From Lust to Love in its purest form…
Alfred Leung’s life is in the crapper. From his gold-digging, racist mother and a cheating ex-boyfriend to his hang-ups about sex—everything in his existence depresses him. Add to it passing his days serving faux French food in a diner. It isn’t how he planned on spending the rest of his life, so the fates have definitely conspired against him. Just out of a relationship, he decides to focus on work and going back to one of the things that makes him happy—photography. Then, in his Armani suit, Darius Stark walks through the door of the diner, and Alfred’s world is about go into a tail spin he never saw coming.
Darius Stark hasn’t been with a man in years. Men see the suit and run screaming in the other direction or they tear-ass toward him because they see dollar signs. He decides to focus on his business, but soon he’s buried himself so deeply in his work that years goes by without someone to love. Finally, he sees Alfred and wants him, but Darius is about to find out not everyone thinks he’s almighty and that some men are flawed.
General Release Date: 15th March 2016
The city of Bathsheba was nestled between two lush mountains which both stunned Alfred and filled him with pride. There was just something about watching the snow cover them during the winter then, as if by magic, seeing them bloom green in the summer. Every turn of season, those high peaks took his breath away, and he’d stopped trying to figure out why years prior.
But with its beauty came the outside world, barreling into the medium-sized town, making it feel from time to time that it would burst at the seams. In the summertime, Bathsheba was always crawling with tourists who spent their every moment hiking up these beautiful slopes. In the wintertime came the skiers, the snowboarders and the photographers. Even with its precarious location, Bathsheba was booming with a lavish economy with its fair share of ups and downs.
The sun stood prominently in the sky, warming Alfred Leung to the very core. He couldn’t help a surge of happiness that he even hummed along with Taemin, who blared into his ears through his headset.
It was the kind of day that not even visiting his mother or going to work could ruin for him. Not even finding his boyfriend, the man he’d seriously been thinking of asking for his hand in marriage, balls-deep in another man could tarnish it. Alfred parked across the street from his mother’s house, fed the meter and glanced both ways before jogging across the road. The security guard didn’t give him any hassle about I.D. since Alfred was there on a regular basis.
“You are a sucker for punishment, aren’t you?” the guard asked. “That woman would have given me a stroke by now.”
Alfred bumped fists with him. “Yeah. But what can I do? She’s my mother and no matter how crazy she makes me…well…she’s my mother.”
The guard laughed and Alfred stepped into the elevator. All the way up, Alfred wondered the same thing the guard had asked him. His mother wasn’t easy to get along with on the best of days, but when he came out, she hadn’t thrown him off the balcony. Sure, she’d been disappointed and had needed some time to come to grips with the possibility of never having a grandchild, but she’d come around. That was something—that was a light in an otherwise dark tunnel. The elevator pinged and the doors parted. Before stepping out, he took a few cleansing breaths then hurried along the corridor to her apartment. He didn’t bother knocking since he had a key. Alfred let himself into the unit.
“Móuh Chàn?”
“Cheu-fahng!” Mei-Ling replied in a distracted-sounding voice.
Alfred removed his shoes, set them to the side on the mat and made his way into the kitchen, where his mother was busy stirring a large pot. “Hi, Mom. What’re you cooking?”
“Not sure yet. Somethin’ missing.”
He peered into the pot and noticed it was soup—at least he thought it was soup. She glanced at him and he kissed her head. “How are you, Mom?” Alfred spoke in English because he wanted to force her to use the language. Even if she did reply in Cantonese, at least she would be hearing English.
“Good—what you look like so?”
“Like what?”
She wiggled her wrist at him then dumped some pepper into her pot and stirred.
“Bo and I broke up.”
Mei-Ling tilted her head and gazed at him. “Him broke you or you broke him?”
Alfred didn’t bother correcting her grammar or perception of what he’d just said. He explained it all to her. She merely dropped the spoon on the counter and darted around him to a cupboard.
“You fix,” Mei-Ling said simply.
Alfred stood before her and shook his head. He couldn’t believe what she was asking him to do. Any other mom would be running to grab a frying pan from the kitchen to beat his ex into oblivion, but not his mother. She wanted him to stay with the lying, cheating, sorry excuse of a man because he was wealthy and had a good name—and he was Chinese.
“Sorry, Mama,” Alfred said in Cantonese, his voice shaking. “I’m your son. You’re supposed to want better for me.”
“I do want better for you,” she replied. “Bo is wealthy, come from good family, has education—you can’t do better than him.”
Her broken English annoyed him. Mei-Ling had been in the country long enough to be able to speak properly, but she refused to even try. “He slept with someone else, Mama.”
“Your father sleep with others. I stay with him.”
Multi-published Remmy Duchene was born in St. Anns, Jamaica and moved to Canada at a young age. When not working or writing, Remmy loves dabbling in photography, travelling and spending time with friends and family.
You can also follow Remmy on Twitter.
Reviewed by Redz World
I liked this one for many reasons. One of them being these two guys are just ordinary, real men, who need someone who understands them...I liked that honesty in a character...this is a great read about...
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