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Mahogany Eyes – Book 1: The Compassionate Stranger

Chapter 1: Alone – December 4

Alexis was sitting in her favorite, little ramen joint waiting for her fiancé when she saw him.  Her eyes strayed his way momentarily.  Though, she would have had a hard time pinpointing what had drawn her attention to him.  He wasn’t very tall.  Maybe five feet eight inches?  Just a few inches taller than herself.  He certainly didn’t reach the Herculean heights of her fiancé, a man who topped out at somewhere around four inches past six feet.  Still, something about this man caused her eyes to alight on his still figure as he stood in line preparing to order some dinner.  

She would have studied that bent head longer, but Frederick suddenly appeared before her, capturing her attention.

“Hey,” he greeted her as he slipped into a chair across the table from her.  “Did you order for me?” 

She simply stared at him for a moment.  “No.  You never replied to my text.  I wasn’t sure what you wanted.”

Anger flitted across his face for a moment.  “I always order the same thing.  Alexis, I can’t believe you didn’t order me dinner.  I have to be back at work in half an hour.  I could barely find the time to meet with you tonight as it is.  Now I’m going to have to spend half of it waiting in that line.  Alone.” 

She winced at the squeak of his chair legs scraping against the floor as he pushed back his chair and stood up before striding across the room.  In a very annoyed fashion.  Towards the guy who had caught her attention.  As her eyes followed Frederick’s angry back, they collided with the gaze of a certain quiet man who was still standing in that queue.

She felt an instant zing.  Something that never happened.  That piercing of awareness.  It hadn’t occurred the first time she’d met Frederick.  That was for sure. 

Now it brought her up short.  She found herself lost in the eyes of a strange man.  A Korean one.  They were dark eyes.  Like a smoky mahogany.  Sweet.  Sharp.  Oddly attuned to her.

That thought brought her up short.  Why did she think that?  It was an absurd notion.  Yet, as she sat staring into those beautiful, brown orbs, she couldn’t shake the impression that empathy was rolling off of him in waves.  And something else.  Something she couldn’t deny.  That clung lovingly to her.  And made her want to smile.

It was the reason that she couldn’t look away from him.  Even when she felt her fiancé’s eyes on her face.  Finally, after several eternal seconds, she managed to shift her line of sight three feet towards the back of the restaurant.  But when she saw the expression on Frederick’s face, she wondered why she had bothered.  

He wasn’t even looking at her.  He was clearly studying the menu.  A menu he had just claimed not to need.  His usual?  As far as she knew, he had no usual.  Why was he so irritated today?

She sighed as she realized that his temper seemed to be fraying more and more of late.  Truthfully, she hadn’t been looking forward to dinner tonight.  She’d had a feeling it was going to go this way.  That he would find fault with her over some little issue and use it to belittle her.  She swallowed as she glanced down at the table.

A moment later, a server delivered her ramen.  Alexis stared down at it after the woman left.  And realized she had zero appetite.  In fact, her stomach was feeling slightly queasy.  Because she had some unexpected news to deliver to Frederick.  News that was making her decidedly nervous and increasingly fearful.

Suddenly, some commotion across the room caught her eye.  Frederick was confronting the young man she had noticed earlier.  The voice of her fiancé was raised in anger as he stood before the man with the mesmerizing, mahogany eyes.  She watched those orbs widen in shock as her fiancé verbally attacked him in front of a roomful of strangers.  Dismay flooded that sweet face, and she found herself wanting to come to his rescue.  Discovering an uncustomary courage, she stood up and crossed the room towards them.

She walked up to her fiancé and laid her hand gently on his arm.  “Frederick, what’s wrong?” she asked in a soothing voice.

Both pairs of eyes – which a moment earlier had been engaged in intense combat – shifted towards the short woman with flaming red hair.  But only one voice responded to her.  In a strident tone that rebuked her for involving herself in this altercation.  But it wasn’t just the pitch of his voice that decided her in that moment.  It was something unbending in his countenance that made Alexis instantly determine that she could not do life with him anymore.  Not even in the predicament in which she’d found herself.

When he finished berating her for butting in, she spoke in clean, crisp, quiet tones.  “Frederick, it’s over.”

He glanced sharply at her then, for as soon as he’d been finished chewing her out, his gaze had shifted back to the infuriating man standing in front of him. “Excuse me?”

But her next action was all the explanation he needed.  She held up her left hand and drew the engagement ring off her finger.  She stared at it for only a moment as she realized how desperately she could have used the money she would have received from pawning it.  

Then she looked up at that inflexible countenance and held the ring out towards him.  She felt no empathy flowing from him.  Only a brittle sort of anger.  Just another shade of the same stale emotion.  One which she had received the brunt of too many times to count.  What had finally given her the courage to break things off now?  In the condition in which she’d found herself?  

Yesterday, she’d been unwilling to leave him.  What had occurred to lend her such unknown strength today?   How was she now brave enough to face tomorrow alone?

She glanced at the man with the mahogany eyes.  Had it been the odd light shining in those eyes or the expression of understanding which he’d flashed in her direction that had emboldened her?  She wasn’t used to such a show of support from a man.  It made her feel oddly euphoric.  

Yet, as her eyes slid away from his to encounter Frederick’s anger again, unease sailed along her nerves and unleashed spiky darts of fear into her belly.  Her gut was beginning to ache again.

She wasn’t sure that she was now courageous enough to face tomorrow alone.  The future was suddenly quite terrifying.

Chapter 2: Overwhelmed – December 4

“What do you mean, ‘It’s over’?” Frederick snapped as Mahogany Eyes watched this little drama unfold in front of him.

“I mean exactly what I said, Frederick.”  She was still holding the ring up in front of him.  She wished he’d just take it and leave.

He glanced down at it as her fingers began to shake.  “Put that back on!” her now ex-fiancé snapped.

“Frederick,” she breathed in pain and fear.  “Please.”  She wanted to glance around to see if anyone besides the beautiful man was witnessing this embarrassing spectacle, but she was too mortified.

Frederick reached out suddenly, viciously, and plucked the ring from her fingers before grabbing her hand and shoving the ring back onto her finger.

“Ow!” she cringed at the ache that cramped her ring finger as he abused it.

Suddenly, she found herself standing behind someone’s back as one word was uttered from the owner of that back.  “Stop.”

She gazed up in astonishment.  Mahogany Eyes had just offered her his protection.  He now stood between her and her jerk of an ex-fiancé.

“Excuse me?!” Frederick bit the words out in a disbelieving tone.  “Out of my way!  This is between me and my fiancé.”

“You have no fiancé,” murmured the magnificent man quietly.

Alexis could imagine the steam that must be rising out of Frederick’s ears now.  

“This is none of your business!” he shouted.

Her protector remained silent for a moment.  Then he whispered in a chill tone, “Any time I see a woman being abused, I make it my business to intervene.”

“Abused?  Alexis?  Hardly!” huffed Frederick.  “The girl is exasperating!  You think you’d do any better by her?  You’re welcome to try!”

Suddenly, he spun on his heel and strode from the restaurant without a backward glance.  Alexis stared down at the ring on her finger for a moment.  What on earth was she supposed to do with it?

The back in front of her faded from view as the sweet man turned towards her.  “He’s gone,” he breathed.

Slowly, her eyes slid up his length to find those stunning, mahogany orbs again.  “Thank you,” she whispered.  

Then she burst into tears and turned to flee towards her bowl of ramen.

The kind man stared at her for a moment as a frown wrinkled his brow.  Then he followed her.  He came to stand in front of the table at which she was seated.  He gazed down at her for a moment. 

“What have I done?” she sobbed as Mahogany Eyes sat down in the seat next to her.

“What do you mean?  You just stood up for yourself,” he murmured quietly.  

“You don’t understand.”  Her eyes met his beautiful ones.

“What don’t I understand?”

She took a deep breath before glancing around.  But no one was seated near them.  So her sky-blue eyes met his brown ones.  She let the breath go in one long whoosh as she explained, “I’m pregnant.”

Chapter 3: Answered – December 4

“With that cretin’s child?” he murmured in repulsion.

She nodded her head as she bent it in shame.  The habit the past had of repeating itself was terribly ironic.

“Oh, my dear,” he responded sympathetically as his hand found hers on the table and gave it a little pat.  After a few silent moments, he added, “You definitely made the right choice.”

She glanced up at him in surprise.  “How can you say that?  My baby will grow up without a daddy now.”

His eyes slid out the window as though he could still see the retreating back of her ex-fiancé.  “What baby needs a daddy like that?”  Then those magnificent, mahogany eyes captured hers once more.  “And what woman needs a husband like that?”

“Me,” she mourned.  “I need a husband.  How am I ever going to take care of my baby alone?  In a foreign country.”  She buried her head in her arms.  They were now folded and lying on the tabletop.  She groaned into its surface.  “I should never have allowed myself to be with him.  I must have been out of my mind with loneliness.”

She’d met Frederick her fifth week in South Korea.  When the loneliness had begun to eat her alive.  She’d been so homesick and wondered why on earth she’d thought moving across an ocean to teach foreign children English had been a good idea.

She’d been vulnerable.  To his initial charm.  And his emerald eyes.  Eyes that had come to despise her.  

She had been susceptible to those delicious lips of his too.  Lips that, eventually, had ceased to let flow their honey.  Now they had come to ridicule her.

Her shoulders shook as she continued to weep.  Her eyes were unleashing a flood onto the sleeve of her shirt.  “The only thing I can do is to go home.  But I don’t even have the money to do that.”

The compassionate stranger sat awkwardly in his chair and watched the beautiful girl crying into her cuff.  He reached out a hand and brushed her captivating, auburn locks away from her face.  He wondered if she had the tiniest inkling of how beautiful she was. That beauty was what had initially drawn his attention to her.  But now he was concerned about her.

His hand slid tenderly down the back of her head.  Reveling in the satin touch of her soft tresses.  Words tumbled, unbidden, from his lips.

“Everything is going to be all right.”

His gentle rumble flooded her being with peace.  Her eyes flew open.  And she raised her head to stare at him.

“How can you say that?  Did you not hear what I said?”

“I heard you.”

“Then how can you possibly think everything is going to be all right?”  She buried her head in her hands.  “I don’t even have any real friends here.  No family.  How on earth am I going to raise a child alone?”

He blinked.  “Do you have your own apartment?”

She groaned suddenly.  “I do, but my lease is up at the end of next week!  I was supposed to move in with Frederick before Christmas!  And my apartment has already been rented out!  Some Christmas this will be,” she grumbled.  “I have to find a new place to live.”

He stared at her while a crazy idea floated through his mind.  “What day do you have to be out of your apartment by?”

“December eleventh.”

His eyes slid along the contour of her cheek.  It was all he could see of her face, the majority of which was still hidden by her hands.

He made a split-second decision.  “I have an apartment with an extra room.  You can move in with me.”

Chapter 4: Uncustomary Kindness – December 4

She lifted her head in amazement and gaped at him.  Then she giggled.  “I’m sorry.  I must be losing my mind.  The events of the last few minutes must have been too much for me.  Being pregnant and alone has unhinged my mind.  I thought you said I could move in with you.”

“I did—”

“But what man would invite a virtual stranger to move into his apartment?  Unless,” she stopped speaking abruptly as his words echoed in her ears, overcoming her own.

She continued to stare up at him.  “You did?  Why would you invite me to move in with you?”  Her expression transformed into one of suspicion.  “What would you expect in return?  I know I slept with my fiancé, but I swear I’m not that easy.”

His face was suddenly lit up with alarm.  “What?  No!  I did not mean that!  I wouldn’t expect you to sleep with me!” he declared a little too loudly.  

He flushed with embarrassment a moment later as several heads turned their way.  He averted his eyes and spoke in a low tone.  “I wouldn’t expect anything from you except common decency so we can live peaceably together.  You know, that we agree to share the common spaces and work with each other’s schedules.  I need quiet at night, so I can sleep.  I shower each morning before I head to work, so I’d need the bathroom for fifteen minutes around six am.  I usually cook dinner in the evening, so I’d be happy to cook for two and share what I’m making.”

She blinked as she studied his earnest face.  And her heart crumbled into a million pieces at the tenderness borne on the words of this compassionate stranger.  At the gentleness conveyed by his tone.  And at the arresting light in his mahogany eyes as they suddenly embraced hers.  

He gazed at her in consternation as big, fat teardrops began to slide silently down her cheeks.

“You – you really want me to move in with you?” she gasped.

“If you want to,” he murmured softly.  “If you need to.”  He cleared his throat suddenly.  “You could come home with me after you’ve finished your dinner and take a look at my apartment.  See if my extra room suits your needs.”

“How much rent would you expect me to pay each month?”

“Mmm…how about a hundred thousand won?” 

Her face went blank with astonishment.  “What do you pay for your apartment each month?”

He looked decidedly uncomfortable.  “Look.  I’m already paying it.  I would never expect you to cover half of it.  I’m just offering to rent you the extra bedroom.”

“And the use of the bathroom,” she added, “and to make me dinner each night.”  She stared longingly at him.  He was showing her more kindness than her fiancé ever had.

“It’s about a million won a month,” he finally admitted after her intense eyes had probed his for several intimidating seconds.

“And you would charge me only a tenth of it?” she queried incredulously as her eyebrows ascended her forehead.  “That hardly seems fair.”

“And it’s hardly fair that you’re embarking on raising a child alone.  If I want to give you a break, let me,” he urged her gently.  “I can easily afford my apartment.  With or without you.”

Again, her eyes searched his, looking for his motive.  

“Look, you’re going to need to save almost all your money to cover the birth costs and to buy what you need for your baby.”

A few more seconds of silence passed as she considered the truth of his words.  Finally, she wrinkled her forehead in a series of crumpled layers and responded, “What about after I have my baby?”

“You may continue to stay with me.”  His eyes held hers.  “If you like.”

“Why?  Why would you make such a commitment to a stranger?  What if I move in, and you hate me by next week?”

“Then you won’t be any worse off than you are today, will you?”  His lips twitched as he responded with a half-smile, “But I truly doubt I could ever hate you.”

“You don’t even know my name!”

This time his eyebrows were the ones ascending.  “That’s easily remedied.”

Her eyelids fell shut for a moment.  When she opened them, her name tumbled from her lips.  “Alexis.  My name is Alexis.”

“Alegg-sh-su,” he tried to get his mouth around her foreign name.

Her lips slid upward into a sweet smile.  “Why don’t you just call me Lex?”

He nodded.  “Okay.  Lex.”  It came out sounding more like Leg.

She stifled a giggle.  But then her expression smoothed out as she glanced curiously up at him.  “What’s your name?”

“Yoongi,” he replied evenly.

“It’s nice to meet you, Yoongi,” she murmured graciously.  But then she argued with herself.  “No, it’s so much more than nice!  What you’re offering me is wonderful,” she continued hesitantly.

“But?”

“But I don’t know you at all.  And I can’t figure out why you would offer such a beautiful bounty to a stranger.  A pregnant stranger, at that!”

“Because I see a beautiful girl who is stranded alone in a foreign country.  A courageous girl who is preparing to usher a new life into this world.  A lonely girl who needs all the friends she can get.  A brave girl who just made a very difficult decision.”

She didn’t know what to say to that.  No one had ever called her beautiful before.  Or courageous.

“And I want to help you,” he finished in a soft rumble that swamped her in comfort.

“Thank you,” she responded simply.

“Is that a yes?” he asked hopefully as he leaned towards her expectantly.

“That’s a yes…I will come check out your apartment tonight.”  She glanced down at her dinner.  “Aren’t you going to get any ramen?”  Then she rushed to add, “You can share mine, if you like.  I’m really not very hungry.”

“Are you sure?” 

She bobbed her head up and down.

He flashed a gummy grin at her suddenly.  “All right.  If you’re sure.  I’m not too hungry tonight either.”  He glanced at her lone chopsticks.  “But I need to fetch some chopsticks.”

“You can share mine,” she whispered.

He glanced at her in surprise.  “I can?”

She nodded as she handed them to him.  “Help yourself.  I’m really not hungry.  I’ve felt queasy all day.”

He eyed her with concern.  “How far along are you?”

“Six weeks.”

“And your fiancé didn’t know?” he asked in surprise.  

She shook her head.  “I was going to tell him tonight.  Only…”

“Only what?”

“He made it very clear when he arrived that he was only here to eat.  He was mad at me because I hadn’t ordered his dinner.”

“That’s what he was upset about?”

She shrugged.  “Truthfully, lately, he’s been upset about everything.  I couldn’t please him anymore.  No matter how I tried,” her voice cracked on the last five words.

Yoongi set the chopsticks on the table and reached out to cover her hand with his own.  “It wasn’t you.  He was the problem.  A man who is not at peace with himself cannot be at peace with others.”

Her eyes found his compassionate ones again, and a tremulous smile rippled across her face.  “Thank you, Yoongi, for the great kindness you’ve shown me today.”  A tiny sob escaped her as she continued, “Today would have been the worst day of my life…but for you.”

Chapter 5: Us – December 4

Yoongi shifted in his seat.  He was uncomfortable with her praise.  He cleared his throat as his eyes slid away from hers. 

“I mean it, Yoongi.  You’re an extremely sweet person to offer me such a gift.”  Her voice drew his eyes to hers again.

“I’m not completely altruistic.  I do have one selfish reason for moving you in with me,” he murmured a moment later as his gorgeous eyes remained trained on her own.

“You do?” she asked as unease rippled up her spine.  “What?” she narrowed her eyes in trepidation.

“I need an apartment sitter.  My job requires me to be far from home overnight often.  Sometimes, for the whole weekend.  I don’t like leaving my apartment unattended.  If you lived with me, someone would be home every night to keep an eye on the place.”

She perked up at his unexpected answer.  “What’s your job?” she queried, now curious.

“I’m a member of the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra.”

She simply stared in awe at him for several seconds.  “You are?” she finally breathed.  “What instrument do you play?”

“The piano.”

“Wow.”

Yoongi wrinkled his brow.  “What?”

“I’m sitting in the presence of greatness.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“That’s because you can play the piano.  I’m all thumbs.  I can’t play a single instrument.  Every time I tried one, it resulted in an unmitigated disaster.”

“You can’t be that bad.”

“Oh, believe me, I can be!  I assure you: I am quite horrid.  I can’t even sing.”

Yoongi frowned at her.  “What are you good at?”

She shrugged.  “Nothing much, really.”

“I think you’re being too humble.  What do you do for a living?”

“I’m an English teacher.”

He quirked a dark eyebrow at her.  “You’re from America, aren’t you?”

She nodded as a sweet smile spread across her face.  “Yes.  I came here to teach children English.  I work at an elementary school.”

“See?  I knew we’d find one of your strengths.  You must be very good at English if you’re teaching it.”

She shrugged.  “I suppose.  But it’s hardly extraordinary to be fluent in the only language I grew up learning.”

Yoongi pressed his lips together as he observed her.  “Do you ever have anything nice to say to yourself?”

“What?” she asked, confused.  She puckered her brow as she stared at him in consternation.

“Your fiancé wasn’t the only one who didn’t think highly of you, I think.  Why are you so tough on yourself?”

Her eyes slid away from his as a memory surfaced to make her wince.  “I don’t know.”  She cleared her throat.  “I, uh, do you want my ramen?”  She shoved her bowl towards him.  Some of the liquid sloshed, threatening the edge.

“You’re sure?”  His eyes traveled down to her belly.  “Seems to me that you should eat the whole bowl.  You’ve got a little munchkin to take care of, after all.”

“No, it’s okay.  Really.  I’m not that hungry.”  But then her stomach belied her words as it gave a large and undignified growl.

Yoongi’s lips tipped upward as his eyes slid along her trim torso again.  “Yeah, it’s pretty obvious to me that you need to fast for several weeks,” he murmured sarcastically, but the low rumble of his voice removed any sting from his words.  She actually found it quite soothing.  She bet it was even more calming when he spoke in quiet Korean.  But now, soft English continued to flow from his lips, “Open up.”

Her gaze flew to his.  “What?”

Using her chopsticks, he fished some noodles out of her bowl and held them up to her lips.  “Have a bite.  If not for you, then do it for your little baby.”

She sighed, but she did as she was bid.  A moment later, she was chewing away on some ramen noodles as Yoongi crammed a bite into his own mouth.  For several minutes, they silently shared her meal, each of them hungrier than they were willing to admit.  When only broth remained, Yoongi encouraged her to drink it all. 

“You need the fluid.  And your baby needs the nutrition.  Come on, down it all,” he coaxed her.

Finally, she gave in to him and slurped the broth down.  Then she set the bowl on the table and had to admit to herself that she felt immensely better after eating.  She beamed up at him.

“Thank you, Yoongi.  That hit the spot.”

“Did it?”  He eyed her suspiciously.  “Lex, you must take care of yourself.  Your baby will only be as healthy as you are,” he opined.

“Thankfully, that’s not exactly true,” she responded reflexively.

“No, but you need to take care of you.  Stay strong for your little one.  Eventually, he or she will be here with us on the outside, and then you’ll need all the energy you can muster.”

She stared at him as his words washed over her, reverberating throughout every layer of her soul.  “…he or she will be here with us…”

Us. 

Yoongi was already terming the two of them as us.  It felt absolutely wonderful.  She really wasn’t alone anymore.