Lemon Truffles - Love Instantly (10 page)

Yup, Jayden had a dad who cared about him, but that had still been gone most of his life. Also, Jayden was trapped in a multicultural pluralism, trying to find his way in the world and figure out his own identity. Cheng could certainly relate to those issues. He just hoped he could help his son from this moment forward and throughout the rest of his life with whatever challenges lay on the road ahead for Jayden.

Finally, after they’d drawn pictures too, Jayden was ready for a snack and asked if Cheng wanted to go downstairs and watch TV. Cheng agreed and they started for the door. He admired his son’s endless energy as well as his natural charisma and how articulate he was. He was giving Jayden a piggyback ride once they were out in the hall outside of the bedrooms when his son called for his mother. Angela rejoined them almost instantly, smiling up at her baby before they all made their way down to the den.

Cheng helped Jayden down from his shoulders and their son went into the den to turn on his program, before Angela and Cheng detoured to the kitchen to prepare a snack. “Thank you for letting me see and get to know Jayden. Our son’s a great kid,” he told her as she was spreading natural peanut butter on some whole grain bread and he was cutting up pieces of organic bananas to go on their banana roll ups. Angela nodded.

“
I would’ve come sooner, but I think everyone needed time to get used to the idea.” Angela nodded again. She was still very quiet and definitely seemed distracted. “I want to tell him that I’m his father. When do you think would be a good time for that?”

“
Maybe when we’re getting him ready for bed tonight we can tell him together then,” she said quietly, without missing a beat. It was as if she’d been waiting for that question, had been expecting it and was thus prepared to answer it. Cheng simply nodded himself this time, not really sure what else to say.

~

Angela mostly tuned out the previously recorded DVR show as always, but what she did pay attention to was the fact that she was spending quality family time with her son. Jayden positioned himself in the middle of the comfy L-shaped sectional sofa and gestured for his parents to sit on either side of him, which of course they acquiesced and did. Jayden seemed to be perfectly content as he ate his snack and drank his low fat organic milk. Angela wondered what it would be like if things were always like this.

Soon the show went off and Jayden knew it was bed time. “Jayden, we’re both going to help get you ready for bed tonight. Do you think that would be alright?” Angela asked. Jayden wagged his head up and down vigorously, smiling.

Cheng scooped up and carried their boy up the stairs and Angela again couldn’t help but think she wished he was always around. Had she ever felt like this with Brian? She couldn’t remember a time when a truly comfortable, family vibe existed with her fiancé.

Cheng helped Jayden brush his teeth while Angela prepared his bath. Their son then picked out his bath toys, used the toilet and stripped down before he got into the tub. Kids were so uninhibited she mused as Cheng washed their son’s hair. Angela finished bathing him.

Cheng rinsed and dried Jayden. Then Angela put on his lotion and pajamas before she and Cheng took turns reading the book Jayden picked out for his bedtime story. Tonight’s reading selection was one of their son’s favorites –
Bear Hugs
.

Angela wondered if kids simply knew some things intuitively. Then again, their son had probably inherited his father’s uncanny ability to be in tune with people around him. Jayden seemed so naturally comfortable with Cheng; it was like he already knew the man was his biological father.

Even the book Jayden had picked out was about a baby bear spending time with both of his parents. After they’d read through the entire book, twice, Cheng closed it and cleared his throat to get Angela’s attention. She looked over at him and nodded. Cheng looked back at their son who was sitting up in his bed adorned in his Elmo jammies and covered in his Spiderman bedding.

“
Um Jayden, there’s something that your mommy and I want to talk to you about. Um, you see,” Cheng began, sounding way more nervous and unsure than Angela had ever observed before. She put her hand on his shoulder, in a way she hoped was encouraging. He took a deep breath then just blurted out, “Jayden, I’m your father.”

Jayden looked between the two of them for a minute, his eyes darting wildly from one face to the other. Angela nodded and smiled, letting him know it was true and that everything was alright. At the same time she was very worried about how her son would react to all of this. Then Jayden hopped up suddenly and pounced on Cheng. “Daddy!”

Cheng seemed to recover from his initial shock and hugged Jayden, cradling him close to his chest. Angela felt overwhelmed, but happy and before she knew it, she joined in the hug. She threw her arms around Cheng and Jayden, but Cheng readjusted and held Jayden tight with one arm while he gathered Angela against him with his other arm. She didn’t even care that they were having a sappy group hug; this was a moment she realized now that she’d been waiting a long time to make sure her son had.

~

The three of them stayed locked in that embrace for a long time. So long in fact that Cheng now noticed a change in Jayden’s breathing pattern. Reluctantly, he let go of Angela and carried his peacefully sleeping son over to his bed. Cheng put his little boy down and covered him up.

Angela flipped the light switch, leaving the room in near darkness, except for the illumination coming from a small night light. Then she walked over to the door and Cheng followed her out before the two of them made their way back down the stairs. “Could I interest you in a glass a wine?” she asked as they got back down to the first floor landing.

Cheng nodded, and then proceeded to follow her into the kitchen. He uncorked the bottle she indicated as she rinsed and dried two wine glasses. They both remained silent even as he poured a glass for her and handed it to her before doing the same for himself. They went into the den and he sat on the sectional while she went to her computer.

A few seconds later, he heard a slow song begin to play, but wasn’t really paying attention to it until she came over and sat down next to him then started to slowly sip her wine along with him. When he realized it was Alicia Keys’ “Unthinkable – I’m Ready,” he gulped his next sip of wine. Wide-eyed he looked over at her, wondering if he was reading too much into this or if she was saying what he thought she was saying.

Before he could ask, Angela spoke. “For the last month, I’ve had a lot of time to do some soul searching as well as evaluate every angle I could possibly think of for the pros and cons of being with you or not. I’ve finally reached a verdict,” she said taking another sip of her wine, then pausing. This time Cheng finally noticed. Angela’s engagement ring was conspicuously missing from her left hand.

“
I think I knew last month, but I wasn’t ready to go there yet. Then I convinced myself that Jayden was really the deciding factor. If he was okay with all this, I could finally give myself permission to make peace with the past so I could clear the way for our future.”

Cheng put his glass down on the coffee table in front of him. “So straight up
tian shi
, what are you saying? I want to be clear, so we don’t have any more misunderstandings. So that we never have any misunderstandings between the two of us ever again.”

“
I’m saying Cheng that I’m finally ready to be with you. That I want you, me and Jayden to be a family with all of us finally together under one roof. If that’s still what you want too, that is,” he heard her lack of certainty in the last part of what she’d said. Especially about what he wanted for their future right now and he’d heard the out clause she was giving him in the unspoken writing between the lines.

Cheng searched Angela’s face, but knew she was being sincere. He could hardly believe this. At long last, the moment he’d been waiting for during all those long, lonely years of trials and tribulations was finally here. The only woman he’d ever been in love with finally wanted to be with him as well.

“
You have to know that more than anything else in the world, I still want all three of us to be a family too
tian shi
.” Then he took her wine glass and put it down on the table with his. He pulled her over to him then and kissed her until he alleviated that soul deep ache that had been permeating and reverberating through his entire being for such a long time while he’d been without her.

Angela hoped like hell that she had just made the right decision. It seemed a bit too late right now to be second guessing herself as Cheng carried her up the stairs. She knew though, deep in her heart that she had finally made the correct choice for her as well as Jayden, so she decided also not to let self-doubt ruin this moment.

After all, Cheng was actually interested in her. He valued her opinion and let her take lead at home and in their work, including on things that her previous boss would have never allowed, even though they should have been her areas of responsibility and were part of her core competencies. Under her leadership and with Cheng’s stamp of approval, Angela had increased efficiency in their workplace, got them more organized so they had better productivity in their office overall, and could better respond to their customer’s needs.

The bottom line was that she’d improved their net profits already by ten percent in only one month. Now with Cheng’s full collaboration both at work and at home, she felt like they’d be an unstoppable duo, taking the world by storm. Even more importantly, he paid attention to her and their son as actual people.

Cheng had a nickname for her and really listened when she spoke. He cared about what their son was interested in too. Cheng had even gotten their son a cool piece of jewelry to reflect his namesake and Chinese heritage. He was considerate and he wanted her. He even genuinely wanted their enthusiastic, highly animated son around.

In the month since she’d really forced herself to pay attention to Brian, he hadn’t exhibited any of those characteristics. She was fairly certain that the same way she was bored and disgusted by his topics of interest, he was equally as uninterested in hers. He didn’t have a nickname or pet name for her, was not remotely interested in anything pertaining to her son and she’d begun to notice that he had a serious wandering eye too. Whenever she was out with him, Brian seemed to be checking out almost every other woman around them, except her.

In the end, she wasn’t sure why either of them was marrying the other. So when she saw how favorably Jayden responded to his father again tonight, she knew for sure. She’d gone to her room to return her engagement ring to its box so that tomorrow morning she could give it back to Brian.

Now she could focus her full attention on Cheng. Something she wished she’d had the courage to do sooner. They were in the hallway now, just a few feet from the door to her master bedroom, so soon they’d be at the point of no return. Yet Angela didn’t feel panicked about this night, since it felt like they were finally right where they were supposed be.

Cheng crossed the threshold to her bedroom and quietly kicked the door closed behind him before he placed her down gently on her bed. He kissed her softly and ran his hands through her hair. She would have thought that with all the time they’d been apart he would have been spurred on to a quicker pace by urgency, but Cheng took his time as he began to undress himself.

Angela supposed they did have all the time in the world now. She watched as he slid off his black slacks, before he undid the buttons to his short sleeve black shirt. He took off his black ribbed tank top and pulled off his socks so that he now stood only in a pair of heather gray cotton boxer briefs. Cheng’s body could’ve been curved from granite it was so lean and chiseled.

Cheng had definitely been working out a lot more these days than he had in the days when they’d been in HK together. His sculpted to perfection form actually began to make Angela feel a bit apprehensive about getting nude with him again. She’d kept herself up, but having a baby a few years ago had taken a bit of a toll on her body.

Angela’s body was softer, rounder and not nearly as unflawed now as it had been a few years ago. Her stomach especially was not nearly the same now, as pregnancy had definitely not left it as unmarred as it had been previously. Damn stretch marks.

Cheng climbed onto the bed and made his way over to her. He was so confident, masculine, powerful, sexy, and simply gorgeous. He moved with a control, grace, purpose and self-assuredness that was simply hypnotic. When he looked at her like that, how could Angela not feel desired and turned on to the point of near insanity?

Although when he tugged to start taking off her sweatpants, her insecurities flared up again. Cheng stopped, clearly having sensed her hesitation. He kissed her face then trailed his fingers through her hair and alongside her face then down her neck. “What’s wrong
tian shi
?” his words were a seductive, coaxing whisper.

“
I… well… my body’s not exactly the same as it was before when we were together now that I’ve had Jayden. I just, don’t want you to be… disappointed.”

He smiled ruefully. “Trust me, that’s definitely not going to happen,” he murmured as he began to undress her again. The only light on in the room was the one coming faintly from her bathroom, so at least the room was only dimly lit.