212 Nothing to hide

Enveloping her in his arms, he held her tightly against his chest. Only after inhaling the oh! so familiar scent of hers, did he finally believe that she was real. His mind was at peace after a long time.

Jia Li could feel Wei's galloping heartbeat and that was making her feel even worse. Did the guy not hold a single shred of grudge against her for walking out on him so unceremoniously? Why did he have to be such a nice man? She lowered her defences and sighed in surrender. Her arms came around his back to return the warmth which he was providing her.

"I have missed you… terribly," she surprised herself by uttering those words.

But it was true. She had missed him, his wise council, his calm presence, his friendship!

Her unexpected admission reverberated through his entire body before reaching his heart and settling there. He broke the embrace to look down at her.

"Let's go grab some coffee. Then you can tell me all about how much you missed me," he said with an endearing smile.

She nodded her head. Wei kept his arm wrapped around her shoulder, lest she disappeared again.

Suddenly, it struck her, "what are you doing here?"

Wei's expression turned solemn and he explained about his father's rare heart disease and the fact that they had been here for his operation for the past couple of weeks.

"Oh, I can't begin to imagine how stressful would it have been for you to face this all by yourself. I hope he is better now. Has your mother managed to cope with it? It must have been a traumatic period for her as well," she said in concern.

He smiled at the same old Jia Li, always worrying about others.

"Dad managed to keep himself strong yet stoic through the entire period. That helped me handlemy emotions better, I guess. My mother has… err, managed to tackle the situation as ably as she does other things. Now that the doctor has declared the operation a success, I can breathe a sigh of relief," he told her with a shrug.

She gave him a smile of reassurance, "I am sure that he will recover fully real soon."

They had reached the bistro which Jia Li often visited for her coffee fix. After placing their orders, they went and sat on the high chairs placed against the windows. Both their gazes were at the passers-by on the road but their thoughts were inwardly focussed.

"So how have you been? How did you land up in London? What are you doing here?" his curiosity got the better of him and the questions spilled out, one after the other.

She had known that this was coming and had already braced herself for telling him the facts. There was nothing to hide anyways…

By the time she finished narrating her journey of the past few months, their coffee mugs had lost the heat. She had deliberately kept the tone matter of factly and skipped the emotional upheaval behind her leaving the country and surviving the new one.

"So, is this what you want to continue doing? Are you not going to come back home?" he asked her, at the end of it.

Jia Li had no concrete answer to it and spoke with a tinge of apology, "I am really liking my work here. It is a new environment and a challenging one. I want to give my best to it. I haven't planned anything beyond it yet."

"Hmm… I see. So this means that instead of doing weekly trips to Moganshan, I shall have to geta long term visa to London now," he spoke with a sigh.

She looked at him in surprise. He couldn't be serious.

"Wei, I… that is, I think you should…" she couldn't complete her sentence.

He had placed a long finger on her lips. Looking dapper in a casual chequered shirt and pair of faded denims, with feet encased in a pair of loafers, he was any girl's dream come true, both physically and emotionally. She didn't want him to waste his energy and love on her any more. No matter how insufficient that farewell letter had been, she had meant every single word of it. She genuinely believed that he deserved someone better, someone whole.

"I don't want to hear any nonsensical advice which you were about to offer. If I need some, I shall ask for it. Anyways, let's not discuss future. Till the time I am here, you have to make sure that you spend your breakfast, lunch and dinner with me. Oh, which reminds me, feed in your new mobile number so that I can reach you to plan those meals," he extended his cellphone towards her.

With a sheepish grin, she fed in her number there.