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“Um, yeah. Did you know that your mom is a badass?”
“Yeah,” he says simply. His gaze rakes over me once more, slower this time. “Zh—Mulan. Damn it.”
“I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “I never meant to deceive you like that. Well, I guess technically I did, but I never meant to take things as far as we did. I didn’t know I was going to fall in love with you, it was only supposed to be about business.”
Shang gives me a strange look, so I continue talking. “I suppose maybe that makes it even worse, actually. Look, I wasn’t thinking straight, okay? Bad decisions were made. By me, yes. I guess I just thought—”
“Mulan,” Shang says, “wait.”
My mouth snaps shut.
“Back up a little. You fell in love? With me?”
I shrug, feeling my face reddening. “Sure, yeah, it’s not a big deal. I fall in love with a lot of things. Sunsets. Puppies. A really good pumpkin spice latte.”
Shang merely watches me with a slightly amused expression on his face.
I sigh. “Yes, Shang. I fell in love with you, okay? And I know what I did was highly irresponsible and ethically catastrophic and you never want to see me again, so maybe we can move on from the whole falling-in-love part? I need to tell you something about—”
“Why do you think I never want to see you again?” Shang says with genuine confusion.
I gesture. “Uh, because of the whole ‘I pretended to be Zhou’ thing?”
“Were you pretending when we cooked together? Or when we snuggled up on the couch and binge-watchedLove Is Blind? Or when we kissed?”
“No! Of course not. None of that was a lie. It was only the whole thing about my name, but everything else was real.”
Shang takes one step toward me. “Exactly. I know that. I was there with you the whole time, remember? I know that that was the real you.” Another step, and he’s suddenly so achingly close to me.
I want so badly to reach out and take his hand, but if he pulls away I don’t know how I would bear it.Please take my hand.He doesn’t. Instead, he reaches out and caresses my cheek.
“All I said was that I needed time,” Shang says gently. “When that whole thing happened, my mind was a mess. I couldn’t think straight. Hell, I went home and I went into the kitchen to cook and I just—I forgot what I was doing and I stood there for ages with my knife in one hand and an unpeeled parsnip in the other. I was not exactly functional. So yeah, I asked for some time, but Mulan, I never once thought that you and I were over. I’m sorry that I didn’t make that clear. I’m sorry I let you think that we were done.”
This can’t be real. After everything I’ve done, all the lies I’ve said to him, he can’t be this kind, this loving. I lift my hand and pinch my cheek (the one he isn’t currently cupping). It hurts. “This is real,” I say in wonderment.
“Yes.”
“You’re not breaking up with me?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m in love with you, Hua Mulan.”
This moment is perfect, and I never want to forget it. The way my entire body sings, the words Shang has just said, the exact intonation of his voice. I want to sear every aspect of this moment into my brain, sew it into the fabric of my memory so I can take it out in the quiet of the night and replay it over and over again.
I stand on tiptoes as Shang dips his head and our mouths meet in a painfully sweet crush. I lose myself in the kiss, leaning completely into Shang, feeling his hands holding the small of my back, pushing me even deeper into his embrace. My hands are lost in his hair, and I can’t get enough of him, of his mouth on mine and his body against mine.
“Whew, girl, you are going to get lucky tonight,” a guest says.
We break apart, grinning guiltily, and I clear my throat and straighten my dress.
“You look ravishing in that,” Shang whispers in my ear.
His breath makes my skin tingle, and just like that, I’m biting down hard on my lower lip. I shake myself. Even though I want nothing more than to rush home with Shang and tumble into bed with him, my work here isn’t over.
“You’re getting that look on your face,” Shang muses.