Hero and Perfect

Epilogue

One year later.🌹

It had been a quiet and memorable Christmas Eve.

They had enjoyed a pleasant day. Sharing memories of Shin , along with Chongan and Pei Shan , who had arranged for a feast of dim sum to be delivered hot and fresh, early in the morning.

Hero's elegant Grandmother had stepped very carefully into a rapport. Sharing stories of Ellis as a boy.

Ellis's family had aided Pei Shan's during the conflict in Taiwan in the 1940s.

They had arranged to have them come and live with them under the guise of house and groundskeeper.
In reality, the Payton-Jones family was instrumental in helping maintain and greatly expand, The Xiang shipping and distribution company of fine art and auction worthy items.

Particularly exquisite jade miniatures and Pearl jewelry.

Pei Shan's father had died in America, but Pei Shan's mother and Uncle had returned to Taiwan after the war, and had remained closely connected to the American family that had discreetly saved their fortune- and their lives, while helping to open and expand lines of trade between the Payton-Jones warehouses and auction houses .

Ellis had become like a son to Pei Shan's mother, and a beloved brother to Pei Shan.

A few short years later, he had contacted the family.
Saying that he had been forced to leave because of an enormous scandal.

One that had polarized and temporarily divided the Payton's. The Jones's , and several combinations thereof.

Until money - that great unifier - had eventually smoothed the rough waters of high browed discontent .

His parents - who only saw him five times each year since he was six - were completely outraged with him, and had promptly cut him off without a dime.

Ellis Payton-Jones had gotten fabulously drunk and somehow managed to stand up on a table at the ' surprise' engagement party.
The first thing he announced , after a precarious bow and flourish , made between vigorous swallows directly from a bottle of very expensive champagne - was that the party was truly a great surprise - especially to HIM.
Here he had paused for a long moment. Staring about at the sea of stunned, angry or avid faces all riveted by this unexpected spectacle , that would provide gossip for miles, staring back at him.
His father had looked at him in icy disdain - and left the room.
He began to laugh. But no one else - seated or standing below the twenty enormous glittering crystal chandeliers in the sumptuous, cream and blue satin bedecked ballroom - had laughed with him.

He had then loudly and most inelegantly , refused to marry the ' smug and fatuous' , young steel mill heiress they had selected for him.
Whom he had been avoiding for a year, and whom he knew full well, was blandly prepared to do her ' duty', as his beard - ish bride ; for at least as as long as the freshly tabled merger went well and a requisite child could be produced.

Not a single one of them had applauded when he had tossed his empty champagne bottle to the floor, cupped his hands and bellowed "I'M YOUR SISTER MARY!" Before his own laughter unbalanced him, and he had fallen off the table.
He had pushed himself up, swayed for a moment, then soundly kissed a handsome waiter, before staggering out the door.

Pei Shan's family had invited him to come and live with them until such time as he decided what he would do.
Ellis had arrived at the estate looking pale and tired. With only a single suitcase . A newly fledged hyacinth macaw, and in his own words - ' an Ivy League degree in sin and botany.'

He then quietly took up residence in the pretty cottage that had been built to house a live in groundskeeper.

Pei Shan's Uncle had negotiated an excellent marriage for her.