Tuesday, continued …

As Officer Mu and Butler Ge, went out of sight, Anna stopped and looked at Hou Yi, slightly pulling out of his embrace. “Please give me a little space.”

In looking at Anna, Hou Yi wondered what was going through her mind. They had a deal that in publicly they would act as a couple. He hoped Anna realised that this included the apartment as staff would be wandering around. However, he paused and asked Anna, gently “Are you OK after dealing with that?”

“Not really. I thought Australian Police could be painful to deal with. It goes beyond the pale and offends me as the victim of crime, I am threatened if I do not have Lu Jinhu and Yang Lin charged quickly. If you were not my husband, I think he would have immediately charged me, simply because I need some more time to process what happened.”

“It is a feature of policing here. Police here are not paid well, so they want charges, arrests and convictions to advance their career and earn better income. I suspect once he sees that this is more than a single incident, he will ensure you have the time to make a decision.”

“I hope you are right, but as a lawyer it grates on me that as the victim here I came out of that interview feeling so disrespected, and treated as a criminal rather than the victim.” Anna paused as thinking and continued “Could they have gotten to the police first and convinced them that I was the criminal?”

“It would be unlikely. They would have to know where you are, and all they could do is lay out their allegations of theft, and that you assaulted and stalked them. The hard part is they have to prove their allegations, and unlike your assault there is no CCTV footage to prove it. And as to stalking, their difficulty will be that all your travel bookings would have been joint bookings, and there will be evidence until recently there was a relationship in Australia between you and him.”

“You are right.”

“Anna do not let it worry you. We will deal with what comes. Remember I made a promise to you before we married about dealing with them, which I will keep.” Hou Yi paused for a few seconds. “Let us just sit here for a few minutes, and then we can start dealing with a few other things that we need to deal with.”

With that Anna and Hou Yi sat quietly, thinking about what had happened during the day. However before too long they were both interrupted by Butler Ge, who entered the lounge, and handed a package to Hou Yi. “Young Master, this was delivered from Fengs for you.”

He then turned to Anna, and continued “Young Madam, your items have arrived from the car. The items from M Mall have been pressed and hung up, but as we do not have the combinations for the locks, we cannot open the cases. If you can tell me the codes, we can deal with the suitcases for you, Young Madam.”

“The Suitcase code is 853 and the other bag is 742.”

“Thank you, Young Madam. Young Master, what time do you need the car for.”

“Just have it ready in 20 Minutes. What time we take, will simply be what time we take.”

“Fine Young Master. I will leave you now.” With that Butler Ge left the lounge area.

Hou Yi, opened the parcel from Fengs. In it there were two separate ring boxes and a box that clearly had a necklace. Hou Yi handed to Anna the necklace box directly. He then proceeded to open one ring box which had the engagement ring in it. He sat it aside for a minute on the table, and Anna placed the necklace box on the table.

On opening the second box, Hou Yi took out both rings. He handed the larger ring to Anna, keeping the other to him. “Could you give me left hand. Rather than following tradition here of wedding rings on the right had, I think we will follow the western tradition and wear them on our left if you are OK with that.”

Anna simply nodded in response, and gave him her left hand.

With that Hou Yi placed the empty box on the table and removed the engagement ring from the other box. He then proceeded to slip both rings in her left hand. Once they were there, Hou Yi lifted Anna’s hand to his lips and firstly kissed where the rings nestled, and then turned it over before placing a kiss on her palm. He then handed her his left hand, whereby Anna did the same.

That simple thing for Hou Yi, was like a miracle. He just hoped that it was not an illusion in the end, as he not only wanted a marriage with Anna, he wanted everything, her love, her commitment to him and children. He would always ensure that the world remained at her feet.

Once Hou Yi placed the rings on her hand, Anna felt that they belonged there, which she never felt with Lu Jinhu’s engagement ring that simply never felt right. At that moment she felt for some strange reason that she had a real chance of love in a relationship with Hou Yi. Anna, however, immediately dismissed that as that as she knew that she could be loved by anyone.

Hou Yi reached over, and picked up the necklace box, stood up and reached down to take Anna’s hand to help her up. He quietly said, “Come with me, and I will show you the way to our room.”