A Year in His Life Read online

  He looked like something out of a movie. He was quite tall, with a clean-shaven face and a chiseled jaw. She knew at once that he was Chinese. His dark eyes betrayed that fact. His hair was black and stuck out in different directions, but in a cute way. His eyebrows weren’t too thick or too thin, and his lips were pink. He wore a black suit and a black shirt, with a tie to match.

  God he was gorgeous.

  Elena expected him to say something fancy, maybe let out a couple of Chinese exclamations, and she was surprised when he suddenly spoke in perfectly-accented English.

  “Nice apron,” the man said, smirking slightly.

  Elena’s cheeks flushed suddenly. Her apron! She’d forgotten to take it off at the bar. It would explain why people had been staring at her so much. Feeling her face grow hot, she quickly untied it and yanked it off, folding it as quickly as she could. She clambered to her feet and faced him, forcing herself to meet his gaze.

  How could he afford to be so calm in a situation like this? Elena’s heart was threatening to burst out of her ribcage right now.

  “You could’ve hit me, you know,” she said to him.

  “But I didn’t,” he pointed out. “You’re welcome.”

  Elena couldn’t believe her ears. “You nearly killed me!”

  “Hey, I didn’t ask you to jump into the middle of the road.”

  She felt her hands clench into fists. Why did he have to be so damn right?

  Why did he have to be so damn good-looking? This man made his suit look good.

  “I didn’t jump, I tripped,” she said. “But that’s not the point. I’ll be going now. I need to pick up my daughter from school.”

  “Need a ride?” he asked, gesturing towards the Mercedes. “You look like you could use one. Besides, I’m not sure anyone else in this city is as good at driving as I am. The next time you fall, you’ll very likely get crushed.”

  “I don’t need a ride,” she snapped. “I can walk, thank you.”

  Without another word, she crossed the road, making sure not to trip again, and headed for Madison’s school. When she glanced over her shoulder, the man was still staring at her, a smile on his face. Elena felt a shiver race through her. It wasn’t the fact that he was smiling at her that bothered her so much.

  It was the way she responded to it.

  ***

  “You’re late. Again.”

  Madison stood just outside the school building with her little arms folded across her chest, her features set into a deep scowl. She was wearing dungarees over a white shirt, her little backpack strapped on. Her hair was in curls that shook every now and then. Elena’s attention was mostly on her daughter’s face. For an eight-year-old, the girl sure knew how to give excellent dirty looks.

  “I’m sorry, Maddie,” Elena told her, crouching and pulling her daughter into a hug. “Mommy’s going to try to be earlier next time.”

  “You say that every time you’re late,” Madison said with a pout, but she put her arms around her mother anyway. They remained that way for a couple of seconds, then Elena rose and they began to head home, her daughter’s hand in hers.

  “How’d your day go?” she wanted to know.

  “Bad,” was all Madison said in reply.

  “Well, that’s a surprise,” Elena said with a frown. “Didn’t you have any fun at all?”

  “Well, I was having fun until they came and started pushing me around.”

  They? “What are you talking about? Who pushed you around?”

  “Some naughty boys,” Madison told her. “They said I couldn’t join them on the swings during recess.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m a girl.”

  Of course. It was typical of boys to do something like that. But that didn’t mean they had the right to shove her daughter around and make her feel inferior.

  “Did you cry?” Elena asked as they rounded the corner and turned into a new street.

  Madison was silent for a couple of seconds. Then she replied, “A little.”

  Elena suddenly came to a halt and turned around, dropping to her knees in front of her daughter. “Look, there will always be people who try to knock you down. But you should never let them have their way. Do you understand?”

  “I understand, Mommy.” Madison’s curls bounced as she nodded. Then her eyebrows furrowed. “But…what if I get knocked down?”

  “Then you get back up. You get back up and you fight. Listen, Maddie –” Elena placed her hands on her daughter’s shoulders “– the thing with bullies is that they’re weak, so they try to make other look weak so they seem stronger. Don’t ever let anyone make you feel weak. You’re a lot stronger than you think. Never forget that.”

  Madison nodded again. “I’ll try to stand up to them next time, Mommy.”

  “That’s the spirit.” A thought occurred to Elena and she rose to her feet. “You want to hit the ice cream parlor before we go home?”

  Her daughter’s face brightened. “I do!”

  Elena smiled genuinely as they continued walking. It gave her joy to see her Madison happy. Heck, she would sell everything she owned if it meant that her daughter would have a big smile plastered onto her face for the rest of her life.

  Madison tugged her hand, dragging her out of her thoughts. “How did your day go, Mommy?”

  All of a sudden, Elena’s mind flashed back to the incident on the road with the Chinese hunk of a man. She remembered the way he’d gazed at her, so calm and in charge. That man…he was different from the other men who’d approached her. If being handsome was a crime, he’d have been slammed with a life sentence.

  “It was…extraordinary,” Elena told her daughter, and she meant it.

  Chapter 2

  It’s Okay to Say No to Strangers

  As much as Elena would have loved to have her daughter around her while she worked, she couldn’t afford to let a minor into a bar. So, after watching Madison lick her ice cream for about ten minutes, with a pleased smile on her face, they left the ice cream parlor and headed home; Madison narrating the incident on the playground at school again. By the time Madison was done telling the story, Elena’s teeth were gritted together.

  “One of these days, I’ll have to go to that school of yours and make a complaint,” she huffed. “As much as I want you to be able to stand up for yourself, I don’t think it has to get to that point. I don’t remember being bullied when I was in the third grade.”

  What with the talking and the fact that Madison kept taking bites out of her cone or stopping to tie her laces or pet a nearby dog, it took them a little over thirty minutes to get to their house. It wasn’t too large or too small, except when you considered the fact that there were only two people living in it. Elena had bought the house before she lost her job as a marketer, so when the divorce papers came, she still had somewhere to live with her daughter, even if she couldn’t put food on the table as often as before. More than once, she’d been tempted to sell the house and rent an apartment for herself and Madison, but her friends advised her against it. Whenever she looked around at the walls, she was grateful she’d made the right decision.

  It was already getting late, Elena observed. She needed to get back to the bar as quickly as possible. After hastily making dinner for Madison, she called the babysitter, grabbed her guitar, and prepared to leave.

  The doorbell rang just as she pulled the door open. A tall girl wearing a cheerleader outfit and a varsity jacket two sizes too large, her brown hair in pigtails, beamed at her.

  “Good evening, Miss Matthews,” she said brightly. “I came as quickly as I could.”

  “Thanks, Kelsie,” Elena replied, stepping out onto the front porch. She fished into her purse and whipped out a wad of notes. “Here’s ten dollars. Make sure Madison eats all her greens and does her homework before you let her watch any TV. And don’t let any of your boyfriends into my house,” she added, shooting a stern gaze in the girl’s direction.

  Kelsie’s cheeks
flushed. With a small nod, she took the money and darted into the house, closing the door quickly behind her.

  Maybe I should’ve let Giselle drive me, Elena thought as she headed onto the sidewalk and down the street. It would definitely have saved her a lot of time.

  She got to The Sparkling Spout in less time than she’d expected. Sure enough, customers had already begun trooping into the bar in fives and tens. Elena barely managed to squeeze past a couple of them and get behind the counter. Setting her guitar down, she quickly tied her apron and began attending to the customers.

  It wasn’t long before Giselle and Martha came over. Giselle dropped an empty tray onto the counter and reached for drinks to place on it. Martha stared at Elena with a grateful smile on her face.

  “Gracias a Dios!” she exclaimed, letting out a sigh. “We were worried you’d gone missing or something. I don’t know if you’ll be able to play the guitar tonight, by the way. There’s a lot of people in here tonight.”

  “There’s got to be a way,” Elena said with a shrug. Then, all of a sudden, an idea popped into her head. “I know!”

  ***

  It made perfect sense, when she thought about it. Hopefully, most of the customers would be too riveted on her performance to yell for more drinks. Giselle and Martha would be able to serve them at their own pace. All she had to do was sing and strum the guitar. Piece of cake, right?

  Only it wasn’t as easy as it sounded. There was still a chance that few to zero customers would even pay attention to her. For all she knew, they might just ignore her and clamor for their drinks. Giselle and Martha would have to overwork themselves and many customers would likely leave the bar in dissatisfaction.

  But she would never know the outcome if she didn’t try first.

  Without much thought, Elena grabbed her guitar and left her place behind the counter, marching towards a spot in the center of the bar, where a microphone and a stool had already been set in place. Almost nobody paid attention to her as she took her seat, hefting the guitar onto her lap. She tapped the microphone, causing several heads to swivel in her direction.

  This had better work, Elena, she told herself, taking a deep breath and letting it out in a soft swoosh. She leaned closer to the microphone, trying to form words in her head.

  “Um, some of you already know who I am, but I’m pretty sure new people come in here every day, so for the sake of those that don’t know me, I’d like to introduce myself. My name is Elena Matthews and I’m here to perform a song…”

  She trailed off, her eyes locked on a familiar face in the crowd. Surely she was dreaming!

  It was the guy who’d almost run her over earlier today. The hot Chinese dude in the suit. Except he wasn’t wearing a suit now. He wore a black muscle shirt over white shorts, a necklace with a silver pendant hanging from his neck. The man sat at a table not too far away from where she sat, staring intently at her. When their eyes met, he flashed her a smile. Feeling a shiver race through her, Elena looked away and cleared her throat.

  “This song is titled ‘True Love’. I wrote it while, um, sitting at home and…well, basically just strumming my guitar and staring into space.” She gave a nervous laugh.

  No one else laughed. Feeling her cheeks burn, Elena played a few notes on her guitar. Then she began to sing.

  “Everything comes at a price,

  And not just at Wal-Mart,

  Sometimes everyone has to

  Pay with their heart,

  I still remember how you walked in,

  Oh, you had my heart,

  And when you took your love away,

  You ripped me all apart!”

  She launched into the chorus, singing about a man walking out when his lover needed him the most. Maybe Martha and Giselle might know what the song was really about, but no one else in the bar could possibly know. Elena hadn’t been entirely truthful about the origins of her song. It was a song about her marriage to Darrel, how he’d left her when times were getting tough. As she sang, she felt tears springing to her eyes. They stung, but she held them back.

  “Run, you coward! Take all your love,

  ’cause I don’t need it anymore,

  I hurt inside, but now I’m healed,

  True love ain’t real, as you’ve revealed…”

  Her voice cracked as she brought the song to a slow end, overwhelmed with sadness and regret. She strummed the last few notes on her guitar and stared around, remembering with a bit of surprise that there were customers staring in her direction. For a fleeting moment, the entire bar was plunged into deafening silence. Then everyone began to clap. A few people whistled in appreciation.

  Elena could hear people clamoring for an encore, but the only person who caught her eye was the Chinese man. He wasn’t clapping, just grinning at her. But, somehow, that filled her with warmth and pride.

  Her audience wanted an encore, and she wasted no time giving them just that. By the time she was done singing the third time, she was nearly hoarse. Several people patted her on the back or tried to shake her hand as she walked back to the counter, an idiotic grin plastered on her face. She set her guitar down beneath the bar and straightened.

  And then she froze. Because the Asian man was no longer seated at his table. He was perched on a stool, right in front of her, clutching an empty glass.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” she said after a moment, bringing herself to look him in the eye. “What brings you to this…place?”

  “I needed a drink,” he replied, drumming his fingers against the polished mahogany and a twinkle appeared in his eyes. “And I thought I’d drop by and pay a visit to the woman whose life I saved today.”

  She gave a roll of her eyes and began pouring him a glass. A sudden thought occurred to her and she froze with the bottle hovering above the cup. “Wait a minute. How did you know I worked here?”

  The man said nothing, just gestured at her apron, and suddenly it hit Elena. She’d been wearing the apron when she nearly got run over. He’d obviously seen the name printed across the front and put two and two together.

  Elena nearly smacked her forehead. Stupid, stupid.

  On the bright side, The Sparkling Spout had one more customer.

  “I’m Justin, by the way,” the man said suddenly, extending a hand. “Justin Chin.”

  She stared at it for a second, then continued filling his glass. She set the bottle down and shook his hand. “Elena Matthews.”

  “I know that already,” he told her with a slight chuckle, taking a sip from his glass. “Say, you did real great tonight. I never marked you out as such a great singer. I mean, sure, you’ve got a knack for falling in front of cars…”

  He trailed off with a smirk and Elena felt her cheeks grow hotter. She shot him a glare, but it obviously didn’t look convincing, because he burst into laughter at the sight of her.

  “I was just kidding,” Justin said, with a wave of his hand. “Anyway, I just never imagined anyone could be so gorgeous and such an amazing singer at the same time.”

  “Thanks,” Elena said, silently thanking her stars that she wasn’t Caucasian. By now, her cheeks would’ve been beetroot-red. As it were, they were already hot enough to give a rattlesnake a nasty burn. She picked up a rag and absent-mindedly wiped the counter.

  “Your husband must be pretty proud of you.”

  At this, she stopped wiping the counter. “Uh…I’m divorced.”

  Justin’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh?”

  “Yep. Been six years.” Elena wished he would talk about something else. The last thing she wanted was to talk about Darrel, especially after performing a song that had nearly made her break down.

  “That’s his loss,” Justin said, chuckling.

  “Yeah,” she said hastily. “So, um, what is it that you do? I’m pretty sure that fancy car of yours didn’t come by itself.”

  For a moment, he said nothing, just pressed his lips together. When he finally spoke, it was with a tone of reluctance.
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br />   “You’ve heard of Chin Enterprises, right?”

  Who hadn’t? It was only the largest clothing-and-textile-manufacturing corporation in the whole of New York. Elena nodded slowly.

  Justin stared down at his glass for a second, then took a larger sip. “Well…I happen to be the CEO.”

  He said this with the air of someone revealing a painful secret. Elena’s eyes widened to the size of saucers. “You’re the CEO?”

  “You want the rest of the bar to hear you?” He rolled his eyes at her. “Yes, I am. But it’s almost impossible for anyone to tell it’s me at first sight. You know what they say about Chinese guys?”

  Elena shook her head.

  “Racists say we all look alike,” he said with a laugh that lacked humor. “To the average Joe, I’m just the average, um…” he gesticulated vaguely, as though searching for the right word “– Chin. I’m just the average Chin to them.”

  Something about this man drew her to him, but Elena wasn’t sure what exactly. Was it his good looks? His charisma? The way he looked at her? She wasn’t sure when she began leaning closer to him, planting both elbows on the bar.

  Justin cleared his throat. “Now that it’s been confirmed that you’re single, which definitely isn’t what I’ve been thinking about all evening, how would you like to go on a date with me?”

  Elena couldn’t keep from laughing. “What? We’ve only just met.”

  “What’s the matter with that? Not a big fan of spontaneity?”

  Was it spontaneity when Darrel walked out on her?

  Yes.

  Elena liked this man. She was attracted to him, even though they’d just met. But going on a date with him this early? That looked like a yellow flag to her. Didn’t they need to get to know each other better first?

  “That can happen on the date,” he pointed out when she told him her thoughts.

  This man was good. And she really would love to go on this date with him. Only…

  “I’ll think about it,” she said, flashing him a smile. “Give me some time to consider.”

  Justin looked positively taken aback, but if he was hurt or disappointed, he didn’t show it. “Alright, then. I’ll be waiting for your response. Goodnight, beautiful.”