Chapter One #3
In this sketchy part of town I’ve been forced to make my home, it’s either a drug dealer or trouble in a suit. I’m not sure which I’d prefer.
I glance through the peephole as any responsible, albeit reluctant Angelino would if they don’t want to be robbed or worse, then jerk back, my heart leaping into my throat.
For endless seconds I stare blankly at the worn wood. Then because it’s stupidly late and I can’t risk my neighbours’ stream of vitriol, I yank open the door of my shabby apartment in Koreatown, and stare straight into the eyes of a cruel monster.
My heart does this stupid lurch thing. Then fury punches through the surprise.
‘What the hell do you want?’
Ashon Biney stands in my doorway as if he owns the goddamn building. Which, knowing his sheer filthy rich status, his shrewd head for business, and that single-minded, almost borderline feral need for independence and to own and control everything around him, he probably does.
Perfect suit. Perfect jaw. Toffee-brown eyes that used to look through me, the hired help, as if I didn’t exist—until that night he was drowning and I made the mistake of saving him.
Now, two long and harrowing months later, he’s here.
My ex-boss.
My one-night stand.
My biggest mistake.
‘You look…’ he starts, eyes sweeping over me in that infuriatingly male way that makes me want to slam the door. Before he steals all the air from my lungs.
‘Poor?’ I offer scathingly. ‘Because I am.’
My words bounce off his mile-wide shoulders but there’s the minutest flare of his nostrils before complete control is regained.
‘Funny,’ Ashon says, eyes narrowing. ‘Last I checked, students who graduate top of their film cohort and land a Sundance shortlist aren’t usually scraping by as housekeepers.
I should ask why you’re wasting a sabbatical on my dust bunnies.
’ He snaps his fingers. ‘Oh wait, I would’ve asked you this two months ago, except you ran away before I got the chance. ’
My insides go hot, then cold but I fight to retain my composure. Showing guilt or any other human emotion around this man is like leaking blood in shark-infested water and expecting not to be ripped to shreds. So what if my shoddy attempt at playing detective had gone woefully awry?
Ashon Biney and the mighty Biney clan as a whole were still responsible for the heinous wrong against my family. A wrong I haven’t given up on righting.
‘Because sometimes magic costs money before it makes money,’ I shoot back the part truth, hoping it would distract him from the real reason I’d chosen to scrub his floors.
‘Freelance documentaries don’t pay LA rent.
And a sabbatical cleaning Bel-Air mansions got me closer to the gatekeepers I needed—starting with you. ’
Let him think it was a professional leg up that I wanted. It’s much better for him not to know the full truth. Although the prospects of uncovering that truth now he’d made sure I’ve been blacklisted…
I shake my head as his head tilts.
‘I wasn’t born yesterday, Miss Rockson. You could’ve been in Venice winning Best Documentary but you chose to infiltrate my house ostensibly to alphabetise my spice rack. Either your career counsellor’s a sadist or you were running a long con.’
Shockingly, he doesn’t seem to care either way. Why am I surprised? He’s a Biney. Therefore he’s that arrogant. That untouchable.
He continued, ‘But since I suspect what your end goal is, I’m here to make you an offer.’
‘Indulge me.’ I strive for boredom and silently pat myself on the back for skimming close enough. ‘What do you think my end goal was?’
Shrewd eyes bore into me for a weighted second. ‘Money of course. Something salacious to tell to TMZ?’ A sharp, devastating smile. ‘I’m well-versed in what freelance documentarians earn. Just as I’m an expert on how gold-diggers operate.’
Curiosity bites with the last one—especially with the extra acid in his tone—but I force a laugh, one part incredulous, two parts bitter. ‘Oh, I’ve heard this one before. What will it cost me, besides being blacklisted from every other meaningful job in the city?’
His jaw tightens. Just slightly. Most people wouldn’t notice. I do.
Because I used to clean his cufflinks. Wash his sheets. Bring his mother’s portrait fresh flowers every Sunday as if some loyal, invisible ghost.
I know his silences. I know what it means when he watches with narrowed eyes and speaks too calmly. Often it’s the scant minute before minions flee, most pale as ghosts, some never to be seen again.
‘I didn’t blacklist you.’
I snort. ‘Really? Because after I quit, suddenly all those nice promises of re-hiring turned to radio silence. I’ve got receipts, Ashon. Your people told my would-be employers I was “emotionally unstable”. That I “breached confidential conduct”. That I was unreliable.’
He doesn’t deny it. Doesn’t even blink.
‘Because we both know you were doing more than cleaning in my study that night you left,’ he says instead, voice cool.
Dismissive. ‘Without notice I might add. Tell me what that is if it isn’t the act of the guilty.
Oh and after sneaking into my bed like it was your reward for a promotion you never earned. ’
Rage blooms as if wildfire in my chest.
‘Sneak?’ I hiss. ‘You arrogant son of a—you pulled me in that night. You said all those…hot things to me. You kissed me. You went from barely noticing I existed to being all over me. Did you seriously think I was going to wait around for the cringing morning after routine? Did you forget I’d been around enough to watch you roll out the exit carpet for more than one sad sister who made the mistake of succumbing to men like you?
So no, that wasn’t cowardice or whatever label you want to hang on it. That was self-respect.’
A beat of silence stretches between us, tight as a violin string.
I see it then—his gaze shifting. Not softening. Just recal-ibrating. As if I’ve reminded him I have teeth.
Good.
Let him remember I’m not that quiet housekeeper who used to pick up his broken whiskey glasses and apologise when he stormed and prowled and barked at others. Except he hadn’t done that that night. He’d been almost human…downed by grief and cloaked in the loneliness you couldn’t resist comforting.
I’m barefoot, wearing an old tank top with a bleach stain and cotton shorts that sag at the waistband, but I fold my arms and hold my chin high. If I’m going down, I’m going down proud. ‘Why are you here, Ashon?’
He hesitates for the first time since I opened the door, and I wonder if he’s going to demand I call him Mr Biney or Sir as everyone except his assistant is supposed to.
I wonder if the punch of inappropriately pleased surprise at that invitation to call him Ashon when we first met would be equal to the punch of disappointment if he reversed that invitation.
But his eyes merely flick over my shoulder, taking in the sad excuse for a hallway behind me.
Exposed pipes. Peeling paint. A chipped mirror I picked up for five bucks at a yard sale in a wild bid for cheer amidst a daunting but necessary undertaking for justice.
Even if that undertaking involved lowering myself to cleaning this man’s floors while temporarily abandoning the work I loved.
Then he looks back at me.
And something flashes behind his gaze—disgust, maybe. Or pity. Either one makes me want to spit.
‘You should eat,’ he says, out of nowhere. ‘You look…thin.’
‘I’m not your problem. Never was, never will be.’
He presses his lips together. Exhales once. Then, infuriatingly, steps past me into the apartment without asking.
I whirl around. ‘What the hell—?’
But he’s already inside, scanning the tiny space as if it’s a crime scene. Or the perfect hovel for one of his characters to do deplorable things in.
My one-room apartment smells like microwaved plantains and desperation. A single rickety fan turns in the corner. My laptop sits on the chipped coffee table, surrounded by sticky notes of possible jobs to explore and an empty bottle of hibiscus soda. A folded blanket serves as my couch pillow.
Ashon takes it all in with the sharp-eyed precision of a man trained to assess the value of a thing before touching it.
His face doesn’t change. But I see it. The judgement. The shock.
And beneath that? Something worse.
Regret.
As if maybe he didn’t expect me to fall this far? As if this isn’t a reflection of how hard I’ve fought, but how far I must’ve deserved to fall.
My spine stiffens and I summon the pride of my ancestors.
The very people he and his family wronged.
The very reason I ever stepped into Ashon Biney’s orbit in the first place.
‘If you came here to gloat, you should leave now. Before I call the cops,’ I snarl.
Thank God my voice emerges strong and steady despite the pathetic quaking inside.
Dark eyes return to me. Skate over me and lingering in places he has no right to. Before, ‘No. I did not.’
‘Then what? To rub salt in the wounds you made?’
‘Believe it or not, I came to make you an offer.’
I laugh again—low, caustic, my nails biting into my flesh. Because for a moment, my mind leaps where it’s absolutely not supposed to. Back to thousand thread-count sheets, hot words whispered in the dark while hotter bodies writhed. ‘Oh, you want a repeat performance?’
His eyes flick to mine. Something there burns, but he hides it fast. After another quick circuit with an infinitesimal pause at my hips. Hips that were much fuller this time two months ago. Hips he gripped and held on as if his life depended on—
‘No, Miss Rockson. As you astutely observed, I’m not one to revisit old scripts,’ he says, briskly. ‘This is strictly business.’
‘Right,’ I say, folding my arms tighter, to hold in the stupid sting of his words. ‘Because you’re all about boundaries.’
He ignores the jab. Walks to the window. Stares out at the flickering Koreatown skyline as if he’s considering how far he’s fallen just by being here in my grimy space.