"Sorry for the underhanded techniques, I had to see you and once I saw you I couldn't control myself." His breath ruffled through her hair as his lips moved by her ear.

Chang's mind was blank unable to process quite what he was saying. Sh.e.l.l-shocked all her senses tuned into the points of contact at her head, across her front and at her lower back. The feeling of the warmth spreading from his touch and breath, his scent enveloping her.

"I have been longing to see you for long, that I couldn't stop myself. I'm sorry that I couldn't be there for you when you have needed me, I will explain everything to you, if you want." Liang Jian Amal held her closer as he felt her starting to tremble.

"I'm so sorry I wasn't there when Lihua pa.s.sed, I should have been there, there's almost nothing I regret as much as that." Hearing that name after so long, Chang felt her heart constrict and her eyes p.r.i.c.k with bitter tears. She hit his chest weakly, silencing him for minute before she cut in with a broken voice.

"You're such an a.s.shole. Please.. just stop talking." Chang put her hands to her eyes, trying not to cry and ruin her makeup for the joyous day she had planned with Justin. "Just leave me alone it's been so long already, why did you have to bring it up? I've been trying to move on and forget."

"I'm sorry I'm not trying to cause you more pain, it was important, she was an important part of your life and I wasn't there for you when she pa.s.sed. How could you forget that, forget her?" He held her tightly, his hand moved down fron her head to her shoulder, squeezing her.

Chang sobbed into her hands unable to stop from breaking down." You're right you weren't there and it hurt so much. So please stop, why did you come, just to drag up old wounds?"

"No and I'm not even close to finished, I have so much I need to make up for to you. I wasn't there for you for so much."

"No you weren't, so why don't you leave me be now. I've been trying to heal, and move on with my life. I'm a different person I even go by another name, I've been starting over my life again completely different!"

"I know, but does that truly make you happy? To be someone other than who you are, who your parents raised you to be?"

"Happiness is just a state of mind, if you put your mind to it you can be it." Chang petulantly responded before removing her hands from her eyes and pus.h.i.+ng on him a little. He was moved back a little but still held onto her as he looked down at her tear-stained angered face.

"You're such a jerk! How come you never showed up after all that time? I waited for you for so long hoping you would show up every day so I could explain to you. I felt so helpless when I was forced to leave by your father, I didn't want to go. But when you didn't show up it cut me.

"For awhile I was worried you got hurt or even died since I didn't hear from you for so long. I used to go online everyday looking up stuff about your company and you to see if anything changed to signal if something happened to you.

"But you carried on with your business like normal, your world kept turning as it was, you've even done really well for yourself it seems.

"Ive moved on, I'm trying to find my new normal now." Chang brushed her tears from her eyes and pulled her head up to look him in the eye. She tried to keep the look in her face as calm as possible trying to keep her warring fluctuating emotions together.

"Do you know how hurt I was by that. Not just my mom dying, which was devastating enough on its own, it was the feeling of being abandoned. I don't want to be hurt anymore like that, I can't bear it."

Liang Jian Amal sucked air in harshly hearing that her words tearing at him like knives.

"I did not mean to hurt you, I was trying to do right for you and ended up doing you a terrible wrong. I was trying to make things safer on my end for you Chang, so that you would never have to live in fear again."

"Well I'm safe now, on my own, and I don't live in fear. You don't have to worry for me any longer."

"Are you truly safer though? I know what happened when you first came to live with him and I regret I was unable to help you with your family circ.u.mstances or stop those people from almost taking your life. Last year alone was proof of how far they would go."

"Wait, hold on how do you know about all that?" Chang looked at him with a suspicious gleam, ' has he been just watching and keeping tabs on me without ever trying to contact me?'

"Of course, I have been trying to reach you for a while, plus I was there that night. Do you nit remember, not that you need to remember such events."

'Huh, I thought I was under hallucinations at the time how much was real and wasn't?' she bit her lip looking away. 'Should I ask..?'

"I kind of remember, but only up to a point, it haunts me in bits and pieces even though I try not to think about that night, that's one of my darkest moments and part of why I changed my name. There was a scandal after that night that lasted for awhile. Some people published me in public in a lewd position, grand-père Jean-Jacques covered it up but the shame followed me for awhile.

"It's a big part of why I moved to Paris out of Lyons, changed my name, changed my look, and started working in a completely different field.

"I'm sorry for bringing it up, I hadn't realized quite how devastating it had been it had been for you after," he only knew bits and snippets of information about what had happened to her after that night.

"Mm it's fine, it was a while ago, almost no one knows about it anymore either." She shook her head her eyes still down cast pulled back from him.

'No, it's really not' he replied in his heart. After Jean-Jacques Dumont had forbidden him from seeing her the eve after she had come to stay with him, he had tried to find ways to see her but the old man had always been about two steps ahead. That was, until her birthday last year.