My Hong Kong Billionaire

By Cristina Grenier

Iris Monroe fled the United States in a bid to leave her old life behind her. What she didn't count on was Hong Kong kicking her while she's already down. When she makes a life-altering run into traffic to save a child on impulse, she lands herself with much more than the job she was looking for. Sucked into the complicated family life of Cantonese billionaire Rowan Liu, she must decide if she can truly fix what can be broken and find a miracle in the rubble of tragedy. 

After losing his wife in a car crash, Rowan Liu shut himself off from the world. Only through his son's close brush with death does he meet the one woman who might be able to heal him - even if Rowan isn't quite sure he's ready to heel. Iris Monroe brings out the best in everyone she meets - and when she rescues William from his father's sorrow, Rowan can only wonder if he'll be left behind - or if Iris will give him the greatest gift he's ever received: A new lease on life. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Monster Media LLC
• Release date: Mar 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386376187

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My Hong Kong Billionaire

Cristina Grenier

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Prologue

She was late.

With a sigh, he glanced down at his watch for what must have been the fifth time in the past fifteen minutes. He was sitting, alone, at the table he’d reserved for them to celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary. He’d known she’d be late. For special occasions, his wife always took her time getting ready. That, and she could never really bring herself to leave their two year old son.

When Mei had finally gotten pregnant with William, she had all but floated around the house, walking on air. They tried for three years to conceive with little success, and for them, the most gratifying words they could hear from the doctor were: We’ve done it.

And they had.

William was An Mei’s world. She would do anything and everything for their son – including being late to a dinner that her husband had been planning for weeks in advance.

Checking his watch again, Rowan grimaced. It was close to nine o’clock and he was starving. He had a long day, and during certain points of it, the only thing that had gotten him through was the thought that he would soon see his beloved wife.

Sipping at the glass of wine he’d been nursing for the better part of an hour, Rowan bit the bullet and decided the call An Mei. The worst that could happen was her scolding him for being impatient and, at this point, he could handle that.

Reaching for his phone, he pressed the speed dial key that indicated his wife’s number and listened to the tone ringing in his ear. To his surprise, the phone kept on ringing before voicemail finally picked up – first in English and then in Cantonese.

"Hi, you’ve reached An Mei Liu. I can’t come to the phone right now, but if you’d please leave your name, number and a brief message, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Thank you!"

Rowan hung up. He didn’t see the need to leave a message when An Mei would just recognize his number anyway. She was probably busy with William, trying to bring herself to leave him.

Even so…for her to be so late for their dinner date and then neglect to answer her phone? It wasn’t like her.

Rowan glanced out the front window of the restaurant The traffic in Hong Kong wasn’t particularly bad, even though it was a Friday night. It was really too late for An Mei to have any difficulties getting to the restaurant if she drove herself, but if he knew her as well as he liked to think, he doubted she would have done such a thing. She would have asked the driver to drop her off before he left for the night.

But Rowan hadn’t heard from the driver either.

He raised his hand, and though the restaurant was crowded with patrons, the waitress made an immediate beeline towards him, pausing at the edge of his table.

Yes, Mr. Liu? How may I help you?

Yes, Amelia. He handed the young woman his phone, which had just signaled that he only had ten percent battery power left. Can you plug this into a charging station for me? And bring me the house phone?

Of course, Mr. Liu. Amelia did his bidding without question – one of the reasons Dumonde’s was still number one on his list of preferred restaurants in the downtown Hong Kong area. The dark-haired woman went to plug his phone in and returned in under five minutes to present him with the house phone.

Almost immediately, he dialed Edward Chu, his driver. The man had worked for him for almost as long as Rowan and An Mei had been married, and he had never failed to answer the phone that his employer remembered. Whether it was three in the afternoon or three in the morning, Edward always made himself available. He was one of the most reliable on their staff.

And he wasn’t picking up his cell.

If Rowan had been mildly worried before, that concern was cemented when he heard Edward’s voicemail message.

His frown deepening, he immediately stood, prepared to call the authorities. He wasn’t usually an alarmist, but his wife was almost two hours late for their anniversary dinner, and one of his most trusted employees wasn’t answering his phone. Before he could move a muscle, however, Amelia came running back in his direction, his buzzing cell phone outstretched. Mr. Liu, you’re receiving a call! It’s a city number. She was slightly breathless when she reached his side, and Rowan took the phone from her quickly.

His eyes widened as he took in the number scrolling over the screen. It was the Hong Kong District 12 Police Department. He recognized the information as he had worked with the department on numerous thefts from some of his warehouses only a few weeks prior.

He answered without hesitation.

This is Liu.

Rowan wasn’t sure who answered him, but the man’s voice was grave and taut. Whether or not he said his name was quickly rendered moot, as the information he divulged knocked every vestige of air from Rowan’s lungs.

He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t talk. For a brief moment, it was almost as if he couldn’t see. It took him almost a full minute to regain himself, but when he did, he found his heart was pounding and his palms were sweaty.

A car accident.

A goddamned accident.

Chapter 1: Broken

Five years later

I still think you’re out of your mind. At the judgement of her best friend and the woman who was supposed to be her moral compass, Iris Monroe merely purse her lips as she scanned over the classified list before her.

The back four pages of the Hong Kong daily newspaper were as daunting as they had been five minutes ago – and it was harder to painstakingly translate the Chinese characters when Monique was judging her from more than eight thousand miles away.

Resting her phone in the crook of her neck and shoulder, she sighed, shifting slightly. So you’ve told me. Multiple times. Biting her lower lip, she scanned the lines of characters before her. Doing it with half a brain was slow work, but somehow, she was managing. I’m not asking you to understand why I’ve come here, Monique, but a little emotional support would be nice.

From Albany, New York, Monique gave a long-suffering sigh that seemed to go on for a good thirty seconds before she answered. In that time, the waitress in the small café in which Iris was job hunting had time to sidle over to her and ask in halting English if she’d like anything else. Covering the receiver with her hand, Iris answered the bent Chinese woman in perfect Cantonese, asking for more soymilk.

As was usually the case in such situations, the Asian woman stared at her, fairly dumbfounded, before she realized that Iris had actually made a request. Once her vision cleared from its shocked haze, she hurried off to obtain the item the young woman had requested.

Iris, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to seem unsupportive but, well…I miss you. Monique’s statement redirected Iris’ attention to her in the wake of the shocked Chinese woman she’d entertained. "That whole business with Chris…I thought you’d stick around. Get your bearings a bit and figure things out.

But you rushed to change everything to get away from him. Not, the younger woman hurried on, even as Iris’ hackles raised, that there’s anything wrong with that. I understand that you did what you had to do. But it’s hard to try and root for you when a selfish part of me wants you back here. I’m sorry.

Iris forced herself to swallow the overwhelming feeling of homesickness that rose within her.

How long had she been away from New York? Five months? Six? She just went through the motions of a life in Hong Kong, hoping that things would get better. It helped that she kept herself busy job hunting and exploring the city she’d all but fled to – but at the end of the day, when she returned to her microscopic apartment to sleep alone and was forced to remember what had brought her to Hong Kong in the first place, it was easy to regret.

More than easy.

But there was no going back now. She’d made her decisions, and she would have to live with them.

Every time she contemplated whether or not she’d made a mistake – if she should go home – Iris reminded herself why she’d left. Why she’d packed all of her things in the middle of the night and booked a one way ticket to Hong Kong with a clarity she’d never before known in her twenty eight years.

A low sigh escaped her.

Christopher. Her devoted boyfriend of almost five years. When she was with him, she was convinced that her life was perfect. They’d done everything together – moved in after dating for a year, had a joint bank account and even two dogs. From the time she’d been twenty three years old, Iris had been certain that he was the one she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. There’d been no question.

All that time, and she had no idea what was going on right under her nose.

Of course, it had come as a complete shock to Iris that she wasn’t the only woman in Chris’ life. That shock had been compounded by the fact that she’d been sitting in a doctor’s office, facing a physician who told her that she had advanced PID. That she would need extensive surgery and would probably never be able to have children.

It had been a devastating blow.

Iris had grown up in an amazingly loving family – two brothers and three sisters. Parents that supported her in anything she might choose to pursue. There was nothing she might have wanted more than to have her own children.

But now, she never would.

She could hardly remember facing Chris. Being infuriated and broken all at the same time as she demanded to know where she could have gotten the infection that caused her PID when he was the only man she’d been with for years.

He hadn’t even apologized. Something or the other about being a man and having needs that she didn’t fulfill. He’d even thrown in some bullshit about still loving her – said they could adopt, if children were what she really wanted.

He hadn’t even promised to stop seeing the woman who had all but ruined them.

Christopher wasn’t the man she thought he was – and how she could have had such tremendously bad judgement continued to shock her. At the time, she had done the only thing she could think of: screamed at him. Ranted and raved and insulted him. Sobbed and asked how he could do such a thing to her. When the moment had passed, Monique told her several times that she should have pressed charges against the mother fucker, but Iris could never make herself go through with it.

She couldn’t fathom wasting a minute more of her time with the man who had betrayed her so completely.

Suddenly, the next street over hadn’t been nearly far away. The thought of the next town had been equally unbearable.

And so Iris had packed up all of her things without second guessing herself. She knew where she was going to go – and she was going to make things so she’d be forced to think about what it was that she wanted.

Somehow, in the last five years of life planning with Chris, she’d all but forgotten she had a life before him. A life rife with friends and new opportunities. When the young woman met her boyfriend of five years, she’d been utterly and completely infatuated with him from day one. He was tall, with blonde hair and blue eyes – built with a body that was simultaneously lean and muscular. He was the star player of Brown University’s Lacrosse team and when he returned her interest she was over the moon.

After all, when she was in college, she was still finding herself. She was a bit of a late-comer, having first worked two jobs to come up with the money to attend Brown- but no one on campus had been able to tell that she had two or three years on him – and Chris hadn’t cared that they weren’t of age. He was constantly telling her how beautiful she was and how she was all he wanted.

Ultimately, however, that turned out to be a lie. Iris was far from all Chris wanted, and as the months and years passed, he imposed more and more of his wants upon her. Her hair had to be a certain way, she needed to be home at a certain time – to act in a certain manner around his parents. At the time, Iris had been so sure that the man was looking out for her well-being that she hadn’t given any of his actions a second thought.

Not even when he pressed her to take a job more rigorous than the Chinese consulate position she loved. Bit by bit, Chris had leeched away at every inch of her until barely anything remained her own.

By the time she’d discovered her PID, they’d all but been joined at the hip.

Somehow, however, the man found the time to be with another woman through all of it. While Iris had been working to change herself so that she might have a life with him, he controlled her like a puppet. Though, perhaps, a puppet master might have been kinder to the tools of his trade.

When things had gone south between she and Christopher, the only thing Iris thought to do was go to China.

It was something she hadn’t been able to do while they had been together – something he told her she’d never be ready for. Once they split, though her heart was broken, Iris also found herself facing an extraordinary amount of freedom. She could go anywhere she pleased, do anything she wanted.

And immediately, she found that what she wanted was to get away.

Hong Kong seemed like a good option at the time. A place she’d always wanted to go and never had the opportunity to. Of course, the moment the idea had solidified in her mind, a certain number of worries had come with it. Did she still have the language skills that had once put her at the top of her class?