amazing and fun clubs. When Chanda was younger and did not have to work as much, she would come out to the clubs all of the time with Yun and some other girls from her school. They would stay out until four in the morning, drinking and partying. Then they would stumble home and go to school the next day. Alcohol barely affected them then. Now that Chanda was broken and overworked, however, she never went. The idea of going out tonight excited her.

  She went out and bought a sparkly sequined dress with Yun. It smelled like a bright and young flower, from the store’s perfume. Chanda spun around and around in it before finally buying it. “I’m so glad that I can buy these things,” she commented, giddy that she had never before been able to swipe her credit card and get whatever she wanted.

  “Yes, I am happy for you.” Yun looked sad. Though she had been raised with much more money than Chanda and didn’t have to work as she waited to get married, she still couldn’t just buy a dress when she wanted.

  Chanda paused. “Would you like something?” She nodded toward the massive aisles and racks of the dress shop. “You should buy a new dress too.”

  Yun’s face lit up. She scurried back toward the racks of dresses to pick one out. Chanda helped her choose another very sparkly pink dress that flattered her pale pink cheeks.

  Then they returned to Yun’s house to do their makeup and hair. Chanda embraced her aunt and uncle. “When do you leave?”

  “I leave next week,” Chanda admitted.

  Her aunt sighed. “We will miss you. You are a good woman, Chanda, and you will make a good wife. I am happy that you will not be alone anymore.”

  Chanda smiled despite the tears springing up in her eyes. “I am glad too. He is a good man.”

  Her aunt nodded slowly, trying to hold back tears of her own. “I want to give you something.”

  “Come on!” Yun yelled from her room, where she was laying out her makeup things.

  “Hang on!” Chanda yelled back. She and Yun mostly spoke English to each other to practice. They learned American phrases from TV shows and movies. Chanda felt pleased that she knew a lot of American slang and Chris would teach her more. She was starting to feel more prepared for her new life.

  Her aunt went into the family room and opened a china chest. She produced a tiny doll with straw hair and a roughly sewn dress. The doll’s cheeks were painted red in two little circles and she had black bead eyes that seemed alive. “This was your mother’s when she was a little girl.”

  Chanda gently took the doll and stared down at it, transfixed. Since her mother had died, Chanda had had few pieces of her to remember her by. She had no photographs and very few clear memories. Her mother was always busy, selling vegetables and noodles at the market. She was often gone.

  “When I married your uncle, I was very nervous. I knew that I was heading into a new life, one of more money and status. I worried that I was not good enough for this new life. Your mother gave me her favorite doll to comfort me. Now I pass it onto you. Hold onto this doll when you begin to miss this life and this family. Always know that your mother’s spirit and the spirits of your ancestors are with you, at all times, protecting you. This doll will watch over you.”

  Chanda sniffled. “Thank you, Aunty,” she finally managed through the thick block in her throat.

  “What are you doing?” An indignant Yun appeared in the doorway, looking cross. “Let’s get your makeup done! It’s time for us to get ready!”

  Chanda gave her aunt a final hug before returning to her cousin’s room. Yun was very creative with her makeup brushes. She painted Chanda up to look like the doll that lay in Chanda’s arms. Then she dusted pale blue over Chanda’s eyelids. Chanda stared in the mirror for a minute, before snapping a picture for Chris. “Chris would want to kiss me so bad right now,” Chanda said dreamily.

  “He would want to do more than kiss you,” Yun giggled. “How is he in bed?”

  “Yun!” Chanda cried. “We don’t talk about things like that.”

  “Oh, come on. I know that he stayed with you. I know that something happened.”

  Chanda blushed. “It was nice,” she finally said.

  “That’s it? It was nice? I’m so disappointed in you, Chanda! You need to tell me details. What is an American man like?”

  Chanda sighed. “He was…gentle. He held me like he was afraid to lose me. And when I whimpered with the pain, he stroked my hair and kissed me to make me feel better.”

  “You mean that you were a virgin?” Yun seemed shocked. “I guess I knew that you were, but I am still surprised! You never tried sex before with a boy from school?”

  “Never,” Chanda swore. “He was my first lover.”

  “It hurt you badly?”

  “Not very badly. It was more pleasurable than anything.” Chanda took a last longing look at herself in the mir
ror. It wasn’t her own face that she longed for, but the beauty that Chris made her feel. “He made me feel beautiful. And loved.”

  “Aw.” Yun stared at her for a few minutes, before turning to do her own makeup. “I want that. I want a rich man to swoop into my life and make love to me and take me away.”

  “It will happen, Yun,” Chanda promised her.

  The two young women emerged from Yun’s room looking like supermodels. Their dresses and eyelids sparkled brilliantly in the light from the naked hall bulb. Yun’s father watched them uncomfortably from his usual seat, a book propped on his knees. While Yun and Chanda were both in their early twenties, only now did he see that they were grown women, heading out into a life of love and marriage. “You look like goddesses,” Yun’s mother purred. She was half-asleep with the radio on in the seat across from Yun’s father.

  “It is my bachelorette party,” Chanda beamed.

  “Oh? Well, have fun.”

  They headed out into the night and caught a taxi that took them to the clubbing district. From the street, they could hear laughter and hip-hop or rock music spilling out of the clubs. Clutching their purses, they spotted some girls from school down the street. “Over here!” Yun screamed.

  The girls thronged around Chanda, embracing her and offering her little gifts as congratulations on her impending wedding. They picked at her dress and earrings, amazed at how well Chanda was dressed. “I am so happy for you!” a girl named Akara cried out joyfully.

  Chanda beamed. “You girls are so sweet!” she exclaimed. “The girls at the factory are all very jealous of me. They have been so mean the past few months! I have had to stop wearing new clothes and jewelry to the factory just to make them stop harassing me. Now they think my new boyfriend dumped me.”

  “How did your boss like it when you quit?” one of the girls asked with a huge grin. She happened to be cousins with the boss and had gotten Chanda the job.

  “He yelled at me that I was making a big mistake.” Chanda looked down at her sparkly heels. “It was horrible, but I won’t miss him or the factory. I was supposed to get a promotion, too, but they never gave it to me! I suppose because they knew I would be leaving.”