Her Asian Billionaire’s Perfect Match

Chapter 9

They flew to New York in his private jet to have dinner in Manhattan and Leonie was thrilled by the experience. It was a Saturday night and after dinner they had strolled hand in hand along the streets brilliantly lit with dazzling lights and then spent the night in a five star hotel.

He was big on impulse. He would tell her that he wanted them to have dinner and then she realized that he was taking her out of town to a fancy restaurant that she had only read about. They spent all the time together when they were not working and he had only been away once since the time he had gone to Japan and that had been to Switzerland to deliver a keynote address to a group of entrepreneurs there. He had asked her to come with him but she had declined telling him she had work to do. He had been gone for two days and she could not sleep on the bed without him. He had also suggested that she stay at his place but she had not felt comfortable being there without him.

She had finally spoken to his mother and she could hear the hope in her voice and the delight of him being with someone meaningful.

“I am so happy for both of you,” she had enthused. They had had dinner with her and Lucas a day before he had left for his trip. Leonie had felt uncomfortable at first but she had relaxed after a while and hoped that the woman would not mention marriage. He had not said anything to her on the subject and she felt on edge, wondering if he was going to do so and ruin what they had.

They were happy and they certainly did not need the pressure of a marriage license to be together, it was working for them and she hoped he was thinking that way as well.

She had told her mother about him. “Honey that’s wonderful!” she had exclaimed. “When am I going to get to meet him?”

“I don’t know yet Mom, we are just going into this thing and we are taking it slow.” She had told her.

“What does that mean honey?”

“It means that I don’t want you to get your hopes up about marriage or anything like that. I am not there and I won’t be.” Leonie said.

The silence on the other end of the line stretched for so long that Leonie started to get uncomfortable.

“He is all right with that?” she asked her quietly.

“I don’t know mom, he has not said anything to me.” She said in frustration. Why does everyone keep asking that?

“Have you told him where you stand honey?”

“No but I think he knows.”

“Oh my dear girl,” Leonora said with a deep sigh. “He is probably afraid to lose you if he brings it up and he is doing so to please you. I think you should tell him and hear what he has to say.”

“I don’t want to rock the boat.” Leonie said stiffly.

“I think the boat has already been rocked honey. Do you love him?”

“I have a strong feeling I do,” she said with a short laugh. “Whenever he is away I cannot seem to function properly.”

“My dear girl that is love and you need to treasure it.” Leonora said gently. “You are going to have to find a way to deal with the hang up you have about marriage and commitment my dear before that young man gets tired of waiting.”

“I don’t want to lose him mom but you know how I feel about the subject of marriage. I am in love with him, shouldn’t that be enough?” she asked plaintively.

“For some people that is not enough.”

Long after the conversation had ended she sat there thinking. It was Sunday afternoon and John was due to come home tonight and she could not wait to see him. He had told her he wanted to have just a quiet evening with her, either at her place or his, it did not matter.

She had cleaned her apartment from top to bottom and had changed her drapes and her sheets and had done the laundry, she had even gone to the supermarket to stock up on food items, with the intention of cooking him dinner.

The first time she had been to his place she had stood there staring around the sumptuous rooms in amazement. She had taken an art class in college and had seen paintings hanging on the walls by Renoir, Leonardo da Vinci, Picasso, Rembrandt and Monet and some famous Japanese arts. His suite consisted of four bedrooms three bathrooms, a sitting area, a huge kitchen and a front and back balcony. The grounds of the place were vast and led off to a wooded area that he had told her had a log cabin that he used sometimes when he wanted to get away from it all. There was also a stream that led towards the cabin and trees of all descriptions. “We will go to the cabin when we get back,” he had told her.

She still did not allow herself to think of what it meant to be dating a billionaire and she did not allow herself to think about it. She was not interested in his money and she absolutely refused to accept expensive gifts from him. She would go to the fancy restaurants and the opera where she had been to with him but that was as far as it went, she was not interested or even impressed by how much money he had. They had been photographed several times together and she had seen the caption: ‘Japanese billionaire John Masaki out on the town with lady friend Leonie Williams’ and it had not bothered her in the least.

 *****

Asami curled her feet beneath her on the chair and settled back contentedly and closed her eyes. She was at Lucas’ house and he was cooking her dinner, refusing her help in the kitchen and letting her know that he was perfectly capable of cooking dinner for the woman he loved. She had looked at him in shocked surprise.

They had been going out for the past four months now and it being October, their relationship had progressed quickly. He had not mentioned marriage to her but she knew he was being cautious and waiting for the right moment. She wanted to marry him because every day that passed she realized that she was in love with him and was very comfortable with him. He treated her with the utmost respect and honor and she loved him for it.

He never took anything from her and she had started sneaking stuff she had bought for the house inside when she came by; like the area rug that she had noticed had gone threadbare and the drapes at the living room windows that showed they had been there for decades. He never asked her for gifts and she took pleasure giving him little tokens of her appreciation.