Chapter 213: Chapter 214: Just Give Me A Chance
"You don’t," Alexander said simply. "You can’t know that. Not from one conversation. Not from anything I say." He leaned forward slightly. "The only way you’ll know if I’ve genuinely changed is by spending time with me. Watching how I behave. Seeing if my actions match my words. And I understand if you’re not willing to take that risk. If you decide after tonight that you don’t want any further contact...I’ll respect that. I promise."
"How do I know your promise means anything?"
"You don’t. Not yet." Alexander’s voice was steady, accepting. "Trust is earned, not demanded. If you give me the chance, I’ll earn it. If you don’t....I’ll disappear from your life the way I’ve been absent for twenty-five years."
Damien’s hand found Aria’s under the table, squeezing gently. A reminder that he was there, that she wasn’t alone in this, that she could end the conversation at any moment if she wanted.
Aria looked at Alexander Wei....at his eyes that matched hers, at his hands that mirrored her own, at the expression on his face that was so carefully controlled she recognized it as the same mask she wore when she was trying not to show vulnerability.
"What do you want from me?" she asked. "If I decide to give you a chance....what exactly are you asking for?"
Alexander was quiet for a long moment, clearly choosing his words carefully. "I want to know you. To understand who you are as a person, not just observe you from a distance. I want to hear about your childhood, your education, your dreams. I want to know what makes you laugh and what keeps you up at night and how you became this remarkable woman." He paused. "But more than that....I want to be useful. I want to add something to your life rather than just take from it. Whatever that looks like. Advice, support, resources, just someone to talk to. Whatever you need that I can provide."
"I don’t need your money," Aria said immediately.
"I know. You’ve never needed my money....your mother made sure of that by raising you to be independent and brilliant and capable of taking care of yourself." A small smile crossed his face. "But money isn’t the only resource I have. I have connections across Asia and Europe. Business relationships, political relationships, access to information and opportunities that might be useful to you someday. Not to control your choices, but to expand them."
Aria absorbed this. It was a subtle distinction but an important one.....not using his resources to dictate her life, but offering them to give her more options within the life she’d chosen for herself.
"What about my mother?" Aria asked. "You hurt her. Badly enough that she ran in the middle of the night with a two-month-old baby and has been hiding for twenty-five years. What makes you think she’ll ever be comfortable with you being in my life?"
"I don’t expect her to be comfortable with it. I don’t expect her forgiveness." Alexander’s voice was heavy. "What I did to Mei....the way I made her feel trapped and controlled and suffocated....that’s unforgivable. I know that. If she never wants to see me again, never wants to speak to me again, I understand completely. But Aria...." He leaned forward. "....her feelings about me don’t have to determine your relationship with me. You’re not betraying her by choosing to know me. You’re not choosing between us. You’re making your own decision about who you want in your life."
"That’s easy to say," Aria said. "Harder to live with emotionally."
"I know. And if you do choose to have some kind of relationship with me, I’ll do everything I can to make it easier on both of you. I’ll respect whatever boundaries she sets. I’ll never ask you to keep secrets from her or to choose me over her. Your relationship with your mother is sacred....I would never try to interfere with that."
The waiter returned then to take their dinner orders. The interruption was jarring....they’d been so deep in this intense conversation that the idea of actually eating felt absurd. But Aria ordered something automatically, barely registering what she’d chosen.
When the waiter left again, the silence felt different. Heavier. Aria had a hundred more questions she wanted to ask but couldn’t quite figure out how to articulate them.
Damien, reading her hesitation, spoke. "Tell me about your marriages. My investigation found two ex-wives who speak well of you. What ended those relationships?"
Alexander didn’t seem surprised by the revelation that he’d been investigated. "The first marriage...to Lin...ended because I was still looking for you and Mei. She knew from the beginning that I had a daughter somewhere, that I was actively searching. But after eight years, she finally admitted that she couldn’t compete with that obsession. That I was emotionally unavailable because so much of my energy was focused on finding you rather than building a life with her."
He took a sip of wine before continuing.
"The second marriage...to Sophia...ended for different reasons. She wanted children. I didn’t. Not because I didn’t want more children generally, but because having another child felt like accepting that I’d never know you. Like I was replacing you rather than continuing to search. She deserved someone who could give her the family she wanted, so we divorced amicably."
"You spent your entire adult life looking for me," Aria said slowly. "Destroyed two marriages because you couldn’t let go of finding a daughter you knew for two months. That’s....." She struggled for the right word. "....that’s obsessive. That’s not healthy."
"You’re right. It’s absolutely obsessive. Probably not healthy at all." Alexander met her eyes directly. "But Aria, you’re my daughter. The only child I’ll ever have. Walking away and pretending you didn’t exist was never an option I could live with. So yes, I became obsessed with finding you. And if that makes me deeply flawed....I acknowledge that flaw."
Aria sat back in her chair, overwhelmed by the weight of being that important to someone she’d never known. Of being the central focus of twenty-five years of someone’s life without ever being aware of it.
"This is a lot," she said quietly.
"I know. And we don’t have to resolve everything tonight." Alexander’s voice was gentle. "This is just a first conversation. A beginning. We can take this as slowly as you need."
"What if I decide I don’t want any relationship with you? What if after tonight, I decide it’s too complicated or too risky or just not something I want?"
Alexander’s expression tightened with pain, but his voice remained steady. "Then I disappear. I stop the surveillance, stop the flowers, stop trying to reach out. I go back to my life and you go on with yours. And I’ll spend the rest of my life grateful that I at least got this one evening. This one chance to meet you and tell you that I’m proud of you and that I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for your life."
The sincerity in his voice was undeniable. Aria felt tears prick at her eyes and blinked them back forcefully.
Their food arrived, and they ate mostly in silence. Aria’s mind was racing, processing everything Alexander had said, trying to figure out how she felt beneath the overwhelming confusion of the moment.
She watched him as he ate....noticed the precise way he cut his food, the same way she did. Noticed he was left-handed, like her. Noticed a hundred small similarities that felt both comforting and deeply strange.
"Tell me about your work," Alexander said eventually, clearly trying to move the conversation to less emotionally fraught territory. "Mei mentioned you’d returned to medicine after working in corporate for a while. What made you decide to go back?"
