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“No appreciation is necessary,” Wallace assured Peggy “All I did was provide the venue, the invitations, and the refreshesturing in Cindy’s direction

Oblivious to the scrutiny, Cindy was drawing a rough pencil sketch on the back of a cocktail napkin for the wife of a forue and current racquetball partner of Wallace’s Cindy’s enthusias intently, her whole face aglow

“She really is soaze “Her love for her work, her ith people, and of course, her extraordinary talent—once she’s coets around, she’ll be boy’s se with a love of life few people possess”

“I agree” Wallace continued watching Cindy, listening to Peggy’s description as he did Beautiful, intelligent, gifted, overfloith a love of life…SheMeili

At that uests had said, si a strand of dark hair behind her ear

That particular gesture…Wallace felt his chest constrict

Meili She’d been a bright light in his life at a ti daily, fighting over their vastly different views of what being a parentand hard they’d tried to conceive, Wallace wanted to make Sophie the center of their world He’d assu—her weekends at the spa, her evenings out with her girlfriends, hersprees—to be a full-time mother It never occurred to hile maternal bone in her body

The situation had escalated to talk of divorce At barely two years old, Sophie very ladly traded places with Beatrice and raised their daughter But it wasn’t feasible, not financially Wallace earned severalShe’d resigned from her job as a fashion buyer as soon as she married Wallace That hadn’t bothered him—until now He was fifty-four years old and way too entrenched in a career thatback Beatrice was thirty-nine, six-plus years out of the fashion business—and therefore out of the game—with no motivation to return to the rat race, and equally little motivation to play in the sandbox with a toddler

Wallace tried to hter in any way he could But he traveled so often, and worked such long hours, that itthehour he was home with Sophie Adult companionship, intimate or otherwise, was shelved For a vital, passionate man like Wallace, it was a very lonely life

When he’d , he was at his most vulnerable and lowest point As it turned out, so was she But to hi, and full of life She was also beautiful—petite, with fine, delicate features and an equally delicate figure Looking back on it now, their love affair was like a real-life Pretty Wos

Thankfully, Meili’s pride would never allow her to resort to prostituti

on

And there’d been no Cinderella ending

The first time Wallace laid eyes on Meili was in the lobby of the Conrad Hong Kong hotel in July 2002 He and his art partners were there on business, the first ti since the sale of Dead or Alive—even longer still since all five of theether Matthew, Leo, and Phil were apprehensive as hell about returning But it couldn’t be helped The group was negotiating the purchase of a valuable painting froallery The owner refused to make the sale unless he met with the entire partnership The profitKong’s affluent business and shopping district, nowhere near Kowloon, where Cai Wen’s office had been

As the established art connoisseur of the group, not to mention the investment banker with the most econoallery alone to view the painting and to allery owner While he was in the area, he stopped into a few other high-end galleries to check out the works being displayed