His Convenient New York Bride

How about Leslie Wang, his college sweetheart?

Leslie was a nice enough girl. They’d broken up on friendly terms, after which she’d left New York.

So, what, Jin was going to abruptly call her out of the blue and ask her to be his phony wife? Even if he did, what would she gain from the deal? Was she a person who needed money? What if she was unattached and wanted children? Would Jin be willing to give that to someone in return for LilyZ?

Of course not, the voice in his head shouted with certainty. The ruse was to stay married for a year after which time Leslie, or whomever, would carry on with the rest of their lives. He couldn’t father a child and then not be part of his or her life.

Pondering how he would even get in touch with Leslie, he grabbed his laptop.

He’d search for her on social media.

With Wang being a fairly common surname, he located an unruly amount of possibilities. Fortunately most people had a profile photo so that he could eliminate the majority of them. When he found her photo, Jin knew he wouldn’t be reuniting with Leslie Wang, who also used the name Leslie Franklin. No, she clearly had her hands full in the photo, surrounded by three young kids who resembled her. Behind them stood a proud-looking man, his thick arms encircling his brood with a hug.

All Jin could do was laugh out loud, the sound ricocheting around his empty studio. Whatever would have made him think someone from his past was available and waiting for his call?

Mimi’s drawings next to the will caught his eye again and that crazy inkling, and it was definitely crazy, picked at him.

He scanned a panorama of the studio, all the machinery dormant and only the night-lights illuminating the cavernous space. The tall windows up front facing out to the Manhattan night. This company meant the world to him.

Desperate times called for desperate measures, didn’t they? Aaron had said those exact words himself on the basketball court the other day.

Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to talk it through.

He called Aaron’s cell phone.

“What are you doing?”

“Tripping over Mimi’s stuff that’s all over my apartment.”

Mutually beneficial agreement?

“Can I buy you a beer?”

“You bet.”

“The place on that corner.”

“Fifteen minutes.”

Jin reached for one of his favorite possessions—one of his grandfather’s thimbles. While Jin had kept many of Shun’s tools, this was the most special to him. Made of heavy bone china, it had an intricately painted scene on it. A Chinese Junk boat sailed in blue ocean waves at sunset. The sky above was purple then red then orange. As a young boy Jin had thought it was nothing short of a miracle that someone could have done a painting on an object so small.

That thimble was a sort of talisman for Jin. Shun did not travel to the United States on a boat. He’d arrived on a plane to a New York airport. But the thimble’s depiction of a lone vessel under the sunset always filled Jin with respect for perseverance and risk.

He placed it back in the caddy on his desk that held loose items—a button here, a spool of thread there. After he collected his phone and wallet to go meet Aaron, Jin changed his mind and grabbed the thimble again, slipping it into his pocket.

At the crowded bar, the two friends stood close in order to hear each other. They each nursed a long-necked bottle of beer. Aaron looked Jin in the eye after he’d laid out his plan. “So you’re asking me a question?”

“I suppose I am.” He’d never go forward if Aaron objected.

“How old school of you.”

“With your father long gone.”

“Have you actually talked to my sister about this?”

“I wanted to discuss it with you first.”

Aaron snickered. “It would solve my housing problem. Although there must be a simpler way.”

“Consider that a bonus.”

“You’re sure this would be a good business move for her?”

“I’d be giving her an opportunity she could never get elsewhere at this point in her career.”

“We go back a long way,” Aaron said, tapping his bottle on the bar. “But I’ve got to say it out loud. I think she might be in…”

“She might be in what?” Jin tried to coax him into finishing.

“Are you sure you and she could pull this off without anything…you know…physical happening between you?”

A fair question. One Jin was ninety-nine percent sure he had the answer to. He was only human. Mimi was very beautiful. And they’d be saying good-night to each other under the same roof, night after night.

With everything that was at stake, though, Jin would never do anything that would risk harming her. “I could only do this with someone I trusted.”

“Right?”

“It would be all business. Wouldn’t change anything between us.”

“I’m not sure it’s that easy. But talk to her about it. I’ll support you both either way.” Jin tipped his bottle toward Aaron’s and they clinked. Although Aaron finished the toast with, “You might be my best friend. But she’s my blood. You do know that if you hurt her I would have to tear off every limb of your body piece by piece?”

Jin chuckled. “Understood.”

When they got to Aaron’s apartment, Mimi was in pajamas, hand stitching a pair of pants. She looked sweet and pretty in her baby-pink T-shirt and matching leggings. Aaron excused himself to take a shower.

“Mimi.” Jin inhaled deeply to muster up his courage as he moved toward her. He pointed to her sewing. “Would you mind putting that down for a second?”

She placed it beside her on the sofa and gave him her full attention. “What’s wrong, Jin?”

Even though she didn’t find it with Gunnar, he knew Mimi believed in love—she’d grown up surrounded by it—but what Jin was offering was something quite different.

Just talk to her about it, he coached himself. She can say no if she wants to. Do it. Now.

He dropped to one knee in front of her. Then reached in his pocket for his grandfather’s thimble. Picking up her hand, he placed the thimble on the top of her ring finger.

She shot him a baffled look.

“Mimi, would you marry me?”

“Would I what?” Mimi’s heart thundered against her chest. Jin was in front of her on bent knee, having just asked her to marry him!

Was this actually happening? She may have dreamed of this happening before, albeit in softer focus. But she definitely wasn’t asleep now. If it was a dream she’d be dressed better.

“You know I’ve been trying to figure out how to satisfy the condition of the will,” Jin began, still on one knee in front of her with a wrenching look of vulnerability on his strong face that was so unlike his usual sureness. “Which led me to think about motives for why people get married. That it isn’t always for love. How nobody but me would know if I got married to someone for a different reason.”

Mimi deflated.

This wasn’t the moment she’d been holding out hope for all these years. Just the opposite. He was making it clear that he wasn’t in love with her. Stating up front what she already knew to be true.

Which made perfect sense. Jin never had an inkling of what she held inside, so he wouldn’t know to be sensitive with his choice of words. It was his business that he was concerned about.

Rightly so.

“I see,” was all she could scratch out. Still, the hairs on her arms stood at attention.

She indulged a quick fantasy. Her Jin had finally come to claim her. To begin their life together, at last. Children. A home filled with joy. Like her parents had had. She’d show him the meaning of loyalty, and the wounds cut into him by his father and his ex-wife would heal. He’d learn to love again.

Reality check.

That wasn’t the proposal being offered.

“You know I’ll never marry again in earnest. So I got to wondering,” Jin continued as he rose up from one knee and gestured for Mimi to make room for him on the sofa.

Suddenly self-conscious about the skimpy jersey fabric of her pajamas she scooted across the cushions, as far as she could, as a matter of fact. She folded her arms across her chest in modesty. Jin had seen just about every inch of her body over the years, but not while he was proposing marriage.

“Wondering?”

The thimble was still fitted over the top of her finger as it pressed against her other arm.

“What if I married someone for practical purposes and then divorced a year later after I fulfilled the requirements of the will?”

“Uh-huh.” So that was his scheme. Disappointment rang through her.

“Then I thought about that from a realistic standpoint and realized it couldn’t be just anyone.”

Mimi’s breath sputtered at the acknowledgment that she wasn’t just anyone to him. There was a bit of satisfaction in that.

His eyes seemed to be pleading for her to connect the dots so that he didn’t have to lay it all out for her.

They might be friends but there was no way she was going to make this easy for him. Not after all she’d had to swallow for the past thirteen years. She’d hear out his proposition before issuing a resounding no. After all, she might as well stretch the moment out. It was the only time she’d ever hear those words coming out of his mouth.

What a thought. Fake married to Jin. To live as man and wife except for the love part.

A fate worse than death.

“I see.”

“We’re practically family already, Special Agent Mimi,” he said, referring to a silly taunt he and Aaron had used as teenagers when she would disclose to them school gossip they knew nothing of. “Would you consider this ultimate con to help me save LilyZ? If not for me, could you do it for Mamabai?”

She scrunched up her face at him. If he was trying to draw on the loyalty they had for each other, he was doing a pretty good job. It was just this morning that she and Aaron had been talking about finding a way to help Jin out of his predicament. But marriage! That was beyond a line she could cross in the name of duty or anything else.

“There must be another solution.”

An image passed across her brain. She was in an elaborate lace wedding gown with a long train, the type she wouldn’t wear in real life, walking down an aisle toward Jin in a tuxedo. She strode in rhythmic paces, each one taking her closer and closer to her beloved.

Wait. It wasn’t her in that mental picture. It was Helene. The woman Jin had actually married. In reality, on that fateful day Mimi was cast off to the side with two other women, the three of them in pewter-colored bridesmaids’ dresses. Later, when her brother, who had acted as best man, asked Mimi why she had dabbed streaming tears from her eyes during the ceremony, she’d told him it was because she was so happy for Jin.

It had been one of the hardest days of her life.

“I’ve considered it left, right and center, and I can’t come up with any other way,” Jin said, bringing her attention back to the here and now. “Hear me out. I’m trying to think logically about a way this could be a good step for you, too. You could come stay with me. You could have the master bedroom and bathroom all to yourself. I’ll take the guest room.”

The master suite. Where he slept. Again he was making crystal-clear that his proposal had nothing romantic attached to it. He wanted to be sure she received that message loud and clear. Separate bedrooms.

“You’ve already offered to let me stay with you,” she quipped, perturbed by this whole suggestion.

“Why haven’t you said yes?”

She uncrossed her arms and twisted the thimble on her finger, studying its painted details. Unable to answer Jin’s question.

To tell him anything would be to tell him everything. Which she never had and never would. She’d decided years ago to settle for the friendship, the concern, the trust and the fun.

It had never been easy but it had always been worth it.

“We could make it quite simple,” he insisted. For him maybe. “No one would know that we were living apart under one roof.”

“I’d like to help but…”

“Please—” he glanced at the thimble then back to her eyes “—let me finish. As I said, I know this is a huge thing to ask of someone. I’d want it to be worth your while. What if we got married and I named you as LilyZ’s new designer?”

“What?” Lead designer for his prestigious label? Otherwise known as an ultimate career goal? Her eyes bugged at the suggestion.

“You could do it. I know you have the talent. I’ll teach you everything else you need to know.”

Like thousands of others who go through design school, Mimi’s goal was to have her own fashions manufactured, sold and actually worn. It was the carrot every young designer was chasing. Not to merely assist a company with their ideas, but instead to be the one creating the vision. Only a few made it that far. Others adjusted their expectations into other occupations in the industry. Some left it altogether.

Be careful what you ask for, the saying went. Because you just might get it.

Life had a sense of humor, though. Offering Mimi what she’d always wanted.

In more ways than one.

Except the most important.

“Look, if I could, I would hire you as my designer with no strings attached. But the industry would crucify me for appointing an apprentice as my lead. And I’ve got employees with far more experience than you. They would feel betrayed and overlooked. I could never do that to them.”

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