Chapter 4 - One Last Chance

Anna's POV

My phone rang at 3 p.m. on a Wednesday. Unknown number. I almost didn’t answer.

“Good afternoon, Ms. Li. This is the HRM department at Mo Ting Global Holdings. We would like to invite you for an interview for our Architectural Engineer position.”

I stopped breathing.

Mo Ting Global Holdings. The name hung in the air between me and the voice on the phone, and something shifted inside my chest. Something I couldn’t name. I had applied to dozens of firms. I couldn’t even remember half of them anymore. But this name. This one felt different. Very familiar.

“Ms. Li? Are you still there?”

“Yes. Yes, I’m here.” My voice sounded strange to my own ears. “When is the interview?”

“Friday morning, 9 a.m. Our headquarters in Pudong. Can you make it?”

“I’ll be there.”

I hung up and sat very still. Mo Ting Global Holdings. The conglomerate. One of China’s biggest. Architecture, energy, beauty, hospitality, they had their fingers in everything. I had researched them once, months ago, when I was still stupid enough to think I had a real shot at places like that. The kind of places that didn’t hire single mothers with gap-filled resumes and too many failed attempts. But they called. They actually called.

I stood up and walked to my bedroom, where I kept the few nice things I owned. My interview blazer and my one pair of professional heels. And as I pulled open my dresser drawer to find something to wear underneath, something flickered. A memory… not clear and not solid. Just a flash—a hotel room, morning light, and something silver lying on the floor. A cufflink. Customized. Expensive-looking. I remembered picking it up, holding it in my palm, turning it over. There was something engraved on it, but I couldn’t read it in that dim light. I remembered thinking I should leave it on the nightstand so he could find it. But instead, I had just let it fall through my fingers and into my bag and left with it.

I blinked. The memory dissolved like smoke. Mo Ting Global Holdings. Was it possible? Had I… No!

Five years!!.

Five years and I had convinced myself that night was a dream, something my heartbroken brain invented to survive one terrible evening. A stranger I had never known. A night that would never happen again. I didn't know his name. I would never see him again. That’s what I had told myself when I woke up alone in that hotel room, the sheets still warm beside me. This was just a coincidence. Just my mind playing tricks because I was nervous about the interview. Because I needed this job so badly that my brain was trying to make it feel like destiny instead of desperation.

I shook my head and pulled out my blazer anyway.

Thursday night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about the cufflink. About a voice I couldn’t quite remember. About the feeling of being wanted by someone who didn’t know anything about me except that I was broken. By Friday morning, I had convinced myself it meant nothing. It was probably a common type of cufflink. Probably lots of men wore them. And even if it wasn’t, even if, by some impossible twist of fate, he worked there, we would never recognize each other. Five years. People changed. Especially in the dark.

I dressed carefully. Blazer, heels, hair pulled back. I looked like someone who had her life together. Someone who deserved opportunities.

The taxi ride to Pudong took twenty minutes. When I saw the building, I understood why I was scared to apply to Mo Ting Global Holdings before. It was too big. Too polished. Too intimidating. Sixty floors of glass and steel that seemed to reach up and touch the sky itself. The kind of place that made you feel small before you even walked through the doors. The kind of place people like me didn’t belong.

I almost told the taxi driver to turn around. Almost talked myself out of this entirely. What was I thinking? Me, against people who had studied at elite universities, people with family connections, people who had never had to count every yuan? Instead, I paid him and stepped out onto the pavement.

The lobby was exactly what I expected, marble floors so polished I could see my reflection, expensive lighting that made everything look important, people in expensive clothes moving with purpose and confidence. A woman at the front desk looked up as I approached, and I watched her eyes flick over me. Assessing. Deciding if I belonged here. I didn’t wait for her judgment.

“I have a 9 a.m. interview,” I said before she could dismiss me. “Anna Li. Architectural Engineer position.”

Her expression shifted. Not warmer, exactly, but more professional. “Of course, welcome to Mo Ting Global Holdings, Ms. Li. Let me call someone to escort you up.” She picked up her phone.

I stood there in that massive lobby, surrounded by people who all seemed to know exactly where they were going, and felt the weight of how much this mattered. How much Amyra needed this. How much my family needed this.

A woman appeared. Young, warm, with a smile that actually reached her eyes. “Ms. Li? I’m Emily Zhao. Welcome. Come with me.” She gestured toward the elevators. I followed her across that marble floor, my heels clicking too loudly, my heart hammering, my palms already starting to sweat. This job could change everything.

As we approached the elevator bank, Emily glanced sideways at me. “First time here?”

“That obvious?”

“You look terrified.” She pressed the elevator button. “Don’t be. You made it past the first cut. That means something.”

The elevator doors slid open. And I stepped inside, toward whatever was waiting for me on the floors above. My heart was pounding. My palms were sweating. But I was here. I had made it this far. Now I just had to not mess it up.