Is this destiny?

Xiaohui is sitting on the ground with a plate in her hand, observing everything in silence. They all look friendly. Happy. Laughing and teasing each other, but there is no malice. Some appear to be young, preteens maybe, and they are joking and having fun with members of the army who are probably in their twenties and thirties.

Xiaohui is coming from an environment where hierarchy based on seniority is strictly respected, and she finds it fascinating that all these people (about twenty years apart in age) are interacting like equals.

"Is this seat taken?"

Daniel\'s voice startled her.

Xiaohui looked up at him and then in the direction he pointed at, and she was not sure where he sees a seat. It\'s just ground. She gestured that he could sit if he wants.

"Hi, I am Daniel."

Xiaohui watched him as he sat a few inches away from her. Close, but not a touching distance, unless they lean closer to each other. She observed him for a few seconds and guessed that they are about the same age. Based on his jeans and a t-shirt, Xiaohui concluded that he is not part of the military-like group, which is obeying Sarah\'s orders, but he is here so they are definitely connected somehow. She wondered what the connection is, but she was too shy to ask.

She remembered that he introduced himself as \'Daniel\', and she reminded herself that it\'s rude not to say her name back.

"Xiaohui…", her voice was barely audible.

"Xiaohui…", Daniel repeated. "Nice name. You are the first girl with that name that I\'ve met."

She opened her mouth to say something, but he was talking again…

"Did you try the pork?", Daniel noticed that she has meat on her plate, but no pork. "It\'s the best. Or you don\'t eat pork?"

"I eat pork. I finished it. It is tasty.", she responded stiffly.

"Do you want more? You can take it from here. I didn\'t touch it yet.", he offered his plate.

Xiaohui blinked and saw that he is serious and friendly and that he is urging her with his eyes to take it… so she did.

"You should not so readily accept food from someone else. What if it\'s poisoned, or drugged? I\'m kidding, it\'s fine. I would never drug you... Soon the chicken wings will be done. I will get for the both of us. The only thing better than the pork are chicken wings if you don\'t mind getting your fingers messy … Waah! You are eating with chopsticks! And you are incredibly good. Do you mind teaching me? … Did you try the grilled pineapples? They are awesome …", Daniel blabbered about the food and asked questions without giving her a chance to answer, and she didn\'t mind the company. The pork from his plate was tasty and she thought that he is funny and for some inexplicable reason, she didn\'t feel as lonely as before.

~ Los Angeles ~

9:34 PM

Jeff is in his penthouse on the 43rd floor, slumped on the sofa in the living room.

After leaving the office, he went home, to the Mediterranean villa, but he realized that the place is uncomfortably empty without JoAnna there, so he decided to come to the penthouse where he lived for several years.

This is the place where he brought JoAnna when she accepted his feelings and they live here until they moved to the Mediterranean villa.

Jeff does not know what to do. He wants to jump and scream and probably punch something or someone, yet at the same time, he is totally out of energy. It\'s an excruciating feeling and it is getting worse by the minute.

Jeff is confident that he is losing his mind because ghosts of JoAnna are all around him and he sees her passing by him so vividly that he can feel the air as it stirs behind her and he can smell her perfume. Like she is here.

Her cell phone is on the table in front of him, and he startles every time that screen lights up when he calls her, forgetting that she left and that her phone is not with her... and that the screen lit up because he made the call.

Unsure what to do, he called Aiden and Sarah and Sophia and Penny and Emma and everyone else he could think of, but they either don\'t know where JoAnna is or are not picking up his calls. Well, it is late already, and they probably have their phones on silent mode while calling it a night.

Eventually, Jeff called Steve…

"Did Bridgette get in touch with Anna?"

Steve exhaled before answering weakly: "I\'m not sure."

"Can you ask her?"

"She is not answering my calls.", Steve admitted.

It took Jeff a few seconds to realize: "Oh… she is not with you?"

"No, when I came home I saw her just enough to hear that she will stay the night. But she didn\'t tell me where she is going."

There was an awkward silence where Jeff and Steve breathed into their phones.

"Do you want to come here?", Jeff suggested after some time.

"To your house?" Steve guessed that Jeff is in the Mediterranean villa.

"I am in the apartment."

Steve understood that Jeff is in the same building, one floor above him. Well, it\'s not like he has any other plans... "OK. I will be there in a minute."

…

Steve got inside Jeff\'s apartment saw that Jeff went to the living room and slumped on the sofa as soon as he opened the door for Steve.

Steve went to the bar and got a bottle of whiskey and two glasses.

"You look like shit.", Steve said while giving the glass to Jeff.

Jeff nodded in agreement and downed the glass.

"I\'m sure that Anna will get over the Vera incident and everything will be back to normal.", Steve tried to cheer up Jeff.

Jeff shook his head in disagreement. "This is much more than Vera."

Jeff stood up and walked to the large windows which are providing an amazing view of the Los Angeles skyscrapers and the busy Interstate 110 below. But Jeff was not in the mood to enjoy it.

"When Anna came here for the first time, we looked at this view and I told her that I can give her anything. I said that I can give her the world. She responded that she has no such wishes. I didn\'t get it. I wanted to give her the world, but the only thing I did was to suck her into mine."

Jeff turned to Steve and looked at him with a complex expression which showed how difficult it is for Jeff to continue talking. "I am aware that she moved to Los Angeles because of me. She spent numerous days looking for villas and even ended up kidnapped because I wanted us to move to a house. She took over the resort and the LA Medical Center because I pushed them into her hands without asking her if she wants them. She is pregnant because I insisted on us having kids. And I don\'t need to say whose idea was for her to work in the White corp. HQ. On a few rare occasions when she objected, I dismissed her and continued pushing my agenda until she finally gave in."

"She loves you." Steve stated the fact.

Jeff smiled bitterly. "I know. And I took advantage of it."

Jeff took a deep breath and continued: "For more than a year Anna is going through a daily routine which I pushed on her. Anna is constantly fighting my battles with my business competitors, my family members, paparazzi, devious women… there is not a moment of peace. Without considering her feelings, I turned her into something she is not, and it backfired. All this would be avoided if I listened, but I didn\'t."

Steve observed Jeff intently and he never saw him this dispirited. "You sound like you gave up."

"For the first time in my life, I don\'t know what to do. I mean… no matter what I do, the last year of me being a selfish prick will not change. I don\'t see a way to fix this and it\'s killing me."

"Admitting that there is a problem is the first step.", Steve said while refilling Jeff\'s glass. "And sometimes, it\'s not about fixing the wrongs, but it\'s about calling them out, regretting, and making sure it does not happen again…"

---

If you are not reading this at \'W e b n o v e l .. c o m\', then the content you\'re reading is stolen! Please support the author by reading this novel from the original source.