32
Jia had walked past the unassuming office space multiple times as it sat next to the gelato place she and Mimi often went
to downtown. There wasn’t any signage. Just a frosted-glass door. She had no idea that this was where Matthew Singleton had
been conducting business for months now.
She looked twice at the address before opening the door and entering.
“Hello. Can I help you?” said a younger woman sitting at the reception desk. The space was small with just the lobby and three
other doors. One led to a larger conference room, the others to individual offices. It was furnished in more modern office
pieces, unlike the wood and muted tones of the Bakerson’s Group offices Jia had experienced in the past.
Here the desks were made of glass and the chairs black leather, and vibrant modern art hung on the walls. There was nothing
that made it clear this was a real estate office. And honestly, Jia wondered if that was the only business being conducted
here.
She didn’t want to believe the worst of Matthew Singleton, or her parents, for that matter.
But she’d made all kinds of scenarios up in her head that ranged from fraud to kidnapping to mob-boss shit.
Okay, so she had an active imagination and had read a number of highly entertaining romance novels by the pool this summer.
“My name is Jia Chung. I’m here for a meeting with Matthew Singleton,” she answered.
“Yes, he’s expecting you. Let me take you to the conference room. And can I get you anything to drink? Sparkling water, Poppi,
iced vanilla latte?”
Those felt like very specific offerings to Jia, but she declined nonetheless. A part of her wanted to warn the young woman
that over-the-top acts of service didn’t always cut it in the corporate world. She was evidence of that. But all goodwill
left Jia’s mind the moment she walked into the room and saw her parents sitting at the conference table next to Matthew.
Jia did not have a contentious relationship with her parents. She loved them, actually. But she had determined that she would
do everything in her power to fight them on behalf of Mimi. Maybe she’d never really been able to stand up to them for herself
and her own needs and wants for her life, but she would do it for her grandmother.
She walked around the table and bent down to give her father a back hug and her mother a kiss on the cheek. Despite this awkward
and frustrating situation, as their only child she would not let them dismiss her.
What she did not do, however, was even acknowledge Matthew.
Petty, maybe. But Jia was pissed. She couldn’t believe she had gone out on a date and wasted flirting energy on this guy.
Nope, any and all pleasant thoughts had burned to dust the moment she realized what a snake he was.
Even before all romantic thoughts had been taken over by one Henry Shin.
It hurt to think of him now. She missed him. She was certain he’d want nothing to do with her. First because of the lawsuit.
Second because of Dennis’s accident. And that was clear because she hadn’t heard from him since she’d left the offices of
the Bakerson’s Group for the last time.
“You didn’t come with your grandmother?” Jia’s dad asked.
“No, she said she’d meet me here. She had something she needed to do beforehand,” Jia answered. She, too, thought it odd that
Mimi would want to come to the meeting separately. But she trusted her and knew she’d get there in time.
Just as she finished that thought, she heard the voices out at reception. Voices? More than just Mimi’s?
Jia turned around and being directed by the receptionist into the conference room was a woman she’d never seen before, Mimi
right behind her, followed by the most gorgeous person Jia had ever laid her eyes on, Henry.
“Mother, what are you doing bringing a bunch of strangers into our business?” Jia’s father asked.
“Seems you were the first to bring a stranger into family stuff, no?” Mimi answered, nodding her head in Matthew’s direction.
Point, Mimi.
“What are you doing here?” Jia whispered to Henry.
He lifted the side of his mouth into a small smile, gently touched her elbow as he passed, and went to introduce himself to
her parents.
Her parents!
“Hello, I’m Henry Shin.” He reached out his hand and shook her father’s. And then her mother’s. He offered his hand to Matthew as well. Henry was much more generous than Jia could ever be.
“What are you doing here, Shin?” Matthew asked.
“I’m serving pro hac vice for Hadley Bellinger.” Henry turned to the woman Jia didn’t recognize.
“Mimi,” Jia leaned over and whispered to her grandmother, who had taken the seat next to her, “who is Hadley Bellinger? And
what is Henry doing here? What the heck is pro hac vice?”
“Okay, so it’s like this. I needed Henry’s help, but he can’t practice law in California . . . yet. So he called a law school
friend, Hadley, and she agreed to take my case, and he gets to help her due to some California law that allows it. Isn’t it
great?” Mimi’s voice was filled with excitement.
Jia looked at Hadley Bellinger. She was in a perfectly tailored shift dress with an unbuttoned double-breasted blazer over
it. She was pretty. But moreover, she just had the air of a badass. Jia liked her for Mimi.
But she took one more look between Hadley and Henry. Stern, serious expressions, the both of them. No spark or chemistry that
she could detect. She felt better. Henry might not want Jia. But she could tell he didn’t want this Hadley person either.
Jia knew what it looked like when Henry Shin was attracted to someone. She’d seen it firsthand. It had taken her breath away.
Okay, nothing to be jealous about here. Now they could all get to work.
“Hi, Jia,” Hadley said. “Nice to meet you. You ready to kick some ass?” Oh yes, Jia liked her a lot.
“You know it,” Jia said.
She turned to Henry and gave him a nod. She trusted him. And she trusted his recommendation of his colleague Hadley to fight for Mimi. That was all that mattered right now.
“Okay, Mimi, do you want to explain what this is all about?” Jia’s mother asked, waving her hand over the table as if everyone
there wasn’t present because of her parents’ doing.
“You wanted to play hardball, so I brought in the big guns,” Mimi said. “Certainly as lawyers yourselves, you didn’t expect
me to make any decisions without legal counsel.”
“You want this to be between lawyers? This should simply be a conversation between family. Reasonable,” Jia’s dad added.
“You’re the ones who made this a fight,” Jia noted. “You brought in this—” she waved her hand in Matthew’s general direction
“—shark. A soulless man targeting the elderly residents of Sunset Hills—a community with good people who’ve worked their whole
lives to be able to retire and live their later years the way they choose—to try to take their homes away from them. And now,
as if all of that weren’t bad enough—” Jia’s voice cracked, and she took a breath before going on “—you’re joining him in
doing it to your own mother. My grandmother. You’re treating her like she doesn’t have a choice, and that’s unforgivable.
If you do this, I will never forgive you.”
“Jia, stop being so dramatic. It’s embarrassing,” her mother responded.
“I think what’s embarrassing is that you aren’t listening to what your daughter is trying to say to you.” Henry’s low, steady
voice had a tone of reprimand, and it silenced the room immediately. Jia didn’t know if anyone had ever spoken to her mother
that way.
Jia watched as her mother’s back straightened and she placed both hands on the table, rising to stand and leaning in to make herself heard. Jia held her breath. She couldn’t watch her mom unleash on Henry. She hadn’t prepared him for her lawyer mode.
But Henry seemed unfazed. In fact, his back also straightened. He placed his elbows on the table, tenting his hands in front
of his mouth. And he leaned in to meet her.
“Mimi is, at this point in her life, not entirely capable of making her own decisions,” her mother said. Jia grabbed Mimi’s
hand under the table and squeezed. Mimi squeezed back.
She huffed out loud but didn’t say a word. It was all so ridiculous.
“Mimi Chung is willing to undergo all physical and mental testing required to deem herself competent,” Henry said. “Furthermore . . .”
Oh shit, he pulled out a furthermore. Jia had only ever heard that word in courtroom dramas on TV. To be followed with the knockout blow.
She squeezed her legs together and waited. First because Henry was fucking hot like this, all scary and official and badass-lawyerlike.
And second because she knew he only played to win. And he knew all the rules of engagement. What bomb would he drop on them
next?
“Mimi Chung has also filed all the paperwork to appoint her granddaughter, Jia Chung, as the executor of her trust and has
given her the power of attorney for decisions for her life if she ever is incapable of making them on her own.”
“That’s ridiculous. Jia isn’t competent to oversee her own life, let alone her aging grandmother’s. She can’t even keep a
job.” Jia’s father said the words she always knew they believed. And he said them like accusations, not just disappointments,
in front of others.
Jia felt the wind knocked out of her, and she deflated in her chair. She lowered her head and wanted to crawl under the table.
“Don’t you ever speak to my granddaughter that way. I raised you better than that,” Mimi said to Jia’s dad.
“What were you thinking giving her power of attorney—”
“Why would you do something so drastic—”
“The paperwork has all been drawn up—”
“So does Jia have to sign off on the sale of the house—”
Everyone was talking at once. Jia’s mind swirled in the cacophony of voices, dizzy with all the finger-pointing (her parents),
the defending (Mimi and Henry . . . awww), and the legal jargon (Hadley), and some other gibberish (Matthew, the snake).
“Stop,” she said. The voices continued.
“Stop!” she screamed. Everyone shut their mouths immediately, all eyes turning to her. Jia was tempted to rise to her feet