The Anthony Brothers - Accidental Love (#1), Contemporary Romance Series Read Free Page B

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    Mei-Ling smiled at Markus. “No not at all.”
    Jin looked at her with concern. “You sure you’re going to be alright?”
    “Of course,” she wrinkled her nose. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
    “Yeah, Jin,” Markus agreed, leaning on one of the front porch’s posts. “Why wouldn’t Mei be fine? Go talk with ma while we get to know our sister-in-law-to-be.”
    Jin rolled his eyes. “You’ll be fine with them. I know they look scary, but none of them bite.”
    Markus sneered and sent Mei-Ling a knowing look. “Unless, of course, you want us too.”
    Mei-Ling chuckled – her laughter such a sweet sound to Jin’s ears. She shook her head. “No, I think there’ll be no biting necessary.”
    Assured that his brothers were going to keep his fiancée company, Jin entered the house and found his mother in the kitchen, having a conversation with Zack and Jai.
    “Ma?” Jin started, “Markus said that you were looking for me?”
    Mavis smiled, but Zack spoke up before she could respond, directing his words toward their elderly mother. “We’ll leave you to talk with Jin here about our future sister-in-law.”
    Jai was still giving Jin a strange look. “I can’t believe you’re going to get married first. Who knew?”
    Jin rolled his eyes at his brothers and moved toward the kitchen counter, lifting himself up over one of the wooden stools across from Mavis. “What is it that you wanted to talk about, Ma?” he asked as Zack and Jai made their way out of the kitchen.
    “Mei-Ling is a very lovely young woman, Jin.”
    Jin smiled fondly at the thought of his fiancée. “She is, isn’t she?”
    “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, son,” Mavis began to say, setting a serious tone into their conversation. “But I just want to make sure that you are going to marry her out of your love for her and not because she somehow serves as your connection to your cultural background.”
    Jin was not expecting that. “That adds to the emotions, Ma, but I can tell you that my falling in love with her and asking her to marry me has nothing to do with that. I’ve never felt this way toward a woman before. It’s like she’s somehow a missing piece in my life’s puzzle. You know what it’s like, Ma. You loved dad.”
    A bittersweet look glazed over Mavis’ eyes at the mention of Simon. “I understand perfectly.”
    He waited a couple of seconds to see if she was going to tell him anything else, but Mavis kept silent, so he chose it as the perfect time to ask permission to go to Hong Kong. “I thought you should know, Ma. If it’s okay with you, Mei-Ling and I are going to Hong Kong next week to meet her family.”
    “Of course it’s okay with me. You don’t need my permission, but I appreciate that you value my say enough to ask.”
    Mavis’ reaction struck a cord with Jin as he noted Mei-Ling’s influence toward him. He never would’ve normally asked permission from his mother regarding something like this. He didn’t expect it to mean so much to his mother to be asked. All five of them were raised to not hesitate to show affection to both their parents, and Jin realized that it’s been so long since he’d shown Mavis any affection. Thus, he chose the opportunity to pull his mother in his embrace and whisper, “I love you, Ma. Thank you for everything.”
    He couldn’t have known that the gesture meant the world to Mavis.

Chapter Five

    It was an odd thing for Jin to finally experience his homeland. He looked like practically everyone else – a stark contrast to the kind of upbringing he had, growing up in a home that proved to be a melting pot of several different races. He was used to diversity, uniformity somewhat unsettled him.
    It didn’t help that the striking similarities in features did not actually translate to similarities in character. Jin realized that though everything about his outward appearance screamed Chinese, everything about him on the inside was decidedly American.