Her Unexpected Affair (The Robinsons) (19 page)

“I imagine that can be true for many economies.”

“It is. But with quality dropping off, Lynford wants a stronger presence to oversee that the highest quality is maintained in the goods we sell. Hence, the heir apparent needs to spend some time there, learning the ins and outs of how to deal with our Chinese sources. Some of them are more slippery than eels.”

Meilin laughed. “True. I can say that about some of my own family.”

Drew flicked a glance her direction as she looked up at him. Together they smiled and said in unison, “Jack.”

Without forethought, Drew let his hands swing free. As natural as breathing, Meilin did the same and their hands brushed. On the next swing, Drew opened his hand to hers, and without a hitch, her hand slipped into his as they strolled under the shadows of the tall palm trees lining their way.

The rush of warmth was enough for him to close his eyes for a moment just to savor her touch. Palm to palm, the heat slid up his arm like soft fire running through his veins. The air smelled sweeter, the barely there breeze fell soft as a blanket against his cheek, and the beating of his heart matched the cadence of hers as felt by his thumb against her wrist. For a moment, something wild and wonderful hovered just out of understanding. Something he’d never contemplated. It seemed his brain was about to fry, so he found a way to simplify the thought and decided this was heaven on earth. And if he was right, would there be retribution for daring to seek it out?

“So.” He drew in a deep breath to push away the shadows of doubts and mixed up emotions he didn’t want to acknowledge. “Tell me about you. Raised in San Francisco? Lived in China a couple years. Sometime teacher of Mandarin, full time interior designer, soon to be bride.”

“There’s not much to tell. I was a good girl. Did my homework and chores, ate my food without complaint, kept my room tidy, looked after my grandmother when I got home from school, and generally did my best to not make waves. Waves are frowned upon.”

Drew thought of his paternal grandmother and her idea of not making waves. Until it came to the subject of Birdie, good old gran was the picture of English gentry. Impeccably dressed and groomed, her manners were perfect. Unless Birdie was in the room. Then the two tended to go at it like pugilists, only without fists. Ladylike, but no holds barred in their verbal warfare. Everything was up for criticizing. Birdie’s posture, diction, clothing, eating habits, how she spoke on the phone or wrote a thank-you letter. Having endured much of the same, but from his mother, Drew had a lot of sympathy for his sister. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t for her own good, even if she managed to give back as much as she got in terms of making the old woman do her physical therapy.

“I can’t believe you were good all the time.”

A sly smile graced her lips. “I’m not telling. There’s no proof.”

Laughing out loud felt good. “I bet Jack would tell.”

“Maybe, maybe not. If he knows what’s good for him, he won’t. Besides, aren’t you going to be too busy with this studying to gossip about me with my cousin?”

“There is that.” He pulled his free hand down his face. “I feel as if I’m learning nothing. This is so hard.” Mandarin might as well be Klingon for all he understood.

A teasing grin crossed her face. “One fifth of the world speaks Chinese. It’s possible to learn it.”

“I think you’re spreading propaganda. Aren’t there a thousand dialects? I’ve nearly quit at least three times this week.”

“The first week is the most difficult. It will come I assure you.”

“I’ll hold you to that. Will you fill in often?” He hoped so. She was much prettier than Professor Chung.

“You’ll have many teachers. Professor Chung brings in experts for history as well as current events and etiquette. I may pop in from time to time, but not often. This was more of a fluke.”

A sense of panic drove his heartbeat up a few beats per second. “Tell me you’ll be back. If only to tutor me a night or two each week. If I have that hope, I can face anything.”

Meilin squeezed his hand. “I’ll think about it. It will depend on my time…”

“Which you don’t have much of.” Drew groaned. “I get it. I understand, really.”

With a shake of her head, she spoke slowly. “No, I don’t think you do.”

“It’s that fiancé of yours, isn’t it?” Jealousy ran through him like a river of lava. The feeling was so astonishing it nearly knocked him over. Not a feeling he knew well unless it related to kids with loving mothers. Generally, people envied him, not the other way around.

Meilin shrugged. Her face was shadowed, but the light from street lamps touched her hair like a glaze, shifting with the silken strands. “He’s part of it, but not all. I do have a business. Two nights ago I was on a ladder until one AM, finishing an interior paint job.”

“Don’t you hire those jobs out?”

“Usually, but my contractor had a family emergency. The painting had to be finished that night because the furnishings were delivered the next day. I wasn’t about to let a little pride get in my way, so I picked up the rollers and went to work. And missed an important client dinner with Shan.”

Now that didn’t break Drew’s heart. “And this weekend? Did you have plans?”

“I did. But Arnie, I mean Professor Chung, called and I owe him a few favors, so here I am.” She shrugged.

“Any thought about me being in the class?” No, he shouldn’t have asked, but damn if he could keep his mouth shut.

Meilin ducked her head. “Perhaps one or two. His only other choice was Jack, but he’s taken off for Nevada and I don’t trust him to teach you the right words.”

“I thank you.” Hand over his heart, he gave her a shortened bow. Difficult to do while walking. In the distance, he spied a bench under the shadows of a tree. They were a bit off the main paths and it looked private. “Hey, let’s go sit there.” He pointed and she nodded.

As she sat, she groaned and released his hand. “I shouldn’t be here with you.”

The giant stone on her finger reflected the ambient light, reminding him she was engaged.

Swallowing his pride, he asked, “So tell me about him, this man you’re going to marry.”

Big round eyes looked up at him. “Why would I do that?”

“You’re newly engaged. Isn’t it something you want to talk about?”

“Surprisingly, no, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Now that’s interesting. I’d think it would be the only thing you wanted to talk about.”

Meilin turned her head to look away from him. “I don’t want to. It’s an arranged marriage, not a love match. Very practical. He needs a wife; I have a duty to produce offspring. He’s not ugly or poor. I’m okay in the looks department, and I know how to stage and host a party or business event. We both get something from the marriage. He gets a hostess, and mother for his children; I get financial stability and beautiful babies. I’ll take my place in the family structure and supply the next set of building blocks. It’s a chance to be part of something bigger than just me.”

The speech sounded rehearsed. “For the record, you’re better than okay looking. You’re bloody gorgeous.” He held her startled gaze for a long moment. “And that arrangement sounds rather cold to me,” he muttered. “Not unlike my father’s first marriage.”

Her gaze softened. “Was your childhood unhappy?”

“No, not terribly, but it wasn’t filled with a lot of maternal warmth, either.”

“But your father seems to be a warm, loving sort of man.”

Drew laughed. “Until Randi came along he would have bitten your head off for saying that. He was a manly man doing manly things in a manly manner.”

“What does that even mean?” Meilin wrinkled her nose and crossed her eyes. It was incredibly adorable, and he wanted to kiss her nose.

“He was the quintessential English gentleman. He went shooting, taught me to play polo—although neither of us are especially good at it—fishing on the pond, things like that. Whenever we were out of sight of Bea—that’s my birth mum—he’d let me run and yell like a hooligan. When she was around, we had to do the stiff upper lip thing. I wasn’t allowed to get dirty, run, or make a mess.”

“Mixed messages.”

“Undoubtedly, but that was childhood for many of my friends. Especially those chosen for me by my mother and her friends in the upper crust.”

Meilin bumped his shoulder. “Poor little rich boy.” A sparkle of mischief lit up her eyes.

“Ha! It wasn’t the same for you?”

“To some extent, maybe, but I was taught to honor our humble roots, the ancestors who suffered and worked to build a new life for future generations. There are photos of our great-grandfathers working the gold fields, the railroad, their first carts selling vegetables. Later the carts became grocery stores and restaurants. They worked until their fingers bled and their backs bent to make things better for their children and grandchildren. Then their children worked to improve and build upon those sacrifices so now we can say we helped build Chinatown, and brought our people into the mainstream.”

A breeze wafted down the path and lifted a fringe of Meilin’s hair. Drew forgot about the stories of the past and found himself reaching to brush the wayward strands from her face. The back of his finger touched soft skin and a rush of lust swept over him from head to toe.

Meilin’s gaze softened more as she looked back at him, her breath hitched in her throat. The longing in her eyes matched what filled his heart.

He wanted nothing more than to lean down and kiss her. Her hand shifted on her lap and a shaft of light from a street lamp caught by the stone in her ring stabbed him in the eye. Damn. He didn’t poach. Had never wanted to before.

He blew out a frustrated breath. Then opened his mouth and the words came tumbling out of their own free will. “Do you feel it too?” he whispered. “Do you feel what I’m feeling? The overriding urge to pull you into my arms and kiss you until we both burn to ash?”

Meilin swallowed, and he saw the pulse beating in the delicate hollow of her throat. “We can’t…”

“But you want to, don’t you? I want to.” More than he wanted air at the moment.

Her lips flattened and stress drove her voice up a few notes. “That has no bearing. I made a promise. Signed a contract.” The anguish in her eyes clawed at him, fueled a desperation unlike any he’d ever felt before.

“You’re not married yet.” His own heart hammered in his chest.

“I will be. In three months.”

So soon? Damn. “Does he take your breath away like you take mine?”

Meilin’s eyes grew sad, and she slowly shook her head. “That doesn’t make it right. There’s so much more to consider.”

It would have been better to stand up and walk away than ask the question burning inside. “Do you love him?”

Her hair swayed as she shook her head. “No. I don’t know him well enough to love him.”

A thread of tension loosened in his chest. “But you know me. I know you.”

Meilin broke their eye contact and tried to laugh. Wasn’t much of one, more of a sob really, or so it sounded to him. “I don’t know you; you don’t know me. We’ve met, what, only three times now? There hasn’t been time to know each other.”

“Your heart knows. You don’t love him, but it’s possible there could be more, right here. There’s something here, right between us.”

Meilin stood and paced a few steps away, distancing herself from him. “No. Don’t imagine what can’t be.”

“Why can’t it be?”

“If I’d met you months ago, maybe we’d have time to work this out. But it’s too late. I’m committed. You’re committed here and then you’re off to Beijing in a matter of weeks and for how many years? You’re just starting your life, Drew. I’ve worked hard to establish myself, my reputation, my business. My mother tells me my biological clock is winding down. If I’m to have children and raise them before I’m using a walker, I need to do this now. I can’t wait more than a couple years.”

Was that all? In truth, what she said had merit, but it was just a detail. Details could be worked out. “Who says you have to?”

She spun on her heel and drilled her hot gaze into his eyes. “You don’t understand. I’m ten years older than you! I’ll be wrinkled and gray haired when you hit your prime in business and in life. If I wait any longer to get married and start a family as duty proclaims, I’ll have trouble keeping up with my children. I’ll be in a retirement home about the time they’re having babies. I’ll be well into my fifties by the time they reach college. My mother tells me she’ll be too old to care for young grandchildren in another five years.” She waved a hand. “As it is, my father is too old to get down on the ground and play with the young children of my brother and cousins. The look on his face is heart breaking when he wants to play horse with them.”

“This is about our age differences? I don’t care about your age. It doesn’t mean a thing to me.”

Facing him head on, she stood straight, hands clenched at her sides. “Because you’re still young enough to spring out of bed and go-go-go until long after the sun goes down. Come ten o’clock at night I’m ready to close my eyes and drop dead to the world.”

“You weren’t asleep at ten o’clock the night we met.”

Shoulders slumping, she sighed. “And the next day was excruciating. I had a hangover and bad attitude until nearly four o’clock, and it drove my mother crazy because I was supposed to be excited about the engagement party.”

“Had you been excited, your attitude would have been better from the moment you woke. Have you considered you were dreading the party and what it meant?”

“Of course I have,” she snapped. “But that’s not what I agreed to. I agreed to be the loyal wife of a good man who looks after his employees and his community. I agreed to stand by his side and take part in those good works, many of which I’m already involved in. Like you were raised to have a hand in your family business, I was raised to have a hand in my community as a good wife.”

Hands splayed, palms up, he adopted what he thought was a calm, reasonable, demeanor. “You can be a good wife anywhere you land.”

“This is where my life is now.” One finger pointed at the ground with a stabbing motion. “What are you saying? You want me to uproot and follow you to Beijing?” Disbelief filled her eyes as she threw up her hands.