This must be solved. Unequal ground breeds instability. The same country, yet completely different lives. Business cannot flourish on fractured soil.
For a moment, he set the pen down and leaned back, fingers brushing across his temple. A sigh left him, long and low, carrying not only thought but a weight that was less professional and more personal.
His gaze flicked toward the window, where the last traces of twilight painted the horizon. His mind wandered, unbidden, across the miles back to China, back to a little restaurant where laughter and warmth lived between steaming bowls and clattering chopsticks.
By now, he thought, I would have stopped by her restaurant.
He could almost picture it: Mianmian standing at the counter, her face alight even in the smallest of smiles, the way her eyes caught the light when she was pleased or when she teased him in that gentle, almost unconscious way of hers.
Even a fleeting glance of her was enough to soften the day.
